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Alien Big Cats ('ABCs')

In your opinion what are alien big cats most likely to be?

  • Escapees from collections, breeding in the UK countryside

    Votes: 57 48.3%
  • A species of endemic British big cat somehow overlooked by science

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Zooform Phenomena - animal-shaped manifestations of paranormal activity

    Votes: 6 5.1%
  • Misidentifications of big dogs, normal cats etc

    Votes: 28 23.7%
  • A big hoax

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Summat else

    Votes: 4 3.4%
  • All of the above

    Votes: 23 19.5%

  • Total voters
    118
This is interesting. The cat's size can be compared with the sheep. It's certainly not your regular kitty cat.

I am curious as to why the sheep are just lying around? A cat is in the area. Sheep are prey animals. Why are they not at least standing and gathered together and watching the animal? I don't know sheep, but most prey animals, I would think, would at least be standing and watching. I would be ready to run - like the guys who took the video and kept their distance.
The picture is low def but I'd say there are distinct signs of photoshopping around the 'cat'.
 
The picture is low def but I'd say there are distinct signs of photoshopping around the 'cat'.
I wondered because of the sheep's behaviour. I don't know much about how to spot photoshopping except the really bad ones.
 
This is interesting. The cat's size can be compared with the sheep. It's certainly not your regular kitty cat.

I am curious as to why the sheep are just lying around? A cat is in the area. Sheep are prey animals. Why are they not at least standing and gathered together and watching the animal? I don't know sheep, but most prey animals, I would think, would at least be standing and watching. I would be ready to run - like the guys who took the video and kept their distance.
They'd have been out of there ages ago. Especially if it had just caught and killed one of their number.
 
The behaviour of the sheep is totally off. They just don't care. They'd be disturbed even by an errant rambler, let alone a gorging panther.

It looks odd to me too. It's hard to tell, with such a short clip, but the basic shape seems a bit off - too boxy somehow; zoomed in it looks more like someone in a gorilla costume, with a tail added, crouched over on all fours.

Then again. I also see a large animal facing us, with its head reaching round to lick its rear parts (well, there's bugger all else to do up there) - the 'tail' actually being its right foreleg extended for balance.

And now I've seen the latter, I can't see anything else. (More apparent when you go full screen.)
 
Not an animal, as others have said the sheep would go mental. Looks like some black material blowing in the wind. Perhaps the stuff they wrap round bales with.

As usual a short clip and ‘convincing‘ back story, why not film it for five minutes rather than five seconds?
 
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Not an animal, as others have said the sheep would go mental. Looks like some black material blowing in the wind. Perhaps the stuff they wrap round bales with.

As usual a short clip and ‘convincing‘ back story, why not film it for five minutes rather than five seconds?
Presumably because it would become apparent what it actually is, or they didn’t have the patience to do 5 minutes of convincing CGI animation.
 
Not an animal, as others have said the sheep would go mental. Looks like some black material blowing in the wind. Perhaps the stuff they wrap round bales with.

As usual a short clip and ‘convincing‘ back story, why not film it for five minutes rather than five seconds?
one thing that occurred to me... a major aspect of the story is claiming they could hear it making "crunching" noises as if it was eating..... from THAt far away? Sense make does not.
 
The most obvious/likely reason as you’ve mentioned is there's a lot of domestic black cats around & this is what people are actually seeing. Not Big Cats at all.

As you said, black big cats are rare. It seems for example that no black cougar has ever been documented in the US.
that and the "scary shadow" phenomenon. someone sees something... and either can't make out exactly what it is or doesn't see it long enough to be able to identify it. which I suspect could be a lot of the "I saw something" reports with no description or photo.
 
one thing that occurred to me... a major aspect of the story is claiming they could hear it making "crunching" noises as if it was eating..... from THAt far away? Sense make does not.
They might if it was actually plastic crinkling in the wind.

Teens spot 'big cat-eating sheep' during camping holiday in Peak District
https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/black-country/teens-spot-big-cat-eating-25188371

A cat-eating sheep sounds terrifying.
:chuckle:
 
They might if it was actually plastic crinkling in the wind.


