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 49.1%

  • 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 5.2%

  • Misidentifications of big dogs, normal cats etc

    Votes: 26 22.4%

  • A big hoax

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Summat else

    Votes: 4 3.4%

  • All of the above

    Votes: 23 19.8%
  • Total voters
    116
marhawkman said:
That last point reminds me of a conversation I had with a Brit about why Americans are more into the idea of nature being scary and dangerous. Knowing that you can't just run and get help in a few minutes makes everything more scary, which of course includes animals. knowing you're alone and might die before you can get help is going to make what would otherwise be calm and peaceful tense and frightening.
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Does anyone know if this also holds true of Australians? Similar (if not even more severe) terrain in lots of areas, plus it's well known that most Australian wildlife wants to kill you. So do Australians ALSO have more of the idea of nature being scary and dangerous?

All the Aussies I know seem very laid back and 'just keep your distance, mate, she'll be right', which makes me suspect that a panther. a leopard and a jaguar could be playing high stakes poker and your typical Aussie would just walk right past.
 
catseye said:
Does anyone know if this also holds true of Australians? Similar (if not even more severe) terrain in lots of areas, plus it's well known that most Australian wildlife wants to kill you. So do Australians ALSO have more of the idea of nature being scary and dangerous?

All the Aussies I know seem very laid back and 'just keep your distance, mate, she'll be right', which makes me suspect that a panther. a leopard and a jaguar could be playing high stakes poker and your typical Aussie would just walk right past.
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I heard once that Australians are generally more... understanding of the dangers of nature. like... they KNOW things want to kill them, so they just kinda live with it. does make one wonder about the psychology though.
Coal said:
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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which documentary? now i wanna see it. :p
 
marhawkman said:
I heard once that Australians are generally more... understanding of the dangers of nature. like... they KNOW things want to kill them, so they just kinda live with it. does make one wonder about the psychology though.

which documentary? now i wanna see it. :p
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MYSTERIES: Loch Ness Monster: The Missing Evidence (Channel 5)

(UK Channel 5), you'll have to hunt for it, might be on youtube I guess.

https://m.imdb.com/title/tt4227050/plotsummary?ref_=tt_ov_pl

https://www.sky.com/watch/title/ser...a275-4b10633d5ffa/episodes/season-1/episode-4
 
Paul_Exeter said:
Author and researcher Nick Redfern supports the paranormal theory:

“There is, however, an aspect of the ABC mystery that doesn’t always get the coverage it should: the strange connection to the mysterious Women in Black and “government officials” “

https://mysteriousuniverse.org/2022...-Supernatural-and-Not-Just-Escapees-and-Pets/
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I've not heard of the "women in black" phenomena, only MIB. It is odd that mysterious women have been attached to cats ie feline traits are often attributed to the feminine mythos.
 
brownmane said:
I've not heard of the "women in black" phenomena, only MIB. It is odd that mysterious women have been attached to cats ie feline traits are often attributed to the feminine mythos.
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“Dark and disturbing, this full-length study of the women in black mystery encompasses such issues as alien abductions, Mothman, strange and unearthly monsters, the secrets of alchemy, time-travel, and the dark domain of all things supernatural. Just like their creepy male counterparts, the women in black will stop at nothing to silence those who get too close to the truths behind the UFO phenomenon and paranormal activity. Dire warnings, intimidation, and menacing death threats are their cold-hearted calling-cards. Like the vampires of old, these black-clad, pale-faced women prefer to do their hunting by night.”

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Women-Black-Creepy-Companions-Mysterious/dp/0996968687
 
Paint it black: first record of melanism in Canada lynx (Lynx canadensis)
Thomas S. Jung From the journal Mammalia
https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/mammalia-2022-0025/html

Variation in coat colour within mammal species is of enduring interest, likely because of its potential to be either adaptive or maladaptive. Coat colour in the genus Lynx tends to be stable, with little variation within species compared to that of other felids. Canada lynx (Lynx canadensis) have coats that typically are silver grayish in winter and reddish brown in summer with dark spots, and black hairs on the tips of their tails and ears. A rare pallid colourmorph is occasionally observed, suggestive of partial albinism. Here, I report the first record of a melanistic Canada lynx. The individual was photographed during summer in the Yukon (Canada). It had a black coat containing whitish gray guard hairs throughout, as well as whitish gray hairs in the facial ruff and the rostrum and dorsal regions. There are only a small number of records of coat colour polymorphisms in the genus Lynx. The adaptive significance of melanism in lynx is unknown, but the loss of camouflage when hunting during winter is likely maladaptive.
 
Cracking new case from a railway worker, the Peak District, UK:

“Huge wild cat ‘stalks’ UK railway worker at night for one mile - colleagues saw it too”

“Billy was unable to go share his story because the company he worked for at the time did not want to panic the public. However, he left the company in 2020 and since that time has spoken openly about what happened and what he saw that night.
“I shone my full beam headlight into the car park and there was a black panther just sitting next to the back of a car.”

https://www.edinburghnews.scotsman....-railway-worker-at-night-for-one-mile-3877504
 
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Paul_Exeter said:
Cracking new case from a railway worker, the Peak District, UK:

“Huge wild cat ‘stalks’ UK railway worker at night for one mile - colleagues saw it too”

“Billy was unable to go share his story because the company he worked for at the time did not want to panic the public. However, he left the company in 2020 and since that time has spoken openly about what happened and what he saw that night.
“I shone my full beam headlight into the car park and there was a black panther just sitting next to the back of a car.”

https://www.edinburghnews.scotsman....-railway-worker-at-night-for-one-mile-3877504
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But is it a cat? As it appears to look like a leg is supporting whatever it is - not a tail?
 
