New Ogopogo Sighting

Wendy Sanderson and Gordon Krug say they had a sighting on July 9, 2009, of a “snake-like creature” in Okanagan Lake, British Columbia, which some are relating to Ogopogo.

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. Kelowna Daily News

Wendy Sanderson sent a letter to another newspaper, about her sighting. She said: “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.”

Thanks to GJ and SS for this new info.

++++

Recently, I learned from Darren Naish and John Kirk of some sad news. It is with a heavy heart I pass along that Ogopogo and Cadborosaurus researcher, the retired Royal British Columbia Museum marine biologist Dr. Edward Bousfield has lost his wife, the former Joyce Burton of Ottawa, in May 2009. My deepest condolences to Ed and his family.

Loren Coleman About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct). Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015. Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.

Email • Facebook • Twitter •