Original subtitles

I'm mighty proud of the Parliament for allowing us

to make a presentation.

Our sole objective is

that scientists dare to come to Loch Ness to

debate what these things may be.

We believe that this is the head up at the top here.

The tenth wonder of the world, if you will, or wonders.

I mean, there's so much excitement.

It was a new frontier.

Scientists by the expedition-ful roam the lake.

The big push to find conclusive evidence that huge creatures

live in Loch Ness.

You could go hours and hours and hours of staring at that loch.

And knowing, at any moment,

could encounter the greatest discovery of the century.

This very large object is getting closer, quite a lot closer.

Of course it was a race, it was a zoological Mount Everest.

In the cameras could be film that would make

headlines all over the world.

I must ask you about the Loch Ness Monster, do you believe it?

I am totally convinced that the people with the latest

investigation are honest and serious-minded men.

The Boston Globe suggested he and his partner were trying to

make money out of Nessie by selling the pictures for at least £50,000.

It's enough to make Nessie tremble in the depths.

15 honourable Japanese gentlemen led by a Chinese pop promoter.

What do you intend to do if you find a creature in the loch?

CHUCKLES

Her Highness? Which Highness?

If you go down to the woods today, you may come across a man

called Frank Searle.

Definitely, we were told not to get involved with Frank Searle

because he was a dangerous person.

Like a good soldier with his rifle, his camera is always loaded,

always close to hand, always ready for action.

I've really, I've really got to get this photo.

I feel that I am the one that's going to get it.

A lot of people believe that you have to believe in

the Loch Ness Monster to see it.

Believing is seeing.

BELL CHIMES

DOG BARKS

Keira wants to, wants to say hello.

Kira, sit!

Do you want to see the photo albums?

And I know what one is the Loch Ness one.

Course, you see here, it was me manning the camera.

It was just interesting

and we didn't make money out of it or anything.

I tried to give people the right idea about Loch Ness,

rather than all the stuff that newspapers put around.

They made it into a huge joke and I thought it was a shame

because Loch Ness was much more than that.

And that's Frank and me. I was 20.

So, Frank, when did you move to Loch Ness?

Uh, uh, June 16th, 1969.

I-I pitched my tent on the south side of Loch Ness.

Yeah, this is it.

My simple tent HQ, we became a kind of mecca for Loch Ness

enthusiasts from all over the world.

See, I found that people prefer to, um,

to hear the story of Loch Ness rather than read about it.

If you go down to the woods today,

you may come across a tent in a curious scrub stockade.

Inside is a man called Frank Searle. It's not hard to find him -

he's received mail which was addressed simply to

"Frank Searle, the tent, near Inverness".

Because Frank Searle is no ordinary hermit, a cockney ex-soldier,

he runs his private camp with military precision.

He's a man with a mission. His profession is Monster Hunter.

Well, I lived as I did as a soldier, um, here.

Up at first light, swim in the loch most mornings, wash, shave,

tidy up the tent and breakfast.

He'd seen things that you and I will never see,

he had been in the Special Air Service.

I think he had a lot of experiences that you prefer not to have.

I camp on the lochside.

I watch the loch from dawn till dusk.

Frank, what's the big appeal of the monster?

Was there any particular point when you said, "Right, this is for me"?

Oh, yes. In 1965, I was looking across about seven miles of loch,

it were absolutely empty

and all of a sudden, there it was on the surface, a great dark object.

Oh, seven, eight, ten seconds, perhaps.

Moved along and went down again.

Now, I-I'd read a lot about it, but then I'd seen it,

and that really got me hooked.

For hundreds of years, the people who live near Loch Ness,

have told stories of the Loch Ness Monster.

Long neck, smallish head

and a huge humped body which I reckon was 30ft long.

We saw two humps. The first hump was

very, very, um, protruding out of the water.

I didn't really believe in it, you know?

And when I saw it, it was frightening, really it was.

That is the evidence,

reputable people who all claim to have seen this thing.

Suddenly, this huge black neck coming right out.

I would estimate about seven or eight feet out of the water,

moving slowly along.

Loch Ness, the most famous stretch of water on the surface

of the Earth. Many people have had strange experiences.

Ordinary people who, often without seeking it, have come

face-to-face with a seemingly inexplicable mystery.

All right, you've came a good bit to hae the truth.

Hiya, you all right? Hiya.

Hiya, come on board.

Hello, ladies and gentlemen.

My name is Lindsay, I'm a Scottish lassie, born and bred,

and I am going to be your tour guide today, around Loch Ness.

Loch Ness occupies almost one quarter of the massive

geological fault that is the Great Glen.

At its greatest depth at Urquhart Bay, over the years, the most

prolific monster-hunting area, it is twice as deep as the North Sea.

One minute, the loch is mirror calm.

The next, lashed by winds that funnel down the Great Glen from

the Atlantic to create 5ft waves on this strange, inland sea.

23 miles long, 755ft deep,

Loch Ness is a magnet for monsters, myths and madmen.

Hello, I'm Leonard Nimoy.

Few of the great mysteries we will explore in this

series are as compelling as the accounts of an unknown beast

which lives in a picturesque Scottish lake.

The lake is called Loch Ness.

It is said that here lives a monster that can make

the surface of the lake boil with foam.

Somebody wrote that the discovery of the Loch Ness Monster will be

far greater than landing on the moon.

I was a school teacher in Saratoga Springs, New York.

I packed a suitcase, I flew to London, made it up to Inverness...

..and then took a bus down to Drumnadrochit.

I studied geology at university,

and I thought it was a wonderful idea,

that something might have still existed

in those deep waters.

We were so determined to get to Loch Ness, we got a ride on a coal lorry.

It was an adventure. We did not have a map,

had no idea what we were going into.

My dream was to see this animal.

I was a Jewish kid on my way to law school, um,

when I got involved with research at Loch Ness

and it opened up a world to me that was very, very different.

In the States, Vietnam was raging...

..and I was so happy to leave that behind me.

