Loch Ness Monster Sightings

On the afternoon of Wednesday, June 2, 2026, around 1:30 PM, a young man visiting from Cambridge was scanning the surface of Loch Ness through binoculars from the Urquhart Castle site when he glimpsed an unidentified creature in Urquhart Bay for about two seconds before it vanished. The encounter was logged to the Official Loch Ness Monster Sightings Register among the year's tally.

Source: Official Loch Ness Monster Sightings Register; https://www.lochnesssightings.com/

The sixth official Loch Ness Monster sighting of 2026. At 10:14am on May 18, 2026, American tourist Nickolas Weigand was aboard a Highland tour bus driving past the loch in the Great Glen near Inverness when he filmed a dark object breaking the water's surface through the bus window. Using roadside signs as reference points to gauge distance, he judged the shape 'relatively large.' Five of 2026's six sightings were from on-site visitors, the sixth from a live webcam — already matching the entire 2025 in-person total with more than half the year remaining.

Source: Northern Times; Official Loch Ness Monster Sightings Register; https://www.northern-times.co.uk/news/a-large-dark-object-new-loch-ness-monster-encounter-take-436434/

The first official Loch Ness Monster sighting of 2026, captured not in person but on a livestream. On the evening of March 5, 2026, prolific webcam-watcher Eoin O'Faodhagain — who has logged more than two dozen purported sightings over three years — recorded a black object on the Visit Inverness Loch Ness webcam at the Clansman Hotel at 17:20. He described two humps partially emerging from the water, submerging, then a single large hump appearing, rising and sinking four times against the current.

Source: Coast to Coast AM, 2026-03-09; https://www.coasttocoastam.com/article/video-webcam-watcher-captures-first-virtual-nessie-sighting-of-2026/

American tourist reported a dark greenish-gray body rising about two feet above the water roughly 15 feet from his boat before submerging.

The fourth official sighting of 2025 — a tally that surpassed the three recorded in all of 2024. At about 1:30 PM on October 15, 2025, Peter Hoyle, a man from Moray, watched a dark shape sticking out of the water move steadily from the right side of the loch to the left for 20–30 seconds. It travelled fairly quickly, though 'not speed-boat speed,' and disappeared before reaching the far shore.

Source: Inverness Courier; Official Loch Ness Monster Sightings Register; https://www.inverness-courier.co.uk/news/loch-ness-monster-sighted-again-fourth-official-incident-of-417742/

A long-time local resident captured a two-minute video of unusual surface disturbance in calm conditions near Lochend, the resident's first such sighting after 30 years of living on the loch.

Source: https://www.lochnesssightings.com/index.asp?pageid=717286

The second official sighting of 2025. On May 23, 2025, around 3:40 PM, a visitor taking part in the Loch Ness Centre's 'Loch Ness Quest' was watching from a high vantage point over Urquhart Bay when a small motor boat passed and something long and thin popped up in its wake. It vanished and reappeared several times over a 3–5 minute span, and the witness managed to film it through binoculars.

Source: Inverness Courier; Official Loch Ness Monster Sightings Register; https://www.inverness-courier.co.uk/news/could-it-be-nessie-second-official-sighting-logged-for-2025-384792/

The first official sighting of 2025 in the Loch Ness Monster Sightings Register. At about 7 PM on March 22, 2025, a couple visiting from London watched a creature 130–160 feet offshore near the north bank where the River Tarff enters the loch at Fort Augustus. They described a hump 'like if a large seal or walrus was swimming,' with a second mass following in its wake about one-and-a-half to two metres behind, moving gracefully and silently as one long creature at two to three metres per second before slowly submerging toward deeper water.

Source: Inverness Courier; Official Loch Ness Monster Sightings Register; https://www.inverness-courier.co.uk/news/long-very-graceful-creature-first-official-nessie-sighti-380631/

Parry Malm and family spotted a shape they first took for driftwood that 'slowly but surely made its way north towards the castle' — the only entry on the Official Register for the first half of 2024.

Source: https://www.northern-times.co.uk/news/tourist-claims-first-nessie-sighting-of-2024-as-monster-duc-348312/

Jarod Strong reported a long dark-grey shape that emerged for four to five seconds at the southern end of the loch, logged as an official entry in the Sightings Register.

Source: https://www.lochnesssightings.com/index.asp?pageid=717286

Manchester visitor Steve Valentine, aboard the Deepscan vessel during the 'Quest Weekend' search, reported observing an unexplained shape in the loch near Urquhart Castle.

Source: https://www.lochnesssightings.com/index.asp?pageid=717286

Veteran Nessie watcher Eoin O'Faodhagain captured webcam footage of a long dark shape moving on the surface near Urquhart Castle, then a wake seven minutes later — accepted onto Gary Campbell's official register.

Source: https://www.lochnesssightings.com/index.asp?pageid=717286

Hospital clerk Eoin O'Faodhagain of Castlefin, Ireland, recorded an unexplained object on the live Loch Ness webcam, becoming the first official sighting of the decade per the Sightings Register.

Source: https://www.inverness-courier.co.uk/news/first-recorded-nessie-sighting-of-the-decade-191042/

Megan Clarkson of Florida captured webcam video of an animate object moving through the water close to the shore in Urquhart Bay; accepted onto the Official Sightings Register.

Source: https://www.lochnesssightings.com/index.asp?pageid=498361

An Academy of Applied Science expedition led by Robert Rines captured the controversial 'flipper photos' via underwater strobe camera after sonar detected two large moving objects in the bay.

Source: https://tetzoo.com/blog/2020/8/17/loch-ness-monster-flipper-photos

Veteran Nessie hunter Tim Dinsdale, motoring south near Foyers in rough conditions, observed a neck-like object that whipped back underwater and reappeared briefly before submerging in white foam.

Source: http://lochnessmystery.blogspot.com/2020/01/tim-dinsdales-other-nessie-sightings.html

Loch Ness Investigation Bureau volunteer Mary Macintyre, watching from the LNIB caravan camp opposite Foyers, observed a huge triangular lump emerge mid-loch through her telescope, leaving massive ripples before submerging as a boat approached.

Source: https://www.lochnesssightings.com/index.asp?pageid=543532

Mr. and Mrs. Brand and Andrew Walker watched a creature of considerable size surface near the castle shore on a mill-pond-calm day before moving rapidly toward the loch's center.

Source: https://www.lochnesssightings.com/index.asp?pageid=543532

George Coutts and three companions, driving the south-shore road, pulled into a layby and saw an object resembling an upturned boat about a quarter of the way out from Inverfarigaig with salmon jumping nearby.

Source: https://www.lochnesssightings.com/index.asp?pageid=543532

Aeronautical engineer Tim Dinsdale filmed a mahogany-red hump moving across the loch from a vantage point above Foyers, capturing 40 feet of 16mm cine film that was later broadcast on BBC Panorama.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Dinsdale

Surgeon Robert Kenneth Wilson claimed to photograph a long-necked creature in the early morning while driving along the loch; published by the Daily Mail and exposed in the 1990s as a hoax involving a toy submarine.

Source: https://hoaxes.org/photo_database/image/the_surgeons_photo/

Hugh Gray took the first alleged photograph of the monster after church, capturing a blurred image of an animal-like form raising a tail-like appendage above the water near where the River Foyers enters the loch.

Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2023/08/21/loch-ness-monster-photos-scotland-hugh-gray/

George and Mrs. Spicer of London reported a long-necked, large-bodied creature lurching across the lochside road in front of their car and disappearing into the undergrowth — the famous land sighting that ignited modern Nessie lore.

Source: https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofScotland/Loch-Ness-Monster-Sightings-On-Land/