A complete collection of photos reportedly showing the elusive Loch Ness monster were released this week — and the images are still exciting the man who spent three decades searching for the mysterious beast.
“They are the most compelling surface images of the phenomenon,” Loch Ness expert Steve Feltham told the Daily Mail Tuesday. “They still defy explanation,” he said.
The photos in question were taken by Chie Kelly in 2018 and show a “serpent”-like figure on the surface of the loch in Inverness, Scotland.
Fifteen of her shots were released this summer to high praise from Feltham and on Tuesday, all 71 photos taken by Kelly of “Nessie” were shared by The Cryptid Factor podcast.
Kelly feared being mocked for believing in the beast so she kept the photos from public view until this past August when she decided to put them out into the world to coincide with the largest Loch Ness hunt in 50 years.
Kelly, who works as a translator, was snapping pics of her daughter and husband after a lunch at the Dores Inn when she noticed something moving on the water’s surface.
“I was just taking pictures with my Canon camera of Scott and our daughter Alisa, who was then five, when about 200 meters from the shore, moving right to left at a steady speed was this creature,” Kelly told the Telegraph. “It was spinning and rolling at times. We never saw a head or neck. After a couple of minutes, it just disappeared and we never saw it again.”
Her photographs show two rounded humps peaking out of the water. At first, she thought it was a pair of otters but the creature never came up for air and “looked like a serpent.”
Feltham agreed.
“I don’t think they are otters – those creatures are much smaller than what is in the images – or divers. It also appears there may be two objects,” he told the Mail. “They certainly warrant further investigation.”
There were 10 alleged sightings of Nessie last year, marking 1,156 recorded to date, according to a Loch Ness monster register.
