Merged Alien Big Cats in the UK?

[William Parcher]

Panthers in Illinois/Indiana? They got 'em. Black ones too!

I spoke with a laborer last year, and he and his son had seen what he described as a “black panther” near Iuka, Illinois on their own land.

My mother lived on a small farm just outside Santa Clause, Indiana in Spencer county. As long as I can remember (I’m 57) she has talked about the panther that would come out of their woods and frolic in the pasture like a kitten. She saw it up close several times when it would pace them while riding their pony. It was definitely not a feral cat. Much, much larger…

Dude. Your mother's town. They don't put an "e" on the end of Claus.

I saw a black panther in April 2008, northwest of Coatesville, Indiana. It was only 50 yds. from me.

The thing that bothers me about it is the people reporting it are very credible. These are people you have to put some credence in what they are seeing.

 

[Marduk]

No sign of Marduk now that he's out of the penalty box. Maybe he's gone off to the Forest of Dean to find the panthers - it's only about an hour and a half's drive from where he lives. He better remember to turn west though, not south - south will get him the New Forest, in only about an hour. Where, as we know, there are no "feral sheep".

Rolfe.

nothing worth posting, no reply to my inquiry yet, I am quite familiar with the geography of my home country thanks, south will actually get me in the solent after half an hour, perhaps in future you should stick to geographical pronoucements north of the border. If you like I will happily show you where it is on a map (its just past birmingham)

 

[Soapy Sam]

Marduk- as happens, Rolfe lived doon on Albion's Plane for years.

But listen, you two- knock off the squabbling - 'taint worth it and I have no doubt the Lidless Eye of the Darat Lord will be focussed on this thread. So best behaviour , if youse please. It's just a bunch of speculation about puddy tats.

 

[Marduk]

I wasn't squabbling, I was attempting to demonstrate I have a sense of humour, nothing I try seems to be going right this week. I need a holiday
Rolfe, anywhere worth camping where you are ?
somewhere without black panthers would be cool thanks

 

[Rolfe]

Most certainly. People come here on holiday on purpose.

Shame you hadn't any more to say because there were quite a lot of outstanding questions, but do I look like Claus?

Rolfe.

 

[mummymonkey]

I think the picture is probably a real publicity stunt got up by the museum. I'm just a bit confused by how old it looks when it must be from about 1985 or so. Still, we must remember that even in 1985 most newspapers were still printing most of their photographs in black and white, so it would be normal for a news photographer to be using black and white film. I think it's that that makes it look older - the actual cars aren't expecially archaic from what I can see of them.

The car on the left is a (DAF) Volvo 340GL. (1982 - 1991) A Volvo geek could probably pin it down to an actual year or two given the GL badge on the grille, the see-through head rests and the wipers on the head lamps.
The last letter of the registration is S which means it is likely post August 1983.

 

[Marduk]

Most certainly. People come here on holiday on purpose.

Shame you hadn't any more to say because there were quite a lot of outstanding questions, but do I look like Claus?

Rolfe.

you look a bit like his cat

but only around the eyes

 

[Amapola]

Marduk, cute picture! I think you are too new to know, but we had a poster called Claus who was always demanding EVIDENCE, EVIDENCE and EVIDENCE. Plus, he claimed he would *KILL* anyone he saw on a plane with a gun. Naturally we hope he was kidding since this would include air marshals, but who knows.

 

[Rolfe]

I was thinking of the "Larsen list" ^TM.

There are quite few questions I asked Marduk that are still hanging there suggestively....

Rolfe.

 

[rsaavedra]

http://www.explosm.net/db/files/Comics/Dave/comicblackcat2.png

 

[chillzero]

Here's a little conundrum for the Bigfooters. The above photo isn't "real", of course. It portrays Felicity after her death and appointment with the taxidermist. I'm just curious about the provenance. I'm inclined to believe it might be as real as the Cottingley Fairies - that is, not manipulated. I think it's perfectly possible they took the stuffed cat into a street, put her on a bench, and photographed her with a couple of interested onlookers, as a publicity stunt for the museum or something.

However, it could be photoshopped. And I'm not sure where the background is, but it looks more likely to be Inverness than Cannich. The apparent age of the picture seems deceptive. Felicity didn't die till the mid-1980s as far as I know, so the whole picture can't be older than that. I think the use of black and white film (or is it a colour pic rendered in black and white?) makes it appear older than it really is. Or has someone photoshopped a picture of the late Felicity on to an older photograph? A car nut might be able to date the models on display in the car park.

