Frank Searle (born Eric Frank Searle; 18 March 1921 – 26 March 2005) was a

photographer A photographer (the Greek language, Greek φῶς (''phos''), meaning "light", and γραφή (''graphê''), meaning "drawing, writing", together meaning "drawing with light") is a person who makes photographs. Duties and types of photographe ...

who studied the disputed existence of the

Loch Ness Monster The Loch Ness Monster ( gd, Uilebheist Loch Nis), affectionately known as Nessie, is a creature in Scottish folklore that is said to inhabit Loch Ness in the Scottish Highlands. It is often described as large, long-necked, and with one or mor ...

. He took up residence at Loch Ness in 1969 living a frugal existence in a tent looking for definitive proof of the monster's existence. Eventually photographs began to appear from 1972 onwards and earned Frank a degree of fame as a monster hunter. However, as the detail of the pictures increasingly improved with time, people began to suspect they were fakes. The matter was finally exposed in 1976 when the Scottish '' Sunday Mail'' carried a centre-page article proving that one of his photographs was taken from a postcard showing an ''

Apatosaurus ''Apatosaurus'' (; meaning "deceptive lizard") is a genus of herbivorous sauropod dinosaur that lived in North America during the Late Jurassic period. Othniel Charles Marsh described and named the first-known species, ''A. ajax'', in 1877, an ...

''. Another picture was also proven to be a wooden post at a pier that was covered with cloth to make it monster-like. As his reputation declined, he was involved with some skirmishes with other monster researchers which eventually led to a failed

molotov cocktail A Molotov cocktail (among several other names – ''see other names'') is a hand thrown incendiary weapon constructed from a frangible container filled with flammable substances equipped with a fuse (typically a glass bottle filled with flamma ...

attack on one of their boats. Searle denied any involvement in the matter and was never charged over it. Eventually he left the loch for good in the early 1980s to allegedly embark on a treasure hunting expedition. Some years later he was eventually tracked down by Andrew Tullis for his documentary ''The Man who Captured Nessie''. Searle had been living in a bedsit in

Fleetwood Fleetwood is a coastal town in the Borough of Wyre in Lancashire, England, at the northwest corner of the Fylde. It had a population of 25,939 at the United Kingdom Census 2011, 2011 census. Fleetwood acquired its modern character in the 1830 ...

Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated Lancs) is the name of a historic county, ceremonial county, and non-metropolitan county in North West England. The boundaries of these three areas differ significantly. The non-metropolitan county of Lancashi ...

, but had died only a few weeks before. Most Nessie analysts agree that although he added some colour and personality to the Loch Ness story, his contribution overall was negative.

External links

ObituarySearle's career and photographs
1921 births 2005 deaths 20th-century British photographers Photographers from Lancashire Cryptozoologists Hoaxes in the United Kingdom Loch Ness Monster 1972 hoaxes {{UK-photographer-stub