The day I saw Ogopogo

I've lurked here a long time, and been a mostly non-contributing member here, and in society as a whole, for a while now (some of you people are a bit, well, scary), but I've decided to talk about the topic that initially drew me to this fine website.

*disclaimer: this happened in 1976, almost 30 years ago. I was very young, around 5 years old at the time. Therefore, my recollection of this is not as clear as it could be. But, I believed then, and still do today, that I saw Ogopogo.

I grew up in Vernon, a town on the northern end of Okanagan Lake, in an area known as Okanagan Landing. Our house was right on the lakeshore, and we had a long dock for a boat. Fishing off the end of the dock for 'sucker' fish (I don't know what they were, they just looked like they were sucking), was one of my favourite things to do back then. One morning, I gathered up my pepperoni sticks for bait (no wonder I didn't catch much), grabbed my rod and bucket and headed outside. I remember it was raining, not hard, just drizzling and it was gray and on the cold side, early fall. I went down to the end of the dock, and started fishing. Well, sort of. I never caught anything, probably due to my choice of bait. After about an hour, my dad called me for breakfast. I ignored him as usual, and he came out to the dock to get me. When he came up behind me, he said my name. When I turned around, he whispered 'look out on the lake'. I turned around, and swimming across the lake was a big dark bluey-grey snake thing, with 'humps' sticking out of the water. We both just stood there silently (a particular struggle for me at that age) and watched until it swam out of sight. The things I remember clearest are the colour (dark blue grey), the way s/he moved through the water, like a snake only up and down, not side to side, and the fact that it was really frickin big.

So that's my story, for the most part. I've asked my father for his version of events, aware that kids have a very active imagination at that age, but he insists that it happened the way I remember it.

Cool thanks for sharing your story its very interesting. I have always found the stories of Ogopogo and Champ very interesting as they go so far back even back to the Native Americans.

Some people claim the humps are the back of a large sturgeon but this would not explain the undulation motion like you described. I always thought it might be a giant or perhaps unknown type of eel.

Was the color like this at all?

I think I should have said grey-blue instead of blue-grey, if you know what I mean. Like when black has a blue undertone. And a steely-type dark grey. I want to say blue steel, but not real shiny. I don't know if that is the best description, hard to put into words. I'll have to try and find a pic with the colour I'm thinking of.

Ok, it was more like this picture, only darker and heavier on the grey. Same kind of non-shiny surface, but a different texture.




I only wish I had been closer, so I could have gotten a better look. But not too close.

A theory that I kind of like is that all the sea/lake creatures (whatever they are) come from the same place, and migrate around through underground caverns, so they don't exhaust their feeding grounds. These are very deep lakes and who knows what is down there at 800 - 1000 feet. That can also explain why there are sometimes such large periods of time between sightings.

It could be a giant eel, really giant. Look at that monster squid they pulled out of the ocean. It was like something out of a horror movie!

Thanks for posting. I have no problem believing in your underground cavern theory. Once while on vacation and fishing an unknown lake in Southern Michigan I found jellyfish about the size of an adults thumb nail living in the lake. I have never, before or since, heard of freshwater jellyfish.

I would love to see something like that someday must have been shocking, amazing and a bit scary all at the same time. I really think there is alot we dont know about the deep ocean and lakes, We have only seen a small fraction of it.

It was an amazing thing to have happen. And, in a way, I'm glad it happened when I was that young. At that age, I didn't know about all the theories and controversies surrounding these creatures, so I was able to see it without having read any descriptions. I had been exposed to the legend like anyone who grows up in the area, but it was limited to 'there is a giant lake creature, if you leave him alone, he'll leave you alone' and a mascot that looked like a happy green dragon. The various native bands in the area explained to the settlers when they moved in that, like Greta Garbo, Ogie just wants to be left alone. So for me, he wasn't frightening. I did however, get very scared that a mutant giant shark would follow an underground river into the lake after I saw Jaws. Looking back now, that's kind of funny, I was more scared of a robot shark named Bruce that didn't even work half the time, than I was of Ogopogo. But that's how we feel about him in the valley. He's just trying to survive like the rest of us, and the only time he hurt anyone was when he felt threatened, like any animal will do.

I agree that there is a whole other world to discover deep, deep, deep down in the ocean, I just hope we get the chance to explore the ocean more fully. It's truly amazing how much we still don't know about the planet we live on.

Have you ever seen Ogopogo again or ever returned to the lake to try and take a picture? Id like to see a picture of this thing. I love all that lockness stuff

No, just that one time. But I never stopped looking. It's the kind of thing you can't really discuss casually with people who didn't grow up with the legends. They tend to think you're a bit off. Though I'm not native, I was lucky enough to spend my summers at a cabin on the Okanagan Reserve, and got to know the family who leased us the property. I also had several friends that lived on reserve, as they bus into Vernon for school. I told them I saw him and they were just like, big deal, everybody's seen him. Why can't you people just leave him alone, they wanted to know. I would hazzard a guess that most people that have been in the valley for a long time just accept the fact that he's real, and don't ever give it another thought. And I also think sightings are a lot more common that reported. The only people who really get excited about it are tourists.

As for actually getting a picture of Ogie, I'm of two minds on that one. One the one hand, it would be amazing for the proof to be out there so that instead of debating 'if' we could debate 'why' and 'how'. The flip side of that is that in doing so, you would most certainly be the cause of the creatures death. While there have been searches and rewards, I think if there were actual proof of he exists, he would be hunted down mercilessly, killed, disected, studied, and then stuffed and mounted in a museum for people to come stare and point at. Kelowna city counsellors have been having wet dreams over that one for years.

Here's a supposed picture of the famous "Ogopogo" monster in canada. I'm a bit skeptical of these sightings, seeing that the way in which the currents and waves move, they can trick your eyes into seeing some stange things. Another explaination for these sightings can also be attributed to drifting logs that have fallen into the lake.

I kinda believe there is an undiscovered species swimming around out there ...
But, that could be anything in that picture .... lol ...

I think some of the problem getting a good photo which shows enough clarity and detail, besides the sheer luck of actually having your camera on you while seeing Ogopogo, is the fact that he actually moves very quickly and he avoids people like the plague. In the time it would take you to notice him, realized what you were seeing, dropped whatever you were doing (usually boating or driving down the highway, so it would take a few seconds to stop safely), grabbed your camera and started taking pictures, he is already submerging, because he has noticed you. As for him looking like a log or waves, there are probably lots of people who have made that mistake, wanting to see something so badly they can convince themselves. I can only say what I saw, and the only similarities between the picture posted and that is the landscape (I'm guessing Kelowna or Westbank) and that I can maybe see some of the same kind of bluey colour if I squint hard (quite similar to the picture ShadowXIX posted, actually). In my sighting a signifigant portion of his body was above the waterline, clearly showing humps and his head and neck were visible. And his speed was such that if he was a very large, oddly shaped log bouncing in the waves, it must have been a very large, oddly shaped log bouncing in the waves while being towed by a very large, powerful, silent, invisible boat. Which would also be very cool, and worthy of its own thread in Science & Technology, or even Weaponry.