Remember this image below from Google Maps a few years back? It made the newspapers but it was clear on examination that it was nothing more than a boat with attendant bow waves.
It was seen making its way up the loch north of Invermoriston as the wider map shows below. The scale of 200m gives an idea how big it is.
Then there was the filament like images spotted on Loch Ness images and covered here. However, another stranger object has turned up, not in Google Maps, but Apple Maps recently. This image is shown below and something can be seen to the left making its way presumably south down the loch. The zoom in is shown below.
Now as it turns out, this object does not appear on Google maps and I show the equivalent picture below with attendant scale. Using the scale gives a rough size of 40 metres for the entire object, which is about twice the size as our more famous Google Boat image above.
Like the Google Boat image, I doubt the object is all one object. There is wake action going on in both pictures to the extent that the Google Boat is half wake and half boat (10m each) or the standard size of a Caley Cruiser boat.
The other object is a bit more difficult to parse, but the object is perhaps 20 metres long which makes me wonder if it is the bigger Jacobite cruiser boats that head south from the locks near Inverness? If somebody could find one of those larger boats on satellite imagery, that would be helpful. An overlay of the two objects show some similarities and dissimilarities.
The first question is why is the image so much fainter? If you look at the original Apple Maps image, you can see the smaller boats moored near Aldourie Castle (below centre of image). Like our Google Boat, they are quite quite white in colour. So why is this object not showing a similar albedo? Could this be because it is just below the water's surface or perhaps it is a darker colour?
However, to produce the presumed bow wave we see, it must be showing something at the surface. And what is that crescent type "wave" ahead of the main part of the object?
Anyway, comments are invited in an attempt to identify what is going on here.
Looks big defo worth investigating much luv merry xmas m8tys
ReplyDeleteRoland,does that look somewhat like a tadpole type monster salamander?
ReplyDeleteAlso,when arevyou going to do another interview,like you did on binnell?
If I may field the first question, it indeed looks like a dead-ringer for a member of the extinct family of large temnospondyl amphibians called Chigutisauridae, like the species Pelorocephalus tenax (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pelorocephalus). The resemblance is uncanny. But the problem is scale. At 30 feet long the largest of the prehistoric Amphibia could easily account for Nessie, but that's nowhere near the 20 or 30 >meter< length of this object. No amphibian was ever near that particular size -- that's big enough to swallow small boats whole.
DeleteYes, possibly there is a very large specimen ,the mother,so to speak,that may be that length,but normally lies dormant in the mud or a cave.Btw,I think you discovered just what nessie really is,an Have,besides roland blog,thedefinitive nessie blog.Finally,maby loch ness has more than one type of large cryptid sharing the loch,which may explain the long neck,small head( besides the tail),sightings.Anyhow,great salamander blog,however more updates would be apreciated,cheers
DeleteMaybe an aerial picture of a few nessies swimming together ?
ReplyDeleteStrange image indeed! An invisible boat. I was going to suggest a submersible just below the water line, but that doesn’t explain the bow waves. As far as I know no submersibles currently operate in the Loch. Besides, according to Dick Raynor’s web site, the last submarine craft to operate at Loch Ness was the Loch Ness Submarine in 1994-95 and that was mostly colored white and should have been somewhat visible. How about a barge? Again it should show something. Maybe it’s a processing defect. I got it! It’s Dick Raynor’s new tour boat in “stealth” mode! :-)
ReplyDeleteboats. boats and wakes.
ReplyDeleteI believe that this is a boat. It has many overlapping characteristics of the other image that everyone has identified as a boat. Now it may be that the boat in the apple image has either a paint job or of a construction material set that does not reflect sunlight as well as the other boat; also the sun angle will affect the contrast of the boat against the water. Indeed, the Google image may have been "enhanced" by processing, while the other image via Apple auspices was of a boat out in the water, and not picked up by the imaging processing analysts prior to posting it on the Internet, so it appears less defined.... just my viewpoint. Not the Nessie, this time.
ReplyDeleteIt's a boat. (Yawn)
ReplyDeleteOf course its a boat! The relevant question is why did it show up that way. I've already hinted that it is probably a processing anomaly. Anybody have any positive answers? I don't.
ReplyDeleteI just had a look at Apple Maps, and when you zoom in all the way you can see the boat. It's almost transparent, but there's definitely an outline. It gives you a thrill when you see it for the first time, though.
ReplyDeleteive heard this post came out on april 1st as on april fools joke, hope im wrong.
ReplyDeleteOne of the amazing things that satellite images can offer us is that it can also capture strange things or living things in earth as what is shown above, aside that it guides as in terms of location, it could alos prove for some existence. Great job!
ReplyDeleteThat's the footprint of the Jacobite Warrior that leaves Dores Scotland daily for the LNM Tour.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.jacobite.co.uk/sites/default/files/2018-03/Jacobite-Freedom-Tour.jpg