I'm just curious, as I can't find the provenance of the image beyond its presence on the British Big Cats web site, where Marduk took it from.

Anybody know anything about it?

Rolfe.

Going by the angles of the shadows from the women's feet, I would expect to also see the top of the shadow of the cat's back, so I'd suspect the cat has been added in on a background pic, as you posit.

 

[Rolfe]

Depends on the angle of the sun, though. I don't think there's enough information in the photo for me to tell - though of course you know a lot more about photography than me.

I thought it was most probably just a "Cottingley Fairies" job, done to publicise something, possibly an event at the museum. Easy enough to carry the stuffed puma out into the car park and set up that picture. I just find it a little odd that there's no other reference to it on the internet, though I can find plenty other pictures of the stuffed exhibit, indoors, in colour.

It's a fun image, anyway.

Rolfe.

 

[chillzero]

Depends on the angle of the sun, though. I don't think there's enough information in the photo for me to tell - though of course you know a lot more about photography than me.

It's not about photography - just observation.

Look at the feet of the women. You can see the shadow of their legs going off toward the top right of the image.

Now, one woman is standing next to the bench that the cat is 'sitting' on. The bench is therefore not too far forwards to see any shadow of anything on top of it, although the level of the bench itself would probably be just too low to reach where the image starts. There is no shadow along the bottom of the photograph which is where I would expect to see the shadow of something sitting higher than the level of the bench itself, which is reasonably low, by all appearances. The bench shadow should/could even intersect the feet of the older woman standing next to the bench, so perhaps the bench has also been added in.

 

[Rolfe]

You know, I think you're right! The bit that's struck me is the absence of any shadow from the left-hand legs of the bench. Surely that should be visible on the pavement?

This is definitely Felicity, there are other pictures of her as a stuffed exhibit. She seems very rigid and stiff on the bench, but that's to be expected as this is a stuffed animal, not a real one, so it won't conform to the surface it's sitting on. It's a fun image, and not actually impossible or even really implausible, it just seems to me there's something odd about it.

I wonder if that's actually Inverness in the background?

Rolfe.

 

[mummymonkey]

Some more car geekiness - the cars are, clockwise from the one nearest - SAAB 900, Volvo 340GL, Datsun Cherry and Ford Sierra. All of these cars are 82-84 vintage. The Volvo has the last 2 letters FS which means it was registered in Edinburgh after August 1983. The Volvo (and I love this bit) has right hand drive style windscreen wipers and quarterlight door mirrors which weren't introduced until the "1984" model. The Volvo was therefore purchased between September 1983 and September 1985.

For classic car fans, the rarest of these vehicles today is the Datsun Cherry although that's primarily because they rotted away so fast.


Carry on.

 

[Soapy Sam]

You get the "Geek of the Month" award.

 

[Rolfe]

The car dates are all absolutely right for the time Felicity would have been emerging from the taxidermy. I wouldn't be at all surprised if some wag had put her on a bench in the car park during the process of transferring the exhibit to the museum, and snapped the photo.

There's just something about it that doesn't look right.

Rolfe.

 

[zooterkin]

Someone called Di Francis is being interviewed on Radio 4 at the moment, on "Saturday Live". She's apparently been tracking big cats in the UK for 30 years. She seems to think that the sightings are of 3 species previously unknown to science. A big cat, a "Kellas cat", and a rabbit-headed cat.

They had Simon King on the same programme, who makes his living filming wildlife, and he politely dismissed the idea of undiscovered big cats roaming the British countryside, apart from the few known examples released into the wild when the laws about keeping exotic species changed.

 

[Big Les]

Er, the Kellas cat isn't unknown to science. It's a wildcat species, isn't it Rolfe?

 

[Rolfe]

I don't know much about that really. Everything described in those links is small, not enormously bigger than a domestic cat. Thus, if they exist, they aren't going to be pulling down horses or even sheep. They'd live on birds, rodents and rabbits.

Some of the links talk about domestic cat/wildcat hyprids, but so far as I know such hybrids are common and nothing special - the main concern is that too much of the apparent wildcat population has domestic cat genes in there. The stories sound more like aberrant black cats, possibly with some sort of pathology going on. There's a lot of rubbish about something with a fibrous skull, which if true suggests chronic kidney failure. (I once had a patient called Widget who had the most bizarrely-shaped skull because of chronic renal disease - after he died we preserved the skull as a teaching specimen.)

Until a qualified veterinary pathologist does a post mortem on one of these and declares it to be something unusual, I'd peg them as just big black cats and a lot of transmogrification.

Rolfe.