Issie

At the southern tip of the Satsuma Peninsula in Kagoshima Prefecture, Lake Ikeda opens its mouth in silence. Roughly 3.5 kilometres across and 233 metres at its deepest point, its floor descends to 167 metres below sea level, and somewhere down in that darkness an underwater volcano is said to rise some 150 metres from the lakebed. In older times it was known as the Sacred Pond of Kaimon, or simply the Pond of the Gods — a place held in dread as the dwelling of the dragon deity.

In 1978, several people on the lakeshore reported sighting a massive creature exceeding ten metres in length. A dark, brownish-black back covered in humps broke the surface, trailing rings of disturbed water before vanishing beneath them. The entity has been called Issie ever since, spoken of in the same breath as Nessie of Loch Ness. Statues of Issie still stand around the lake today, drawing curious visitors, yet the testimonies that gave rise to them have never been conclusively confirmed or denied.

Giant eels inhabiting the lake can exceed a metre in length, and some researchers argue that at least a portion of the sightings may be explained by these creatures. Yet the humped back and sheer mass described by witnesses are not easily reconciled with the known behaviour of any eel. For years the lakebed endured an anoxic state in its deepest layers, a period during which aerobic life perished entirely — what survived down there, and what may have grown in the absence of scrutiny, has never been precisely established.

The lake is classified as a subtropical body of water; even in the depths of winter, surface temperatures rarely fall below four degrees Celsius. In the deeper strata, circulation can stagnate for decades at a stretch when disturbed, and as yet no reliable means exists to determine what inhabits that lightless bottom.

Designated part of the Kirishima-Kinkowan National Park, the lake is subject to restrictions on entry and collection in the interest of nature conservation. Unauthorised access to the shoreline is strongly discouraged. Whether Issie is illusion or something else entirely, this abyss — carved by an eruption 6,400 years ago — is already, in and of itself, a sufficiently inexplicable presence.