在英國的超自然外地大貓 第1部份
Supernatural Alien Big Cats in the U.K., Pt. 1
April 28, 2019
The United Kingdom has a long history of sightings of what have become known as
Alien Big Cats. Or, as ABCs. There’s no doubt at all that the U.K. has, over a significant number of decades, had an equally significant number of large cats in its midst. It scarcely needs saying that the U.K. is not the home of an indigenous, large cat. Pet cats aside, there is the Scottish wildcat. And that’s about all. But, even the Scottish wildcat can hardly be said to be a huge, marauding beast. It certainly is not. As
“Scottish Wildcat Action” notes: “Scottish wildcats (
Felis silvestris) look similar to a large tabby cat, weighing up to 8kg and measuring as long as 98cm. However, there are some key differences. The most obvious is the thick tail that has a black blunt tip with thick black stripes. They also have a much larger cranial capacity, shorter gut and a more angular jaw, good for crunching live prey with.” Moving on, there is the case of Felicity. A puma, no less. In the heart of Scotland. Yes, really.
The Scotsman provides this: “Debates over whether or not feral cats exist in the UK were stoked up again in 1980 with the capturing of a wild puma in Cannich, Inverness-shire. Subsequently named Felicity, the puma was moved to Kincraig’s Highland Wildlife Park where she was put on show. After the arthritic cat died in 1985, she was stuffed and displayed in Inverness Art Gallery and Museum. Since the Felicity case, big cat spottings have occurred in Easter Ross, Kincraig and Tain within the last five years alone.” Yes, an honest-to-goodness puma roaming around Scotland. It quickly became clear, however, to Felicity’s new keepers at the wildlife park that she was very comfortable around people. This strongly suggests that Felicity had recently escaped from a private enclosure. Or, that she had been deliberately released into the wild. In other words, there was nothing particularly strange about Felicity’s presence in Scotland. By all accounts, Felicity enjoyed her five years in the wildlife park.
Puma
Then there’s the matter of a lynx that was captured in London in 2001. The
Guardian newspaper reported, on May 8, 2001, the following of the eye-catching affair: “London zoo yesterday was caring for a lynx found relaxing on a garden wall in Golders Green, north London. The big cat was eventually caught under a hedge by zoo staff called in by police. It had been spotted on the wall five days ago by Carol Montague, who works for the owners of the house and garden. ‘I thought it was a leopard or something,’ she said. ‘It was only about 4ft from me. It was the size of an alsatian, but I could tell it was young, like a cub. I called the police immediately. I don’t think they believed me at first, because they just laughed.’ Ray Charter, the zoo’s head keeper of big cats, said: ‘We get numerous calls reporting big cat sightings, and so far all have proved incorrect… so you can imagine my surprise when I bent down to look under the hedge, expecting to see a large ginger tom, only to be met by a much more exotic face.'”
Yet again, we’re almost certainly dealing with an escapee from someone who had secretly kept the lynx as a pet. It’s important to note there’s nothing new about all of this. For example, it was
at Chillington Hall, way back in the 1500s, that one of the first private zoos was established – by a nobleman named Sir John Giffard.
According to local legend, on one fateful day, Sir John’s favorite animal, a fully-grown leopard no less, escaped from the confines of its enclosure and charged headlong into the wilds of the surrounding Staffordshire, England countryside. Arming himself with a cross-bow, Sir John, along with his son, quickly set off in hot pursuit of the marauding animal. To their complete horror, father and son found the animal poised to attack a terror-stricken mother and her child who were cowering on the ground.
Lynx
In an instant, according to the old story at least, Sir John drew his bow and took careful and quick aim. At that very same moment, his son cried out: “Prenez haliene, tirez fort!” or: “Breathe deep, pull hard!” Sir John sensibly, and rapidly, took his son’s advice and fired. With but just one shot, the leopard fell to the floor, utterly stone dead. Giffard’s Cross – which still stands to this day – was raised where the creature is reputed to have taken its very last breath. Sir John, meanwhile, decided it might be a very good idea to adopt his son’s words as the family’s motto. Of course, if one large, exotic cat was roaming the wilds of the U.K. as far back as the 1500s (albeit admittedly briefly), then who knows how many other possible escapees there might well have been that weren’t cut down by the power of Sir John’s cross-bow?
