By Malcolm Robinson.
(Taken from the SPI Journal ENIGMAS May-June 1989 and reproduced here with the kind permission of Malcom Robinson, founder of SPI Scotland).
Any paranormal magazine worth its salt, should not only inform its readers on its current investigative work, but also the work that it has researched in the past, and to this end we now take a look at the year 1982, the year I once again visited Loch Ness, the alleged home to the mythical ‘monster’, Nessie. I met up with ‘Nessie’ hunter Frank Searle, an Englishman who came to Loch Ness in 1969 to prove the existence of the creature (and its family!)
However, more people have been concerned with trying to prove Frank’s Nessie photographs fakes than anything else. The following is an extract from an interview that I conducted with Frank Searle on the shores of the beautiful Loch Ness back in 1982.
(MR) Firstly Frank what captivated your interest in the Loch Ness Monster?
(FS) I came here purely and deliberately to find out for my self, because I was not satisfied about what I was reading about Loch Ness.
(MR) Now during this period of time that you have been at Loch Ness, just over 13 years, how many sightings of Nessie have you
catalogued?
(FS) I’ve made 38 sightings myself.
(MR) These sightings, did you have anyone with you at the time of these sightings?
(FS) Oh, at least half of my sightings I’ve had someone with me at the time. On several occasions more than one person.
(MR) could you relate to me what has been your ‘best’ sighting?
(FS) All of them!
(MR) Now, do you think you could have been mistaken with any of these sightings, and that they may have been due to natural explanations?
(FS) No, that is rubbish. I was a professional soldier in a specialised regiment for 18 years, the government spent a lot of time and money training me. I’ve been all around the world, when I’ve seen an animal I know I’ve seen an animal.
(MR) Have you ever seen more than one animal on the loch at the same time?
(FS) Yes, in 1975, it was written up in my first book. Myself and a French Canadian girl saw two small ones near the mouth of a river, they were about four and a half feet long. It was written up in my first book.
(MR) How close have you been to one of these animals?
(FS) Apart from the small ones which we were very close to, about 200 metres.
(MR) Are there any particular months of the year in which sightings of Nessie are more frequent or is it sporadic?
(FS) No. You are talking about an accidental breaking of the surface, the animals are ‘not’ air breathing, they break the surface by accident, probably when they are feeding. There is no pattern what so ever, its just a matter of somebody being lucky enough to be in the right spot at the right few seconds, and we can emphasise ‘few seconds’ because you’ll never see Nessie for more than about ‘six seconds.’
(MR) Have there ever been any reported sightings of Nessie during any rain storms, or for that matter snow storms?
(FS) There have been sightings of Nessie from every month of the year and at all times of the day. You see, once again I must state that we are dealing with an accidental breaking of the surface.
(MR) Some authors who have written books about the Loch Ness Monster’s record more sightings of Nessie in the Urguart Bay area, would you go along with their findings?
(FS) Well I’m afraid without any kind of boasting, I’m the only person in the world who has written a book about Loch Ness based on his own experiences. Most of the authors of these Loch Ness books have never spent any time investigating Loch Ness. The story about Urguart Castle being the best place for sightings, was deliberately spread by a past custodian of the castle to induce tourists to go down and pay their money to see the castle ruins, and the man told me that himself!
(MR) To your knowledge Frank, what has been the most number of people to have witnessed Nessie at the same time?
(FS) Well I record sightings for my own information service, and I only record them when I can interview the people involved within 24 hours, which doesn’t give them time to go away and read books and ‘jazz’ up a story. I have to be impressed by the people themselves, so I am very strict with what I accept. I think the most people I had on one sighting was 11, and these 11 people were made up of three different groups, a family of 5 from one part of England, a family of 3 from another part of England, and 3 American girls in a hired car who all happened to be in the same lay-by at the same few seconds.
(MR) Talking to these witnesses collectively can you really believe that they are telling you the truth and are just not leading you up the garden path?
(FS) If I didn’t think that they were telling me the truth, if I didn’t think that they had seen a Nessie, if I thought they had made a mistake and that they had seen something else, I would not record them for my information service. I dont accept everything that comes to my door.
(MR) Now what has been the overall general colour of these animals?
(FS) Dark grey, the same colour as an elephant. The skin, according to the Japanese television people who have blown up all of my pictures and examined them, say its rather a rough skin, something like the skin of a toad.
(MR) Obviously there must be more than one animal in Loch Ness to prevent the species from becoming extinct, what would you say would be a fair estimate of the number of animals in Loch Ness?
(FS) At least 30. You have not only got to reproduce, you have to deal with interbreeding, disease and accident, the same as you have with any other species.
(MR) Now, you have obviously heard about the alleged land sightings of Nessie, what are your views on this?
(FS) One word, ‘rubbish.’
(MR) So you think that these reports are rubbish?
(FS) I dont think, I know. They are not air breathing animals. I have spent nearly 38,000 hours out on Loch Ness in an open boat with cameras. I am an experienced salmon fisherman, my friends are fishermen, water bailiff’s, game keepers, forestry workers, if these were air breathing animals, we would see them more often. There is no way that these animals can crawl up the steep banks of Loch Ness and not leave any marks or tracks for the game keepers and water bailiff’s I know, to find.
(MR) Now, you have taken a number of photographs over the years of Nessie, now overall, how many have you taken?
