By: Tim Binnall
An intriguing environmental DNA test of a water sample from Loch Ness suggests that the site's famed 'monster' could be some kind of enormous algae creature. The thought-provoking study reportedly came by way of a documentary film crew which visited the famed Scottish site back in August when hundreds of people participated in a massive search for the legendary cryptid. That weekend, witnesses Aga Balinska and Matty Wiles managed to capture footage of a curious anomaly that surfaced at Loch Ness while the pair were out for an early morning walk. In a rather ingenious response to the sighting, the film crew took water samples from the area where the oddity was seen in the event that the creature may have left behind some kind of clue to its true nature.
To that end, suspecting that environmental DNA testing might provide a proverbial genetic glimpse of what the duo saw, the filmmakers sent the samples to a lab in Colorado which specializes in the emerging science. Remarkably, their subsequent analysis found the genetic signatures of two types of algae and nothing else. As such, the surprising findings suggest that the legendary cryptid could actually be far more exotic than a very big eel or some other prosaic creature. "The tests only detected algae," marveled cryptozoologist Ken Gerhard, who called the results "exciting news if we consider the possibility that Nessie is a giant algae blob monster." What do you make of the strange new 'Nessie DNA' results? Weigh in with your thoughts at the C2C Facebook page.