DOZENS of tourists claimed to have spotted "water monsters" in Tianchi Lake in northeast China's Jilin Province yesterday, Xinhua news agency reported today.

A driver surnamed Li said he took more than 20 South Korean tourists to Changbai Mountain yesterday morning.

When they reached the 3,189-meter-high peak around 9am, he found some "spots" were swimming towards them with a long trail of waves in the 9.8-square-kilometer lake, the report said.

About 50 tourists at the scene witnessed the "spots" and some of them took pictures, the report said.

Tianchi Lake is the world's highest volcanic lake.

"I saw six monsters through my binoculars. They looked bigger than human beings," Li said.

"They swam in two groups at the same speed as humans and three of them disappeared 100 meters off the coast," Li said.

"A much bigger 'monster' appeared in front of the other three and then they all disappeared," he said.

There have been reports of monsters in the lake since the beginning of last century, although no one has ever seen one up close.

Scientists, however, say that the low-temperature lake is unlikely to be able to support living creatures of such a size.