Tuesday 29 November 2011

Strange Loch Ness Images on Google Earth

Readers may remember the Sun newspaper article from two years ago which claimed to show a strange object on Loch Ness visible from Google Earth. The image is shown below but a close inspection plainly reveals it to be one of the many cruiser boats with its wash rippling in its wake.



However, a couple of months ago, some stranger looking images revealed themselves as I scanned the same Google image of Loch Ness. They were definitely not boats, buoys or logs and had a strange looking structure to them as you can see below. The images are to the same scale as our boat image above. I found all four of them in the top half of the loch and because of the strange "ball" attached to a snake-like "body" they did not look like the micro-debris that may accidentally fall onto the image as it went through the stages from satellite transmission to Internet image.




If they really were on the loch then they would be 40 feet long by 3 feet wide, longer than the boat which caused the original interest.

As a comparison, I scanned other major Scottish lochs to see if they had similar images. I checked Loch Lomond, Loch Tay, Loch Maree, Loch Awe and Loch Morar but none of them had anything like these strange images. I also checked the land around Loch Ness but to date have not found any similar image. I asked one local expert what forms of junk may be found floating on Loch Ness but nothing sounded like these pictures. So far, I have no satisfactory explanation for these images. Obviously, if they were Nessies, they have a rather weird shape compared to our traditional "plesiosaur" shape which makes one less inclined to say they are creatures. Nevertheless, an explanation is sought.

All a bit strange and so I turn to you readers to help solve this mini-mystery. You can zoom in on the objects via Google Earth or Google Maps by using these coordinates:

Object 1: 57°23'3.76"N 4°21'30.84"W
Object 2: 57°22'7.29"N 4°21'53.41"W
Object 3: 57°21'3.92"N 4°22'30.19"W
Object 4: 57°21'4.96"N 4°23'37.89"W

Have a look at them and tell me what you think they might be and why (as far as I can see) they only appear "on" the waters of Loch Ness. The possible explanations are image debris, image defect, image tampering, unidentified artificial objects on the loch or something unidentified on or just below the loch surface.

13 comments:

  1. Dick Raynor has already chipped in elsewhere with image debris being shifted about as a scanner did its work.

    The implication as regards my second question (why only on the water and not on land in the image) is I presume "coincidence".

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  2. looks like a floating log to me

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  3. Looks more like a camera anomaly. There are so many of those on Google Earth.

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  4. The four are so identical in shape that some sort of artefact seems the likely explanation

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  5. I would tend to agree, Henry. My reservation was why only on the part of the image occupied by Loch Ness?

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  6. Hello there. I think that is a giant white squid in my dealings with them while diving..Very itneresting.James

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  7. the third on look a bit smaller,

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  8. If such objects were on the part of the image occupied by land, would anyone notice them? I've taken a quick look and can't see any, but they wouldn't catch the eye as they do on water.

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    1. I think they would be noticed but harder to spot. I didn't find any but then again I did not examine every square centimetre of the image for miles around.

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  9. 57.351276,-4.383749 there is another similar looking object

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  10. I've had a good look and found heaps of these things. Don't know what they are but as they only seem to appear in Loch Ness I assume they are not a glitch but something associated with the Loch itself. They do look like something organic to me. Could they be some sort of fishing gear? Gigantic eels?
    Very intriguing. There is even a Youtube clip on these things.

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  11. Sorry guys but this is an optical failure of the camera.
    Have a look here
    57.369464,-4.328941 and
    57.36958,-4.291019

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