Last year I came across an unpublished manuscript by Frank Searle entitled "Monster Hunter Extraordinary: Ten Years in search of the Loch Ness Monsters" as shown in the above image. Last week, the BBC televised John MacLaverty's documentary "Loch Ness: They Created A Monster" and so I thought it appropriate to look over this manuscript and what may or may not be truth in the midst of Frank's many stories.
Now this bears a close resemblance to Frank's previously published book "NESSIE: Seven Years in search of the the Monster" as you can see below. The only real differences are it was now "Ten Years" and it was now "Monsters". That extra three years spanned the years 1976 to 1979 and five years later in 1984, Frank left the loch, never to be seen there again. Twenty years later, film maker Andrew Tullis tracked him down to his home in Fleetwood, Lancashire, only to find he had died just weeks before.
Prior to his departure from Foyers, Frank let off a final salvo with a third and final booklet entitled "Loch Ness Investigation: What really happened" (below). This was the most critical of the trio and you could say that it completed the time gap from 1979 to 1983, thus having three items covering about 14 years.
So any words from Frank have to come from his written works - the book, the manuscript and the booklet. The manuscript fills in some of the gaps, though as one can guess, it is mainly a reproduction of the 1976 book but with 1977 to 1979 added in. The manuscript is small like its predecessor at 73 pages and was produced on a pre-PC typewriter. I haven't gone to the extent of comparing the period of 1969-1976 in both documents but there is one big difference which Frank complains about in the manuscript.
Basically, any criticism of his opponents at the loch over that time were omitted by the publishers. Various other names were not there, presumably because the publishers had taken an opt-in approach rather than an opt-out for various individuals mentioned. The manuscript presumably restored some or all of his criticisms, though one can imagine they would have been whipped right out again by any potential publishers. Curiously, he says the publishers retained his pointed words about Robert Rines and his 1975 underwater pictures.
Who was the object of Searle's ire in the manuscript? It is basically about half a dozen people associated with the Loch Ness Investigation Bureau starting with its co-founder David James MP and percolating out to other individuals. James gets most of the criticism being the leader and is accused by Searle of being only interested in profiting from the organisation.
Certainly, David James was an active promoter of the LNIB and regularly solicited funds from various bodies, be they private or public. I have scans myself of letters David wrote to branches of the UK government in the 1960s asking for funds. However, those letters described the need for money to hire or buy equipment and talent to further the search for the Loch Ness Monster. It is more likely Frank saw them as a threat dissuading tourists and their donations from visiting his own site. Thus the need to portray them as only in it for the money.
How much money Frank himself made from tourists, fees to reproduce his photographs and any other activities is not stated. In the manuscript he claims that thousands would visit his site every year and he also says that 40,000 copies of his book were sold and not long after that he purchased a boat to extend his hunting activities.
Later in the manuscript, Frank blames these "enemies" as persuading the publishers of his book to print no more copies. The truth was a lot less palatable for him as the Scottish Sunday Mail ran a double spread expose of his faked photographs a short time after his book came out. The timing of this article was probably no coincidence, but that article was why his publishers pulled the book. If his "enemies" were part of anything, it was the production of the Mail article.
Frank's attempts to debunk the expose article are disingenuous and he made no mention of the slam dunk item which featured in the recent "They Created A Monster" documentary. I refer to the infamous Brontosaurus postcard and a very similar photo that he took in 1976 as shown below. Even Searle's pet cat would have seen that these two images are one and the same. No wonder he avoided any mention of it.
In fact, Frank's manuscript takes a decided turn after he moves on from the Mail article. He continues to talk about sightings reported to him, battling his "enemies", the next "Girl Friday" that shacked up with him and so on. What he does not mention any more are those sensational close up photographs that peppered the previous years. How could they have so suddenly dried up? Frank goes on about the bad weather as if it continued for a straight three years. The more likely truth is that the Mail article led to the media not touching his pictures with a barge pole, so why continue to produce them?