:chuckle:

The return of Black Bag!

black-bag.jpg
 
This is absurd. Pathetic, really. I also see a black animal cleaning itself - not a "big cat". It's not a tail on the left, it's a leg. Why assume an extreme interpretation? And why only a few seconds? (I can't view the Mirror version.)
 
For what it's worth, I'm pretty sure I've found the location the witnesses were standing when the film was taken.

As I suspected, it's on the lowland section of the Mermaid's Pool to Edale route being walked; initially my memory vaguely recognised the landscape as being further east (I've walked that route more than once myself, although not for years) - but a bumble along the route via the magic of Google Earth put me right, and I believe the witnesses are standing on or near the road roughly here:


Big Cat.jpg


The small clump of trees top centre(ish) - directly below the highest point on the ridgeline - is the same one visible, along with a small ruin, top right of the video at the very beginning. You can't make out the structure in the capture above, but you can maybe just make it out if you go to Google Earth and zoom a little - and you can see it up close if you whizz up there using street view and drop on the Pennine Way, which passes right by it. (The apparent difference in perspective and distance will be explained by differences in lens type, focal length, and positioning of the camera - tree placement, tree and hedge boundary lines, and patterns of vegetation all correspond, the roughly horizontal band of vegetation half way up the very start of the video delineates the course of the River Noe, and the ruin is under a kilometre from the POV – which looks about right.)

Map view, with ruin/small clump marked for orientation:


Big Cat 3.png



Footage (and quality, veracity, etc thereof) aside, there are a couple of things worth bearing in mind when wondering if this is a place you might find an errant panther gulping down a dead sheep:

The general area is pretty close to the initial stage of the Pennine Way, this section of which is popular all the year round, even in quite savage conditions.

The subject is within 60 - 70 metres of metalled road (to the south and west – the Pennine Way footpath is to the north).

I’d also estimate it's within 100 metres of a relatively popular campsite – the corner of which overlooks the field in question.

It's within around 375 metres of the two closest farms. Suspending any disbelief for a moment, I get that a big cat might venture off the isolated high ground to grab a meal - but I find it hard to believe that a farmer would not notice, and be reporting, unusually predated sheep so close to home.

In my opinion, if a big cat was really that bold, that unconcerned by roads, human beings and human habitation, then I can’t help thinking that we’d be getting sightings every other day, not once in a blue moon.
 
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Could be - probably is - a domestic cat. But as always there are two problems with ABC pics: 1) cats all look similar, from domestics up to panthers (unlike dogs which have a huge variety of shapes cats have the same basic model) and 2) we all know phone cameras on autofocus royally screw with proportion, distance and depth perception. So what could be a panther will look like a moggy when snapped with your Samsung.
 
The most obvious/likely reason as you’ve mentioned is there's a lot of domestic black cats around & this is what people are actually seeing. Not Big Cats at all.

As you said, black big cats are rare. It seems for example that no black cougar has ever been documented in the US.
Agree in many cases, especially the ones sensationalised by the likes of "North Wales Puma Watch' whose website has photos of what are blatantly black domestic cats being touted as 'big cats'.

But then I've met two witnesses to a large black cat the size of a large dog. One passed in front of the minibus she was driving an and so a clear sight and relatively easy to estimate size (Rackenford, Deon, mid-80s). The second worked on a country estate and had grown up on that very land, so i find the idea of him confusing a domestic cat for a large black cat the size of a dog that jumped a tall hedge and fence in a single leap stretching things a bit (Dartington Estate, late-90s).

Also, the largest domestic cats I have ever seen in the flesh weren't black but ginger toms.

Personally, I feel we are looking at something paranormal in nature that parallels the Black Shuck and other large black dog legends. I find it curious that as up close and personal encounters with landed Ufos and their occupants dwindled away in the UK (and elsewhere) these cats reared their heads (pun intended). Likewise, reports of werewolves, dogmen etc. To me, it feels like an old, familiar "intelligent other" has evolved how it manifests itself to us: from goblins and 'little people' to phantom airships, then foo fighters to metallic craft and now these 'creature forms'.
 
