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Stories of a large unknown creature living in Lake Kanasi, China go back as far as the Ancient Chinese Mongolians. Lake Kanasi its self is over 200,000 years old, roughly 600 feet deep and more than 4,000 feet up in the Kanasi nature reserve in Xinjiang’s northernmost tip. Sightings often describe the creature as a huge red fish measuring 30 to 50 feet in length and weighting more than 4 tons.

In 1980, Yuan Guoying, a researcher at the Xinjiang Institute of Environmental Protection, and a team of 150 experts launched the first scientific study of the lake’s environment, including its diverse flora and fauna. It was hear that Yuan first heard the ancient legend of the monsters in Lake Kanasi from Chinese Mongolians, known as the Tuwa people, living in the area. Though Yuan did not see the monster during this first expedition the stories intrigued him so much that in 1985 he headed a second team to the lake, this time to study environmental protection and to search for the creatures of the Tuwa myth.

Shortly into the first day of study Yuan had his first sightings of the creatures, he described them as looking something like tadpoles coming up for air, they had huge eyes and mouths which gaped open. After weeks of study Yuan and his team discovered dozens of huge red fish living in the lake, some as long as 50 feet. However in 1989, Yuan’s discovery of a new species of giant fish was rejected by a group of scientists who concluded that what he had discovered was a type of giant salmon, known as Taimen salmon, that thrives in deep frigid waters.

Jaing Zuofa, a professor at the Heilongjiang Aquatic Research Institute in northeastern China, has no doubt that the so called lake monster is a kind of Taimen salmon. In a telephone interview Jaing told reporters that he and his fellow researchers believed Taimen salmon to be capable of eating chickens, geese and sheep. Yuan counters this theory with the fact that the largest Taimen salmon scientists have ever captured was just over 12 feet long and weighted roughly 220 pounds and the biggest caught in Lake Kanasi was only 4 feet, 9 inches in length.

Though some visual evidence has been captured of the Lake Kanasi Monster, including several photos taken by Yuan, showing several large forms clustered near shore, and a video footage filmed in June by a German tourist, showing frenzied bubbles in the water, eyewitness reports remain the largest contributors to the creature’s legend. The latest of these eyewitness accounts was reported in 2003 when an earthquake struck the area, witnesses in a boat claimed to have seen a silhouette as long as 70 feet leap from the water during the height of the quake.

In 2005, Yuan Guoying returned to Lake Kanasi in hopes of catching a glimpse of the creature on the 20th anniversary of his first sighting. Though he and his small team did not see anything during his first night on the lake Yuan, who has now written two books and numerous essays on subject, hasn’t given up hope on seeing the creature again. On the last day of his visit Yuan and his group hiked up to the fish viewing pavilion perched high on a mountain overlooking the lake. However no sightings of the monster fish were to be had that day and the mystery monster of Lake Kanasi remains just that, a mystery.

The Evidence
No physical evidence of the Lake Kanasi Monster has been discovered to this day.

The Sightings
In 1985, Yuan Guoying, a researcher at the Xinjiang Institute of Environmental Protection, sighted the Lake Kanasi Monster in the lake.

The Stats– (Where applicable)
• Classification: Lake Monster
• Size: 30 to 50 feet long
• Weight: Roughly 4 tons
• Diet: Carnivorous
• Location: Lake Kanasi, China
• Movement: Swimming
• Environment: Lake bottom