Last week, stories started appearing on the Internet about a satellite image on Apple maps, of what was described as something large swimming just below the surface in Loch Ness.  Had satellite photography captured an image of the Loch Ness monster?  Were rumors of Nessie’s death premature after all? (See our post from February — Nessie Has Gone Missing!)

The image appears to be about 50 feet long. Gary Campbell, president of the Official Loch Ness Monster Fan Club, is quoted as saying, “It looks like a boat wake, but the boat is missing. You can see some boats moored at the shore, but there isn’t one here. We’ve shown it to boat experts and they don’t know what it is.

“Whatever this is, it is under the water and heading south, so unless there have been secret submarine trials going on in the loch, the size of the object would make it likely to be Nessie.”

The image is about six months old and appears on Apple maps but not on Google Earth. A similar image, however, was captured on Google maps in 2009.  The British tabloid, The Sun, reported breathlessly, “This amazing image on Google Earth could be the elusive proof that the Loch Ness Monster exists.”  On further examination, the Google image is pretty clearly a boat and its wake.  The proof that Nessie exists remains “elusive.”

The image on the Apple map is somewhat different, however. It looks like a series of wakes and it is does look like it is just underwater, as compared to the boats anchored along the shore. Why is this?

The single large panoramic images that appear in Apple maps and Google earth are not single images. They are composites of multiple images taken at different times, which is why sometimes the color and contrast of the images seems to suddenly shift. In the case of the Loch Ness Apple photos it appears that the “Nessie” image is a composite of several images, including at least one where the boat has moved out of frame, composited together.  The multiple wake patterns and the appearance that the image is just below the surface are a result of the blending of the multiple iphotographs.

The good folks at Metabunk.org have analysed the image in some detail and may have even identified the boat that made the image. They note that the “Jacobite Queen” fits the profile nicely.

Debunked: Photo of “Nessie” in Apple Maps Satellite image of Loch Ness [Boat] 

Thanks to Alaric Bond and Irwin Bryan for contributing to the post.