So I fall asleep in front of the TV last night and wake up to this dumb show called “Destination Truth” – yet another one of those annoying UFO, ghost and monster hunting shows that seem to be everywhere these days, but never actually turn up anything worth the money used to make them. I reached for the remote as they mentioned that they were traveling to Turkey to check out a monster… uuuggghhhh, fine. I’ll check it out (see a clip from the show below).

Turns out the monster may have been recorded back nearly a millennium ago, showing up in stone carvings on a church located on one of the lake’s islands, but it’s first modern sighting was back in 1995. Since then it’s all of a sudden been seen by thousands (suspicious much?) and the city of Van, located on the lake’s south eastern shore, has erected a statue in the monster’s honor (sounds like a good photo op for us).

Van Lake is a very large, salt water lake in far eastern Turkey. Roughly the size of Rhode Island, USA, and having a recorded depth of 451m (1,480 ft), the 15-20m long monster definitely has some room to stretch it’s flippers, but the trick is, due to the lake’s high salt content, nothing more than 8-12 inch long fish have ever been caught. Definitely nothing more than an appetizer for something the size of the Van Lake Monster, and any video evidence that’s ever been brought forth has been under constant scrutiny.

Van Lake Monster’s Wikipedia page

Destination Tuth video clip:

Here’s a CNN Interactive video: