A Hairy Set of Legs. Something Ran Across the Road

BBR Investigator Dr Mac has a particular set of skills that makes him unique, not only for the UK but also globally. He is a tracker and outdoors man and has been tracking and listening to local reports of wildlife in different regions of the world for a number of years and we will be sitting down and recording an interview this month so we can hear about his research. He recently contacted me via email with a case he has heard whilst making enquiries into the possibility of big cats in the upland areas of Northern Ireland where he is now based.

Dr Mac: “I’m a British born Metis Indian (aboriginal) from Canada so tracking and outdoors activity has been a staple for me since I was a kid and to be honest, I can say this is pretty much hardwired too. I do some tracking in the local County Antrim area of Northern Ireland where my kids are being raised and we track and report the local pine marten and other wildlife as a learning exercise for my kids which we post on our little YouTube channel if we get permission.

I work at a university in Belfast so I meet a lot of different people in different fields and I was talking to a lady I know who was involved with animals of sorts. I told her about my little spare-time hobby of tracking and documenting a potential predator (likely a big cat) across the region I live in and so she shared a story of her own which surprised me.

This lady lives in County Down near the Mountains of Mourne close to the border with the Republic of Ireland and she would often drive home late at night without incident. But one night on the Cabra Road near Kilcoo she was driving home around midnight when something ran across the road in front of her car. Her first impression was that she was seeing a pair of very tall hairy legs. She could see them in her headlights. The legs ran half way across the road, hesitated in the car lights and turned to go back before completing its journey across the road and into the fields beyond.

She described the thing as looking like the legs of a certain type of puppet from back in the day and she told me it unnerved her so much she had difficulty sleeping for some time afterwards.  The crazy thing was it was just legs, so when I suggested if there were legs it must also have a body too then she became unnerved again and said “then it must be huge about 10-12 feet tall if it had a body too”.

It was the way she opened up to my tracking stories, like she wouldn’t have otherwise but spoke with real emotion and conviction which made me think she was really serious. Now I’ve found some strange stuff here and elsewhere myself and as an academic I’ve got to keep an open mind but this was the sort of thing that made me actually stop and ask myself whether there could be something in this.

With respect,

Dr Mac”

The Prismatic Thing in the tree, 2019

Witness Report J,Huff: “I work in Durham and part of my daily walk to work takes me along Quarryheads Lane, a small lane which skirts the famous peninsula, with its cathedral and castle. The road has a row of tall trees and a school field on one side, and the steep wooded river-bank on the other, so it’s completely enshrouded with trees. I studied Ecology at university and still have a great appreciation for wildlife, so I take the opportunity to scan the trees whenever I’m out and about, since you never know what you might see. The centre of Durham city is surprisingly rich in wildlife, with bluebell woods surrounding the river-banks and I often spot squirrels, jays and nuthatches during my walk to work.

On this particular morning in mid-October, I had walked past the majority of the trees and was just approaching the edge of the wooded area when something caught my eye. Up in a tree, on the other side of the road, one of the lower branches was waving about as though something was moving around on it. On the branch was something which I can only describe in my head as a “prismatic thing”. While there was nothing immediately visible on the branch, it was somehow refracting light: splitting it into panes of rainbow colours just like light off a cut diamond, or one of those old-fashioned glass prisms. (It was the movement and flash of blue light that first caught my attention, but there was definitely other colours in there too.) 

Where it wasn’t refracting the light the creature(?) was completely see-through and I could definitely see the leaves through it. I did a double take, as you would. I wanted to make sure that I had just seen something odd and it wasn’t just light reflecting off my glasses. When I looked back it was still there and I made a mental note to get an idea of just how big this thing was. I’m used to seeing squirrels in the trees and this thing was definitely bigger, probably about the size of a cat. Not wanting to intrude or scare it off I walked on, leaving it be, although the temptation to stop and stare was immense.

I’ve been trying to rationalise what I might have seen, but it can’t be a visual migraine, or light reflecting from my glasses because they don’t stay focused over one spot in the scenery when you move your head, and don’t have any weight, so can’t shake a tree about! I wasn’t drunk and wasn’t tired, in fact it was only 8 o’clock in the morning and bright daylight, so it was the best time possible to have a clear sighting, and yet I still don’t have a clue what I saw.

