Hassie(Hassie of Lake Hamana) is an aquatic cryptid reported from Lake Hamana, Shizuoka, Japan.
Description[]
It is described as over four meters long, with dog-like body hair all over its body, no fins at all, and speckled with black. Note that there are other cryptids in Japan called Hassie in Hatouzu and the Nagara River.
Hassie was first spotted on March 16, 2012, but no detailed reports are known at that time.
On March 18, a fishing cooperative with jurisdiction over the Lake Hamana area reported to the Kosai Police Station that a mysterious giant creature measuring 4 to 5 meters was swimming in Lake Hamana. Police officers immediately went to the lake's harbor and saw the mysterious creature, which occasionally appeared from the surface of the water at a distance of 300 meters. Lake Hamana is connected to the Pacific Ocean and is only about 1 kilometer away from the sighting point. This allows sea creatures to enter the lake, and the police suspected that the creature might be a stray seal.
A similar creature was also said to have been seen in Lake Hamana on the 19th and 20th.
According to cryptid researcher Bintaro Yamaguchi, the creature was also seen on March 29, and witnesses said they encountered it at a distance of 5 meters and saw a back with no dorsal fin and a raised spine. This witness reportedly said he had seen a similar creature a year earlier.
Explanations[]
Bintaro Yamaguchi mentioned oarfish as a candidate for Hassie's identity. According to him, its elongated body shape and gigantic size are consistent with the oarfish, and the fins near the oarfish's head may have looked like body hairs.
Another theory is that it is an East Asian finless porpoise. This seems more plausible than the oarfish, but Bintaro Yamaguchi says it is unlikely because the first witnesses observed that Hassie did not breathe for two hours.
According to media reports at the time, experts analyzed photos of Hassie and found that he was a pinniped, but said that such a huge pinniped would not have appeared in this area.