The kayaker was Tom Pickles, and IT guy on retreat with his company, CapGemini. The lake, Lake Windermere. The creature was the English version of Nessie, called Bownessie, and not the infamous creature Nessie that legend says still patrols Loch Ness in the Scottish Highlands.
The picture was deemed “authentic [...]but because it’s been taken on a phone the file size is too small to really tell whether it has been altered on Photoshop or not,” said photo expert David Farnell of Farnell’s photographic laboratory in Lancaster.
Whatever it might be, Bownessie sounds absolutely terrifying:
Mr Pickles said he saw an animal the size of three cars speed past him on the lake and watched it for about 20 seconds. He said: “It was petrifying and we paddled back to the shore straight away. At first I thought it was a dog and then saw it was much bigger and moving really quickly at about 10mph. “Each hump was moving in a rippling motion and it was swimming fast.
Sonar surveys of the loch have, as expected, turned up nothing over the past five years, but that hasn’t stopped people from reporting a creature that looked very much like what Pickles captured this week. There have been no fewer than eight sightings of a multi-humped creature patrolling the water since 2006. [The Telegraph]
Graeme
Monday, February 21, 2011 at 10:37 AMIt’s just called Windermere, not Lake Windermere. I know it’s been reported as the latter on most sites, but “mere” means lake so Lake Windermere is a tautology.
Ash
Monday, February 21, 2011 at 10:54 AMWhy didnt he capture video footage of it on his phone rather than a picture? It would have been a lot more convincing than a photo.
Barry
Monday, February 21, 2011 at 11:06 AMIt’s a log
Timmeh
Monday, February 21, 2011 at 12:18 PMWHY are the photos always such crap quality? That’s the real conspiracy
yoyo
Tuesday, February 22, 2011 at 10:10 AMDid you ever think that it is the monster that is grainy and out of focus.
stevjosco
Monday, February 21, 2011 at 12:28 PMI just bought one of those waterproof HD video cameras for US$99. I recommend all Windermere kayakist get one and get some proper video evidence – otherwise suffer the “video or it didn’t happen” retorts from the ever increasing number of skeptics of the blogosphere.
mbryant
Monday, February 21, 2011 at 1:21 PMTom Pickles? As in the main character from the cartoon Rugrats?
DK Son
Monday, February 21, 2011 at 4:30 PMWhat was he doing? Standing up in his kayak? Seems a bit high up from sea level….. And the “beast” is like solid black. There isn’t really a colour change on the “body” of it.
That’s my “expertise” at trying to deem this a fake.
But I’m one of those people that wants this to be real…. and I hope it is.
Steve Tran
Monday, February 21, 2011 at 7:39 PMFunny how every ‘monster’ photo is in hilariously awful quality, so it’s impossible to discern. Also notice that since the proliferation of high quality cameras in phones etc, that we haven’t caught a single photo of Loch Ness? Must be camera shy.
Nathaniel Kwong
Tuesday, February 22, 2011 at 7:30 AMthey never video it meaning they’re probably fake