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Personally, I feel we are looking at something paranormal in nature that parallels the Black Shuck and other large black dog legends. I find it curious that as up close and personal encounters with landed Ufos and their occupants dwindled away in the UK (and elsewhere) these cats reared their heads (pun intended). Likewise, reports of werewolves, dogmen etc. To me, it feels like an old, familiar "intelligent other" has evolved how it manifests itself to us: from goblins and 'little people' to phantom airships, then foo fighters to metallic craft and now these 'creature forms'.
There are definite fashions in Forteana. An emerging craze in the US is Skinwalkers. I think it is only a matter of time before Navajo Nation witches start turning up in Bognor Regis or Cumbernauld.:omr:
 
I lean towards disbelief in flesh and blood ABCs.

I do kind of have to temper that disbelief though - with the fact that I still swear blind that back on the 90's my driving buddy and I saw a wolverine in the Peak District during the course of a severe snowstorm. (I've related the events elsewhere). Half the time, I think I'm deranged, and it couldn't possibly have been what we thought it was. Then I go and look at pictures and film of wolverines, and think - shit, that really does look exactly like what we saw.

I mean, wolverines would technically be ABCs. And also, the idea of a carrion eating omnivore surviving in remoter areas of the UK is maybe a bit more entertainable. But it's still a bit mad.
 
There are definite fashions in Forteana. An emerging craze in the US is Skinwalkers. I think it is only a matter of time before Navajo Nation witches start turning up in Bognor Regis or Cumbernauld.:omr:
one of the more interesting articles I've seen on UFOs touched on the public perception. Collate ufo accounts and pay special attention to physical descriptions. Now organize that data by year of report. then look at what depictions were used for extra-terrestrial craft shortly before then.

It then looks as if UFO reports are shaped by cinema, not the other way around.
 
I'm always puzzled that the vast majority (it seems to me) of big cat sightings are of black cats. Now I accept that some and maybe most are misidentifications of large black toms. But the others? given the rarity of melanistic big cats in the wild why the preponderance of black ABC sightings?
AFAIK Kellas cats are black, despite their Scotish wildcat ancestry? Dunno why, nor do I know why they are not heard of much anymore. They could explain some of the large black domestic moggy sightings.

Not forgetting that some feral cats can be viscious little bastards. There is a farm near us and sometimes a feral farm cat strays into the garden. I always go to look in case it is a lost domestic. If it is a farm cat you are pretty soon warned off by an aggresive display of fluffed up fur, flattened ears, hissing and spitting. I try all the looking at them then down, etc. stuff but it just makes them regard you as a large meal. If I need it moved (That's my gate and I need to go out of it) it is best done Tom and Jerry style with a broom or a (soft) flung clod of earth aimed near them; the little buggers won't back away from clapped hands and a steady advance.

If they are just exploring the garden or sunning themselves then of course I leave them to it.

For the record I like cats and wouldn't hurt them, so shifting one if necessary is done as gently as possible.

I'm more surprised that most ABCs are relatively docile!
 
one of the more interesting articles I've seen on UFOs touched on the public perception. Collate ufo accounts and pay special attention to physical descriptions. Now organize that data by year of report. then look at what depictions were used for extra-terrestrial craft shortly before then.

It then looks as if UFO reports are shaped by cinema, not the other way around.
The 'Distortion Theory" is that an intelligent 'other' essentially reads our minds in order to decide how it will manifest to us and thus disguise its true identity, or that it is just so alien that our own minds seize on the most alien memory they have in an attempt to make sense of what is being seen. One theory for "my life flashed before my eyes" during a crisis/imminent prospect of death is that the brain is frantically searching its memory banks for how to deal with the event that is unfolding (eg falling off a cliff).
 
AFAIK Kellas cats are black, despite their Scotish wildcat ancestry? Dunno why, nor do I know why they are not heard of much anymore. They could explain some of the large black domestic moggy sightings.

