Comments on: New Ogopogo Sighting

By: dogu4

dogu4 — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 14:59:26 +0000

MontanaMtnMan; you are quite correct. Those lakes are distinct for a couple of reasons. The characteristics of the landscape and their geologic histories. In natural history terms Okanogan is similar to other northern fjord lakes, like most of the big lakes of BC and throughout the mountainous west, but include other examples like Champlain, Loch Ness, and numerous others arching across the planet as an enduring outline of the extent of the last great iceage (soon to be returning). That kind of biozone, the periglacial in many respects, is the normal state for much of what we consider to be temperate and moderate as they are now that we’re in a warm interglacial period, geologically speaking.
My contention is that there could be a species that has adapted for millions of years to this kind of periglacial system, sorta like the salmonids are, but whose lifepattern includes long periods buried in the cold mud until some environmental signal wakens it to feed, reproduce or migrate.
Considering the fact that an earthworm species endemic to the Palouse ( one of the few remnants of a bioregion that during the iceage was vast) are reported to be over 3 feet long (some say much longer), it doesn’t seem to be that hard to imagine a aquatic version similarly living by burrowing through sediments but underwater as well. It would explain why we rarely see them.

By: wuffing

wuffing — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 12:41:09 +0000

MontanaMan,
I’m sorry, I didn’t know I had to live there to have a valid opinion. My mistake. I bow to your beliefs.

Wuffing.
(RNLI crew, 40 years experience working on water.)

By: MontanaMtnMan

MontanaMtnMan — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 18:36:30 +0000

After reading some of the comments posted here regarding this sighting, I feel I have to comment myself. I tend to lurk more than I comment, but sometimes I just can’t stand to keep my trap shut. No offense intended, but if you’ve never been to Lake Okanagan, then you might not want to make assumptions on what was seen. I myself, have been to the lake many times as I live reasonably close to BC and the lake itself. Our large lakes on the west coast or western inland empire of Canada and the US are completely different from those you find in the east. Totally different geography, geology and ecology. The air is so clear in this part of the world ( as is the water in most cases ) that you actually can see for miles with clarity. We also don’t have the higher humidity that the east does, and this contributes to the clarity of the air as well. The land is also not very flat. It is mountainous and/or very hilly, giving excellent vantage points. Ogopogo has been sighted in this lake for centuries. There are pictographs etc. that are hundreds if not thousands of years old depicting this creature and they all are similar. There was no ‘boat wake’ in those days and people know what a sturgeon is and isn’t. Really, all I’m trying to say is; try not to be so skeptical that you blind yourself. I truly believe Ogopogo exists just as I believe that Sasquatch roams the vast evergreen forests of the Pacific NW and the Rocky Mountains. I have good reason to. Visit Montana and the surrounding states and provinces. You’ll understand what I mean. Thanks for listening and take care all.

By: dogu4

dogu4 — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 15:35:36 +0000

No disprespect to those who reported these phenomenon, and I acknowledge there’s no way I can see what they did, but their claim that there were no other boats of the lake should imply “as far as they could see from where they stood”. That lake is about 2 to 3 miles wide and 80 miles long. I know that even when on a perfectly calm lake of that size, from the heighth of a pier or deck of a boat you can easily fail to see a pretty good sized boats travelling even if you can see houses up above the shorline or even more distant features that seem crisp and sharp to one’s senses. Human eyesight and our ability to interpret it, is pretty amazing but we do tend to overrely on its presumed acuity but it doesn’t really measure up all that well.

By: alanborky

alanborky — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 08:50:51 +0000

wuffing, I once found myself in the company of a bunch of people who were verbally battering another individual because he’d dared to admit he thought lake monsters, Bigfoot, UFOs might be a possibility.

These guys were smart, had degrees, and verbally very quick, and this guy was a lowly porter known not to have a single qualification to his name, so when he not only refused to be intimidated by their obviously superior intelligence, education and insight but even dared to admit he’d seen a ghost and a UFO they went to town on him.

In the end I couldn’t resist the temptation to interject that I’d once seen a glowing rock hovering in the sky.

