Why this man has spent three decades of his life searching for the Loch Ness Monster

When he was seven years old, Steve Feltham stumbled upon members of the Loch Ness Phenomena Investigation Bureau hunting the Loch Ness Monster during a family holiday to Scotland.

And from that moment in 1970, he was hooked on the idea of a long-necked dinosaur living in the depths of a lake – a legendary creature many had claimed to have seen over the years.

What Steve didn’t realize at the time was that he’d go on to dedicate over three decades of his life to trying to catch a glimpse of it for himself.

His relentless pursuit of the Monster – nicknamed Nessie – has brought him the world record title of longest continuous vigil seeking the Loch Ness Monster.

Steve, 60, has spent the last 32 years of his life – relocating from Dorset, England, in 1991 – living in a former mobile library in a pub car park on the shores of Dores Beach, armed with binoculars, a camera and an unwavering determination to find an answer to that age-old question – does Nessie exist?

I really I do defy any seven-year-old boy not to get hooked on grown men looking for monsters in a Scottish loch - Steve Feltham 

Steve and his family ventured back to the loch for several holidays over the years, with him admitting his dad joked Loch Ness “was the best babysitter they could get”.

As an adult, Steve would venture back to the loch every couple of years to join in the hunt, sitting in the same location he did as a child, whipping out his binoculars and fixing his gaze on the water.

He said the “excitement” of being there and the “palpable joy” the hunt would bring him meant he’d go back to Dorset feeling “elated” and “full of joy”.

Everything changed for Steve when he turned 26 and started working for his retired police officer dad’s business, installing burglar alarms.

He explained: “I instantly hated it and thought, ‘Is this what I'm going to do with my life? Put in burglar alarms?’

“I thought there's more to life. And what is it that I really loved? Well, it's being at Loch Ness. Do I want to stay in a job I don't like, settle down and get married, have kids, do all the normal things? Or at age 28, do I want to go and find a monster? And you know, it was a no-brainer for me.

I sold up and set off and never looked back. That was 32 years ago.

Steve, who now runs his own website called Nessie Hunter and a YouTube channel, lives on Dores Beach, which is among the best viewpoints of Loch Ness.

He can see a 23-mile stretch of the Loch through his window, meaning he’s in the perfect location for Nessie spotting.

While Steve often uses his expert knowledge of the loch to debunk pictures taken by tourists, he has on one occasion seen something with his own eyes that defied explanation.

It was during his first year living at the loch that he saw something shoot across, underneath the water and against 2-ft-high waves “like a torpedo”.

Steve couldn’t see what it was, but said it was “big and powerful”.

“We haven’t got any fish that will explain that,” he said. “But it was the first year, so I just froze, didn’t take a picture.”

Steve didn’t worry too much as it was early days and he was sure it would happen again, but unfortunately, he hasn’t seen anything since.

A big part of his career searching for Nessie is working to stop fake images of the legendary creature making their way into the wider world.

People come from far and wide to show Steve pictures they've taken at the loch, sometimes as long as 60 years ago.

But because he spends so much time there, Steve can recognize what the images are really showing, whether that be rocks, boat wakes or something else.

He said: “People think because I’ve dedicated my time to trying to solve this mystery I must believe every picture that I see.

“But I have to be as sceptical as the most sceptical person. If it’s a boat wake, there’s no point in me not saying it is.

You can’t imagine something into being Nessie when it’s blatantly obvious it’s not.

“I let people down gently, but sometimes I feel like I’m telling them Santa is their dad in a costume.”

He added: “I didn't realize when I set off that would become such a large part of my occupation. I thought I'd just be here scanning the water with binoculars.”

Steve, who supports his passion by making and selling Nessie models, says not many of those famous Nessie pictures you’ll have seen are accurate.

He believes Nessie is an undiscovered species of fish that’s about three or four-metres-long.

And as the legend has been going for more than 1,400 years, Nessie isn’t just one creature – it’s a whole population.

Steve joked: “As much as I'm daft enough to dedicate my life to trying to find the answer, I'm not daft enough to believe we're looking for a 1,400-year-old monster.

“And it's not going to turn out to be a long-necked dinosaur unfortunately. I wish that seven-year-old me that came here utterly and completely convinced there’s a dinosaur in Loch Ness was right.

“Even when I arrived full-time in this van in 1991, I was here to find long-necked dinosaurs. I now know 32 years on - I wish there was, but there's no long-necked dinosaurs in here. 

“There's something that is the mystery that people are getting glimpses of, that sonar is picking up contact with, but it’s going to be something much more mundane.”

When asked what he’d say to non-believers, Steve told us: “Well, certainly that it is one of the world's most loved mysteries.

“You've got several thousand eyewitnesses that have reported seeing things, sometimes in groups of up to 10 people all describing the same thing that they're watching and there's enough evidence to say that it warrants investigation, but there's not enough evidence yet to identify what the explanation is.

“I personally think, as I say, that it might turn out to be big fish, but I know other people that believe that there's dinosaurs, that there's giant eels, that there's a spaceship on the bottom of the loch.

The number of things that people believe to be the explanation to the Loch Ness Monster is almost endless, and we just don't know.

“What we do know is there’s something bigger than the biggest fish we know is there – salmon – swimming about in there.

“What it turns out to be - and that's really what I'm here to try and solve - and I've sort of realized now that I'm mostly here trying to work out what it is for my own fascination.

“If the outside world gets to hear the explanation, that's a bonus to me, but that's not my motivation. My motivation is my own fascination with it.”

Steve, who describes himself as a “static adventurer” says documentary makers over the years have depicted him as a “wifeless hermit” who spends his life alone, but that couldn’t be further from the truth.

He recently got married to a woman he met in the local village and had been dating for 20 years, and lives in the centre of a popular tourist area, where he himself has become a bit of an attraction.

And more than anything, he says being involved in the search for Nessie for so long has been a “beautiful thing”.

For Steve, the best part of sharing his story has been the people who’ve come to tell him they were inspired to pursue their own passions after watching a documentary about him. 

He said: “I very much think that what I'm doing is an example to other people that if they've got a passion for a subject, do what they can to make that passion their life and they'll have a happy life.”

He added, laughing: “But I'm very wary not to make people think ‘I'm going to go and be a Nessie hunter as well. I'm going to go and live in a van next to him.’

“I'm quite content doing this on my own and I think if anybody else turned up and tried to help, they could probably do it better than me. So, I don't want the competition.”

And when we asked him if he has any regrets about giving up his life in Dorset to hunt Nessie, Steve was adamant he doesn’t.

He said: “Oh, God, no, I don't regret it. Not for one minute. Not for one single minute.

I've been so lucky to be allowed to have this adventure of a life.

Steve is soon to release a series of photographs, taken by a visitor to Loch Ness five years ago, that he and some of his fellow Nessie enthusiasts believe is the best evidence they’ve ever seen.

The most prolific Loch Ness Monster eyewitness is Alex Campbell who worked as a water bailiff at the loch for over 40 years until the 1980s. He claimed to see Nessie on 17 separate occasions, beginning in May 1934 when he saw something with a “swan-like” neck and of a total length of around 9 m in the water.

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