By Tim Binnall
The Loch Ness Monster may be running out of places to hide as a tourism group has installed a whopping five new webcams overlooking the legendary site with the hopes that viewers at home might catch a glimpse of the famed cryptid. The devices reportedly come courtesy of the organization Visit Inverness Loch Ness, who launched the livestreams (which can be seen here) on Sunday. "We are delighted to be able to provide live footage of the beautiful Loch Ness every day of the year," declared the group's CEO Michael Golding. In keeping with the organization's goal of increasing tourism to the location, the webcams are stationed at five different hotels that surround the massive lake.
One particularly neat feature of the webcams is that viewers are able to simply press a button to take a snapshot of the screen, which would presumably allow for them to quickly capture any potential Nessie sightings. According to Visit Inverness Loch Ness, the five streams will run 365 days a year and provide viewers with the opportunity to see the site through all four seasons. With the addition of the new webcams, there are now six such devices watching over Loch Ness, including the wildly popular 'Nessie on the Net' livestream which has produced a bevy of possible sightings over the years.
To that end, the significant increase in the number of Loch Ness livestreams may not necessarily be met with joy from dedicated monster hunters as webcam sightings have recently proven to be a particularly controversial topic within the community, with some experts insisting that they have no evidentiary value. The issue is seemingly so contentious that the Official Loch Ness Monster Sightings Register has not accepted a single webcam report in 2022 after recognizing dozens of such cases in previous years. Time will tell if the new livestreams will provide clearer suspected sightings of Nessie or if they will simply inflame the debate over whether or not such cases 'count.'