Nessie, is that you?
The largest search for the Loch Ness monster in 50 years went underway this weekend, with “four distinctive noises” being heard.
Around 200 volunteers travelled to the lake near Inverness in Scotland and braved “horrific” weather to take part in the huge search for the unidentified creature.
Hundreds more volunteered to monitor a live stream which took place over Saturday and Sunday to keep an eye out for any strange sightings.
The beast, who reportedly roams the waters of the 36km long and 200m deep lake, is affectionately called Nessie and has been spotted by a number of eyewitnesses since as far back as the seventh century.
Alan McKenna, of Loch Ness Exploration, told BBC Radio’s Good Morning Scotland programme:
“We are looking for breaks in the surface and asking volunteers to record all manner of natural behaviour on the loch.
“Not every ripple or wave is a beastie. Some of those can be explained, but there are handful that cannot.”
“Four distinctive noises” heard in new search for Loch Ness monster
Alan McKenna, from Edinburgh, took part in the search from a boat using a hydrophone system that uncovered some interested results. Speaking to the Daily Mail, he said:
“When we were testing the equipment, we did hear four distinctive noises that we didn’t know where it was coming from.
“We didn’t know the origin of it was, which is quite exciting.”
People from all over the world came to lend their services and try and spot the legendary creature over the weekend. Volunteers from Spain, France, Germany, Finland and the USA all travelled to uncover the truth.
Information from the hunt is currently being collated and there are hopes more evidence is churned up from the large-scale search.
Numerous searches of this size have been completed before by various groups in the past, with some famous examples being the Loch Ness Investigation Bureau (LNIB) search in 1972, Operation Deepscan in 1987 and a BBC-sponsored search in 2003.
Many theories about what the creature might actually be have been floated to explain away the mystery, including eels, boat wakes, an elephant (really) and of course, a plain old hoax.
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