Kanas Lake Monster in Xinjiang

A diving team is being sent to Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous region to find "monsters" living in the Kanas Lake. Kanas Lake is locating on Xinjiang's Altai Mountain. It is famous as a beauty spot and for its legendary monsters.Early this week, a group of Beijing tourists boating on the lake, saw and filmed two unidentified creatures about 10 meters long.

The team will be dispatched in July at a cost of 1.5million yuan, or 180,000 US dollars. But some are skeptical that they will uncover a monster's lair.

The director of Xinjiang Ecology Institute Yuan Guoying says after 20 years of study he believes the so-called "Lake Monster" is a type of large fish called a Hucho taimen. He says the lake's cold water could have made it grow very large.

As early as 1987, teams of experts have come to explore the riddle of the "lake monster". They discovered a large school of fish including 30 to 40 huge red fish which were three to four meters long.

What is China's Kanas Lake monster?
Kanas Lake, a freshwater lake, is situated in a valley of Altai mountain in Xinjiang Uyghur autonomous region in north-west China.  Nearby villagers believe that a giant mysterious creature, knonwn as the Kanas Lake monster
 (喀斯湖水怪), lives in the 390ft deep lake. It's claimed that the beast, often likened to the Loch Ness monster in Scotland, would occasionally emerge to drag horses into the water before eating them. 

Kanas Lake monster, pictured, has been a myth as shadows and waves shot in videosThe first official sighting of the Kanas Lake monster in China was reported in 1980 by state-run Guangming Daily, causing an outcry in the nation.The report described a mysterious shadow and waves appearing in the middle of the lake. The alleged monster has since lured thousands of visitors to visit the scenic spot. Environmental protection expert Yuan Guoying firmly believed the allegedly monster is a group of Siberian giant trouts, a species belonging to the salmon family. He said the lake is habitable for the species. He explained the waves occur when the trouts hunt and chase after small fish in the lake.Apparent sightings of the Kanas Lake monster were reported in 2009, 2011, 2014, 2016 and last year.