Frank Carl Farnsworth, also known as Carl Farnsworth, was 48 years old when he was last known to have contact on May 16, 1986, in the McKinnon, Wyoming area of Sweetwater County. NamUs lists him as a missing person under case MP106331, with the Sweetwater County Sheriff’s Office identified as the investigating agency and agency case number 0114-86. His case remains listed in NamUs as a missing person case, and the available public case information does not indicate that he has been found alive or located deceased.
The known circumstances point to a tragic boating accident rather than a voluntary disappearance. According to the case information, Frank was involved in a boating accident on Flaming Gorge Reservoir with his brother and two other men. The reservoir spans the Utah-Wyoming state line, placing the incident in a rugged, expansive waterway near the area where he was last reported missing. Publicly available case details state that extensive searches were conducted after the accident, but Frank was never recovered.
Frank is described in the available case record as a White/Caucasian male with black hair and blue eyes. He was approximately 5 feet 10 inches tall and weighed around 170 pounds at the time he went missing. No public clothing description, vehicle information, distinctive physical features, or recovery circumstances are listed in the available NamUs case data.
The setting of his disappearance adds to the difficulty of understanding what happened after the boating accident. Flaming Gorge is a large recreation area extending through high desert and mountainous terrain, with many boat launches, shorelines, coves, and remote stretches of water. The U.S. Forest Service describes Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area as stretching from Wyoming high desert into Utah’s Uinta Mountains, underscoring the size and challenging terrain of the area where searches would have taken place.
Because Frank was reportedly never recovered despite search efforts, his loved ones were left without the certainty that families deserve after a sudden accident. The public information available does not provide details about the other men involved, the exact location on the reservoir, the type of boat, weather or water conditions, or the specific search agencies and methods used. What is clear is that Frank’s disappearance followed a serious boating incident, and decades later the public record still reflects a painful absence rather than a confirmed recovery.
Last Seen: May 16, 1986
