A woman has claimed to have seen China‘s Loch Ness Monster after spotting a 50-foot-long creature in a small lake.

Captured on footage, Ms Li claims to have seen the bizarre creature while visiting Lake Tianchi in north-western China on August 31.

Ms Li, from Shanghai, said she heard what sounded like a fish splashing in the water. 

She told local media: ‘At first, I thought it might be several fish, but upon closer inspection, it was just one long, silver-coloured creature.

‘It felt like it could be about 15 metres [50 feet] long.’

Phone footage filmed by Li shows the still surface of the lake being disturbed by something swimming underneath and causing waves and ripples.

Pictured is a creature a woman claims is 50-foot-long in Tianchi Lake of Tianshan Mountain, Xinjiang, China

She claimed that the creature was moving in a regular pattern, and it was swimming quite fast.

Staff at the scenic area later responded saying that due to the unclear quality of the video and the lack of a clear description, they could not determine what exactly it was.

The staff added, however, that similar situations have been reported by other tourists in the past, but were also unable to identify the species due to the distance.

They added: ‘Imagination is quite vivid. We hope there really is an aquatic creature that can satisfy everyone’s curiosity, but whether it exists or not is hard to say.’

The staff also noted that known aquatic creatures in Tianchi include rainbow trout, among others. However, none of them exceed three feet long.

In 2020, a similar creature was claimed to have been ‘spotted’ on the surface of the Tian Chi, or ‘Heaven Lake’, at the Changbai Mountain in Jilin Province.

The alpine lake is renowned for having a mysterious beast – the Chinese equivalent to the Loch Ness Monster – said to be first sighted nearly six decades ago. 

The mountain caretaker, Xiao Yu, told MailOnline that he spotted the seven-foot-wide creature while patrolling the scenic spot. 

Eerie footage captured by the employee, Xiao Yu, shows a black round object floating on the surface of the Tian Chi, or ‘Heaven Lake’, at the Changbai Mountain in northeast China

Since the first reported sighting in 1962, dozens of people claimed to have witnessed what is said to be the Heaven Lake monster.

Xiao Yu, who has worked at the Changbai Mountain National Park as a souvenir shop assistant for the past decade, said he saw the unusual object in the middle of the lake.

‘I went to the Heaven Lake to film footage as usual,’ Xiao Yu, 28, told MailOnline. ‘I didn’t notice it at first, but I suddenly saw a black dot.’

The footage, filmed from a viewing platform 500 metres (1,640 feet) above the lake, shows the black circular object remaining still on the water surface.

The park worker can be heard saying: ‘An unknown object appeared at the Heaven Lake. The black spot looks small [on the video] but it is actually fairly big.’

The ‘mysterious beast’ remained visible for several minutes while the mountain caretaker was filming the video. He eventually left and headed back to work.

‘I had similar sightings before but they were clearly fishing boats,’ Xiao Yu added. ‘But this time, I could not tell what it was. It definitely wasn’t a boat.’

The protected lake, covering 4.9 square kilometres (1.9 square miles), lies on the border between China and North Korea.

Source: | This article originally belongs to Dailymail.co.uk