You go turn the radio on for the one o'clock news and listen to it,

what am I missing? Strikes, violence,

soldiers killed in Ireland, power cuts...

Tell me what I'm missing.

Frank Searle feels that history has a place for him.

He's dedicated his life to being the man who gets the first

authentic, close-up photograph of the Loch Ness Monster.

It's enough to make Nessie tremble in the depths.

15 honourable Japanese gentlemen, led by a Chinese pop promoter.

But they believe that you are going to kill the monster.

This is misinformation, we are not killing.

This trip is costing over $500,000.

Where is the money coming from?

I see.

You have promoted sports events and other public attractions.

Now, seriously man, do you really think you can beat me?

No, I know I can whip you.

He said no.

As a promoter he was successful. Muhammad Ali and Tom Jones,

you know, these kind of people.

Who's the champion?

That was definitely the reason that he was able to raise the money.

That was the beginning.

Why does the Loch Ness Monster fascinate you so much

that you wanted to come all the way from Japan

to spend all that money to try and find it? This is...

It's difficult not to be mildly sceptical,

particularly when the party leader, the remarkable Mr Kou,

keeps on coming up with new and right royal reasons for the search.

Her Highness? Which Highness?

The 20-strong Japanese team will begin systematically probing

the murky depth of Loch Ness aided by the most up-to-date

and sophisticated underwater equipment,

including a mini sub with sonar detector.

This expedition must surely go down as the most thorough

and expensive search for Nessie that has been planned so far.

That first day that I was there,

there was this van that was there, an old beat-up van,

and on the side of it was LNI - Loch Ness Investigation.

Ground zero for monster hunting.

This is the place that I need to be

and I became a real die-hard monster hunter.

I was astonished when I first arrived at Loch Ness

and found this group of people who were actually taking this seriously.

I think I have some...

..photos in here.

Oh, here's something.

I had no idea what I was getting involved with.

This is my Loch Ness Investigation Bureau membership card.

Dated 1972.

In 1960, a monster hunter by the name Tim Dinsdale

packed up his belongings, kissed his wife and children goodbye,

and left his home in the south of England to come here

to the bonnie banks of Loch Ness, to go monster hunting.

Tim Dinsdale, a former aeronautical engineer,

now a full-time resident monster hunter.

He literally lives on the Loch on his boat, The Water Horse.

It's a very difficult job, no doubt about that.

The photography is difficult, the conditions are difficult,

the odds are difficult.

People get disappointed and put off,

but we'll get a lot of film and we get some very dramatic stuff,

and people will be very surprised, I think.

The first expedition that my father did was in April 1960,

and I was acutely aware that Dad was going off monster hunting.

He had acquired a camera and he was setting it up and tinkering with it,

always loaded into the 1950s Austin Anglia that he had.

And I can remember that he removed the passenger seat,

and that would be where the tripod would go

and he would be able to drive along

and, like an air gunner, would be able to fire through the window.

What was needed was a movie film,

and in April 1960, Tim Dinsdale got it.

Tim, how close are we to the exact spot

where you had your famous film shots?

Well, pretty close.

It was down there about 20, 30 yards, I would think.

Inside the car I had the camera on a tripod on my left

and I stopped the car, had a fairly quiet look at it through binoculars

and while I was watching it through binoculars

I could see it very clearly.

It came to life and it started to move off.

Then I turned and I started to shoot the film.

While I was watching it, it started to move.

The most electrifying moment.

It looked like the back of a huge animal.

Reddish brown. It stood two or three feet out of the water,

four or five feet across.

And then it approached the far shore and then, under the surface,

throwing up a wave which has since been measured on the film

at a height of about two feet.

I can remember watching this for the first time

in the front room of my parents' home through a projector.

And...I remember watching them being so disappointed

because it was so indistinct.

He was quite disappointed with the way this had turned out

because like most photography, it doesn't actually come out

in the way that you recall seeing it with your naked eye.

The film couldn't possibly be the same when you see it on the screen

as it was seeing it from here with your own eyes?

Oh, no, well, you know.

But it did capture what I saw. What's on the film is what I saw.

And he was completely convinced,

which is why he spent so much time and virtually the rest of his life

trying to get a better piece of film of it.

Well, I'm going to go on if necessary for 20 years

because I think that's a fair research period for anybody

and I shall then be 55.

The film may have been in black and white

but Tim Tinsdale talked in technicolour.

His enthusiasm, his conviction, his integrity

inspired others to come hunting for the monster.

Wanda, Wanda, there's something back there!

Where? Where?

By that white house. To the right of the white house.

That thing moving.

Oh, I've got it. Have you got it? Have you got it? Yes. Yeah, yeah.

There was sufficient serious interest from scientists,

also from politicians, in the possible existence

of the Loch Ness Monster that an organisation was formed,

the LNIB - the Loch Ness Investigation Bureau.

The six 35mm movie cameras,

all equipped with powerful telephoto lenses,

are part of the £20,000 worth of equipment

which the bureau possesses.

The six vans were all painted green, had a wooden platform on the roof,

and they had Loch Ness Investigation written along the side of them.

The cameras were movie cameras, with these great big lenses,

former aerial reconnaissance lenses.

They had half a dozen green caravans in a quadrant, gravel area

and a sign saying, "Visitors Welcome."

I was only seven, on a family holiday,

and I'd never seen anything like that

and I instantly thought, "That's what I want to do.

"I want to do what they're doing."

The hunters were really a mixture of two sorts of people.

There were the wartime veterans who were bored with life

and they were fascinated.

We are dealing with one of the largest living creatures on Earth

and we don't know what it is.

Then there were the students, the sort of hippy generation...

..who wanted to challenge any sort of authority.

As a youngster I was fascinated.

I thought it was going to be easy 50 years ago.

I think there was a great deal of idealism.

We were people challenging a scientific establishment

with the experience of ordinary people.

There were two huge humps and a long neck

and the head was, to my view, it was huge.

Most of the believers now consider this wretched monster

to be some sort of large, predatory reptile.

There is the objection of the complete lack of tangible evidence.