I studied Ecology because I’m essentially a nosy blighter who wants to know how everything works, so I’ve read in depth about animals and plants, the weather and rocks, but what you don’t appreciate from the science you see on the telly is just how little we know about the world. There are so many unanswered questions out there. Seeing this mysterious, almost invisible creature in the trees that morning just highlights this and I feel really lucky to have seen something so unusual.

I Saw A Predator like Being

“I am an Australian guy who has a partner and daughter in the Philippines and we have a house on the outskirts of town but it is still quite residential there. Anyway I was outside the house sitting in a chair under the awning enjoying the quiet hot summer day and I saw this thing exactly like in the predator movie.

I noticed it move across the vacant lot and climb up a large mango tree and there it stayed for some time, and then it just disappeared or moved to where I just couldn’t see it anymore. I have never told anyone this before today because I know no one would believe it but it’s 100% true. It wasn’t as big as the thing in the predator movie, this was more like the size of a large dog, like a german shepherd. I really don’t know what it was but it was just like the thing in the movie and it was about 80 to 100 metres from where I was, and one more thing is the tree was moving as it was moving up the tree which made me think I wasn’t just seeing things.

An Alarming number of Big Cat and Wolf Images caught on Camera in Gloucestershire.

I recently received two images taken in Gloucestershire in 2012 from a gentleman who is a member of BBR. One image shows What appears to be a large grey Wolf that was captured on camera in 2012 in the Stroud area. If you compare the size of the Canine to the Cows in the upper field you can see that this is a large animal. There have been reports of Wolves from commuters and walkers in the New Forest. There are also reports of howls and growls that have been heard by the general public.

This second image shows what looks like a large black Jaguar-type Cat. This image was taken around the same time in an area close to Stroud. The reports of large Cats in the area have certainly increased over the last 18 mnths. Due to lock down and some very mild weather the Non native Cats are being seen closer and closer to our homes. Dog walkers and hikers seem to be reporting sightings of these Wild Animals that shadow or follow them back to their cars. This is very worrying behaviour. I believe the cause is an increase in the breeding population and a need for ever increasing territory. 

It would seem that public safety doesn’t count for anything these days. It is quite clear there are large populations through out the UK. Yet the government and the police deny these wild beasts are here. Everyday it would seem there are new reports in the news media and it is not just specific to Gloucestershire. Where ever you are in the UK there will be a large Cat sighting or a Wolf not to far from your home or favourite Dog walking area. Lots of family’s have made reports and they had young children with them at the time. And there is also an ever increasing number of ‘strange’ kills in the area reported by farmers and game wardens. 

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A Worthing dog walker recalls frightening ‘predator’ encounter: ‘There was something out there’

Rumours of a ‘predatory animal’ stalking the fields around Angmering have gathered pace after a dog walker’s unsettling encounter.Ian Moore was walking his dog, Bear, around Roundstone Farm last Friday (May 28) night when the collie’s hackles suddenly stood on end as it caught wind of an unseen threat in the gloom.

Usually a laid back dog, Ian said he had never seen Bear react in that way before. “He was walking in front of me and suddenly his head went up and he picked up a scent,” said Ian.“I’ve never seen him go like that before. He has been desensitised to animals because he is training to become a search and rescue dog. He started doing this deep bark like I’ve never heard before, so hard it was forcing him backwards and he was up on his toes. He was focused on a point right across the field, about 70 yards away, but it was too dark for me to see what was there.”

The encounter started at around 10pm and lasted for no more than 10 minutes, Ian added.It was only when he got home and heard about a story in the Herald about livestock being mutilated on the Angmering Park Estate – and warnings of a ‘predatory animal’ on the loose – that he realised what he may have come into contact with.

“There was something out there that he has no experience of – he was frightened and not happy at all,” Ian said. He’s usually so laid back, but there was definitely something out there. Something out of the ordinary.”

A safety warning appeared on the Angmering Park Estate in Patching last weekend following mutilations of livestock and deer. The sign said: “There has been reports of mutilated livestock and deer in the area. As a precaution, please keep to open ground and have your dogs on a lead. “Please report any sightings of anything unusual there may [be] a large cat or predatory animal in the area.”

Roundstone Farm is several miles from the estate, which is north of the A27, but that would not necessarily stop a roving animal.  Ian speculated that, if anything, the creature could be a type of wildcat sometimes found in the UK that is significantly larger than usual domestic animals.