This Day in the History of Hoaxes: September 1

September 1, 1972: Frank Searle's Nessie Photo
On this day in 1972, the Daily Mail ran a photo of the Loch Ness Monster taken by Frank Searle, thereby giving him instant fame as a monster hunter. But ultimately he became known as the most prolific producer of Nessie hoaxes. He initially took photos of floating logs, which he claimed to be Nessie, but progressed to cutting-and-pasting drawings of dinosaurs into Loch Ness scenes, at which point even the most die-hard Nessie believers stopped taking him seriously. Searle was the inspiration for the monster-hunter character in the 1995 film Loch Ness starring Ted Danson. [Cryptomundo]