Three in Three Weeks: The Okanagan Lake Ogopogo Sightings of September 2018

Okanagan Lake, in British Columbia, is home to the legend of Ogopogo. In Kelowna, researcher Bill Steciuk collects the reports on his site, ogopogoquest.com. By his account, sightings tend to "happen between the last week of August and the first week of October." September 2018 kept to the pattern.

Friday, 7 September 2018. A sunny day at the beach near Bear Creek Provincial Park, in West Kelowna. David Halbauer of Kelowna was there with his brother Keith, visiting from Edmonton, and both families. Then a long and dark snake-like shape emerged from the water. About 100 metres offshore. Halbauer described a "black form." Cylindrical. "It rolled up and down as it went in the water." Another lump came up about five metres ahead of it.

Keith did not know what it was. "But then I saw waves behind it." The rest of the lake was calm. David filmed on his phone. His wife filmed too, but caught only his back. The men put it at about 15 metres, or 50 feet. "I don't think I could put my arms around it," Halbauer said. After about two minutes, it went under near a log boom.

"When you're sitting on the beach on a sunny day, you don't expect to see a dinosaur coming out of the water."

Steciuk soon logged two more reports. On 18 September, around 9 a.m., a man identified as Martin Z. was working on the 22nd floor of a Kelowna highrise. "It looked like a giant snake breaching out of the water," he wrote. He estimated it at "approx. 30-50 feet." Then "the waves almost instantly vanished and the water went calm." Another report came from a condo balcony in the 4000-block of Lakeshore Road. Steciuk's verdict: "three in three weeks: Totally amazing."

His log held more. On 9 September, amateur photographer Andrew Stark saw "a large moving object" rear out of the lake at Bluebird Bay. He took a picture. On 28 September, near Kelowna General Hospital, Breyden H. saw something "raise a fairly long neck and head out of the water." Jet-black, with very smooth skin. He sent in a drawing. On 30 September, Katrina T. watched something swim from the middle of the lake toward the Peachland shoreline. "It was making huge splashes."

Halbauer's clip is shaky. There are expletives, a Pink Floyd song and heavy glare. Still, Global News saw glimpses "of something definitively long and dark." It became Global BC's most-watched video of 2018, with viewers "divided on what they did or didn't see."

No government body investigated. Global News noted the sighting "could have been a rogue wave," and that the size estimate changed as the men retold the story. Stark called his own photo "just a weird wave," though believers see a ridged back in it. For an earlier video from 2011, Benjamin Radford suggested floating logs.

Steciuk sees a living animal. He believes the lake holds a large snake-like species. "The theory is, that eons ago, this lake was open to the ocean." Less boat traffic and changing water temperatures were offered as reasons for the September cluster.

The story travelled far. news.com.au, the NZ Herald, Fox News, Dawn in Pakistan and Singular Fortean all carried it. No hoax claim has been made against any of the 2018 reports. What remains is a sunny Friday, a shaky phone video and a calm lake with waves behind something long and dark.