It appeared to be a great, erm...

..black mass.

One big hump. Five or six humps.

You could see quite clearly it was a single thing.

The thing we call the Loch Ness Monster

is really a mixture of rotting vegetable material, logs,

tree stumps, tree roots and commonplace objects and animals,

possibly distorted by mirage effects.

Is there a Loch Ness Monster, then? Well, I believe so.

We have of course the cine camera

with rather a special 10:1 zoom lens,

we've got a sound collector,

a very bright light, an amazingly bright light.

Your tenth year since you got your film

that you've been looking for the monster -

what luck have you had during that time?

Well, most interestingly, I haven't really had very much.

If Dinsdale hadn't seen and filmed the monster,

then his lonely ten-year vigil on the loch would be ridiculous.

When was it last seen?

Erm, that's a difficult one.

They simply decided that if they watched it

24 hours a day, how could they miss it?

It's just not that easy.

ALARM RINGS

Despite all this concerted effort from so many people,

there wasn't really anything decent in terms of evidence to talk about.

Morale was low.

Dave? Mm?

It's flat calm.

It was vast.

It's a big body of water. Every wave, every shadow.

Always looking, always keeping an eye out, and just scanning.

A lot of people involved in the Loch Ness Investigation Bureau

were thinking about giving up.

They just weren't getting

the results they thought they would've had by then.

Well, we were told that we were closing in on the Loch Ness Monster.

It was just a matter of time, really, before one of us

was in the right place with the camera

to get the movie film that would solve the mystery.

You know, you just...kind of hope.

The Loch Ness Investigation Bureau,

despite all the money and the equipment,

they never came up with a decent picture,

nor did they give out much in the way of useful information to the public.

For this, you've got to be dedicated.

I must come and be here all the time.

I must watch this loch from dawn until dusk because this is like,

this is something like winning the football pools.

You've got to... You are just going to get the one opportunity

and you've got to be on the spot when that opportunity comes.

Frank Searle's photos were amazing.

Amazing!

He was getting closer than anyone else,

he was getting more photos than anyone else.

These are some of the early pictures I've taken.

The coloured one was taken in November 1971.

But the really big picture was this one.

It suddenly appeared on the surface out towards Urquhart Bay.

I got a couple of shots and it immediately submerged.

He had pictures on display and the pictures were quite remarkable.

And I remember looking at them closely and thinking,

you know, these look real.

If the monster is an optical illusion or hallucination,

how would one explain these photographs

taken by Frank Searle from London, a former professional Army man?

Interesting enough to make me go away

and think there's probably something in Loch Ness.

Now, a Daily Record reporter took some blow-ups

to the Glasgow University Department of Zoology,

and the zoologist described them

as by far the best pictures he'd seen from Loch Ness.

His sole purpose is to get closeup pictures of the monster

and collect the kudos and the cash.

I've really got to get this photo.

I feel that I'm the one that's going to get it.

When I went up there for the very first time, he talked about,

well, he sees it every other day.

And I said, "Have you seen one today?"

He said, "No, not today, but I saw two on Tuesday."

But it sort of felt real, it felt genuine.

By himself, Searle runs

his own one-man investigation unit at Loch Ness.

He had a very strong motivation for retaining

the identity of Loch Ness Monster

because that was how he was making his money

and sustaining himself, and it was his life's work.

I have 20,000 visitors a year.

I get about 2,000 letters a year.

Ha-ha! Well, see, I still got this.

He was a little miniature tourist attraction of his own.

Because he sells prints and he sells his newsletter.

Frank Searle has written a book on the subject.

Interest in Loch Ness's popular beastie never seems to wane.

Frank Searle's purpose of being there was mixed in the sense

that he certainly was after the Loch Ness Monster,

I don't deny that, but he was after fame

and he was after the money he got from selling his pictures,

and frankly he was after sex.

Well, one of the things that really surprised me,

the number of women who are fantastically interested

in the Loch Ness Monster.

This was his domain

and he was always shacking up with one tourist or another.

Girl Fridays, as he used to call them.

Would any Girl Friday liked to come and live with a monster hunter

and have a great time? He was a short, plump cockney

and, for some strange reason, he had a stream of girls.

There was quite the bravado that Frank had.

And he was quite proud about his girlfriend,

who seemed to be quite younger than him.

And he'd quite often wink and nod to the caravan.

He used to make a monthly newsletter.

It gave the news around to loch.

The newsletter said that he was looking for an assistant.

I was curious, obviously.

So I said, "OK, I'll apply for the job."

It was an adventure, moving to Scotland.

And here is the caravan.

It was rather small. In January it was freezing.

And here is his Girl Friday, AKA Lieve, me.

He didn't pay, but it was board and food and all that -

so cooking, cleaning and watch the loch with a camera.

And keep him warm at night? That, too.

An aged fishing boat hired from a local who got lucky,

oriental inscrutability and lots of Scotch mist.

It must be one of the most bizarre and colourful expeditions

that's ever taken place on and beneath

these dark and ominous waters.

We heard the Japanese were coming to Loch Ness.

They were bringing scientists,

they were talking about bringing a submarine.

The International Loch Ness Monster Search Party.

They wanted to hire a trawler, found one on the verge of being scrapped.

There are a lot of people horrified at the thought

that you might take Nessie away.

No, no, no, no, no. This is not my intention.

1970s, at that time, they really, really have got

quite a negative view on Japanese people.

The Japanese are particularly confident

and who knows, with their noted oriental wiliness,

perhaps they will succeed in once and for all silencing the cynics

and the unbelievers?

This is a group of Japanese people coming over to Loch Ness

to try to find the Loch Ness Monster.

Obviously, they just take it literally.

The Japanese expedition has run into one or two organisational snags,

not the least of them the fact that the submarine they'd ordered

wasn't capable of diving deep enough.

They are totally taking the piss out of all these reporters.

HE PLAYS THE DASHING WHITE SERGEANT

We had a bar.

The local people, for the most part,

looked upon the monster hunters with a certain amount of humour.

