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The World's Leading Loch Ness Monster Expert Thinks He Solved the Mystery

He has decided that Nessie is just a really, really big catfish.
Photo via Flickr user unukorno

Read: A Texas Man Claims to Have Killed Bigfoot

The guy who left his wife, quit his job, and sold his house to literally move into a van down by the river and spend 25 years hunting the Loch Ness Monster claims he finally solved the mystery that's captivated dumb tourists and conspiracy theorists for centuries, Reuters reports. Nessie, he claims, is actually just a really, really big catfish.

"I have to be honest. I just don't think that Nessie is a prehistoric monster," Steve Feltham told the Times on Thursday. "What a lot of people have reported seeing would fit in with the description of the catfish with its long curved back."

The real-life river beast he's describing, a Wels catfish, can grow up to 13 feet long, and looks like it could swallow a human being whole like the Roach in Men in Black. Feltham says that Victorians threw a couple catfish into Loch Ness about a century ago just for the hell of it, and they've been haunting the lake ever since.

Feltham's lifelong saga hunting Nessie—and winning him a Guinness World Record in the process—is mapped out on his website. The "about me" page is strangely beautiful, in a weird, sad sort of way.

"If you have a dream, no matter how harebrained others think it is, then it is worth trying to make it come true," he writes. "Have I ever regretted my decision? Never, not for one second."