I was emailed by someone who was at Loch Ness at the same time as me last week. He had visited the Grant Tower at Urquhart Castle and noticed an object in the water below. This occurred on Sunday, 19th July about noon day. The location where he was standing is shown in this third party photograph. In his own words:
This picture was taken from inside the castle walls, looking down into the loch facing south. It was probably about 100-150m away, and the circled area is a 2x digital zoom in photoshop.
Didn't think much of it at the time. Was just happy to see something in the water other than choppy waves we'd seen all day! It was just moving about in the water down below the castle as we were leaving, we were kinda rushing around as obviously we weren't meant to be in the castle having climbed over 2 locked gates. I'd estimate the tip and the section fading into the water was about 2 or 3m long. Thought it was probably just some piping or something, but looked more interesting in shape on my laptop at home. Thought you might want to have a look anyway, could be anything really.
Two photographs were taken, the first with a wider angle lens when the object was first spotted and then when he switched to his 50mm lens. However, I could see nothing in the wider picture suggesting it had temporarily submerged. The white foam lines are like Langmuir circulations which are a common sight on the loch, but likely have nothing to do with the object. Our photographer further adds:
From the exposed tip above the water line, which I'd estimate was about the size of a divers head (my brother guessed the same thing), but you can see something of the same diameter trailing in a slight S shape for perhaps 1 or 2m behind before the water becomes too dark to see where it ends.
It must have been there for a good 5 minutes as I believe I'd quickly changed lenses to get another snap as we were leaving. Difficult to say on the movement, certainly not ruling out it was just something fairly large/long/flexible gently bobbing about in the water/current though. Wish I'd had some binoculars. I didn't see it submerge in the time I was there.
I got the original SD card file and it checks out as clean on the EXIF data. Actually, I also thought it looked like a diver's head at first glance and here is the best zoomed in shot suggestive of this interpretation. The only issue is, was there a diving team at Loch Ness on the 19th July? I am aware of the recent search for a man who fell into the loch last week at Dores, but that is 10 miles north and searching around the castle would seems futile - unless someone went off for other reasons.
Any extra information will be helpful to include/exclude suspects.
Any extra information will be helpful to include/exclude suspects.
UPDATE:
Jeremy emailed with the photo below which he says was taken from the same spot on the 8th May 2019 and says it is a log. Of course, that implies the object is still there over a year later which is not impossible if the water there is shallow enough. A look at the 1903 bathymetric map suggests it is not shallow enough to hold a log captive, so I am not sure of this one.
The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com