They did very little research.

They spent a lot of time with press conferences.

And then we learn that their chief sonar operator

was a cabaret singer!

Their oceanographer was a star of a sitcom!

So we were scratching our heads.

Has it ever struck you that the monster might come up

right underneath your boat

and that will be the end of the Japanese expedition?

LAUGHTER

Well...!

You could say this.

Every year, thousands of people converge

on the 30 square miles of Loch Ness,

hoping for a glimpse from their cars and coaches

of any unknown animals that may be there.

It's round about here that most of the sightings

of the monster have taken place.

As the Loch Ness Monster became evermore popular,

you've got this strange circus feel to the shores of the loch.

Nessie might not know it, but she's become a media event.

A huge neck appeared out of the water.

Journalists that go to Loch Ness focus on the characters themselves -

people who are hoping for their five minutes of fame.

Just the sight of this huge neck

filled us with a kind of awe and amazement.

It gathered a lunatic fringe,

the way we gather midges when we sit, you know?

So the monster mating expeditionary team

takes the high road to Scotland.

The gyrocopter that had been used in the James Bond film

flew about for a month or so.

I have to say, I didn't go up in it, not my thing.

Dolphins - the latest weapon in the quest for the Loch Ness Monster.

We've been using dolphins over in Vietnam.

Now they're learning a whole new range of techniques in preparation

for their role as monster searchers in the depths of Loch Ness.

We tied dolphins with a camera, sonar triggered.

Dolphins can attain great speeds under water.

The US Academy of Applied Science

realised it's a big, costly operation.

I'd gone over specifically, you know, for that.

It's unfortunate because there was a dolphin that died prematurely.

It was in a holding tank prior to transport to the United Kingdom.

This is Walter Cronkite, CBS News.

Some day we may be reporting that they really did find

the Loch Ness Monster in that beautiful Scotland lake.

For now, all we can report is

they're trying their best to find it.

You can buy a Nessie T-shirt, an ashtray, a plaque, a pennant,

a dish towel, a car sticker or a box of monster rock candy.

This is Nessie, one of the many, many different varieties we have.

We've got pink Nessies, lime green Nessies,

Nessies with tartan bonnets.

We sell thousands, thousands, and thousands of these.

Look at that. That's so cute.

It's a brand. It's as big as Coca-Cola.

Every home has got to have a Nessie fridge magnet,

believe you me.

The shopkeepers don't really care whether Nessie exists or not,

as long as the riddle remains.

# But there is a monster in Loch Ness

# It's a fact ye cannae hide

# She's got mair curves than a movie star

# And a wiggle three miles wide. #

Hey, kids. Let's play Nessie Hunt.

Nessie Hunt!

If Nessie surfaces one of these days and stays up long enough

to see the scientists, the tourists, the souvenir shops, the journalists,

it might be a few centuries before we see her again.

Everyone wanted a piece of Nessie, but she hid in the depths unseen.

Until some serious scientists arrived.

And with them they brought their can-find attitudes,

a lot of money, and sonar.

We were heading for a place near Urquhart Castle

where we'd arranged to meet Dr Rines.

He's the leader of the expedition who'd flown from America

to be here to supervise this operation.

As a lawyer, I can quote

what some of our British barristers have told us -

that if the Nessie story had been a murder case,

there'd have been a hanging long since.

Bob Rines was a very charismatic guy.

He was driven by belief.

He was certain he had seen this animal.

We unmistakably saw a giant hump in the water,

move slowly out in the bay, turn around and come back

and then submerge.

Bob was a very powerful character

and it was he, really, who was roping in the technicians,

the scientists, the engineers.

We're not zoologists at the Academy of Applied Science.

If we have any skill at all,

it is in the area of underwater photography and sonar

and experimental techniques.

He was a leader and assembled this team of other, erm...

..super geniuses.

There's simply no other way to describe them.

When he combines the strobe with a high-speed camera...

Ready to go?

All set?

We want to show the scientific world

techniques for trying to observe these large animals.

Bob Rines funded these expeditions.

It was a quarter million dollars' worth of equipment...

..an array of underwater lights.

We had four cameras, sonar.

Me at Loch Ness.

I met Lee, one of the American team.

Lee, this bottom box here with all the wires, what's that bit?

Well, this is actually the brains of the whole operation.

And the computer.

Who knows what that was?

In 1972 it was a remarkable piece of equipment.

A sonar beam is sent out and if it meets anything swimming around,

this equipment starts the cameras rolling.

They know it works.

Here's film shot by the cameras underneath Loch Ness.

Here we are floating on Loch Ness. Where do you think they are now?

Down below.

We had a boat. It was moored at Urquhart Bay.

And I sat and watched.

..whoa, hold on a minute.

On the sonar trace, this thing comes up...

..going up the page, which means it's coming towards me.

What is happening here? It was very exciting.

Suddenly this big, strong trace appeared

and it was interpreted as being a large creature.

This very large object is getting closer.

Quite a lot closer.

My heart was in my mouth.

Finally, the golden moment.

Something big, living in the loch.

We did in fact detect large moving objects

that seem to be from 20 to 30ft long

and, from the sonar signature, indicates that they have

humps or projections spaced about six feet apart.

These four cylinders were the camera housings.

It was good to see them safely up.

There was an air of excitement all around.

In the cameras could be film

that would make headlines all over the world.

There was a very dramatic breakthrough

in the form of this picture, taken at a depth of 50ft.

This is the first time anything of this length

has ever been photographed in this kind of water.

Well, we submitted this to what we might say

is an international jury of sonar experts

and optical experts and photographic experts.

And we were certainly delighted that we could make out shapes

that competent people could definitely say,

"Yes, that looks like a flipper."

It has caused somewhat of a sensation

with scientists all over the world

and many experts interested in the Loch Ness Monster

are getting very interested in this particular photograph.

On the basis of the photograph and the sonar information,

we have actually made a giant flipper,

which is in fact the size of the flipper that was photographed,

if that in fact is what it was.

