Case file · Cryptid
The Lake Khaiyr monster
A Moscow University survey team's deputy leader, N. Gladkikh, said he saw an animal with a small head on a long gleaming neck come ashore at a remote Yakut lake.
1964 CE · 70.78, 133.47 · status: hoax
The account
Komsomolskaya Pravda published the story and others in the team were said to have seen it later. The lake has few fish and lies in permafrost country north of the Arctic Circle.
The sceptical view
Later Russian press reports said Gladkikh was a hired worker, not a scientist, and admitted inventing the story to entertain himself and his friends.