Aquatic creatures. United Kingdom

A woman believes that she has spotted the Loch Ness Monster 'splashing around' in footage taken on a live-streaming camera positioned by the water.

Sightings of the mystical Scottish beast have reached another record for this century after Caroline Barnett, 42, saw Nessie over the internet.

The business consultant from Farmborough, near Bath was tuning into the Loch Ness Webcam at 10.20am on Wednesday when she clocked something move up the loch.

She told the Daily Record: "It popped up and down - and kept doing it. It kept splashing about. It was quite a size - the size of a boat but it was hard to tell because it was the other side of the loch.

"I have been to Loch Ness a few years ago but never saw Nessie then. I didn't know if I believed in her but this is certainly some Christmas present and quite a surprise. I took quite a few videos but my phone died. I don't know what it is - it really is unexplained."

Experts have accepted the images.

"Initially she thought it was a boat or similar but the object appeared animate and then disappeared into the water before reappearing. It was dark in colour and nearer the east shore of the loch," said Gary Campbell, recorder of the Official Loch Ness Monster Sightings Register.The sighting - the 13th this year - comes just six days a best-selling author saw a mysterious creature with a 4ft neck and a head "the size of a rugby ball".

Ricky D Phillips, a British military historian - whose works include The First Casualty, The Untold Story of the Falklands War - said he was "baffled" by the sight.

Mr Phillips from Edinburgh also works as a tour guide and was leading a party of eight foreign tourists who went on a cruise on Loch Ness while he went a got a "chippy."

It was as he rested at the River Oich, just as it flows into Loch Ness at Fort Augustus, that Mr Phillips saw the strange sight at 2.40pm.

"It was a grey creature - almost bird like - in a grey stretch of water. It's neck was three to four feet long, a head the size of a rugby ball and a ridge across its eyes," said Mr Phillips, 40.

"I was baffled. The previous Wednesday I had heard a strange noise as I was stood by a cafe at the edge of the loch in Fort Augustus. The noise sounded almost metallic, but like something was blowing air - like Darth Vader.