So on this model, which flipper? I think it's probably this one.

Thank you very much for coming.

Very kind of you. If we get any film, I'm sure you'll get to see it.

When I saw the flipper photo, I was wrapped up in this...

..world of wonder.

There's no other way to put it.

There was a little bit of true magic in that,

and Bob was a very, very credible guy.

So it just seemed like the first step.

Well, of course, none of us were impressed

with the quality of the photographs

and we were all disappointed that zoologists wouldn't be able

from these photographs to make an identification of the animal.

It was time to roll up our sleeves

and now let's get proof that these animals existed.

TAPE: Look, the problem is that there's never, ever

been a scientific expedition at Loch Ness.

There's been a lot of gimmicks and publicity stunts,

which the public have been told are expeditions.

I've seen them all and it's absolutely hilarious.

How many sightings have you catalogued?

I've made 38 sightings myself.

What has been the best sighting? All of them.

All of them!

TAPE: Now, do you think that you could have been mistaken

with any of these sightings, and that...

No. ..they may have been due to natural explanations?

That is rubbish. I was a professional soldier

in a specialised Army regiment for 18 years,

the government spent a lot of time and money training me,

I've been all over the world.

When I've seen an animal I know I've seen an animal.

You know, I reckon the most dedicated watchers

of Loch Ness are us loners.

TAPE: Have you ever seen more than one animal

on the loch at the same time?

Yes, in 1975, and it was written up in my first book.

Myself and a French Canadian girl saw two small ones

near the mouth of a river, about four and a half feet long.

The interview came about because we corresponded

for a good number of years throughout the 1970s.

And I said, "Look, I've got to meet this guy.

"I've got to go up to Loch Ness

"and sit this fella down and interview him about what he's seen."

I'm the only person in the world

who's ever written a book about Loch Ness

based on his own experiences.

Well, I'll admit, I was in awe of the man.

When I met him and we did the interview, I was mesmerised.

I've taken pictures on 12 occasions and one piece of movie film.

He did set up his own exhibition on the far side of the loch.

The people that came to our side of the loch

when the weather was good, 50 to 100 a day.

People from all over the world.

It was fun because when somebody German or Italian

came to ask questions, I could answer them.

Americans would say, "Huh, you don't have any electricity."

I'd seen Frank Searle's displays and he was such a believable person.

And I started thinking about Loch Ness.

So I was interested.

Now here, this picture does actually show

the creature with its mouth open.

It was on the surface somewhere about eight or nine seconds.

To find Frank, you had to go down

the other side of the loch on a much narrower road.

But his big problem, as a tourist attraction,

was he was on the wrong side of the loch.

He was on the side of the loch

that doesn't have a main road going down it.

Now, Frank Searle, he wanted the fame.

He wanted to be number-one monster hunter.

Everyone over there on the other side of the loch, LNI, Adrian Shine,

these are just the opposition stopping him becoming more famous.

So there was always something going on,

which was taking the limelight away from Frank.

I looked around and thought,

well, there's no exhibition down in Drumnadrochit.

There's nothing anyone can go and see.

The exhibition opened with a design by Tony Harmsworth.

We delve into the biology of the loch, the physics of the loch,

the history of the loch.

You can't really expect feeding time for the Loch Ness Monster.

The exhibition I set up showed as many pictures as we could show.

Frank Searle thought we were trying to muscle in on what he was doing.

He became very nasty, very quickly.

He was bad-mouthing me.

I had a note on my windscreen,

telling me I wasn't going to live very long.

More and more photos came along and more and more photos.

I think these two pictures

are the best that have ever been taken on Loch Ness.

The loch was pretty calm

and we saw the head and neck come up with a big splash of water.

At first, his photos looked good

and there was no reason to doubt their authenticity.

But probably the greatest picture of all,

the head, neck, the back came up with a big splash of water.

These were great photographs.

You know, close up, head and neck, humps.

When the picture is examined, it's possible to see

the face of the creature - one of the eyes, the line of the mouth,

the twisted tendons on the neck where its head's turned back.

We began to realise the press had a stock of photographs

that he had taken, ready to be used on a slow news day.

Over the other side of the loch, they were getting nothing.

People said, "How did he do this?"

People began to get suspicious.

If they questioned the content of the photographs,

he got quite aggressive with them.

I noticed a member of the Bureau

photographing the pictures on display.

I grabbed him and I punched him very hard.

Mr Searle promised to send me the negatives of his photographs

for expert scrutiny, but has since changed his mind.

I worked for Nature magazine,

one of the leading scientific research publications in the world.

Whether it was biology, chemistry, physics, any science subject,

it was the pinnacle of an academic researcher's achievements

if they got a paper published in Nature.

There was whispering going on around the office.

The door to the editor's office opened

and the editor named two individuals who were senior editors

and he called them into his office.

The door was slammed shut and there was then much discussion.

Rumours swept up and down the Great Glen.

They've done it. They had got the mugshot.

They've captured the image of the century.

They had proof of the monster.

A special press conference,

which promises to reveal new evidence of a creature in Loch Ness.

Dr Rines and his friends were saying

that the utmost secrecy had to be observed.

There was a press conference in the House of Commons.

That was big.

Number one, I'm mighty proud of the Parliament

for allowing us to make a presentation of some evidence.

It was a world first.

Finally identifying a prehistoric creature in Loch Ness.

We believe that this is the head up at the top here.

We feel so strongly with regard to the reality of what we have,

that we think is the tenth wonder of the world, if you will, or wonders.

FRENCH NEWS REPORT: Londres en cours d'un rebondissement majeur

concernant le fameux monstre du Loch Ness.

Des photographies ont ete presentees aujourd'hui...

NEWS REPORT: Amazing news from Scotland tonight.

A press conference in Parliament...

OVERLAPPING NEWS REPORTS

NEWS REPORT: ..journalists that appeared to show the head,

neck and flippers of the legendary beast.

I must ask you, of course, because it's currently been

in the news about Nessie, the Loch Ness Monster, we've had put

before us what's said to be the definitive evidence that it exists.