It is ironic that the last of his photos cut out from that dinosaur postcard was the one that ended his "extraordinary" monster hunting career which was now approaching the exit door. The subsequent booklet regurgitated some of the older criticisms but brought in new targets such as Tim Dinsdale, Adrian Shine and Tony Harmsworth. Tim is not mentioned in the prior manuscript which struck me as curious as Tim was a lead part of the LNIB that Frank regularly panned. Maybe he had a degree of grudging respect for someone whose 1960 film was part of the reason he settled at Loch Ness nine years later?
Throughout the manuscript, Frank does not really say anything positive about previous film or photo evidence for the monster. He mentions various well known sightings such as Greta Finlay and so on, but the only photos that get the nod are his own. Some other items are interesting though, such as his encounter with some "mini Nessies" in June 1975 related on page 34.
You will have noticed that Frank mentions one of his girlfriends here. He identifies her as a French Canadian school teacher called Martine Paquetto. I would guess she would be about 75 years old now and I presume she now goes by her married name. If Martine exists and really did witness these things, then we would obviously be very interested in hearing from her. As we would from the other alleged women mentioned in his manuscript - Carole Kennard and Lynda Tate. The other lady was Lieve Peten, who has already appeared in the recent "They created a Monster" documentary.
Other stories also are a bit strange as in this one about the monster bull and its "harem":
Make of that what you will but £3000 a day in 1975 equates to over £22000 in today's money. One highly doubts that the LNIB had that kind of money to throw around after reading about their begging letters to various organisations! By the way, here below is Frank's account of the photograph from February 1976 which turned out to be that fatal Brontosaurus postcard.
Considering that if this photograph was genuine, it would surpass anything else taken at Loch Ness, Frank treats it in a casual manner and moves quickly on. He spends more time talking about having a cup of tea with his visitors! Actually, we should conclude there were no such co-witnesses as Frank often brought in other characters to act as "corroboration" and I do not think I have yet met any one of these people. Maybe these people did really exist, maybe they even had a cup of tea with the Monster Hunter Extraordinary, but they assuredly did not have their little tea party interrupted by a huge beast crashing to the surface near them!
CONCLUSION
It goes without saying that you should take Frank's manuscript with a huge pinch of salt. If Frank did take a genuine picture of the Loch Ness Monster, it is lost in the noise of all the fakes. Statistically speaking, if you believe there is a large creature in the loch and if he really did spend those thousands of hours watching the loch, he should have seen the creature at least once. But once again, that is lost in the noise. Some things he said I do accept, like when he said he took his cat Toby from a wildcat litter. Beyond that, I do not care to commit myself!
So as regards publishing the manuscript, it is still under copyright. This applies whether a document is published or unpublished and extends out to 70 years after the author's death. That would mean the manuscript could not be freely distributed until about 2074. Before then, the ultimate decision to publish lies with what we may term the "Frank Searle Estate" or his inheritors. According to the intestacy rules in England, a succession of relatives have decreasing priority to Frank's worldly goods.
It seems Frank had no children (though given his sexual proclivities, I would not entirely dismiss that). Since Frank would be aged about 100 years old if he was alive today, it is unlikely any siblings would be around either. If Frank had any nephews and nieces, then they could still be around. However, to this day, no such people have turned up and they must have surely been aware of his well publicized activities at the loch.
If these people do not exist, the the whole estate reverts to the Crown. If no claims come in 12 years after the author's death, the Duchies of Cornwall or Lancaster become the owners. This technically means that either Prince Charles or Queen Elizabeth II became the owners of this manuscript in 2016. Given that King Charles III was once a follower of the Loch Ness Monster story along with his father, that is quite ironic. Do I need Royal Assent to publicly distribute this manuscript?
When Fortean researcher Mike Dash wrote about Frank's booklet from 1983, he decided to just upload it and provide a link on his webpage concluding that there were no living relatives of Frank Searle. That link is now gone, though I suspect more because the link expired rather than someone claimed ownership of it.
The other issue is that the manuscript is potentially libelous against various parties. Some of these people are now dead though I understand that libel laws no longer apply to them. That would not be so with those still living and in fact various people threatened action against Frank's publishers on at least one occasion back in the day. Whether they care fifty years on is another matter. Either way, maybe I should get writing that letter to His Majesty the King!
Comments can be made at the Loch Ness Mystery Blog Facebook group.
The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com
