|
|
 |
|
|
Nessie: new video and £1m prize offer
|
|
|
 |
|
|
 |
SCOTLAND. For a creature that may not even exist, Nessie – the Loch Ness Monster – has a remarkable ability to grab the headlines.
He’s back in the news following a new video that shows a fast moving object travelling across the Scottish loch, just below the surface. Though not as dramatic as the famous “Surgeon’s photo” (below) taken in 1934, it seems to be a significant piece of evidence.
 And UK bookmaker, William Hill, is behind a scheme to issue cameras to up to 50,000 people, during a rock festival in a week’s time on the loch’s bank, with a £1m prize for photographic evidence of Nessie’s existence.
Meanwhile, Destination Loch Ness, a group of the area’s biggest private business and tourist leaders, is bidding to make it a Unesco world heritage site.
The video was taken a week ago (on Saturday 26 May 2007) by Gordon Holmes, a 55-year-old lab technician from Shipley, Yorkshire.
“I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw this jet black thing about 45 feet long, moving fairly fast in the water,” the amateur scientist and Nessie hunter told newspapers. “I saw something moving and dashed out of the car and switched to camcorder on.”
Holmes captured a two-minute video clip of the event, which he described as “definitely a creature propelling itself through the water” at about six miles an hour. The video footage – regarded by some experts as among the finest ever taken of the elusive mythical creature – has already been screened on BBC Scotland news and other channels around the world.
While the video is being subjected to careful analysis, bookmakers William Hill has joined forces with the organisers of the Rock Ness music festival in an attempt to prove the existence of Nessie, which it describes as “one of the greatest enigmas of modern time”.
Its press release (2 June 2007) explains: “The largest ever organised attempt to prove the existence of the Loch Ness Monster will take place next weekend when up to 50,000 people are supplied with thousands of cameras and offered a £1 million incentive … to find evidence which will finally persuade the Natural History Museum to admit that Nessie is flesh (or perhaps fish) and blood and not a myth.”
It remains to be seen whether the music of the Manic Street Preachers and a host of other bands will attract or repel Nessie when they perform at Dores, Inverness, on the banks of Loch Ness (9-10 June).
If the creature doesn’t put in an appearance, William Hill will be offering a number of consolation prizes, including £1,000 and a free £250 bet for the best photographic evidence “real or staged”, says the company’s spokesman Rupert Adams.
Loch Ness currently attracts 400,000 visitors a year, producing revenue in the region of £25 million. It is the largest body of fresh water in Britain, being 24 miles long, a mile wide and up to 740 feet deep.
Reports of a monster in its murky waters have made headlines for at least 70 years.
See also: Loch Ness Monster wins by a nose.
|
Posted on Saturday, June 02, 2007
Category: Mysteries
|
| Return |
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|