You may have seen the new photo of the "Loch Ness Monster" that has been wandering around the Internet recently, like Bigfoot strolling through the background of an inexplicably grainy photograph.
It first emerged on Facebook in mid-June, according to the Loch Ness Mystery blog. It's since been all over social media, with people readily accepting that of course Nessie would choose 2020 to finally emerge.
It's been especially popular among the hard of thinking.
Soon it was trending, making everybody worried it had died of Covid-19. At maybe 1,500 years old, it's almost certainly in the vulnerable category and should be shielding.
The latest "proof" of Nessie's long reign of Scotland's largest freshwater lake was taken by tourist Steve Challice, who told Scotland's Daily Record he snapped the photo last year.
"I started taking a couple of shots and then this big fish came to the surface and then went back down again," he said, estimating that it was about 8 feet (2.4 meters) long. "I have to say I don't believe in the Loch Ness Monster and frankly I think if anything is there, then there is a logical explanation for most of the sightings."
So far, so skeptical. Let's cut right to the chase, there's no way this is Nessie, but what is it?
Well, trusty Internet sleuths got on the case, and discovered...it's a fish. Such is the thoroughness of Internet sleuthing these days, that we even know the specific fish it is.
One person spotted that it looked like a Wels catfish, a gigantic beasty that likes to hang out in the waters of Europe (though, notably, not Scotland).
It turns out it also likes to inhabit Adobe Photoshop. Fun fact about catfish is that their markings are so distinct they work like fingerprints.
People spotted distinct markings on the Nessie photograph that happened to match with another image of an Internet-famous gigantic catfish caught back in 2018.
One helpful person did an overlay of the two photographs that pretty much closes the case.
I'm not saying it's definitely a fake, but if it isn't, for a dead fish that knows how to travel thousands of miles by sea and then land without getting spotted, it sure got posey the second it arrived in Loch Ness. Or we're going to have to look into the possibility of long-lost fish twins.
The best part of this story, however, is yet to come. Please enjoy this photograph of the head of the Loch Ness Monster discovery project. If anybody is going to find and then wrestle Nessie, it's this guy.
