My Loch Ness Monster photo

I ought to say straight away, to avoid any disappointment, that I don't have a photo of the Loch Ness Monster. Sorry. But I do have a picture that I think exhibits some of the features of many LNM (as we scientific types prefer to call Nessie) snaps.

This is something that I wouldn't have noticed if I hadn't been peering at the picture quite intently. This might seem unlikely, but I happen to have this photo as a desktop background, as a result of which it tends to be in front of my nose quite a lot. And this is the first similarity I suspect with those who find pictures of the LNM (or ghosts or whatever). To do this, people are staring at a picture, in their case hoping to find something.

In my picture (cunningly pretending to be a Polaroid thanks to Picasa) you see a vertical streak of sunlight on the water to the left of the scene. The question is, is there a person in the water, or is that little blob about halfway up the whole image just a rock or an effect of the light? To an LNMologist that might be plenty to report a sighting of the beastie. But what is really there?

In case you think I'm now going to reveal the truth, I haven't a clue. Here's what it looks like in close up and it could well be a person... but it could equally well not be.

For that matter the blob on the left could be another person reclining (though if they are, they either have an enormous head or it's a Sontaran).

I really don't know for certain. And that's the point. Unless it's a fake, the kind of photo that is presented to 'prove' the existence of the LNM (or UFOs) is almost always this kind. One that's easy to interpret as what you want to see. A bit like toast with someone famous's face on it.

So there you have it. My Loch Ness Monster photo. What do you think? Person or not?

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