They have come by the tens of thousands over the years -- skeptical scientists, curious tourists -- answering the lure of the mysterious "Kanasi Huguai," China's very own version of the Loch Ness monster.

On this particular trip, part class reunion, part tour package, there are a handful of Yuan's university buddies and their wives (mostly retired professors from Beijing with graying hair and quiet humor), three teachers, a nurse, a local reporter, a university student, a lab technician and her mother. They have flown thousands of miles to Xinjiang Province and been driven 15 hours to get to the lake and commemorate the 20th anniversary of Yuan's first sighting of the monsters.

Reports of a Chinese "Bigfoot" have been picked up by the official Xinhua News Agency, while tourists have searched for the "Xiao Yeren," small wild men. UFO sightings are treated with great seriousness. A conference on the topic was held in September.

Yuan, a researcher at the Xinjiang Institute of Environmental Protection, hands out Monster T-shirts, and on the bus the passengers watch state television's elaborate, three-part documentary on the myth of the beasts that supposedly have dragged sheep and cows from the shore and devoured them.

It opens with a dramatized scene of a man stopping his horse-drawn cart by the lake on a foggy night. With a loud splash, something emerges from the water and the camera darkens ...

Yuan's photos of the creatures flash across the screen. One, taken from a distance, features several blurry forms clustered close to shore, some looking as long as nearby fir trees. Grainy footage filmed in June by a tourist from Beijing shows frenzied bubbling in the water.

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