A Memorable encounter at Loch Ness

Gordon T Holmes

My life changed at 9.50pm on the 26th May 2007. the location was on a lay by 70 foot above Loch Ness overlooking Urquhart Bay. I arrived at Drumnadrochit on the Friday, the day before. The purpose was to produce underwater recordings from the Loch using basic hydrophone equipment. Saturday (the day of the encounter) was spent casting off my hydrophone plus cable into the Loch and hoping to obtain some strange unknown aquatic sounds. During the evening I had gone to relax at a site with a commanding view above the Loch.

At 9.50pm the sun was still shining on the tops of the mountains at the far side of the Loch. This was unusual since back home in Yorkshire, the sun would have set many minutes earlier. I decided to record the event on my camcorder. However, in the process of reaching for the camcorder on the back seat of the car, I spotted a long black thing in the water moving towards my position. I quickly turned on my old analogue type camcorder but the object had already passed out of view through the passenger window. So in a panic I dashed out to the back of the car and in the process slammed the door. It took anther 30 seconds before I found the object's position on the loch.

During the next two minutes, I was privileged to observe one of the most spectacular and beautiful sights in my life. Whatever it was, it was going at about 6 mph in a fairly straight course. At its closest point it was about 150 yards away from the shore. Although it never broke the surface, it was gliding incredibly efficiently through the water. Similar in fact to a whale or dolphin. Gradually, it moved away from my position across towards the middle of the loch. During the filming I kept losing its image through my small back and white view finder. Also, I remembered that should you ever record any moving object on Loch Ness, you must pan out to record part of the shoreline. This helps to define the position of the object to determine its speed.

Finally when the object was too far away to be easily visible, I stopped the recording. Next I began t shake with excitement having now realised what had just happened. I knew this was going to be big news but the following day was Sunday and I wanted to show the whole world what I had just recorded. I informed the Scottish TV but at first they did not seem interested. Before putting the phone down I exclaimed, "this is probably the best-yet capture of the so-called Loch Ness Monster on video!" Fortunately, tourist information at St Augustus told me a local newspaper might be interested. By Monday they had interviewed me and Scottish TV had then invited me to Inverness to play back the footage on a large plasma screen. It turned out there was two objects/creatures moving about 50 yards apart. During the next few days I was approached by TV companies from around the world to be interviewed on film etc. Even one and a half years later the media still contact me for details. A US TV company is even producing a documentary about my 'memorable day at Loch Ness'.