Real Monsters, Gruesome Critters, and Beasts from the Darkside. Brad Steiger
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produced no physical animal to bring home in a cage.
With the exception of zoos, circuses, and the possibility of someone owning a leopard or tiger as a pet, there have been no big cats seeking prey in the forests of Europe since the cave lion (Panthera leo spelaea) became extinct about 2,000 years ago. Cave paintings have been found of this formidable creature, which, according to skeletal remains, appears to have been the largest lion that ever lived, reaching lengths of nearly twelve feet. This subspecies of lion lived as far north as Denmark, though probably existed more comfortably in southeastern Europe.
Accounts of big cats, black panthers, and other feline monsters are seemingly reported more frequently in the United Kingdom than anywhere else on Earth. This fact seems all the more ironic since there have been no large cats in Ireland, Britain, Scotland, and Wales for over 10,000 years.
In the March 28, 2008 issue of the Whitby Gazette, Dave Holland and Liz Robb told the staff of the newspaper that they had watched the mysterious Beast of the Bay for 30 minutes while they were on holiday in the Whitby area. It was while they were walking to Danby Castle Farm when they saw the black beast about 200 meters away.
Holland said that he looked at the creature through his binoculars and determined that the animal was neither a large dog nor a black sheep. He described the beast as “black, with yellow eyes” and said that it walked with the gait of a panther. It appeared to have something in its mouth and seemed intent on settling down and enjoying its lunch. Holland and Robb got as close as they dared and watched the thing until it seemed annoyed by their surveillance and got up and walked off.
The staff of the newspaper stated that there had been numerous reports of the beast in recent weeks and that one man had even claimed to have seen the black panther walking with a young cub.
The Beast of the Bay is a newcomer on the scene of Black Cats in England compared to the Beast of Bretton, which has been sighted by hundreds of people over the years.
In June 2006, Jennifer Pratt was cycling along a footpath at Orton Mere heading toward Peterborough when she saw a black panther about 50 yards ahead of her. As she picked up speed and peddled past the creature, it looked up at her with large and yellow eyes.
Michelle Esposito contacted The Evening Telegraph in Peterborough after she spotted a large animal that she described as a large cat, like a puma, sprinting across the road.
Mark Williams, from Bretton, who has been tracking the Beast, said he can understand why people might think that witnesses who claim to see Black Panthers in England or Scotland are overly imaginative, but he stated that there were just too many sightings, many by police officers, to scoff them all away as mistaken identity of some other creature, such as a large domestic cat.
Chris Crowther, a sheep farmer who has 12,000 acres of land in the rugged area above Greenfield, is among those who keep a wary watch out for the Beast. In February, 2008, he found the first carcass near the Dovestone Reservoir. The lamb’s coat had been torn off and all its bones picked clean. In June, he found another carcass, stripped of all flesh as before. It was then that he and other sheepherders began discussing the sightings that they had had of a “large black creature” near their flocks.
Crowther told Ken Bennett of the Oldham Advertiser that none of the farmers wished to cause people to become frightened, but it was his conclusion that “something really mysterious is happening here.”
The farmers had agreed that no fox was to blame for their loss of sheep. It was more likely a predator the size of a puma that could do such damage. A member of the British Big Cat society had told them the number of such panther-like attacks on animals had been increasing.
On Christmas Day 2007, Howard Moody was cycling to work in the evening and was nearly knocked over by a large cat, three feet high and five or six feet long. Later, he told Stephen Briggs of Peterborough Today that he was certain that the creature was a puma. Moody said that he had got a really good look at the Beast. It all happened so fast, Moody commented, that he didn’t have time to be frightened.
Briggs reported in the article that there had been several sightings of the Beast of Bretton in 2007 and in the years prior. In March 2005, Andrew Leatherland had encountered a huge black cat-like creature while walking in Castor Highlands.
Peter Ross published an interview with Di Francis, one of the most persistent of all the big cat hunters in NEWS.Scotsman.com on December 2, 2009. Francis, a Londoner now living in Banffshire, is said to have pioneered big cat investigations in the late 1970s. During the winter of 1982, she camped on Dartmoor in the snow until she managed to take the first daytime photograph of a British big cat, a large black animal larger than a Doberman. She claims to have made six sightings since that time, some in Scotland.
Although many who have studied the subject grant that there may be black panthers and other large mammals mucking about in England, most of them believe that the beasts are the descendants of animals released by their owners following the introduction of the Dangerous Animals Act of 1976. Di Francis rejects this hypothesis and maintains that the large cat-like creatures are indigenous to the British Isles.
Since this is a book about all kinds of monsters, we should not leave the subject of mysteriously appearing and disappearing large cats without mentioning the possibility of creatures from other dimensions popping into our own or the theory that some of these black panthers may be shape-shifters, skilled shamans or initiates of some secret magical society.
The Khonds are an aboriginal tribe of India who inhabit the tributary states of Orissa and Andhia Pradesh. Essentially, they are hunter and gatherers, but those who are land-owners and attempt some aspects of agriculture are known a Raj Khonds. The ancient traditions of the Khonds include a kind of voluntary shape-shifting which utilizes as its imagery a tiger deity.
Some years ago, an Englishman, whom we shall name Perkins, claimed that he had actually witnessed a Khond transforming himself into a weretiger and swore that his account was true. According to the Englishman, he had spent a good deal of time in India, especially among the Khonds and had frequently heard stories about the ability of certain individuals to transform themselves into tigers. When he persisted with a number of questions regarding such beliefs, he was informed that there was a place he could go to actually witness such metamorphoses.
Once Perkins had secreted himself at the designated spot in the jungle were such magic was alleged to transpire, he soon began to wonder if he had been played for a fool and was left to spend the night with snakes, wild boars, big cats, scorpions, and a host of other poisonous vermin. But as things turned out, he didn’t have long to wait before the transformed tiger man appeared.
The individual was hardly what the Englishman had expected. Not at all fierce in appearance, the man was very young and almost feminine in his mannerisms. Once he reached the edge of the sacred circle, he knelt down and touched the ground three times in succession with his forehead, looking up all the while at a giant kulpa tree opposite him, chanting as he did so in some weird dialect that was unintelligible to the spying Englishman.
Suddenly the jungle seemed to become unnaturally quiet. For some reason he could not understand, Perkins was filled with a penetrating dread of the unknown. For a moment he wanted to turn and run, but he seemed unable to