In 1970, a cryptid-obsessed biologist placed several cameras inside plastic trap boxes and sent them down to the depths of Scotland's Loch Ness in hopes of finally capturing compelling evidence of its storied monster — and now, it appears that one of those cameras has been recovered by sheer accident.
As USA Today and other outlets report, one of the cameras deployed by University of Chicago biologist Roy Mackal some 55 years ago was discovered during a test dive of an unmanned research submersible in the famed lake in the Scottish Highlands.
Specifically, the camera trap's mooring system appeared to have gotten tangled up in the propellers for the submersible, which was named, much to the chagrin of the British government, "Boaty McBoatface" by the public in a viral poll in 2016.
Full of sensitive oceanographic instruments meant to study Loch Ness' unique marine climate — it sits atop the British Isles' most prominent tectonic fault, after all — and the world beyond it, Boaty McBoatface's job description almost certainly doesn't include searching for monsters.
All the same, the researchers who work with the submersible, known affectionately as Boaty, were pleased with their discovery.
"While this wasn't a find we expected to mak