(FS) I have taken pictures on 12 occasions and one piece of movie film. I use a 16mm movie camera and 5SLR’s, 35mm with telephoto lens.
(MR) Have your photographs ever been studied by any photographic experts to back up your claims?
(FS) I have a contract with Japanese television, they handle all my stuff. They have my negatives, and in fact, one of my films they made for me, shows one of their photographic experts examining my negatives in front of the cameras.
(MR) Have any British photographic companies shown any interest in your photographs, the likes of Kodak for instance?
(FS) No, they dont do these things because of the horrible bad reporting by the British media. Loch Ness is just a big joke in Britain, you have to go oversea’s to get any serious reporting of the subject. The best media in the world for the reporting of the Loch Ness subject, is the Japanese followed by the West German’s, followed by the Scandinavian countries, followed by the Americans. The British media is absolutely bottom of the league. It is the same wit all the other reported unusual phenomenon, Nessie, UFO’s, the Bermuda Triangle, Yeti’s, ghosts, ESP you name it. The British media treat them all as a joke, but you can go to the media of at least twelve other countries these days and you get good and accurate reporting.
(MR) Now Frank, in your opinion, what exactly do you think is in Loch Ness, you obviously have your own theories?
(FS) Sure, I’ve stated quite openly all over the world on television, that if these animals are not directly descended from Plesiosaur, then they have got to be related to that family, you just cannot get away from the Plesiosaur family.
(MR) Of course Frank, many people think that Loch Ness Monster’s are complete nonsense, and any one that has seen it must either be deranged or very much mistaken. What do you think constitutes proof that there is indeed a large family of animals in Loch Ness?
(FS) I dont agree with that statement. I have 20,000 visitors a year, I get 2000 letters a year, the only people coming to me professing to be sceptical about Loch Ness, are sceptical because they know nothing about the Loch Ness story, and that is due to bad reporting. Once they have found out about the Loch Ness story, you see them change in front of your eyes.
(MR) Again, this point of proof, would you say it would be photographs, would you say that it would be visual sightings, or sonar or echo sound tracings?
(FS) It certainly wouldn’t be sonar and echo sounding traces, because these things do not identify, they only tell you that there is something there. Sonar occasionally records a moving object, but so what! We have 1400 years of written history to tell us that these animals are there, so that is only confirming what 1400 years of history tell you. On the one side of it, the scientific world doesn’t want Loch Ness. I come up against this in television documentaries, they are scared stiff that they are going to find something which they have said has been extinct for a few million years, and on the other hand of the story, no one will ever invest any big money in Loch Ness because they want you to guarantee a profit in a certain time, which of course you cannot do. We are living in an age where we can put men on the moon and we cant identify a few animals in Loch Ness. But as proof, what’s wrong with getting a skeleton from the bottom of the loch? We know, its been established, that no bodies ever come to the top of Loch Ness, everything goes down and stays down. You never ever see dead fish, dead water birds, dead bodies floating on Loch Ness. Thats not peculiar to Loch Ness, there is seven or eight big lochs with similar chemical properties which push bodies down and keep them down. So, on the bed of the loch, must be skeletons of everything that has died in the loch.
A few miles away in the North Sea, we have a technology working in very bad conditions taking oil and natural gas from under the North Sea, if some one put up the right kind of money, I would go to the nearest North Sea oil company, get hold of some real underwater experts, and say, “I’ve got the money, get me a skeleton from the bottom of Loch Ness”. And if you go to the professionals, professionalism is all about getting results if the money is right. But like the rest of the world today, really the whole story goes back to a lack of money.
(MR) Well Frank, it has been lovely talking to you on these topics, and I wish you all the best in regards to your future studies regarding the Loch Ness phenomenon.
(FS) Well its all about luck, and if we get that luck, then something will come up.
1999 Thoughts.
This interview was conducted back in 1982, the early 1980’s saw me visit Loch Ness many times. Frank Searle was forever in the press at the time, more so in the Scottish Daily Record newspaper where a number of his suspicious photographs were shown. These photographs showed what looked like dinosaurs, large bodies, long tapering necks and small sheep like heads, it all appeared too good. Frank was very uncooperative when it came to the British media, he never gave his negatives out to any firm in the UK for analysis, (that I know about!) and his reputation at Loch Ness (as seen by other researchers) was none too good. Frank had his porta-cabin situated near the small village of Foyers on the east side of the loch, and I remember that glorious summer’s day when I made this interview with him.
What I wanted to know very much that day, was the time when he took a cracker of a photograph of a UFO which swooped down over Loch Ness near Foyer’s, and screamed away into the morning sky. Frank refused point blank to discuss with me that picture, and said that he would terminate the interview if I brought it up, strange or what!!!!
Frank left Loch Ness many years ago in suspicious circumstances, one day he was there, the next he was gone. Rumours at the time, said he had left for the fields of England to look into ancient sites, standing stones etc. (although I could not confirm that). So did our Frank get bored with Loch Ness? Are his photographs really fakes? A dummy model of Nessie was found behind a rock at Frank’s old Foyer’s site once he was gone, was that his, or did some one place it there in order to discredit him?
Frank was an enigma himself, and if anyone out there has information about Frank Searle, then please do get in touch, as I’d love to know.
If you have seen Nessie please let us know, personal details will be omitted if that is your wish. Email