Loch Ness Monster Photo Wins Prize But is it Nessie?

Yes, there are many people around the world searching Google Earth images for anything that looks like it could be a monster, giant crab or sea serpent. Yes, there’s an annual contest in Scotland to pick the best Loch Ness photograph of the past year, with a prize of 2000 pounds (about $3000) for the winner. Yes, a man in Stockholm, Sweden, with a lot of time on his hands submitted the above Google Earth photo to the contest. Yes, he won. No, I’m not kidding.

Bjarne Sjöstrand was scanning Google Earth images of Loch Ness (because apparently that’s what you do during Swedish winters when the meatballs run out) when he says he noticed a long, thin object beneath the surface off Horse Shoe Scree on the loch’s southern side that he estimated to be 31 meters in length.

The reason I found this image on Google Earth was that I was sitting one night at home reading about Nessie and Loch Ness on the internet and thought I would check to see if I could see something from above – and that proved to turn out well.

Well indeed. Sjöstrand submitted the image to the annual William Hill 'Best Nessie Sighting of the Year' award conducted by William Hill, one of the largest bookmakers in the United Kingdom.  The eel-ish photo received 92,000 votes in an online poll on the The Inverness Courier website to win the William Hill cash prize along with an endorsement from Gary Campbell, who runs the official Loch Ness sightings register

Something like this cannot be explained. I would like to see further analysis of the photograph carried out.

What do you think? Did Bjarne Sjöstrand spot the Loch Ness monster? Should he split the prize with Google or with Nessie?