Nessie's Busiest Year in Decades: 15 Official

Whatever is living in Loch Ness, it has been unusually sociable this year. By mid-September the Official Loch Ness Monster Sightings Register had logged 15 reports for 2026 — more than twice the total for the whole of 2025, and five times as many as in 2024. Add two "official" webcam sightings, and 2026 is already level with 2017 and 2018, the last years to reach that number. Only 1996 and 1997, with 17 reports each, are still ahead.

A "crocodile head" in the middle of the loch

The most vivid account came from a local yachtsman. On the afternoon of 25 July he was sailing roughly two miles west of Glenmoriston, in good visibility and on fairly calm water, when something broke the surface around 100 metres away. He described it as an "oversized crocodile head". By the time he had taken in what he was looking at and reached for his phone, the head was gone. He sailed on to Fort Augustus without seeing it again, and his report was added to the register in September.

A summer of strange shapes

His sighting was part of a remarkable run of reports:

• Late July, Urquhart Castle beach — an Australian visitor saw what he described as the flat top of a dark green head rising from the water, and managed to take a photo.
• 23 July, on a tour boat — a nine-year-old girl from Australia photographed what she believed was the head of a creature from the lower deck. Her picture made it into the register.
• 27 July — a father and son from Renfrewshire photographed an odd dark shadow on the surface just before 11 a.m.
• 5 August, near Fort Augustus — a visitor from Malta watched something moving against the current for around fifteen minutes in the evening, dipping in and out of the water like a giant eel. He estimated it at no less than seven metres long.
• 6 August, Urquhart Castle viewpoint — a family from Barcelona filmed a dark, almost black hump rising above calm water about half a mile away.
• 21 August — a German tourist reported a black object roughly six metres long, about 300 metres off, that seemed to have a head and stayed at the surface for nearly twenty seconds.

Nessie goes digital

Not every report this year came from the shore. A woman browsing Google Earth near the Clan Fraser cemetery on the east bank spotted three shapes in the water that she thought looked like a "little family" of whales — or Nessies. The register has said it will review the images.

So is she real?

The register itself is careful on this point: a listed report means someone saw something and wrote it down, not that the Loch Ness Monster has been proven. Sceptics point to boat wakes, floating logs, otters, large eels and the occasional sturgeon — and to the simple fact that more visitors than ever now carry high-zoom cameras in their pockets, while live webcams watch the loch around the clock.

But that is exactly what keeps the legend alive. In 2026 thousands of eyes are on Loch Ness, and an ever-growing number of them are seeing something they can't explain. Two more reports before New Year's Eve and 2026 will tie the all-time record. Will Nessie oblige? We'll be watching.