Ogopogo

Otter Nonsense

Otters, of course, are responsible for a few misidentifications of Lake Monsters in bodies of water worldwide. In my The Field Guide to Lake Monsters, Sea Serpents, and Other Mystery Denizens of the Deep (co-authored by Patrick Huyghe), the fact that people do make mistakes when viewing mundane mammals on lakes and lochs is acknowledged. Otters, nevertheless, have never been seen as the root of all Lake Monsters accounts, as seemed to be expressed on CNN’s “Paula Zahn Now” last week by the guest skeptic. Otters are hardly in vogue any longer. Even Bernard Heuvelmans’ theory of the “super-otters,” as [...]

Horse-headed Sea Serpent Seen

Published in a California newspaper: Sea Serpents Visits the Indians Up North Victoria [British Columbia], April 14. — Officials of the cabin station at Bamfield are speaking of the story that a sea serpent from forty to sixty feet long and with a head like a horse has been seen off the station. The cabin operators say, in letters to the local newspapers, that Indians had been telling of the existence of a sea serpent, but the stories were not credited. David Osborne, one of the officials, says that a week ago the animal was seen from the cable station [...]

Harry Horse, The Ogopogo Author & Atlantis Rising Cartoonist Dies

The author of The Opopogo – My Journey with the Loch Ness Monster, Harry Horse, 46 (real name: Richard Horne), his dog Roo, other pets, and his ill wife Mandy, 39, have all died in an apparent mass suicide. The Scotsman is reporting on January 11, 2007, that Horne, his wife (multiple sclerosis saw her confined to a wheelchair at 39), and their pets were found Papil, on Burra, Scotland, on January 9, victims of an apparent assisted suicide and suicide pact. Richard Horne, better known as Harry Horse, a famed children’s book illustrator, author, and cartoonist of the bizarre [...]

Ogopogo Photo Reward

$500 Reward Offered for Picture of Sea Serpent Monster With Sheep’s Head Often Seen in Okanogan Lake, British Columbia. Okanogan, Wash. [sic] — With a standing offer of $500 for a snapshot of the strange creature noticed repeatedly in Okanogan lake, across the line to Canada, local residents and many adventurers are living along the shores watching daily for the expected appearance of Ogopogo, as Indians have designated the monster. The sea serpent report emanating from the northern lake is not a fairy tale, for affidavits of well known people are on file at Vernon, B.C., to prove they observed [...]