Not forgetting that some feral cats can be viscious little bastards. There is a farm near us and sometimes a feral farm cat strays into the garden. I always go to look in case it is a lost domestic. If it is a farm cat you are pretty soon warned off by an aggresive display of fluffed up fur, flattened ears, hissing and spitting. I try all the looking at them then down, etc. stuff but it just makes them regard you as a large meal. If I need it moved (That's my gate and I need to go out of it) it is best done Tom and Jerry style with a broom or a (soft) flung clod of earth aimed near them; the little buggers won't back away from clapped hands and a steady advance.

If they are just exploring the garden or sunning themselves then of course I leave them to it.

For the record I like cats and wouldn't hurt them, so shifting one if necessary is done as gently as possible.

I'm more surprised that most ABCs are relatively docile!
I have read that wild cats will attack dogs by going full claws out at their eyes - not a bad self-defence strategy
 
The 'Distortion Theory" is that an intelligent 'other' essentially reads our minds in order to decide how it will manifest to us and thus disguise its true identity, or that it is just so alien that our own minds seize on the most alien memory they have in an attempt to make sense of what is being seen. One theory for "my life flashed before my eyes" during a crisis/imminent prospect of death is that the brain is frantically searching its memory banks for how to deal with the event that is unfolding (eg falling off a cliff).
In that case it'd have to be either paranormal... IE not actually extraterrestrials, or B: a perception filter sort of thing that's such advanced tech it might as well be magic.
AFAIK Kellas cats are black, despite their Scotish wildcat ancestry? Dunno why, nor do I know why they are not heard of much anymore. They could explain some of the large black domestic moggy sightings.

Not forgetting that some feral cats can be viscious little bastards. There is a farm near us and sometimes a feral farm cat strays into the garden. I always go to look in case it is a lost domestic. If it is a farm cat you are pretty soon warned off by an aggresive display of fluffed up fur, flattened ears, hissing and spitting. I try all the looking at them then down, etc. stuff but it just makes them regard you as a large meal. If I need it moved (That's my gate and I need to go out of it) it is best done Tom and Jerry style with a broom or a (soft) flung clod of earth aimed near them; the little buggers won't back away from clapped hands and a steady advance.

If they are just exploring the garden or sunning themselves then of course I leave them to it.

For the record I like cats and wouldn't hurt them, so shifting one if necessary is done as gently as possible.

I'm more surprised that most ABCs are relatively docile!
One approach I've seen with some measure of success is to basically wear leather armor. A thick jacket and leather gloves and you can just pick the critter up and move it.

I've never personally tried it with cats but did it many times with possums.

Although with some cats simply hugging the cat will actually make it friendly. It's very much dependent on the individual cat though.

One neighbor cat from years back wasn't happy to see pretty much anyone and would run and hide. One day I snuck up on the cat while she was sleeping on the porch. Then woke the cat up by gently petting her. Kitty was like "aww... pets!" Then opened her eyes and realized it was the wrong Human. Then decided she liked it anyways and relaxed.

But I've seen some cats who act utterly terrified of people. In some cases it seems to be because when they were kittens their parents acted that way
 
In the US, "black panthers" are SO commonly reported, it's ridiculous. Any pics are rare. Being that there are no good candidates for these (not a bobcat, no melanistic pumas - if there are pumas at all) other than a dog or a big domestic cat, they end up frequently treated as supernatural.

But black panthers are associated with places of high strangeness in the Eastern US such as Chestnut Ridge and the Bridgewater Triangle, lumped in with Bigfoot, UFOs and spook lights.
 
one of the more interesting articles I've seen on UFOs touched on the public perception. Collate ufo accounts and pay special attention to physical descriptions. Now organize that data by year of report. then look at what depictions were used for extra-terrestrial craft shortly before then.

It then looks as if UFO reports are shaped by cinema, not the other way around.
Prof. Chris French did this for Nessie, same type of results, the monster sightings conformed to the 'monsters of the day' in the media. Sadly there's no paper and it was only included in a documentary on Nessie (I wrote to him and asked).
 
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