Britain's top Nessie hunter red-faced after mistaking Loch Ness weeds for the monster

Britain's top has been left red-faced after he was terrified by a close encounter, that ended up being with weeds rather than the mythical beast.

Alan McKenna, who runs Exploration, an independent and voluntary research group in , says he was frozen with fear when a thin plant loomed out of the water after being illuminated by his torchlight. A video of the incident was captured on camera and shows the moment Alan realised he’d stumbled across nothing but a harmless weed.

Despite regularly venturing out onto the loch in search of Nessie, the burly Scot admitted he actually has a fear of deep, dark water. In the footage, a panicked Alan can be heard saying: "Oh what a fright, Jared, what a fright." While Jared replied: "It's just a plant."

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Alan was out at Urquhart Bay with colleagues Jared Christie and Dave Hastings on Saturday evening. Afterwards, he sheepishly admitted: "It was a hilarious and slightly embarrassing moment where an underwater weed caught us off-guard.

"There was never a dull moment over the weekend. We were conducting hydrophone recordings and exploring the wildlife around the shoreline at night with infrared and night vision.

"I have a genuine fear of deep dark water - it's called Thalassophobia. Worst fear to have in this line of work. It was crazy dark. I was already nervous on the pier and in this funny moment my imagination got the better of me."

Back in August, Alan was part of a team that used underwater detectors to pick up a regular heartbeat deep in Loch Ness. The rhythmic pulsing was picked up on a hydrophone that was deployed 100-feet beneath the surface. And while the source of the sound was unclear, it created a monster buzz.