The Official Loch Ness Monster Fan Club Says They've Spotted Nessie Via Apple Maps

Gary Campbell of the Official Loch Ness Monster Fan Club says authorities cannot explain this "creature" caught on satellite imagery

Apple Maps will drive you 50 miles in the wrong direction, to the middle of nowhere, and tell you that it's the mall. But apparently it can find a legendary monster that has evaded scientists and conspiracy theorists for decades. That's what the Official Loch Ness Monster Fan Club is claiming.

Gary Campbell, accountant by day and president of the Loch Ness Fan Club by night, claims this image, which is visible on iPad and iPhone maps just south of Dores, Scotland, depicts the "ghostly white silhouette" and "large flippers" of Nessie.

Campbell, who says he spotted the Loch Ness Monster with his own eyes back in 1996, told ABC News that he submitted the image to the Scottish Canals, the government agency that oversees these waterways, and, "Nobody has been able to explain what it is."

"It's pretty large, so it's not a seal or an otter," he continued. "It's also not a whale or basking shark as some people claim, because they wouldn't go in fresh water."

Campbell and at least some of the 353 fan club members spent the last six months looking at the image. Which would have been a good use of their time if the image turned out to be the Loch Ness Monster. But it's probably just a boat.

"It looks like a boat wake, but the boat is missing," Campbell told The Daily Mail. "You can see some boats moored at the shore, but there isn't one here." Andrew David Thaler, a deep-sea biologist, disagrees: 

"Stitched photos aren't perfect. For example, if one picture has a boat that's totally washed out (like almost every boat is when photographed from space) and another picture is just blue water, then you'll be left with the ghostly blue outline of a boat, which is clearly visible on the ‘Nessie' picture."

@SFriedScientist and this one (via: https://t.co/HvOF7F6agp ) pic.twitter.com/qo5SqA8xUI

? Mick West (@MickWest) April 19, 2014

"It's a boat," he concludes. Specifically, the Jacobite Queen, which has been spotted in the same waters and appears to match up with this image. "If something looks exactly like a boat wake, in a place where there are plenty of boats, when a similar boat can actually be seen in the same region, it's a boat."