is a legendary Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

ese lake monster

Lake monster

A lake monster or loch monster is a purported form of fresh-water-dwelling megafauna appearing in mythology, rumor, or local folklore, but whose existence lacks scientific support. A well known example is the Loch Ness Monster. Lake monsters' depictions are often similar to some sea monsters...

; said to lurk in Lake Ikeda

Lake Ikeda

is a caldera lake located 40 km south of Kagoshima city; Kyūshū island, Japan. It is perhaps best known to tourists as the location of the purported sightings of a monster named Issie, and as the largest lake on Kyūshū island with a surface area of 11 km² and a shoreline length of...

, on Kyushu Island. It is described as being saurian in appearance. The name is formed in analogy with "Nessie" (the Loch Ness Monster

Loch Ness Monster

The Loch Ness Monster is a cryptid that is reputed to inhabit Loch Ness in the Scottish Highlands. It is similar to other supposed lake monsters in Scotland and elsewhere, though its description varies from one account to the next....

).

Mythology

According to mythology

Mythology

The term mythology can refer either to the study of myths, or to a body or collection of myths. As examples, comparative mythology is the study of connections between myths from different cultures, whereas Greek mythology is the body of myths from ancient Greece...

, Issie was a white mare which had a little foal, and they lived together on the shore of Lake Ikeda. However, when the foal was kidnapped by a samurai

Samurai

is the term for the military nobility of pre-industrial Japan. According to translator William Scott Wilson: "In Chinese, the character 侍 was originally a verb meaning to wait upon or accompany a person in the upper ranks of society, and this is also true of the original term in Japanese, saburau...

, and Issie was unable to find it, she jumped into the lake, and her despair transformed her into a giant, saurian beast, which since then frequently surfaces, trying to find her lost child.

Evidence

The creature was reportedly photographed in 1978, by a man who went by the name "Mr. Matsubara". Twenty other people reportedly also saw the creature in 1978, which they described as as black and about 5 meters long, swimming in the lake water. In 1991, another visitor to the lake caught video footage

Footage

In filmmaking and video production, footage is the raw, unedited material as it had been originally filmed by movie camera or recorded by a video camera which usually must be edited to create a motion picture, video clip, television show or similar completed work...

 supposedly of a bizarre-looking creature estimated to be 30 meters in length.

In popular culture

In Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack

Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack

is a 2001 science fiction kaiju film co-written and directed by Shūsuke Kaneko with a very catchy name. It was the twenty-fifth film to be released in the Godzilla film series. This is the eleventh film to feature Mothra, sixth to feature King Ghidorah, and third to feature Baragon. It is part of...

, Issie is revealed to be the larva Mothra

Mothra

is a kaiju, a type of fictional monster who first appeared in the serialized novel The Luminous Fairies and Mothra by Takehiko Fukunaga, Shinichiro Nakamura, and Yoshie Hotta...

, who cocoons into an adult.