I dropped the ball on bringing you this story when it was news, but now have the opportunity to redeem myself to bring you the follow up, or the cover up depending on your perspective.

According to the August 3, Daily Mail Online:

‘The most convincing Nessie photograph ever’: Skipper claims to have finally found proof that Loch Ness Monster exists’

He has dedicated more than two decades of his life to the hunt for the elusive Loch Ness monster, spending 60 hours a week on the water.

And now George Edwards believes he has finally fulfilled his ambition of spotting ‘Nessie’; he even photographic evidence to prove it.

‘Unequivocal’: George says he has even had the picture independently verified by a team of US military monster experts as well as a Nessie sighting specialist

Who knew the US Military HAS monster experts!
I presume we do so in preparation for Godzilla to move to US shores after he gets done sulking about being shown up by a tsunami.

‘It was slowly moving up the loch towards Urquhart Castle and it was a dark grey colour. It was quite a fair way from the boat, probably about half a mile away but it’s difficult to tell in water.’

After watching the object for five to ten minutes, Mr Edwards said it slowly sank below the surface and never resurfaced.

Read more:

Or possibly possibly it is all another fish story…
According to an article brought to you with the kind permission of Hayley Stevens at HayleyisaGhost.co.Uk Mr. Edwards is being slightly less than truthful with us.

I wrote previously that skeptics were being too quick to label the latest Nessie photo as a hoax without any supporting evidence, and how this was illogical behaviour. Yesterday a comment was left on my post by Steve Feltham about the photo and how he’d discovered that it was not a genuine photo containing something unidentifiable, or something naturally occuring that had been misidentified. Steve said

That was my first impressions of Georges photograph [quoted in this blog post], pubished exclusively by the Inverness courier. I have since then spent a lot of time getting to the bottom of what actually went on here…. i can quiet catagorically, with no fear of him ever daring to sue me, that George Edwards has deliberately punted a photo that he know to be of a fibreglass prop from a documentary as a real picture of something unexplained… no question. I now have this hump, I also have film of it being used in the water, and I also have film of it on the DECK OF HIS BOAT!

And for anyone questioning the photos, Hayley brings us This Video as well.

This is certainly an intriguing twist to the story and makes for compelling reading and thinking. The hump does indeed look extremely like the oddity photographed by George Edwards, and if George did indeed take more photographs that he hasn’t yet released then it becomes a bit more suspicious. Especially coupled with the fact that postcards of the photo had been on sale for some time before the photo was released to the media. I hope George makes a comment and answers these accusation, but my gut is telling me he isn’t going to do that, which is a shame.
I think the evidence that Steve has provided while suggesting the photo is a hoax is strong, but I still have slight reservations about putting my money exclusively onto that as an explanation. I have a feeling more will be revealed over the coming days and weeks about this that might convince me further, and I should point out that I have no reason to believe that Steve is being malicious or untruthful in his accusations of a hoax.

Thank you Hayley, and Steve Feltham from fellow skeptics like myself. There are those who brand skepticism as a detriment to the search for answers in stories of the unexplained. For myself skepticism serves to hold the answers proposed to the highest degree of scrutiny. Belief has its place as a force to motivate study, but proof will not come from blind belief, rather from dispassionate and rigorous analysis. I honestly do not seek to disprove any of the stories that are worthy of study, but proof not conviction is what I seek in the unexplained. If all those who spent their energy debating skepticism, put that energy into revealing the hoaxers instead of giving them blind support we might well be that much closer to actual answers.

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