Well that was it, they threw everything they had at me: one of them with a degree in physics, threw the the laws of physics at me; another with an astronomy degree recited every authority going why what I’d said was impossible.

Then, after about ten minutes of all this ‘proving’ – at an almost “Burn the witch! Burn the heretic!” pitch of hysteria – the girlfriend of one them suddenly realised why I wasn’t bothering to defend myself, “Oh, he means the Moon.”

The point being, have you ever asked yourself why some people – and maybe yourself – feel the irresistible NEED to trash such anecdotal accounts?

If you told someone, “I’ve just seen the most beautiful girl/guy…”, wouldn’t you consider it a little strange if they vehemently proclaimed, “O, no you didn’t – the sun dazzled your vision/your hair was in your eyes/you were confusing the person’s face with the poster of a supermodel out the corner of your eye…etc., etc.,”?

If you’d shown the commenter a picture or a video of the allegedly ‘beautiful’ person – i.e., something they could evaluate with their own eyes – or they were there themselves, then fair enough.

But if they had nothing to go on, but still insisted you were wrong, wouldn’t you feel they were not only insulting your intelligence but also implying their own intelligence was so superior they didn’t even have to be there to know better than you?

By: HF

HF — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 05:54:00 +0000

I spoke with Wendy Sanderson personally and she seemed very sincere to me. I am quite confident that her account is authentic and it appears to have made quite an impact on her.

By: JGreg

JGreg — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 02:04:40 +0000

Wuffing, your assertion that the creature/wake had to be moving directly away from the witness is nothing more than a red herring (or red Ogopogo). Nothing in the post says anything about the creature/wake being straight out from the dock. It could as easly have been traversing the lake somewhat to the North or South of the witnesses allowing for something of a side view while still maintaining the westerly heading reported. In any event, they were there and neither you nor I were so I am inclined to cut them a little slack.

By: springheeledjack

springheeledjack — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 02:03:50 +0000

Boat wakes are the classic fall back on this kind of stuff, but again, as has been said and by the witness: the lake was mirror calm and there were no boats…no wakes. If there were wakes out in the middle there would have to be wakes elsewhere too…they don’t localize to just one location on a surface of a body of water…they spread out from the source and continue moving on either side.

As for the details…yeah, again too little to really say much, other than catalogue a possible sighting for future reference.

I question the distance thing…really a mile out? I don’t think, without the aid of binoculars you could get any kind of detail on anything a mile off…that is some serious distance for eyes and I doubt whether they could have seen anything other than a blur of dark color at a distance of a mile…for the teacher to say it was 30 feet (again questionable), and that there were 2-3 humps…makes me think they were a lot closer than a mile.

Also, neeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeed way more details…she said it was snake like…why? Was it the movement, the color, the shape, or something else or all of those that made her think snake? That is the aggravating part about eye witness accounts, AND why you have to investigate further than the initial report to get details.

Was it Ogo? Who knows…but without more info, it can’t be defined as a sturgeon or a boat wake and case closed…that’s sloppy investigating too.

By: archer1945

archer1945 — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 01:10:42 +0000

One thing I will almost guarantee it was not is a sturgeon, not matter how big you want to make it. Sturgeon do not swim with their back making humps in the water. They are bottom feeders and rarely come to the surface; though some will, for unknown reasons, leap out of the water.

By: DWA

DWA — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 00:21:32 +0000

Slight reality check here.

Other than the lake being totally calm and no boats (she said and I quote “there wasn’t a single boat on the lake,” I don’t think that the reactions of bystanders LIVING BY A LAKE are going to be as noted here for your standard-issue water disturbance. Or critter for that matter.

Based on what we have here, there are two kneejerk responses I try to avoid. One is “MONSTER!!!!!” The other is “NUT, HYSTERICAL WOMAN (AREN’T THEY CUTE) OR OTHER STANDARD-ISSUE SCOFTICAL STANDBY!!!!!”

I like to wait for more evidence before I pronounce people of whom I know nothing nuts, hysterical, silly or otherwise. Or sober, for that matter. I also refrain from positing anything – that is anything, of any kind – on this little evidence. That kind of hipshooting is something crypto needs to avoid.