Goodbye, World: Loch Ness Monster Is Probably a Fucking Catfish

Steve Feltham, who will from this moment on be known as the human embodiment of bitter disappointment, has finally given up looking for the Loch Ness Monster after 24 years. It is probably, he concluded, a very large Wels catfish, which can grow up to 13 feet long.

Feltham, 52, gave up his house, his girlfriend (oh, to be a fly on the wall during that breakup!), and his job in 1991 to become a full-time monster hunter on Loch Ness in Scotland, making him the longest-serving truther on the Nessie beat. In other words, if this poor guy is giving up, our dreams of finding that magical lake-dwelling dinosaur should probably die, too.

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

Obviously, scientists have already concluded that there’s probably nothing there, most recently in 2003, when, as Reuters points out, BBC funded a thorough sweep of the lake and came up empty. But Feltham is still pretty pleased with the way his life turned out, clarifying with the Times: “I certainly don’t regret the last 24 years.”

Bye, gonna go crawl into an air duct and cry until there’s nothing left of me but a dehydrated husk! Have an amazing weekend!