This past weekend, Dale Hanchar set sail on Okanagan Lake without any specific search objectives.
After a few days, he’s now thinking that he might have found one.
On Saturday, he, his wife Colleen, and their friend Myrna Germaine Brown were out on the ocean enjoying an unusually warm day when they noticed something in the water that they couldn’t account for.
Hanchar merely thought to himself, “Is this anything terrible that needs to be marked so someone doesn’t run into it, like a dead head or something like that?” while operating a boat.
He thought about it and said to Myrna and his wife as they walked by, “It didn’t look right, we’ve got to go look at that again.
He turned the boat around and instructed Colleen to get her camera ready.
They were able to move the sailboat to within 10 feet of the target so they could take pictures.
He said, “We were all wondering what that might be.
We briefly discussed it, removed what it wasn’t from our heads, and then just kept moving along, you know?
They didn’t really grasp what was there on the lake, through a little image on a phone, or even by staring straight at it below the water, until they returned home and zoomed in. Then, they were truly baffled.
He claimed that the two nodular objects—or whatever they are—are upright and spaced roughly three feet apart.
I’ve done some research since we shot this picture, and it’s not a plant. There is no kelp in this lake because it is not an ocean. That is, a sturgeon is not.
He argued that it wasn’t a dead animal turned on its side.
You can get rid of all of these things, yet the issue still exists.
He is curious to know whether anyone else spotted it, if it washed up on a shore somewhere, and if it was possibly a lost lawn decoration.
What is something if no one knows what it is and it has completely disappeared? We don’t know,” he said.
Then there is the added problem. Could it be the fabled lake monster Ogopogo, also known by its native name Nxaxitkw? (NN-Ha-Ha-Teek).
Who is to tell that it isn’t exactly that when, in the words of Germaine Brown, “nobody has seen it”?
Even though Adam Benedict’s website advertises itself as an online resource for cryptozoology, midwestern folklore, and old Fortean newspapers, he paused briefly when he initially opened the image.
“What caught my attention were the two that protruded from the surface.
The man said, “You can obviously see its eye just below the surface as well as its beak just at the top of the water line. But as I enlarge the image and zoom in, I can make out what appears to be some kind of aquatic bird making a dive, either just beneath the surface or as it is rising. Whether they are bent or kicking, the two projecting objects on its back are undoubtedly its legs.
He claimed that it is difficult to get past deeply rooted stories in mythology.
One problem, he noted, is that anytime a lake has a track record or a reputation for having something in it, your thoughts will always go to that object first.”
Your mind will immediately turn to, “I can make out the monster. I can see what it is.
He added that if someone were kayaking on a lake that wasn’t associated with a story, things might not turn out the same way.
Hanchar wants to know whether anyone else on Okanagan Lake saw this strange event occur beneath the water, but that doesn’t help.
In that case, might it be you?
Regardless, the photo continues to keep the legend of the mysterious lake monster alive and well..
Ogopogo or a really big bird? A couple from Kelowna notices an odd object beneath the waves.
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