A new sighting of the legendary Ogopogo was reported recently:
“It is true, it does exist, I saw it with my own eyes,” says a Kelowna boater of a surprise experience with Ogopogo.
Two women enjoying the sun and some fun time on the water had the scare of their life when they say Ogopogo swam near their boat.
“It was a huge snake, I saw it, I saw the head. It was two feet thick and it was like 50-feet long. I could not believe it,” says Suzie St-Cyr Cowley.
The “Ogopogo” was spotted about 1,000 feet off shore in front of Quails Gate Winery on the westside. She says it was heading south in the lake.
“I could not believe it,” says St-Cyr Cowley. “I was afraid because we were so close and I wanted to move my boat away. I was screaming “Oh my god, that's Ogopogo! It was so big.”
St-Cyr Cowley has been boating on Okanagan Lake since 2008, and says she has never seen anything like this before – she thought it was just a legend.
“I thought it was just a story,” says St-Cyr Cowley. “But, it is true, it does exist, I saw it with my own eyes.”
Her friend, Marie Letourneau, had just arrived in town from Quebec for her first vacation in Kelowna and had never heard of Ogopogo. Letourneau was the first to see the creature and didn't know what she was seeing.
“She was just yelling “Suzie, Suzie, there's a big thing”, and I turned around and couldn't believe it.”
She says because they were so in shock, and quite afraid it would go under the boat, they forgot to grab a photo or take video.
“I yelled at her 'Did you take a picture?' but we both were so surprised,” says St-Cyr Cowley. “We could not believe our eyes. I turned around and saw the back and saw the head and it just went down. We are so sad we didn't take a picture.”
The women claim Ogie was very long and snake-like and had five curves along its back.
“It does exist, I saw it with my own eyes. I see it and now I believe it,” says an adamant St-Cyr Cowley. “I am sure he is around.” - CastANet
So what are people seeing? Here's another account from 2009:
Large Snake-Like Creature Spotted in Okanagan Lake
Wendy Sanderson, 41, who has lived in Kelowna since she was four, and Krug, an Edmonton welding teacher, were both at the Okanagan Centre boat dock at 10:30 a.m. Thursday because family members were taking a scuba diving course.
“There wasn‘t a single boat on the lake. It was completely calm, absolutely perfect, just the most pristine conditions for this viewing we had,” said Sanderson.
“I‘m not saying I saw Ogopogo. I‘m saying that I saw a big-ass snake-like creature in the lake. It scared the bejeezus out of me. It is creeping me out.”
Now, she‘s concerned about allowing her 13-year-old son, Kurtis, to scuba dive as deep as 30 metres near the Bennett Bridge in a couple of weeks.
“It was so huge; I would have said over 30 feet. I‘m thinking, a good three feet out of the water. It formed two to three humps at the same time as it was swimming or slithering from the east to the west across the middle of the lake. For three minutes, we watched it and then it was gone. It was the most amazing thing we ever saw.”
A 22-year-old man fishing off the dock was so surprised he dropped his fishing rod.
“The welding teacher was pacing up and down the dock, screaming at everybody that would listen. He wanted everybody to experience it. I just watched. I had my cell phone on the beach, but I didn‘t even run for it to take a picture. I just wanted to watch,” said Sanderson.
The creature she saw was too large for any snake ever documented by scientists, she said.
“A lot of people are saying: ’Wendy, what if that was a group of sturgeons?‘ There‘s no way they could have been that synchronized while swimming. I‘ve been looking up sturgeon and those are fish. They can‘t form perfect humps out of the water to be able to pull off what we saw. There‘s no way.”
“Our giant sturgeon?” responded Krug with a laugh when asked about the sighting.
“About a mile out from us was distinctively what you would say Ogopogo is. There‘s three humps, right? The more we watched it and watched it and watched it, you could see how mistakes have been made over hundreds of years,” Krug said.
“It appeared to be a giant sturgeon. As it went in and out of the water, there were three humps. I‘m convinced it was a sturgeon,” he said, despite the lack of any evidence of sturgeon in Okanagan Lake.
“What else could it be? Whatever it was, it was definitely there. There was something in the water that was definitely cool, really neat. Because of the way it was coming out of the water, it appeared to have three humps. It was massive, I‘d say 30 feet long,” he said.
“It was absolutely dead calm.
“We were a mile back and you could clearly see the way water was moving around it. You could see it moving in the water and the way the water was affected by it.”
Ogopogo?
“I don‘t want to be called a freak in public,” Krug said with another laugh.
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NOTE: Sanderson forwarded the following letter to another British Colombia newspaper:
To the editor:
I feel compelled to let you know this exciting news story that should be documented for historical purposes.
I know that this is interesting timing considering the recent findings concerning Ogopogo, but here is my true story.
I am 41 years old and have lived in Kelowna since I was age four.
Recently, I actually witnessed the most incredible sight in Okanagan Lake.
From a distance, I saw a large snake-like creature at the surface of the lake for about three minutes.
It was probably 30 feet long and as it slithered across the lake, it made humps at the surface.
I believe that this was a once in a lifetime opportunity that I shared with two other witnesses that I met on the dock at the Okanagan Centre boat launch.
We stood there together for that moment in absolute amazement. We do not have proof of this sighting, but we know what we saw and we shared it together.
Wendy Sanderson,
Kelowna
NOTE: More information on Ogopogo can be found at:
Has Ogopogo Been Spotted on Google Earth?
Ogopogo Spotted on Google Earth? - Another Perspective
Ogopogo Tissue Sample?
In Search of Ogopogo: Sacred Creature of the Okanagan Waters
North American Lake Monsters: Stories
Field Guide to Lake Monsters, Sea Serpents, and Other Mystery Denizensof the Dee
American Monsters: A History of Monster Lore, Legends, and Sightings in America
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