Ogopogo
 Ogopogo statue in Kelowna, British Columbia
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| Sub grouping | Lake monster |
|---|---|
| Other name(s) | N'ha·a·itk, Naitaka |
| Country | Canada |
| Region |
Lake Okanagan, British Columbia |
| Habitat | Water |
Coordinates: 49°32′50″N 119°35′44″W / 49.54722°N 119.59556°W
In Canadian folklore, Ogopogo or Naitaka (Salish: n'ha-a-itk, "lake demon") is a lake monster reported to live in Okanagan Lake, in British Columbia, Canada. Ogopogo has been allegedly seen by First Nations people since the 19th century. The most common description of Ogopogo is a 40 to 50-foot-long (12 to 15 m) sea serpent. Skeptic Benjamin Radford notes that “these First Nations stories were not referring to a literal lake monster like Ogopogo, but instead to a legendary water spirit.”
In 1926, a sighting is claimed to have occurred at an Okanagan Mission beach. This event was supposedly witnessed by about thirty cars of people who all claimed to have seen the same thing. In 1968, Art Folden filmed what is claimed to be footage of the alleged creature, showing a large wake moving across the water. A computer analysis of the footage concluded it was a solid, three-dimensional object. Folden noticed "something large and lifelike"; in the distance out on the calm water and pulled out his home movie camera to capture the object. An investigation conducted by Benjamin Radford with Joe Nickell and John Kirk for the National Geographic Channel TV show Is It Real?, in 2005 revealed that the object Folden filmed was indeed a real animal but its size had been greatly overestimated. It was probably a water fowl or beaver too far away to be identified.
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