Loch Ness Monster On Google Earth?

By Nancy Atkinson - August 28, 2009 at 11:21 AM UTC | Site News
Loch-ness-not.jpg

[/caption] As only a British tabloid (and

Fox News

) could, reports came out this week of the Loch Ness Monster being spotted on Google Earth. "This amazing image on Google Earth could be the elusive proof that the Loch Ness Monster exists," The Sun reported. Well, for one thing, this doesn't look anything like Nessie. Doesn't he have a long black neck? And another thing about this: it looks surprisingly like a .... boat. Imagine that, a boat on a lake captured by Google Earth! Astounding!

Look closely and you'll see the squared off back end of the boat (the stern), the rounded

stern

bow in front, and the tentacle-looking things are just the boat's wake. This looks very much like another image of a boat on Loch Ness on Bing (below). Click on the picture to get to the image on Bing and zoom out for the full effect.

[caption id="attachment_38557" align="aligncenter" width="580" caption="Another boat on Loch Ness from Bing. "]

[/caption]

To see it on

Google Earth

, go to coordinates Latitude 57°12'52.13"N, Longitude 4°34'14.16"W. Take a tour of Loch Ness (it is pretty there!) and you'll see lots of other suspicious looking white things in the lake that are (gasp!) more boats!

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com