Has the Loch Ness Monster's secret hideaway finally been uncovered?

A former fisherman claims he has discovered what could be the hiding place of the Loch Ness monster.

Keith Stewart, 43, says he used sonar equipment to uncover the Scottish loch’s deepest crevice – prompting speculation the elusive creature could be hiding in previously unknown depths.

Mr Stewart said he found the crevice about nine miles east of Inverness and measured it to be 889 feet.

Loch Ness, which is the UK’s second largest Loch, had previously been measured at 813 feet deep.

A sightseeing boat skipper, Mr Stewart told the Daily Record that he had never really believed in the monster but he “got a sonar image of what looked like a long object with a hump lying at the bottom” of the loch bed about two weeks ago.

When he tried scanning again later, he said it was gone.

“That intrigued me and then I found this dark shape about half way between the Clansman Hotel and Drumnadrochit which transpired to be a crevice or trench,” he said.

“I measured it with our state-of-the-art 3D equipment at 889 feet, which is 77 feet deeper than the previous recorded deepest point.”

Mr Stewart said he had verified his measurements several times.

The president of Loch Ness Monster Fan Club and Registrar of Sightings, Gary Campbell, told the Daily Record, Mr Stewart’s findings added “another dimension” to the search for Nessie.

Can the Loch Ness Monster be explained by science?

Has Google Street View solved the Loch Ness Monster mystery?

Has Loch Ness monster migrated to Nth Qld?

"There could be more trenches which make it deeper. This looks like where Nessie and her whole family could really hide out and explain why they are rarely seen," he said.

There have been strange reports and sightings at Loch Ness going back as far as the 7th century.

In 2011, a local boat skipper Marcus Atkinson produced a sonar image of what he described as a large object following his boat for several minutes at a depth of 75 feet.

Arguably the most famous image of the Loch Ness Monster, the “Surgeon’s Photograph” was taken by London physician Robert Kenneth Wilson and ran in the Daily Mail on April 21, 1934.

It was proven to be a fake by The Sunday Telegraph in 1975.

Even internet giant Google has got in on the search, enlisting the help of its Street View cameras in an effort to prove the Loch Ness Monster really exists.

As yet, that prove has not been forthcoming.