"Sea monster" has been circulated among the indigenous herders around the lake for hundreds of years. In the New Records of Xining Mansion compiled in the early years of Qing Qianlong, it was specifically recorded that: "Qinghai lived in Mongolia and saw something in the sea, with a leopard head, white and black hair, red and green hair, leaping waves and waves, and seeing people near the shore, that is, diving into the water, I don't know why it is a beast."
It is said that those herders who set foot on the "sea monster" are all in awe, prostrating themselves in worship, offering sacrifices to the sea with their mothers and mulberry, and offering sacrifices to their cattle and sheep. As a result, all kinds of legends about the manifestation of the sea god spread from mouth to mouth.
In recent decades, information about "sea monsters" in Qinghai Lake has been circulated from time to time. For example, in 1947, a Tu Lama named Qi Sixty-three from Quezang Temple in Huzhu County went to Tibet to worship through Qinghai Lake with his teacher. At the moment when the sun was about to set, a monster four or five times larger than a yak surfaced and swam to the shore, like a dragon, with a round head and sparkling eyes. In the spring of 1949, Ma Sanwa, a farmer of Han nationality in fei cun, Halazhigou Township, Huzhu County, was forced to go out for gold because of her life. When she stopped for dinner at the lake in Qinghai, a thick black "log" appeared on the lake, which was about ten feet long. Later, this slowly sliding "log" stretched out a long neck with a snake-like head on it, and the scales were as shiny as gold under the sunlight, drifting away to the middle of the lake. In 1982, when a motorized sailboat was working on the lake, people on board saw animals floating in the water not far ahead, which looked like fishing boats. When they were about to get close and observe carefully, they had jumped into the water. In 1987, a gentleman from a travel agency in Qinghai, who asked not to be named, went to the lake to take photos in the afternoon and suddenly found a monster the size of two or three cows on the rippling lake. His back was grayish brown and he thought it was a big fish. In an instant, the monster raised its slender neck like an ostrich, and its head was triangular, as if water droplets were sprayed. He suddenly realized that it might be plesiosaur, and took a black-and-white photo. When he took it again, the monster had sunk into the water for about twenty or thirty seconds.
There are still dozens of people who have witnessed monsters in the lake. This is really a mystery, which needs further exploration by scientists. The legend about the "sea monster" in Qinghai Lake has cast a thick mysterious color on Qinghai Lake.