Apparently Loch Ness Monster hunters should've just asked Siri where to find the mythical beast.
A group of Loch Ness Monster enthusiasts say they've sighted the legendary Scottish beast via satellite images on Apple Maps. The creature, which purportedly is seen periodically in Scotland's Loch Ness, was spotted this time by members of the Official Loch Ness Monster Fan Club using the Apple software. They have been puzzling over the dubious image for the past six months.
Excitable spotters say the low-resolution image can't be anything other than "Nessie," which looks to have large flippers and a long, ghostly white silhouette.
"We’ve been looking at it for a long time trying to work out exactly what it is," said Gary Campbell, president of the club, to the Daily Mail. "It looks like a boat wake, but the boat is missing. You can see some boats moored at the shore, but there isn’t one here."
Campbell told ABC News the group submitted the image to Scottish Canals, the government agency which manages the country's inland waterways. The agency couldn't identify it, either.
"Nobody has been able to explain what it is," Campbell told ABC. "It's pretty large, so it's not a seal or an otter. It's also not a whale or basking shark as some people claim, because they wouldn't go in fresh water."
Skeptics, however, have been quick to point out the Apple Maps image looks an awful lot like boat wake. Mick West of Metabunk.org, a site devoted to investigating and debunking "mysteries" of this sort, maintains it's boat wake, but says the boat is barely visible because of the low contrast in the Apple Maps image.
Sightings of the Loch Ness Monster date back at least 1,500 years, reports PBS, to a carved stone in northern Scotland which depicts "a strange beast with an elongated beak or muzzle, a head locket or spout, and flippers instead of feet." One and a half millennia later, we're apparently still captivated by the idea, albeit with slightly updated technology.
In that spirit, efficiency-minded Bigfoot hunters may be wise to take their search to MapQuest.
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