In English, there is such a thing as phantom cats. It refers to large felines such as jaguars, lynxes, cougars and leopards that are found far outside their habitat. Phantom cats or their footprints have been seen many times in various countries around the globe: in the United States, Canada, Great Britain, India, Finland, Denmark, New Zealand, and so on.
There are many theories about the appearance of such cryptids. Some believe that predators escape from zoos or private collections, after which they are forced to survive in places where their habitation is difficult. Others suggest that this phenomenon is rather supernatural, and it is all the fault of breaks in space-time or portals to parallel worlds. Still others are sure that we are talking about some unique animals that freely live in the wild in small groups.
England has its own famous phantom cat - the Bodmin Beast. Since 1983, it has been seen on numerous occasions in the hilly and marshy area of Bodmin Moor in the southwest of Cornwall. Eyewitnesses describe the cryptid as a huge black cat that appears in fields and near forests. The animal does not come close to human dwellings and generally avoids people, so no one has yet managed to photograph the Bodmin beast up close.
However, there are many pictures in which a mysterious creature is shown running in the distance. Experts who study these materials claim that many of them depict foxes, large dogs and even bears, which impressionable Englishmen mistake from a distance for the Bodmin beast. Nevertheless, some photos lead experts to real bewilderment, since they depict exactly large feline predators that simply cannot be found in the wild in Foggy Albion.
Why is the Bodmin Beast always black?
In 1995, when the mysterious animal began to be noticed especially often, the British authorities were forced to conduct an investigation in order to determine whether such animals really live in Bodmin Mura. In the course of this investigation, government agents discovered the skull of a young male leopard in the forest, but for some reason they almost did not attach any importance to this find and simply left, saying that there were no cryptids here.
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Reports of encounters with the Bodmin Beast are still received from Bodmin-Moor. And, it would seem, after how many years, no one will be able to say where the predator came from, but more recently information has surfaced that can shed light on the truth.
The current owner of the Dartmoor Zoological Garden in Devon County, bordering Cornwall, has recently shared some very interesting information with his compatriots. According to Benjamin Mee, he now learned that in 1978 the then owner of the zoo, Mary Chipperfield, illegally released into the wild near the village of Sparkwell, three capable of breeding cougars, two of which were females and one was a male.
Chipperfield reportedly owed a debt to the bank and her zoo was unexpectedly closed. At this very time, the owner was taking the pumas there. The woman realized that now she would have to send animals home at her own expense, and decided not to waste the money that was already flowing from her, ordering to open the cages and release the predators into the wild. Five years passed, and in Bodmin Moore, they began to notice the same or different phantom cats, which quickly received the nickname Bodmin Beast.
Benjamin Mee argues that if this story is true, then the cougars have probably multiplied and somehow adapted to life in England. However, this theory convinced few people, since real cougars would behave much more naturally, and would not cause mystical fear in people. And then why are cougars always black?..