Loch Ness is seeing a sharp rise in reported monster encounters this year. In August, the Official Loch Ness Monster Sightings Register had logged nine sightings for 2026, putting the year just one report behind the 10 sightings recorded during all of 2025. Now, only about a month later, the 2026 total has climbed to 17.

The Loch Ness Monster may not be ready to step (swim?) into the spotlight, but 2026 is already shaping up to be a strong year for sightings. According to the Official Loch Ness Monster Sightings Register, the latest reported encounter is the ninth sighting of 2026, which means this year has already surpassed all of 2025 with months still left on the calendar. In other words, if Nessie is real, she’s apparently become a little less camera-shy.

Intriguing sights and sounds have recently emerged from a major new investigation of Loch Ness in the Scottish Highlands, sparking renewed excitement among Nessie enthusiasts. During the annual Nessie-hunting event known as Quest, organized by the Loch Ness Centre in Drumnadrochit, a couple of findings have come to light.

In its never-ending quest to find the Loch Ness Monster, Scotland’s Loch Ness Centre is looking skyward instead of under the surface for help in their pursuit of the Loch Ness monster— they're recruiting NASA.

The following written confession and video were submitted via email: Over the years I’ve seen things in the sky since I was a wee boy and this is the latest one. The first one was in the late ‘70’s when I saw a disc shaped object fly low and slowly over the street were we used to live. It was dark like the night sky but I could make out the outline of whatever it was. It past over then looked like it was going down but disappeared….

The following written confession was submitted via email: When I was 20 years old, I was on a trip with my family and a friend in Edinburgh, Scotland. We decided to do a Ghost Tour in this underground part of the city called “The Vaults”. Well, one part of the tour had a simple circle made of stones. The tour guide claimed that people who stepped foot in it had been pushed, kicked, etc. Thinking I was really clever, I took a picture of the circle….

The following written confession was submitted via email: …We always wear dark clothes in the woods and dark paint or camouflage even while fishing, we followed the noise up over the ridge down a small hill and over a stream like body of water the noise was getting loud but it sounded like two people speaking or disagreeing maybe two lost tourists from somewhere in Europe was my guess until we sneaked over the ridge crawling on our stomach trying not to be seen…