There is a camera 40ft under the surface of the loch.

So it was an object which was 40ft down in Loch Ness,

which was moving,

which was registered both photographically and on sonar.

Now, the very least you can say is that that needs explanation. Yes.

Our sole objective is to get

the zoological community all over the world,

as well as other scientists, to analyse what we have produced

and indeed to debate what these things may be.

There was a massive amount of media interest.

It was on the cover of Time Magazine,

it was in newspapers, it was discussed on TV.

Nessiteras Rhombopteryx.

It was coming up to Christmas,

and as at least one of the papers pointed out,

it was a Christmas gift to the world.

I never believed in the Loch Ness Monster

until I went to live in the area.

I don't think that most people I came across up there

were reluctant to talk about what they'd seen.

I think these two pictures

are the best that have ever been taken on Loch Ness.

The loch was pretty calm and we saw the head

and neck come up with a big splash of water.

The 1970s, summer holiday, I met Frank Searle,

and I was a teenager then, and he'd got his caravan

and his lean-to exhibition on the side of it

with all his photographs in it.

I never believed him.

No, I think Frank was...

..bullshit.

If someone caught one and walked down the M1 with it on a rope,

there would still be someone calling it fake.

And these are the photos that Frank took.

Do you think he faked the photographs?

I don't see how he could have done.

How are you going to take a photograph

and be there at the same time moving it around?

If you look closely, you can see a bit of movement in the water.

So I... I don't see how he could have faked these things.

I remember looking at them

and there were a lot of tourists milling about Frank's caravan

and I asked him if anybody had ever accused him of faking photos.

And he said, "No."

And I could see he was shaking.

And I said, "Why are you shaking?"

And he said, "I'm not shaking."

And I said, "What are you doing, then? What's going on?"

And he pulled a knife out of his pocket and he pointed it at me.

And I remember coming out and I remember saying,

"Yeah, I've seen all your stuff.

"Have you got any REAL photographs of it?"

To which he went, "Real photographs, boy! Real photographs!

"They're ALL real photographs, boy."

He threw me against a tree, told me to get the hell out of there

or else he was going to throw me into the loch.

And I just said, "You can tell these people what you want to tell them,

"but we both know the truth.

Now, this photograph here, taken in February 1976,

very convincing - long neck and head, a hump

taken against the background of Loch Ness.

But the problem with this photograph is that it was exposed as a fake

due to the discovery of this postcard...

..published around that time.

It shows where Frank Searle got

this photograph of the Loch Ness Monster.

What we have here is a double-page spread

and it is the expose of Frank Searle.

" 'I'm no fraud,' says Frank, the Loch Ness Monster Hunter."

Here is a postcard, it was available in Inverness at the time,

it's the same.

And this one, this was a model,

and that was found at his base camp as well.

It really was the death knell for Frank Searle.

I'd say this to the Nessie hunter.

If you get a picture on a par with the ones taken so far...

..stick it in your family album.

Only show it to those of your friends who are believers.

Have no doubt that some will still accuse you of faking the pictures.

All of us were driven by pure imagination, curiosity,

and we were so determined to, you know,

fight the tides that said, "This is all fake."

And here on the other side of the loch

was a guy who was providing evidence that it was all fake.

Frank Searle was a very unlikable rogue

who faked pictures and defamed other people.

The monster of Loch Ness is so famous

that it's eclipsed all its rivals.

But it's American lawyer Bob Rines who's come closest

to proving the monster exists using strobe cameras.

These cameras are suspended in the water and are taking pictures.

And our best picture improved by enhancement

was of a flipper that the optical experts tell us

is some eight feet long and about two feet wide.

A distinct flipper-type structure sticking out of a...

..body which seemed to be really convex.

Do you believe it?

Well, I think, erm...

The first thing you have to say is,

are the people who are making the investigation dishonest?

I mean, are they actually trying to kid us?

And I am totally convinced that the people,

particularly the people now with the latest investigation, are not.

I mean, they are honest and serious-minded men.

How did you focus in on what you painted?

Well, partly from new photographs taken by Robert Rines

and partly from... These were the fins? The fins, yes.

The diamond-shaped fin after which we named the animal.

We feel that with the presentation of valid evidence

that science should perhaps pay a little more attention.

You've seen these famous pictures Dr Rines took

of these strange objects in the loch?

Yes.

Well, quite frankly, I'm utterly confused and bewildered

by the various arguments and ideas that have been put forward.

It seems to me we should be quite clear

about what we have been invited to accept.

I don't believe these latest photographs prove a thing.

That's the data, it's the true data,

and that's the picture that was taken.

Thanks to the very bold and ingenious experiments

plugged away at by Bob Rines,

pictures were obtained as you know. One is showing what could be

a head, a long neck and a great body with two limb-like protrusions.

Leading British photographic experts had evidence

to suggest that the 9ft neck

in the so-called head and neck photograph

was in fact only 18 inches long.

The earlier flipper photograph, the flipper mystery,

the now famous Rines photograph, is of course quite intriguing.

This was essentially the first image that was sent to us.

An impressive photo of a flipper.

That first reaction is to say, "Wow, that's what we've been looking for."

The case that this flipper is the limb of a large,

air-breathing animal is quite definitely not proven.

My suspicions got aroused because the lighting's wrong for a start.

There's a shadow on both sides,

which you can't get with a single source of light.

You'd only get a shadow on one side.

Computer enhanced. That was the phrase that was used.

And our best picture improved by enhancement...

Improved by enhancement...

Now there's some discussion about whether errors could have been made

in the computerisation of these pictures.

They've been studied very carefully by real experts,

who know what they're talking about,

and they have arrived at certain conclusions.

There were two computers that were capable

of doing computer enhancement,

and the Russians had one and we had another.

And by doing that, we brought out that flipper shape.

I make my living by my integrity, so do my colleagues.

And it wouldn't be worth our while to lose our professional standing

with being involved in such nonsense.

We were sent a copy of the original, which is this one.

