An underwater vehicle known as “Boaty McBoatface” after its naming was left to the public had recovered a long-lost camera from the depths of Loch Ness, aimed at capturing images of the fabled Loch Ness Monster.
For centuries, people have claimed to have seen an enormous animal lurking in Loch Ness in Scotland. The first reported sighting dates way back to the 7th-century biography of Irish monk St. Columba. According to the unlikely account, in 565 CE a giant monster attacked one swimmer, but obeyed Columba’s order to “go back” when it attempted to attack a second.
The legend of Nessie really took off in the 1930s, however, after accounts of a “dragon or prehistoric monster”, and the iconic 1934 photo claimed to be of the legendary animal.
Since then, there have been many, many searches of the loch for signs of such a monster, or other fish which might explain people’s sightings. In 1970 Professor Roy Mackal, of the Loch Ness Investigation Bureau and the University of Chicago, took part in one such hunt, placing camera traps underwater with the aim of spotting the giant.
55 years later, that camera has been found, around 180 meters underwater, and remarkably it was still in tact.
“It was an ingenious camera trap consisting of a clockwork Instamatic camera with an inbuilt flash cube, enabling four pictures to be taken when a bait line was taken,” Adrian Shine, who helped set up the project and identify the recovered camera, said in a statement. “It is remarkable that the housing has kept the camera dry for the past 55 years, lying around 180 m deep in Loch Ness.”
Adrian Shine with the Loch Ness camera trap.
Image courtesy of the National Oceanography Centre
The camera was discovered by chance during a test mission by the UK’s National Oceanography Centre (NOC). Boaty McBoatface spotted the camera by running into it, and becoming tangled in the camera’s mooring, which became caught on the submersible’s propeller.
“At 230 m deep, Loch Ness is an ideal location to testing our robotics, their sensors and systems, before they’re deployed in the deep ocean to help answer the big questions we have,” Sam Smith, ALR operations engineer, from NOC’s Marine Autonomous Robotics Systems added.
“While this wasn’t a find we expected to make, but we’re happy that this piece of Nessie hunting history can be shared.”
After the camera was brought back to the surface, photos on the film were developed.
Images from the trap.
Image courtesy of the National Oceanography Centre
One of the photos recovered from the trap.
Image courtesy of the National Oceanography Centre
Of course, no images of Nessie were found, nor what triggered the camera to take its photos. Nevertheless, it’s pretty cool that the camera trap performed its task, and was recoverable 55 years on.
The team’s expedition, as well as finding a bonus piece of Nessie history, was a success, testing two new Autosub vehicles to be used to study the seas.
“The ocean covers 70% of the surface of the earth, but there’s still so much we don’t know about it, the life in it, how both interact with our atmosphere and how climate change will impact those relationships,” Smith added.
“With our robots we’re also helping to map and monitor marine life to understand how our actions, such as offshore renewable energy development, fishing and deep-sea mining change habitats and ecosystems.”
The camera and film have now been handed over to The Loch Ness Centre, in Drumnadrochit, to be put on display.
