By Tim Binnall
Researchers have recovered a cleverly constructed camera trap deployed at Loch Ness decades ago. The device was reportedly discovered by accident during tests of the notoriously-named autonomous underwater vehicle Boaty McBoatface. As the yellow submarine was being put the proverbial paces in Loch Ness, its propeller caught the mooring of the camera trap. Subsequently, it returned to the surface with the unusual jar-like object in tow. While the vessel's operators from the National Oceanography Centre were initially uncertain as to the origins of the strange relic, researcher Adrian Shine of The Loch Ness Project later identified it as a relic from a monster hunt long ago.
"It was an ingenious camera trap consisting of a clockwork Instamatic camera with an inbuilt flash cube," he explained, "enabling four pictures to be taken when a bait line was taken." Shine marveled that despite sitting at a depth of around 400 feet, "the housing has kept the camera dry for the past 55 years." To that end, the National Oceanography Centre has developed some of the film found in the device, though none of the images provide a glimpse of the famed monster. As for where it originated, Shine believes that the camera trap was one of six such submersibles deployed by the research group Loch Ness Investigation Bureau during a search at the site during the 1970s.