First Ever All-Black Canada Lynx Captured on Camera


An all-black Canada lynx was spotted and caught on camera two summers ago. It’s the first ever documentation of a melanistic lynx, according to a new report published in the scientific journal Mammalia. That report was written by Thomas S. Jung, a wildlife biologist and researcher who captured the footage with his cellphone near the town of Whitehorse in Yukon, Canada.

MelanisticLynx-2210.jpeg


The video is low resolution, as Jung was approximately 160 feet away from the cat when he filmed it. Jung felt confident that it was a lynx, though, as the cat’s short tail and ear tufts are clearly visible, even in the grainy photos. He explains in the report that it couldn’t have been a bobcat because Whitehorse is situated more than 650 miles north of that species’ native range.

“Several Canada lynx experts also confirmed that the animal recorded was a lynx,” Jung writes, adding that “photographs extracted from the video clearly show a melanistic lynx.”

https://www.outdoorlife.com/conservation/first-black-lynx-spotted-in-canada/

maximus otter
 
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Sharon Hill said:
Paint it black: first record of melanism in Canada lynx (Lynx canadensis)
Thomas S. Jung From the journal Mammalia
https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/mammalia-2022-0025/html

Variation in coat colour within mammal species is of enduring interest, likely because of its potential to be either adaptive or maladaptive. Coat colour in the genus Lynx tends to be stable, with little variation within species compared to that of other felids. Canada lynx (Lynx canadensis) have coats that typically are silver grayish in winter and reddish brown in summer with dark spots, and black hairs on the tips of their tails and ears. A rare pallid colourmorph is occasionally observed, suggestive of partial albinism. Here, I report the first record of a melanistic Canada lynx. The individual was photographed during summer in the Yukon (Canada). It had a black coat containing whitish gray guard hairs throughout, as well as whitish gray hairs in the facial ruff and the rostrum and dorsal regions. There are only a small number of records of coat colour polymorphisms in the genus Lynx. The adaptive significance of melanism in lynx is unknown, but the loss of camouflage when hunting during winter is likely maladaptive.
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And that is how you take a black cat sighting video:bthumbup:
 
Pretty sure that's a domestic cat. However, without accurate perspective, it's very hard to say, but the way it looks over and then saunters off makes me think of good old Moggus Domesticus.
 
Min Bannister said:
Yes. I mean, it's a bit Father Ted. From far away the cat looks small. When they zoom right in it looks big. :thought:
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yeah, implied scale here makes it obvious it's not very large at all. It's hard to get a good idea how distant it is, but the shaky cam has the effect of giving you a little more than if the cam had been still.
 
Paul_Exeter said:
Did anyone else see the pun about Caerphilly in the comments....? :hahazebs:

This poster has nailed the location:

https://cdn.imgpaste.net/2022/11/01/KET2O6.png
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Good job - pinning that one down. I didn't see any cat to start with, but that quarter-of-a-second glimpse of a cat is really a joke, surely, as you couldn't try and put that silly bit of video over as being any serious input!
 
Paul_Exeter said:
Good post. Likewise the path the 1980s Exmoor 'beast' took over a period of months from the remote, elevated Barle valley down to Knowstone Moor (itself over 800 feet above sea level). it is all rugged farmland given over to mostly sheep farming interspersed with wooded river valleys. There are herds of deer and plenty of game. Ideal big cat territory with shelter, running water, food and very few humans.
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Hello everyone. This is my first post on the forum. What follows is my experience of Big Cats on Exmoor.
When I was much younger my family used to Holiday in North Devon every year. We stayed on a farm in Parracombe that provided B&B. Over the years we got to know the family very well and we enjoyed staying on the farm so much that in the evenings the family invited us to help out with various activities including bringing in the cows for milking and collecting sheep for various reasons. On one occasion in the early 1990's (unfortunately I didn't record the exact year) the Farmer had to collect a dead sheep and my Dad jokingly said it was the Beast of Exmoor that had killed it. The Farmer was not amused and told us that they had lost a few sheep to unidentified animal attacks at the time. The Farmer was sure there was definitely "something big" stalking Exmoor. My Dad didn't mention the Beast again.
On another occasion we returned from a fencing job in a field and my Dad and I travelled back to the farm in the Farmers Land Rover. As the Farmer went round the last bend in the narrow lane before reaching the farm he slammed on the brakes. "There you go. There it is." Sitting there in front of us in the middle of the road was a very large black cat. My Dad and I were quite shocked and we sat there in disbelief until it just slowly walked off. "Do you believe in the Beast now?" the Farmer asked us. My Dad just said "bloody hell!"
It is an experience I have never forgotten. It was certainly not a domestic cat due to the height of it in relation to the hedgerow on either side of the road.

On another Holiday after the one mentioned above my Dad and I decided to go for an evening stroll which followed the road up and away from the Farm. We found a footpath going off the road with a signpost pointing to Bumsley Mill. As it was an unusual and amusing name we decided to explore this path. After walking quite a way along the path I stopped dead. In the mud in front of me was a fairly large paw print. I asked my Dad what animal he thought had left this print. He just started looking all around the surrounding area and said "er, right, time to go back now". We returned to the Farm in quite a hurry. Clearly we both looked shaken when we returned to the Farm as my Mum asked us if everything was ok.
We never returned to this path to finish the walk and never encountered the beast again. It appears that someone spotted it at the beginning of this year though
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...UQFnoECGgQAQ&usg=AOvVaw3kW3wWRPWSUfMKZEfUSax5
 
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