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Anonymous
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I have not heard anything new on the Antrim hunt since last week. Unlikely that it is still going on. Will get a couple of Northern papers and see if there is any update.
If this is true, we'll have to remove all ABC threads from Crypto and put them in Mainstream News!DNA tests have proved conclusively that hairs found in Hemingby are those of a wild cat belonging to the leopard family.
And the Horncastle News is happy to hand over a £100 reward to Sandy and Julie Richardson for their authenticated images of the beast
In July this year, Sandy ventured into the caravan at the end of his garden to get a spare spring for his lawnmower.
He said: "I was looking along the shelves when I felt something staring at me. I turned around and this big cat was right beside me. It's eyes were like orange street lights."
The beast opened its mouth in a soundless snarl: "I could see its big brown teeth and it started to move towards me. I backed out the door and managed to shut it."
Sandy called to his wife Julie, but as she approached the door, the cat shot out and ran away through the undergrowth.
The next day Sandy spotted the cat in the window of the caravan and managed to capture some footage of it.
As a result wild cat experts, a team of armed response police officers and vets descended on the house in Green Lane in a bid to catch the creature. The fire brigade were called to examine the caravan using heat seeking equipment.
Neighbours were told to stay indoors while the police and experts were at work, and although the cat was not found in the lair, hairs were later gathered by the police and taken to a laboratory in Essex.
The results are now back and prove conclusively that the hairs were from a member of the big cat family.
Police are investigating a claim that big cats were released from a private zoo in the Horncastle area several years ago.
15 October 2003
THIS IS BLACK LEOPARD COUNTRY. PLEASE BE AWARE
Danny's plea to council to take threat seriously
Is this the picture that proves conclusively a big cat is roaming the Forest?
It has been given to the Review this week by Danny Nineham, the local man who has spent years investigating reports of big cat sightings all over England and Wales.
He has released the picture to coincide with a letter he has sent to local councillors asking them to take seriously the possibility that a big cat will attack a person in the Forest or Wye Valley.
Danny has built up a huge database of big cat sightings, many in the Forest and Wye Valley.
Now he has written to Forest of Dean district councillors urging them to take his findings and the situation seriously.
He writes: "For over 20 years I have been stockpiling evidence which is now overwhelming. I am one man at my own expense day by day trying to deal with a national problem that no-one else is interested in...until, sadly, someone is killed.
"I have dozens of cases which I am trying to deal with which are very serious, involving sworn eyewitness testimonies concerning sightings of very large male black leopards which have lost their fear of man and which are starting to terrorise local people.
These individuals have nowhere else to turn to for help except myself. I have become a 24 hour helpline fro these people."
Danny says the picture printed here and the account with it relates to an incident in the Forest near Boys Grave, Speech House, in June.
He says there have been big cat sightings in that area of the Forest since 1994.
He told the Review: "They have come from many people including locals and visitors, among them an ambulance crew and a local driving instructor. What concerns me most is the increase in close aggressive encounters, and I am worried someone will be attacked and even killed."
He is asked the council to press for signs to be erected advising walkers to take care. He suggests: 'THIS IS BLACK LEOPARD COUNTRY. PLEASE BE AWARE'.
Danny said he was fully aware many people were sceptical of big cat sightings and that others had attempted to ridicule his work.
"I am now convinced about this picture which was captured by a visitor on a weekend trip to the Forest who disturbed the cat while walking with his camera trying to catch the morning light," he said.
The photographer told Danny: "I managed to trip the shutter before I turned hastily the other way. Although blurred I think it is obvious what this is and after doing some research I thought you would be the best place to send this copy of the photo.
"Once disturbed the subject's initial reaction was aggressive but, I believe, this was purely out of shock. Once I turned it did not give chase and I did not see or hear it again."
Danny gives talks to many organisations both locally and further afield and says he would like to address councillors.
-The Forest of Dean and Wye Valley Review, w/e 24 Oct. 2003, front page.
Originally posted by Hex Kitten
but I am still not entirely sure of what I saw.
Hex
David Raven said:Now, can you get huge, almost black tabbies? Cos that's what I thought it could be.
Fallen Angel said:Perhaps a Maine Coon Cat? They can be very large.
David Raven said:Wow! That looks very much like what I saw!
Can they get up to the size of a fox, say?
(I knew New England seamen would be something to do with 'Maine Shags'! )
Filthy le Dog said:Aww, come on guys!
Blurry photos, misidentifications, lack of physical evidence, terrifying encounters leaving witnesses shaken?
Haven't we all heard this before?
These buggers are just as elusive as UFOs. There's something supernatural going on here, despite the occasional dead cat - more often than not shown to be an escapee.
Is there a chance these are animals living in another dimension, interacting with us only occasionally? Sure, it's a far-fetched idea, but I'm just as sceptical as to a growing population of ABCs roaming our countryside. As others have remarked, it's never easy to find these kinds of elusive animals in the wild, but let's be honest - we don't live in a very large country. If they lived here, we'd have found them by now.