The Loch Ness monster

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(MR) Malcolm Robinson

(FS) Frank Searle

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INTERVIEW WITH FRANK SEARLE ‘NESSIE HUNTER’

(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 it’s 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 don’t 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 5SLRs, 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 don’t 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 overseas 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 Germans, followed by the Scandinavian countries, followed by the Americans. The British media is absolutely bottom of the league.

It is the same with all the other reported unusual phenomenon, Nessie, UFOs, the Bermuda Triangle, Yetis, 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 Monsters 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 don’t 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 can’t 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 it’s 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, and dead bodies floating on Loch Ness.

That’s not peculiar to Loch Ness, there are 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 someone 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 it’s all about luck, and if we get that luck, then something will come up.

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2012 Thoughts:

This interview was conducted back in 1982. The early 1980’s saw me visit Loch Ness many times and Frank Searle was forever in the newspapers at the time, more so in the Scottish Daily Record 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 to be true. 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 conducted this interview with him. What I wanted to know was about the time when he took a photograph not of ‘Nessie’ but of a UFO which swooped down over Loch Ness near Foyers, and screamed away into the morning sky.

Frank refused point blank to discuss that picture with me 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). What we do know however, is that Frank Searle, photographer and monster hunter who was born in Staines, Middlesex on the 18th of March 1921, died in the town of Fleetwood, Lancashire England on the 26th of March 2005. 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 site at Foyers when he left. Did this belong to Frank or did someone place it there in order to discredit him? Sadly we’ll never know.

In our next feature we will be looking once more at the evidence (or lack of it!) for the Loch Ness Monster. Stay with us folks.

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Malcolm’s new book, UFO Case Files of Scotland (Volume 2 the sightings) is available from www.healingsofatlantis.com

Malcolm is looking for true stories of the paranormal from readers for his next book and can be reached at [email protected]

The Loch Ness monster - part 2