The cases I have referred to above are completely explainable, when it to comes to the matter of how these particular large cats came to be on the loose in the U.K. (albeit, briefly). In part-2 of this article, however, I’m going to share with you a body of strange, and even sinister, data which suggests that at least some alien big cats are paranormal in nature. That’s right, things are about to get very weird...
https://mysteriousuniverse.org/2019/04/supernatural-alien-big-cats-in-the-u-k-pt-1/
在英國的超自然外地大貓 第1部份
Supernatural Alien Big Cats in the U.K., Pt. 2
April 29, 2019
In part-1, I demonstrated how and why some cases of alien big cats in the U.K. can easily be explained: some were escapees from private enclosures. Others almost certainly got too big to handle and, as a result, were quietly and carefully released into the wild. There are, however, those cases which strongly suggest that at least a part of the ABC controversy has its origins in the domain of the supernatural. I know from experience that many cryptozoologists have very little time (if any time at all!) for the claims that a percentage of the U.K.’s alien big cats might be paranormal in nature. The fact is, though, that a significant number of such cases do exist, like it or not.
Before I come to the specific cases I have on record, it’s worth noting that I have never come across a supernatural tale of an alien big cat that involved an animal that was spotted, striped or tan in color. All of the cases in my files, that suggest a supernatural component to the ABC phenomenon, involved large black cats. And only large black cats. One such case, a particularly memorable and weird one, came from James. He is a now-retired fireman who encountered just such a creature on a bright, summer morning in 1978, and who I met in Exeter, England in the summer of 2001, while speaking at the annual (then-local) Weird Weekend conference.
According to James, on the day in question he was out walking with his spaniel dog, Sammy, on
the Haldon Hills, which provide an expansive view of the area, including the nearby city of Exeter, England. As James and Sammy took a pleasant walk through the hills they found themselves confronted by a very strange animal. It was Sammy who alerted James to the fact that something weird was about to go down. As the pair took their daily stroll, Sammy suddenly came to a complete halt and began to growl. It was clear that she had picked up on something strange. At first, James thought that perhaps Sammy had picked up the scent of a rabbit or of a fox – although, as James admitted, Sammy had not reacted like that before when rabbits were around.
In seconds, the cause of Sammy’s behavior became apparent: around fifty or sixty feet away a large black animal rose out of the deep grass. At first James assumed it was a black Labrador. It was not. In mere seconds, James realized that what was walking towards him and his faithful pet was a large black cat that resembled a mountain lion. Sammy whimpered and James’ heart thumped. When the animal reached a point around twenty feet from the terrified pair, something happened that provoked even more terror: the huge cat rose up onto its back legs; they were legs which appeared to physically change as it transformed from a four-legged animal to a bipedal one. But, that was not the weirdest part of the story.
As James looked on, pretty much frozen to the spot with fear, the face of the cat began to change and took on a malevolent, human-like appearance. A strange and sinister grin dominated the face, as the beast did nothing more than stand and stare at James and Sammy. James told me it was the terrible grin that finally made him realize that it was time to leave – as in immediately. As Sammy was only four months old at the time, it was easy for James to scoop her up, under his arm and get the hell off the hills. He looked back twice: on the first occasion the cat-human was standing just as it had been thirty seconds or so earlier. On the second look, however, it was gone. By James’ own admission, he and Sammy did not take another walk on the Haldon Hills for several months.
There’s another case in my files of an eyewitness encountering a supernatural ABC while out walking man’s best friend. Bob Parker experienced something strange on the
Cannock Chasewoods in Staffordshire, England in late 2000, while walking his dog on one particular Sunday morning. In this case, a large black cat came hurtling violently through the heather, skidded onto the pathway that Parker was following, and bounded off, apparently not at all bothered or concerned by the presence of either Bob or his little Corgi dog, Paddy. Of course, seeing a big cat was astounding enough in itself; but what happened next was just downright bizarre. Bob told me that: “Me and the dog just froze solid. I couldn’t believe it; could
not believe it. But when [the cat] got about fifty feet from us, it literally sort of dived at the ground. It sort of took a leap up and almost dive-bombed the path, and went right through and vanished, just like that. I know exactly how it sounds, so don’t tell me. But that’s exactly what happened: it was like it just melted into the path.”
Eileen Allen says that she caught sight of a “big black panther,” as she described it, while she was visiting the Cannock Chase area in the latter part of 1996. The overwhelming shock of seeing an immense beast staring intently in Allen’s direction, was nothing compared to the absolute terror that struck her when the creature suddenly vanished – and I do mean literally vanished – into thin-air, amid a sound that Allen described as “like an electricity cracking noise.” Unsurprisingly, Allen did not hang around and quickly left the woods. To this very day, she has never returned; nor does she have any plans to do so in the future, either.
What all of this suggests is that the U.K.’s ABC phenomenon has two sides to it: (A) there are real, large cats that have escaped or that have secretly been given their freedom; and (B) there are very big, black colored cats that are clearly supernatural in nature. Combined, they are a formidable and amazing phenomenon.
https://mysteriousuniverse.org/2019/04/supernatural-alien-big-cats-in-the-u-k-pt-2/
