First the Fox News report just so you can see this is real and is on almost every major and minor newswire there is. The Fox report above is one of about 200 matches in the past 48 hours with more appearing by the hour. The story is spreading rapidly, and it just made the front page of Earthlink’s breaking news page (my home news page). If you just want the video without the commentary, CNN has an article with a link to the raw original footage which is even more convincing than the BBC edit.
As of right now, there is no doubt by any credible source that the film is real. In viewing the tape, all accounts indicate that there is no doubt it’s an animal, and, as you will see, there’s no doubt it’s really big. The only real question is: what is it? There just aren’t many options in this cold lake. It’s not a fish or a bird. It’s definitely serpentine in nature. There’s some speculation it could be an enormously large eel — possibly a world record holder if it is. The kicker is that it looks suspiciously similar to the world famous 1934 photo of Nessie (link is to Wikipedia article) as well as many more of the subsequent photos. If you go to Google Images you will find many more photos of the Loch Ness Monster, some clearly fake, others pretty believable.
The media, especially the local media in Scotland, is normally very skeptical of these type of monster stories but the footage is of such good quality that even the normally reticent BBC Scotland aired the video on its main news program on Tuesday. Here’s that footage on You Tube.
This is one of those moments that might change history or might turn out to be another great disappointment. But it’s believable enough for me to actually blog about it. The myth lives on regardless, skeptics claim no skeletons have ever been found. Believers point out that there have been sightings dating back to the year 565 and they’re all disturbingly similar. I am deeply intrigued.