A local sailor has described seeing what looked like an “oversized crocodile head” during the 15th “official” Loch Ness Monster sighting of 2026.
Although the sailor’s encounter with the Loch Ness Monster occurred on July 25, The Inverness Courier reports it was only recently added to the Official Loch Ness Monster Sightings Register.
The local sailor was taking his yacht through the loch in the afternoon when around 100 meters away he he spotted what he said he “can only explain as a large oversized crocodile head above the water.”
“At the time we were about 2 miles west of Glenmoriston, sea state was slight and visibility good,” he continued. “Our position was in the middle of the loch with the head sighting between us and the North shore. The head quickly disappeared before I could get a photo as it took me a few minutes to process what I was seeing. We made it into Fort Augustus safely with no further sightings.”
The sailor’s sighting of the Loch Ness Monster came among a flurry of other reports of people seeing the creature.
Two days earlier, Nessie was spotted by a nine-year-old Australian girl who took a picture of her that was added to the Official Loch Ness Monster Sightings Register. She took the photo of what she described as the head of a creature in the water while she and her family were on the lower deck of one of the tour boats on the loch.
Two days before that sighting, an Australian man claimed to have seen “the top of a dark green flat-topped head” emerge from the sea while standing at Urquhart Castle’s beach in the afternoon. He also took a photo of what he believes was the Loch Ness Monster.
There have been several more Loch Ness Monster sightings since the sailor’s
Just two days after the sailor’s Loch Ness Monster sighting, another one occurred when at 10.46 a.m., John and Jamie Wallace, who were visiting from Renfrewshire, captured a picture of an odd shadow on the water.
Then, on August 5, Norbert Kawka, a visitor from Malta, stated that at for fifteen minutes at around 8:50 p.m., he observed a creature moving against the current in and out of the water, resembling a very huge eel, close to Fort Augustus. He calculated that it was at least seven meters long. He, too, captured a photo of what he witnessed.
The next day, August 6, Jocelyn Boyce was visiting from Barcelona when she and her family “observed a dark, almost black, mound-like thing emerging above the surface of the water” while at a viewpoint at Urquhart Castle.
“I initially observed the object with my naked eye,” she wrote. “I estimate that it was approximately half a mile away from our position. The water appeared calm and general visibility was good. I took approximately 13 seconds of video footage using an iPhone 16. Due to the distance, I used the phone’s zoom while recording the video. The dark mound-like shape is visible above the surface of the water in one of my photographs.”
Then, on August 21, at 11:58 a.m., Felix Tiekemeier, a visitor from Germany, reported seeing a creature about 6 meters long. According to him, the black thing surfaced about 300 meters away, stayed at the water’s surface for almost 20 seconds, and then vanished. He said that it was swimming near the surface and seemed to have a head. He also shared a photo of what he saw.
The last time there were 15 sightings in a single year was in 2018
The 15 “official” Loch Ness Monster sightings so far in 2026 are already nine more than were reported in all of 2025 and 12 more than were reported in 2024. There have also been two “official” webcam sightings of the creature in 2026.
The last time there were 15 sightings in a single year was in 2018. There were also 15 sightings in 2017. The year with the most Loch Ness Monster sightings recorded by the Official Loch Ness Monster Sightings Register was in 1997 and 1996 when there were 17 reports each year.