The original flipper picture shows a swirl of silt,

and it's clearly silt from the bottom.

At the time that some of these pictures were taken,

one was four o'clock in the morning, I wasn't there all night.

I started to look into the computer enhancement process.

If you look carefully, the edges are incredibly straight.

It's not natural.

He was portrayed as an expert in the field,

the head of a science academy.

But then he went into hiding from the press,

upset by growing criticism.

Somebody took a brush and drew a flipper round.

You know, simple as that.

Bob wasn't too happy with that information.

He said, "Piss off, sonny."

His own local newspaper, The Boston Globe,

suggested he and his partner were trying to make money out of Nessie

by selling the pictures for at least £50,000.

It was blamed on a magazine editor who had retouched it.

But that didn't stop the Academy of Applied Science

circulating it widely.

Can Dr Rines give us an absolute guarantee

that there is no hoaxing about this?

What do you mean by hoax?

That this picture is genuine

and was taken where stated and shows what appears?

Absolutely.

His Academy of Applied Science is not well known

by other experts in the field

and it's run from the block of flats where he lives,

apparently as a part-time enterprise.

Mr Rines runs his law firm from this office block in Boston City Centre.

As a lawyer, he's highly successful,

as an explorer for monsters he still apparently has some way to go.

A lot of people are sceptical about the Loch Ness Monster,

but there's something else.

To me, the loch itself is threatening, overpowering.

Well, I always think that Loch Ness is one of those places

where if there is no monster, there ought to be.

There's a curious atmosphere around Loch Ness, sort of ominous.

It is quite a haunted area too.

Someone brought a priest to the loch to carry out an exorcism.

He noted mental deterioration

amongst the monster hunters that he met

and he attributed it to evil forces.

It is the frontier of mystery, the mysteriousness of those depths.

But the place itself becomes kind of enchanted.

Some things have to be believed to be seen.

This is the cabin which I built on the shore of the loch.

And now I'm hearing that this was some kind of supernatural entity,

the ghost of a dinosaur,

some nights I was just terrified.

We were at one end of the loch and Frank Searle,

he was six or seven miles down the other side of the loch

on the other side.

Definitely, we were told not to get involved with Frank Searle

because he was potentially a dangerous person.

This is a scrapbook of photographs I took of Loch Ness,

just the people and some of the work we were doing.

I must be 20 years old, maybe.

And then just some volunteers here.

Adrian Shine, who was the field leader on the Loch Ness project.

Adrian is a very impressive individual.

I think people meeting him for the first time would think him

slightly scary, really,

but he's always one step ahead of everybody else.

Adrian Shine, he absolutely has the feeling

of the sort of explorer type to him.

And he had a combative side and an aggressive side.

I mean, someone who was willing to stand up and defend his position.

Was Frank Searle a problem for us?

He defamed us.

And people would visit him and be told things and think less of us.

So, yes, he was a problem.

The existence of a project on the far side of the loch

that was sucking up the media attention and the tourists was

an issue for Frank.

You know, for God's sake, don't say you're from the Loch Ness project.

He hates us.

Adrian had always said, "Let's just be discreet.

"He's there. We're here.

"Don't come into each other's range."

The opposition regularly pulled down my only signboard,

up near the top road junction.

They spattered my information out with paint

and once threw a stone through my window.

Did anyone go, "Let's sort this guy out"?

No. I mean...

We did get his book withdrawn by the publisher.

Frank Searle came across the loch in his boat

and scrawled on the castle wall in red paint...

..and huge letters, "SHINE CONMAN".

I think Frank Searle suffered from the isolation and...

..he was a possibly deranged individual.

TAPE: For 11 years, the Loch Ness Investigation Bureau

practically ruled the Loch Ness scene.

Much of the so-called investigation was done for publicity

or sheer financial gain.

I don't think he was a bad person.

He was very opinionated.

TAPE: But of course science would find it hard to accept pictures.

We would really want one of the animals on the table.

He came to the conclusion that nobody would believe it.

So he said, "We have to catch one."

He said, "Because if you catch one, nobody can deny its existence."

I'd been there for about two years and then Pat arrived.

But there were others as well.

And did he sleep with other women in the caravan when you were there?

Yeah.

What did you do - hide under the pillow?

No, just read a book.

But it was a small caravan.

And this is a silly...

..story.

"Ladies of the loch."

I don't like it because I seem to be the main subject.

I remember asking her about the monster

and she said that she hadn't seen a monster,

the only monster she'd seen around here was Frank Searle.

We were there together.

He said, "I can't afford the two of you."

And then she said she would like to stay because Frank asked her.

So I said, "OK, then I'll leave."

And then I went back to Belgium.

Frank Searle was on the other side of the loch,

both literally and figuratively.

But we were dealing with a guy who was completely out of control.

# The beast in me

# Is caged by frail and fragile bonds

# Restless by day

# And by night rants and rages at the stars

# God help

# The beast in me... #

Do you feel that there's actually something almost personal

between you and the monster?

There is. There's definitely something personal.

I'm living with them.

# The beast in me

# Has had to learn to live with pain

# And how to shelter from the rain... #

There was considerable belief.

# God help the beast in me... #

It gets very close to religion for some.

Witnesses feel themselves chosen people.

# God help

# The beast in me... #

Begone now, hideous demon, unto thine appointed place.

# The beast in me. #

It made its own reality.

There was bad blood.

On the other side they'd been exposing Frank

and briefing against him.

There was an incident at one of my outstations.

It was associated with Frank Searle,

since he had been particularly threatening.

Adrian warned us again.

I mean, we had a more severe warning this time,

that Frank was potentially dangerous,

and that we should have nothing to do with him, and that he was

potentially going to cause problems in the immediate future,

because his entire thing was, you know, coming to a boil.

There were some students, some volunteers sleeping on

the shoreline, and they were just there with a tent.

About 5am in the morning, the guys who were sleeping in the tent

became aware of the sound of a boat going past outside.

When one of them stuck their head out of the tent,

they saw that there was, in fact, a boat quite close by.

