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Tourist’s New Picture Revives Debate Over Existence Of Loch Ness Monster

A view of the Loch Ness Monster, near Inverness, Scotland, April 19, 1934. The photograph, one of two pictures known as the 'surgeon's photographs,' was allegedly taken by Colonel Robert Kenneth Wilson, though it was later exposed as a hoax by one of the participants, Chris Spurling, who, on his deathbed, revealed that the pictures were staged by himself, Marmaduke and Ian Wetherell, and Wilson. References to a monster in Loch Ness date back to St. Columba's biography in 565 AD. More than 1,000 people claim to have seen 'Nessie' and the area is, consequently, a popular tourist attraction. (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images)

(Photo by Keystone/Getty Images)

Katie Jerkovich Entertainment Reporter
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A tourist’s picture has sparked the debate once again about the existence of the Loch Ness Monster.

The amateur photographer, Steve Challice, told UK’s the Daily Record that he witnessed the ripples in the water caused by a “big fish” during a trip to the Urquhart Castle last year. The comments were noted by Yahoo News Australia in a piece published Wednesday.  (RELATED: Police Take Parrot Into Custody After It Tries To Help Drug Dealers Escape)

“It only appeared in one shot and to be honest that was something of a fluke,” Challice told the Daily Record. (RELATED: Cruise Line Buys Loch Ness Monster Insurance)

He also described the giant “fish” as about 2.5 meters long from his distance of 10 meters away.

“Took this in Loch Ness last September but I don’t know what kind of fish it is,” he posted on the Facebook group Anomalous Universe, asking people what they saw in the water.

Roland Watson, a moderator of the Loch Ness Mystery blog, saw the images and reached out to Challice about the photo.

“If this is a genuine picture of a creature in Loch Ness, it would easily rank in the top three of all time,” Mr Watson shared with the outlet.

Watson went on to explain that when several people suggested the snap looked like a computer-generated image, Challice shot it down and said he loved the idea of “cgi but I’m not that good at it.”

However, after doing some digging, Watson said he discovered that Challice “earns a living creating CGI – computer generated images.”

“So I first found out more about our photographer and discovered on his LinkedIn page that he was a 3D graphical artist and he had a portfolio of images of various constructions such as the one below,” Watson explained in his blog. “To be clear, he earns a living creating CGI – computer generated images.”

“I could have performed further analysis, but at this stage, there are discrepancies which need to be answered first and which currently render this photograph unusable as evidence for a large creature in Loch Ness,” he added.

The outlet shared that they too reached out to an expert who came back with the belief the image was likely photoshopped due to the colour saturation and indistinct lining of the creature in the photo.