Irish man reports first Loch Ness Monster sighting of 2023

Donegal man Eoin O'Faodhagain is a veteran Loch Ness Monster hunter and has spent years observing the water in the Scottish Highlands.

He had been monitoring a webcam operated by Visit Inverness Loch Ness last month when he spotted something that he “couldn’t believe” at Shoreland Lodges, near Fort Augustus on the loch's southern shore.

In two clips captured approximately seven minutes apart, the loch’s still water is disrupted by a long, dark shape before a “white, round” wake appears later.

“My reaction was I couldn't believe what I was viewing, and it all happened so fast,” he told the Scottish Daily Express.

“In the first video clip, something moves on the surface for a couple of seconds then you see two shadowy wakes moving in two lines under the surface

“It probably moves left like this for about 15 feet then it is gone. The second unusual occurrence happened slightly further out in the loch – you see a large, white, round disturbance on the surface.

“You would think it is just a fish jumping, but it is not like that at all. It is too big and the water is too agitated.

“You may not see a body, but there's definite movement in the water that cannot be explained by natural occurrences,” he added.

The 58-year-old estimates that the wake seen in his webcam stream could be between six to eight feet long.

“But nobody will ever know what the true size is hidden under the water, to cause such a wake in the first place,” he said.

"Something is causing these wakes, that we are not seeing. This image is very large on the water, and it looked so out of place.”

A hospital worker by day, Eoin has made many trips to Scotland to try and track the beast. He also spends time watching a webcam overlooking the area from his home.

The legend of the Loch Ness Monster has been park of Scottish folklore for hundreds of years but entered the global stage in 1933 when a paper published one man’s witness account of seeing the beast. It is from this publication that the creature got its moniker.

Over the years there have been many searches of the loch to try and pin down the monster, however nothing was ever found. Scientists have also used sonar imaging, sonar sound, and DNA testing to try and prove or disprove Nessie’s existence.