Real Monsters, Gruesome Critters, and Beasts from the Darkside. Brad Steiger

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SUV.

      The most frightening thing of all to Holly Gilliam was that all that destruction had taken place while the family slept. None of them had heard a thing while an unknown, unidentifiable beast had demolished their car.

      Although experts were called and pictures of the damages were taken, no one claimed to have seen anything quite like the scratches and bite marks on the SUV. One investigator suggested that a very large bobcat had taken out some kind of peeve on the automobile.

      Whatever it was, it had left muddy cat-like paw prints on the hood.

      Eight-year-old R. J. Gilliam said that he could not imagine that anything could trash their SUV with only its claws and teeth. And if it could do that to a machine of metal, what could it do to him? He promised Mario Roldan, News Channel 36, WCNC that he would stay alert and on the lookout.

       Two Large Black Cats Attack Father and Son in New York

      In March 2009, Dorian Tunell and his eight-year-old son, Evan, were enjoying a pleasant bicycle ride in the woods near Tallman Mountain State Park in Rockland County, New York, when they sighted two very large black cats.

      Tunell told his son to run to the road where the rock line was. Later, Evan said that he was so frightened of the two beasts that it was as if he were paralyzed.

      Fortunately for the Tunells, the large black cats did not chase after them. Dorian Tunell said that the animals had bodies four or five feet long and had tails about three feet in length. Both of the cats stood about three feet tall.

      Dorian Tunnel tells a frightening story of two huge black cats that chased after him and his son (art by Bill Oliver).

      In Tunell’s opinion, the cats looked like jaguars, but with shiny black hair instead of spots. Later, father and son directed park rangers to the spot where they had seen the big cats. The rangers located what appeared to be large paw prints and the remains of a deer. The fact that the black panthers had just fed may have saved Dorian and Evan Tunell from being their dinner.

      According to the park rangers, not long before the Tunell sighting, a woman had called to report seeing two big black cats running along the Palisades Parkway.

       Phantom Felids

      In the November 28, 2009 posting of his Cryptomundo website (www.cryptomundo.com), Loren Coleman listed a number of “Phantom Felids” that had been sighted in Belgium, Australia, the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States. In each instance, the witnesses claimed to have been startled and frightened by seeing the image of a large cat, a creature that had no geographical right to be where it was.

      Coleman makes an interesting point that the Eastern Cougar in North America has become a semi-mystical creature, such as Bigfoot is in other sections of the United States and Canada. Although the cougar once thrived in great numbers in Ontario, the last living member of that feline tribe was sighted in 1938. About the same time, the cougar was declared extinct in that part of Canada.

      The problem is that no one got around to informing the cougars that they had become extinct in Ontario. Over the past decade, Coleman reports, a number of reported and confirmed sightings have forced many wildlife experts to ponder if they should reconsider and pronounce the cougar “endangered,” rather than extinct.

      Phantom Black Cats have been sighted in Belgium, Australia, the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States (art by Ricardo Pustanio).

      If one is determined to collected samples of DNA through hair and scat, solid evidence can be found to support the 500 eye-witness accounts since 2002 that have been made by farmers who claim that cougars have been munching on their livestock or of hunters who swear that the big critter that they spotted in the forests was no deer or large dog.

       Black Panthers Invade Europe

      In 2009, a black panther was reported on August 24 by hikers in the woods in the Meurthe-et-Moselle region of northeast France. Experts from the French Hunting and Wild Fauna Office found tracks that had been left by a very large cat, quite likely a panther.

      Within a short period of time, more than a dozen sightings occurred of the black panther roaming throughout France. While some reports brought about jokes of too much wine or too lively an imagination, authorities found a sighting of the panther by a natural sciences teacher to be very credible.

      By September, the mysterious, mercurial black panther had made its way to Belgium. On October 27, citizens of Luxemborg sighted the animal walking quite brazenly down the streets of a small community.

      Luxemborg authorities took the reports seriously, sending out patrols with dog handlers and a police helicopter with a thermal camera. However, even such seriousness of purpose 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.

       The United Kingdom‘s Beast of the Bay

      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.

      

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