Has the Loch Ness Monster been spotted on Apple Maps?

Some say the Loch Ness monster has resurfaced in Scotland, based on an Apple Maps image -- but is it a real sighting of the elusive creature or clever marketing?

Members of the Official Loch Ness Monster Fan Club claim they have studied an image seen on Apple’s global satellite map application that shows the allegedly 100-foot-long creature, CNet .com reports, citing London’s Daily Mail.  They say if you zoom in on Apple images from space you can even see the monster’s giant flippers.

News of the sighting has fans of Nessie -- as she’s affectionately called -- buzzing because there hasn’t been a Loch Ness sighting in 18 months.  Legend has it she’s been cruising the area of Loch, just south of Dores, Scotland, for some 90 years, but so far, there’s no definitive proof she exists.

Nessie’s fan club devotees say they have ruled out all other possibilities for the grainy image, including a floating log or a giant seal. But one skeptic, deep-sea biologist Andrew David Thaler, debunks the theory on his website SouthernFriedScience.com, saying that the image shows the wake of a boat.

One of the people who alerted the Loch Ness Monster Fan Club to the new images was Andrew Dixon, 26, a charity worker from Durham who told London’s Daily Mail he found it by accident.

"It was a total fluke that I found it. I was looking at satellite images of my town and then just thought I’d have a look at Loch Ness. The first thing that came into my head when I saw it was, 'That’s the Loch Ness Monster.' It was the shape of it; I thought it had to be something more than a shadow,” Dixon told the Mail.

Cynic Chris Matyszczyk, of CNet, suggests the excitement may be manufactured by Apple, as the image can only be viewed on iPads or iPhones. “It's clear the company's executives have been worried that Samsung has stolen the mantle of cool…but surely Apple can have nothing to do with the revelation that the Loch Ness Monster has suddenly become visible on Apple Maps. And only on Apple Maps,” Matyszcyk wrote on the site.

True believers like Loch Ness Fan Club president Gary Campbell, 49, are happy the infamous monster is back on the radar. “‘Last year was the first time in almost 90 years that Nessie wasn’t seen at all. After Nessie “going missing” for 18 months, it’s great to see her back,” he told the Mail.