Cally Skinner goes hunting for Nessie Mark 2 near the 02.
After footage emerged taken from the Emirates Air Line cable cars of a mysterious creature in the water of the River Thames, I took the plunge and did a spot of deep sea monster scouting myself.
Even wildlife experts last week admitted they were stumped by the grainy video appearing to show a huge mass hovering above the water surface with two humps emerging from the Thames near the O2.
Since the initial video was released, two more people have come forward with footage that shows their own close encounters with London’s Loch Ness monster.
As other news organisations including the Evening Standard sent out boats to confirm the esistence of London’s latest attraction, the answers I was looking for came from the Sky.
Boarding the Emirates line at Royal Victoria, I had high hopes of whales, dolphins, and great white sharks, since the Thames is well known for its maritime visitors. But I found the pods as deserted as the river itself: there were neither queues for the cable car, nor fins breaking the surface of the water.
Sadly, the only thing I saw was murky water; the scene lacked any sign of shimmering scales or tails. The closest I got was a semi-skimmed milk bottle and bits of an abandoned car.
Maybe if this eager sightseer came back to snap the monster on a day when it was feeling more confident. it could still be lurking down there in the deep… or it might have returned to its home in the sea… or back safely in the form of megapixels on a memory stick.
Will the banks of the Thames now host a flurry of new visitors hoping for a glimpse of the metropolitan river monster? Do people stand a chance of seeing it again?
Perhaps we’ll have to wait for a repeat performance from…whoever was playing the O2 on the day it first appeared.
Or maybe it was just something in the water….