Case file · Cryptid
Folden film of Ogopogo
In August 1968 Art Folden filmed a large dark shape moving through the water of Okanagan Lake near Peachland, B.C.; the clip is the best-known Ogopogo footage.
1968 CE · 49.77, -119.73 · status: disputed
The account
He filmed it from a hillside off the highway, and it was later shown on TV documentaries, where analysts estimated the object's size.
The sceptical view
With no fixed scale, the object could be a swimming animal, a boat wake or a log; analysts disagree on its size.
The researched reading
The best-known Ogopogo film shows something real moving in the water, but without scale it fits a wake, a log or a swimming animal far better than a monster.
| Explanation | Weight | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Something known, misidentified | 50% | Without a scale, the dark shape could be a boat wake, a swimming beaver, otter, deer or large sturgeon-like fish, or a log in a current; Okanagan Lake produces standing waves and wakes that look like humps. Benjamin Radford and Joe Nickell found the footage gives no reliable size. |
| A cultural story | 18% | The film fits the Ogopogo legend (drawn partly from the Syilx N’ha-a-itk tradition), which tells viewers what to see in an ambiguous shape. |
| An unknown or out-of-place animal | 8% | A large unknown animal in a cold, recently glaciated lake lacks a food chain to support a breeding population, but the film itself does not exclude a large animal. |
| A hoax or fabrication | 8% | Folden was not known to profit, but a towed object cannot be excluded from a distant clip. |
| Undetermined | 8% | The share a generic explanation had beyond what has been shown for this case: it fits many cases like this one, but has not been demonstrated for this one. |
| Perception, memory or mind | 6% | Expectation of a monster inflates estimates of size and speed. |
| Genuinely anomalous | 2% | A blurry shape in water needs nothing beyond known animals and waves. |
Official position: No official investigation; analysts disagree on its size, and sceptics see a boat wake or a known animal.