Photographs taken on the banks of Loch Ness in Scotland in 2018 have been put together to form a video of what appears to be the Loch Ness monster.

The footage was put together by New Zealand actor, writer, podcaster and stand-up comedian Rhys Darby and his joint hosts of a comedy podcast named Cryptic Factor, Leon Kirkbeck and Dan Schreiber.

They say the rediscovered photos have been “transformed into the most compelling video of a mysterious beast since the globally famous 1967 Patterson-Gimlin Bigfoot footage”.

The Patterson–Gimlin film was an American short motion picture of an unidentified subject said to have been a “Bigfoot”, with footage shot in 1967 in Northern California.

The Loch Ness images were originally taken by Chie Kelly in 2018, as she and her husband Scott were walking its banks.

When they saw something surfacing in the water, she captured over 70 rapid-fire photos using the camera’s “sports mode’”.

In late 2023, the images were shown to professional “Nessie” hunter Steve Feltham (60), who has spent 32 years living at Loch Ness in search of proof of the monster.

Feltham contacted his friend Dan Schreiber of the comedy podcast The Cryptid Factor, who exclusively obtained the images.

Podcast co-host and film industry professional Leon 'Buttons’ Kirkbeck used time stamped metadata to place the 71 images chronologically, and the result is a video which the team says “clearly shows a large, unidentified creature moving in the loch, and at times breaking the surface to reveal part of its body”

.This video has been released alongside a special episode of The Cryptid Factor podcast, which is now available on Acast.

The Cryptid Factor podcast is “dedicated to all things weird that are yet to be defined by science”.

The episode ‘#088 The Illusive Exclusive Issue’ is here

The RNLI recorded one of their more unusual launches yesterday evening (Saturday 17 October) after a World War II-era seaplane made a distress call from Loch Ness.

It emerged that the aircraft, the PBY Catalina, had experienced engine issues while attempting to take off from the loch in the Scottish Highlands.

With the plane sitting exposed in the middle of the water, not far from Loch Ness RNLI’s lifeboat station, it was decided the safest way to assist would be to establish a tow with the inshore lifeboat RIB to the shelter of Urquhart Bay close by.

Typing up at a harbour or pontoon was ruled out, however, due to the flying boat’s massive 32-metre wingspan — so a mooring buoy was decided as the best option.

Lifeboat crew member David Ferguson later spoke of the challenges involved in towing a craft as big and unusual as this.

“Towing the Catalina would prove to be no easy feat,” he said. “Fixing points are few and far between on such an aircraft, and the best option was underneath the tail, which barely cleared the bow of the lifeboat.

“Nevertheless, with some care, we managed to establish a towline.”

Elsewhere in Scotland this weekend, Oban RNLI in Western Scotland launched on Friday evening (16 October) after a small boat was reported drifting through the Falls of Lora.

With a flooding tide and strong currents from the falls, it was believed the boat had been carried into Loch Etive, which is where Oban’s all-weather lifeboat Mora Edith MacDonald headed to conduct the search.

The lifeboat searched the area the boat was seen drifting towards, but with nothing found they continued further into the loch where they spotted the boat adrift to the west of Ardchattan church.

The unoccupied boat was then taken under tow to a nearby nearby pier where it was recovered by Oban’s HM Coastguard team.