Arlene Gaal was born and raised in a coal-mining town in southeastern British Columbia. In 1968 she and her husband, Joe, along with their three children moved to Kelowna, located on Lake Okanagan in central British Columbia, and home to the famous Ogopogo. There, Gaal would make a life for herself as a teacher by profession and author/journalist by choice. She has written a weekly column for the Kelowna Daily Courier for the last twenty-three years.
Gaal soon began tracking the many sightings of the creature in Lake Okanagan. Her intense search led her to the first film footage taken of the animal, the so-called Folden film, which she purchased, and to write her first book, Beneath the Depths, in 1976. Soon after, Alan Landsburg Productions from Los Angeles arrived to shoot the first program at Lake Okanagan, In Search of Ogopogo, for which Gaal served as a consultant.
Gaal became the reponing station for sightings of Ogopogo, and as the years progressed, the data accumulated would easily fill a moderate-sized room. NO( only did she document sightings, but she made certain that any film, video, or still photos were preserved. In 1984 Hancock House Publishers issued her Ogopogo, the Million Dollar Monster.
In 1990 and 1991, Tokyo's Nippon Television hired Gaal as a consultant to two productions shot on Lake Okanagan. Helicopters and submersibles searched for the creature. Video footage and sonar readings captured images that seemed to be of Ogopogo. Gaal was present for both.
Gaal has been awarded a lifetime honorary membership in the British Columbia Scienti6c Cryptozoology Club.
SEE ALSO:
SOURCE:
The Encyclopedia of Loch Monsters,Sasquatch, Chupacabras, and Other Authentic Mysteries of Nature
Written by Loren Coleman and Jerome Clark – Copyright 1999 Loren Coleman and Jerome Clark