A Loch Ness Monster expert has explained why there are so few sightings of the fabled creature.
Gary Campbell, who set up the Official Loch Ness Monster Sighting Register, has been searching for the beast ever since he experienced a strange sighting at the fabled Scottish tourist attraction back in 1996 - and he’s convinced Nessie must live at the very bottom of the loch and only surfaces occasionally.
He told the Press and Journal newspaper: "Whatever it is, there must be more than one, and I think they live deep down in Loch Ness and are occasionally forced to the surface for some reason and go straight back down again, and that’s why there’re so few sightings."
Gary insisted most sightings on the water can be easily debunked but every year there are "at least four or five" sightings of "something unexplained".
He also revealed members of the public are pretty helpful when it comes to finding logical explanations for potential Nessie sightings.
He said: "About three or four years ago, we had people that took pictures of this black thing sticking out of the water near Urquhart Castle.
"We put it up [on the official sightings register] and some guys reached out and said that it was not Nessie, but them paddleboarding.
"One guy actually provided a GoPro image of him on the paddle board with his friend next to him at exactly the same time the picture was taken, so we removed the image from the register."
It comes after another potential sighting was put down to a group of people out on canoes.
Julie Fraser, from the north east of England, was looking at the area using Google Earth while doing research for an upcoming holiday to the famous Scottish tourist destination and she was stunned to see three objects in the water which looked like a "pod of whales" and she thought she may have stumbled across "a little family of Nessies".
However, Steve Feltham, who lives on Loch Ness and devotes much of his time to hunting the elusive creature, studied the image and declared Julie actually saw three canoes in the water.
During an appearance on NewsNation, he explained: "That photograph, lovely as it is, there is nothing that I’ve ever seen that looks more like three Canadian canoes.
"If you look closely at each canoe, you can see a little protuberance and a splash of water. That’s the paddle action. There’s two people in each canoe."
Steve admitted that although he thinks Julie's image does not show the Loch Ness Monster, he's still convinced Nessie is out there waiting to be found.
He said: "I’ve dedicated my life to this mystery, trying to find the answers. And I suppose part of what I do is also disproving the things that are false alarms."