Another Mysterious Object Detected on Sonar in Loch Ness
Shaun Sloggie, a skipper with Cruise Loch Ness, recently told the Daily Mail he was doing his rounds out on Scotland’s Loch Ness when he captured an unusual object on sonar.
Sloggie was with maritime pilot Liam McKenzie last September 22nd when they noticed the mysterious shape on their sonar while preparing for another vessel’s arrival.
The Cruise Loch Ness team later returned to the site to investigate, but whatever had caused the sonar return was gone.
The object, registered at a depth of over 98 meters (322 feet), was described by Sloggie as “the biggest thing I’ve ever seen.”
“We’ve seen all sorts of fish that shouldn’t be here, but this? This was different,” Sloggie said. “You should have felt the chills on the boat.”
“I’ve worked here for nine years and never seen anything like it,” he added. “And sonar doesn’t lie, the boat hasn’t been on five whisky distillery tours before going out on the loch, it’s just doing its job.”
The object was reportedly visible for two to three minutes, during which time Sloggie and McKenzie captured a screenshot of it on their sonar.
The team noted the object’s elongated shape and noticeable features, such as its multicolored appearance, which could indicate air pockets and the presence of a living creature; furthermore, they wondered if the sonar return could be related to Nessie, the monster said to dwell in Loch Ness.
Sloggie admitted that they are “not sonar experts,” but added, “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
That doesn’t change the impact of the sighting on Sloggie.
“The strangeness of it was chilling—it’s the sort of thing that leaves you speechless,” he said.
This is the latest in a string of strange sonar readings taken aboard tourist vessels in Loch Ness.
Prior to this event, the most recent such reading came in 2021 from tourist Benjamin Scanlon while aboard the cruise ship ‘Nessie Hunter’ of Loch Ness Cruises.
Scanlon reportedly noticed something on the sonar and took a picture of it while touring Scotland’s Loch Ness with his family on August 26th of that year.
Mike Bell, the boat’s skipper, estimated the object to be between three and four meters (10 and 13 feet) in length, and at a depth of about 20 meters (65 feet).
The depth of the loch at the sighting area was 40 meters (131 feet) deep.
This was Bell’s second such sonar capture since first acting as skipper in 2019.
In June of that year, Bell was piloting a group of tourists around Loch Ness when one of them drew his attention to an object on the sonar, which he estimated to be between three and seven meters (10 and 25 feet) in length and approximately 35 meters (115 feet) below the surface.
Two other sonar images were captured by Cruise Loch Ness director Ronald Mackenzie in late 2020.
Mackenzie’s sonar images were recorded within a mile of each other in the loch, off of Invermoriston, and at a depth of several hundred feet.
The objects in those images were estimated to be about twice the size of that recorded by Scanlon.
By comparison, Sloggie speculated that the mysterious object most recently seen on sonar was “a lot bigger” than those captured by Mackenzie in 2020.
