SCOTLAND'S famous mystery creature - the Loch Ness Monster - is back, if new video footage is to be believed.
British amateur scientist Gordon Holmes has captured what Loch Ness Monster watchers say is among the finest footage ever taken of the elusive mythical creature reputed to swim beneath the waters of Scotland's most mysterious lake.
"I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw this jet black thing, about 45ft (15m) long, moving fairly fast in the water," said Mr Holmes, a 55-year-old a lab technician from Shipley, Yorkshire.
He shot the video last weekend.
He said it moved at a speed of 10km/h [6mph] and kept a fairly straight course, the British Press Association reported.
"My initial thought is it could be a very big eel, they have serpent-like features and they may explain all the sightings in Loch Ness over the years."
Loch Ness is shrouded by myth and mystery, as it is the largest and deepest inland expanse of water in Britain.
About 230m to the bottom, it's deeper than the North Sea.
Nessie watcher and marine biologist Adrian Shine of the Loch Ness 2000 centre in Drumnadrochit, on the shores of the lake, viewed the video and hoped to properly analyse it in the coming months.
"I see myself as a sceptical interpreter of what happens in the loch, but I do keep an open mind about these things and there is no doubt this is some of the best footage I have seen," Mr Shine told PA.
Legends of Scottish monsters date back to one of the founders of the Christian church in Scotland, St Columba, who wrote of them in about 565AD.
More recently, there have been more than 4000 purported Nessie sightings since she was first caught on camera by a surgeon on holiday in the 1930s.
Since then, the faithful have speculated whether it is a completely unknown species, a sturgeon - even though they have not been native to Scotland's waters for many years - or even a last surviving dinosaur.
Mr Shine doubts that last explanation.
"There are a number of possible explanations to the sightings in the loch. It could be some biological creature, it could just be the waves of the loch or it could some psychological phenomenon in as much as we see what we want to see," he said.
But Nessie isn't just an icon of the paranormal - she's also an emblem of Scottish tourism. She has been the muse for cuddly toys and immortalised on T-shirts and posters showing her classic three-humped image.
The Scottish media is sceptical of Nessie stories but Mr Holmes's footage is of such good quality that even the normally reticent BBC Scotland aired the video on its main news program this week.
News of the new footage comes as local tourism and business leaders launch a bid to turn Loch Ness into a world heritage site.
If they persuade Unesco to give the loch the special status, it would be ranked alongside other world treasures such as the Egyptian Pyramids and the Great Wall of China.
Destination Loch Ness director Robbie Bremner said: "I think Loch Ness and the Great Glen is such a phenomenon that deserves world heritage status.
"There's a huge amount of work to do, and it's a case of trying to get everybody together, but we are really excited about this," he told the Associated Press.
The area gets around 400,000 visitors a year, bringing in an estimated 25 million ($60m).
Campaigners believe world heritage status could quadruple those figures and ensure the environment is protected.
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