The boat was on the shore,

and the boat was about six or ten feet away from our tent.

Somebody threw a petrol bomb onto the beach there,

where we had a rubber dinghy.

And it bounced off the dinghy, and actually fell into the water.

Floating on the water was a primitive Molotov cocktail.

A petrol device was ignited near one of our vessels,

drawn up on the beach, er, near a tent where

some students were sleeping.

So, it was a firebombing attempt, but the tent was close by with

three or four 17- or 18-year-olds sleeping inside it.

And these students could've been quite seriously injured,

if not killed.

Looking up, you know, the guys in the tent could see

a single figure in the boat shooting off back across the loch

at top speed.

A police officer called in at my caravan at 7.30am.

Adrian Shine claimed that, at 5.30am,

I had thrown a petrol bomb at his campsite.

They gave Searle a pretty good going-over.

I think they thought it was a pretty serious incident.

I mean, it's not that often around Inverness you get

fire bombs thrown at anybody.

We were pretty unhappy about this guy at that point,

because he'd put us in danger.

Well, at that time, on that particular morning,

I painted the ceiling of my information hut.

And he said, "You can tell, cos the paint's still wet."

That was his alibi,

which I always thought was highly suspicious, in the sense that

who paints the ceiling of an information hut at, you know,

five or six o'clock in the morning?

There was this anxiety about him.

We bought fire extinguishers for the house.

We'd never done that before.

We never used to lock our door.

And then we started locking our door.

We took security precautions down the exhibition.

It was scary.

The last time I ever spoke to him,

I was outside the photographic shop in Inverness.

And I said, "Hello, Frank."

And he said, "Don't 'hello' me, Dick Raynor.

"I'll kick your fucking teeth in."

In his last letter to me,

I could clearly see that there was a change with Frank.

He said, "I received a most astonishing letter.

"The writer says that he has sent this letter

"because he is concerned for me.

"Be careful.

"They all want rid of you."

ON TAPE: There is a legend that Loch Ness never gives up its dead.

Even dead fish do not float on Loch Ness.

People drown, and the bodies are never recovered.

In fact..

..Frank Searle suddenly vanished...

..never to be seen around Loch Ness again.

Only his words remained,

which are spoken by an actor.

Frank disappeared.

He gave every sign, in fact, that he was gone

and wasn't coming back.

His caravan was trundled down into the loch,

and there were all sorts of rumours.

The caravan was upended and thrown over the edge of the loch.

I-I don't think we expected never to see him again.

His life had been entirely wrapped up with Loch Ness.

He lived on the loch.

It's not like, you know, "Well, he's gone home."

And he disappeared - around that time, the newsletters stopped.

So, all traces of Frank Searle were eradicated.

There was rumours that he had been killed and dumped in the loch.

And various locals had various theories.

No-one knew.

He's almost just vanished overnight, and no-one seemed to know.

Frank was gone, and nobody knew where.

Some even said that he was now at the bottom of the loch,

and that now, there really was a monster in Loch Ness.

Do you feel that there's actually something almost personal

between you and the monster, Frank?

There is. There's definitely something personal.

It's just, I'm living with them.

Most dedicated of all the sleuths, Tim Dinsdale,

now a veteran of 20 summers living afloat on the loch.

He spent so many years up at Loch Ness,

almost invariably on his own.

There must have been times when he felt despondent,

perhaps felt like giving up.

I've missed it, I believe, on a couple of occasions by chance.

I was there for a long time, and then, happened to go away,

and it was seen shortly afterwards.

1987, he'd been to Loch Ness through the summer.

He clearly wasn't well.

And then, suddenly, he had a heart attack...

..which saw him off, sadly.

Incredibly, for all the thousands and thousands of hours of, er,

of Loch Ness investigation, my father, all the other enthusiasts

and professional Monster Hunters who've been up at Loch Ness

ever since, no-one has got a piece of footage that surpasses

what my father took in 1960.

It's incredible.

Absolutely incredible.

The same mixture of interest and sneering disbelief

has been shown to every story about the Loch Ness Monster.

It's still thought of as half a joke,

and the people who see it as romantics who've seen a ghost.

But some sort of prehistoric animal is a possibility.

For the last 31 years, I've been here at Loch Ness

watching and waiting.

For me, the...

..absolute moments that make my heart sing the most -

I go out and I look at this view,

and it might be flat, calm water...

..and it fills up, as I watch it,

with ghosts of the different adventures and different sightings

by people, different things that have gone on.

The swelling of joy.

And I will pinch myself in disbelief that I've been allowed, in my life,

to have this much freedom to follow my dreams.

That's the moments that I love. That's the...

Wow!

So, ladies and gentlemen, as you reflect on today's tour,

please consider that we're only here for the briefest moment of time.

So, we bring you to our wee corner of the world,

and we'll tell you our wee story.

A story of men and monsters,

of truth and fakes.

I think each person went to Loch Ness looking for a monster,

and we all found something.

This sense of wonder.

And it had to do with the people who were there.

That was real.

As a young man, I came to Loch Ness.

And, in the course of the 50-odd years, yes,

I was waiting for something truly remarkable.

But I was fascinated by what was happening outside my window.

You'd like to give Princess Anne the monster, would you,

as a wedding present? That's right!

OFF-CAMERA: Did you really believe you'd capture Nessie?

HE LAUGHS

..we feel so strongly, with regard to the reality of what we have,

we think is the tenth wonder of the world, if you will,

or wonders.

I lived in that beautiful surrounding.

It was great fun.

LAUGHS: It didn't exactly make me famous.

Well, just a little bit because, after all these years,

you guys showed up.

And that's how, here at Loch Ness, they created a monster.

CHEERING

HORN BEEPS

We now have volumes of data on the Loch Ness Monsters.

And none of the investigators involved disputes the probability

that a creature lives in Loch Ness.

And all of them agree that the intensive effort may soon turn up

the monster of the lake.

There has never been a decent Loch Ness documentary

on British television.

I think that anyone really interested in the phenomena

must come to Loch Ness.