What happens if you dance naked around the Devil's Bush in Pluckley, Kent's most haunted village? Do 'big cats' roam the local woods? Does the Devil appear if you manage to count the 'countless stones' at Aylesford? Is Bloody Mary more than just a childhood rumour? Does a phantom hitchhiker haunt the dark lanes of Blue Bell Hill? KENT URBAN LEGENDS is a new book by full-time monster hunter and folklorist Neil Arnold, a strange, quirky and downright weird collection of tales reputedly true yet never proven, passed down through generations and best told around a flickering campfire. Chinese whispers, playground murmurs, internet rumours, and friend of a friend tales are the most potent in that they can embed themselves into a local community despite the fact such yarns are not true. Stories can spread like wildfire despite lacking any detail, causing a snowball effect that can affect an entire village, town or city. KENT URBAN LEGENDS looks at a number of stories not just related to the county of Kent, but legends which have spread across the world, varying depending on the storyteller. Have you heard the one about the famous footballer who paid the mortgage of a couple who had booked their wedding on the same day as his? Have you heard about the girl whose hair was so dirty that all manner of creepy crawlies took up residence and eventually burrowed into her brain? And what about the woman who chomped down on her Chinese takeaway only to find the remains of some animal? These type of stories are known the world over, and you can guarantee that there's always someone you know who knows someone else this has happened to. Urban legends come in all shapes and sizes, but for the most part they are tales of horror - confined to mist-enshrouded lanes and eerie woods, but with KENT URBAN LEGENDS you'll also find out what happens if you play a heavy metal record backwards, or if some horror movies are cursed. You'll also find out if the Chelsea Smilers really did slash the mouths of school children in the 1980s, and what really happened to the woman who had a Killer In The Backseat of her car. Whilst tales of the Bunnyman, The Hook, and The Babysitter & The Man Upstairs may seem to have their origins in the USA, Neil proves that there's more to these scare stories than meets the eye, and delves into similar tales from Kent often involving lone female motorists and cavorting couples brave enough to venture into the night. From video nasties, to phantom viruses, from chain letters, to tales of monstrous bogeymen and out of place animals, KENT URBAN LEGENDS is one book you won't want to read before camping, driving, babysitting, or eating a meal! Be warned...the bogeyman is real after all! KENT URBAN LEGENDS is published by The History Press, with a foreword by Janet Bord (Alien Animals), is an essential book to be read by candlelight! Available from Amazon and all good bookshops, priced £9.99

I recently read a hilarious comment on a local newspaper website concerning my research into 'big cats.' Y'know, the usual stuff, some person under a false name claiming that a pig skull I'd found, which belonged to an eaten pig, had in fact not harboured puncture wounds made from a large cat, but the holes were probably made by a meat hook (even though the poor pig had been found on a farm eaten)! The cowardly person then went on to state how the 'men in white coats' should be employed to come and take me away (and then thought it necessary to make quick mention of my 'Beatle haircut' and '60s style of dress ha!) as I had 'no evidence' to prove 'big cats' existed in the wilds of Kent. Of course, what usually happens on these type of message boards is that everyone and their aunt likes to get their point across, mostly those detractors who then begin to ask questions like, "Yeah, this guy hasn't got a clue because if there was a big cat around there would be slaughtered sheep, and paw prints, and scat..." even though I've spent the last 25 years of my life presenting photo's of such evidence. It's a worrying fact that so many people rarely venture beyond their television set nowadays and are all too keen to comment under false names on internet forums when they clearly haven't a clue wehat they are on about, I guess we can call them the 'X-Factore generation' of cavemen, those kind of people who have a nose that must be so large that they can't see beyond it. I recently spoke to a contact of mine towards the Tonbridge area - a chap who spends a lot of his time in the Kent wilds tracking deer - and he said that he recently bumped into a local man who scoffed at the possibility of there being deer in his neck of the woods. When my comment pointed to the unusual tracks in the mud, the local man said "Well, there is probably only one deer around..." but then fell silent when my friend told him there were probably several hundred, if not more, which he backed up by showing a film of the delightful animals. My friend then mentioned the large cat seen to which the local chap laughed, despite the fact my contact had photo's of several deer carcasses tha had been killed with a throat bite, the fur rasped and ribs sheared off. The local chap clearly had to rethink, especially when my friend then produced leopard scat consisting of deer fur. There are white deer in those woods too, and yet so rarely seen despite their pure white coats. It's great that such animals can shy away from cumbersome man, and it gives us a sense of the good ol' days when forests in England were real forests, harbouring lynx, bear, wolf and boar. However, most of these animals have been wiped out, but it's great to see the boar back. "Boar??!!" the local man questioned, "Ha! Pull the other one," he said, "there are no boar around Tunbridge Wells." And once again my friend produced the evidence, some lovely up close and personal photographs of boar - a small group of rather docile creatures that were more than happy to be photographed. These animals, according to my friend, had been shoo'ed away recently from a local school. It seems the boar are spreading. Authorities tend to not give official statistics when it comes to boar, in the past a majority of the animals have bene dismissed by authorities, despite the fact that many escaped from farms when a severe storm hit Kent in 1987. Most of these boar spread throughout East Kent and over into the marshy areas of Sussex such as Rye. At the time mock warnings were posted in local woods as part of a campaign to warn parents and dog walkers not to approach such 'savage beasts'. Sure, boar damage crops, and in some cases golf courses, but again, these animals were here long before us, then wiped out by man. In Sussex folklore such creatures were known as water dragons, they were feared due to their aggressive behaviour when approached. It seems that the boar have spread towards Tunbridge Wells, and also Sevenoaks, and yet people rarely see them. I wonder how much more naive can people get in regards to what animals lurk in our woods, mind you, a majority of these sceptics are the ignorant sort who seem to think that 'big cat' researchers believe lions and tigers exist in the local woods. I admit, a majority of big cat researchers are clueless,they are simply people who've crawled out of the woodwork over the last few years and lay claim to having investigating such animals for decades, when all they do is take the occasional stroll through their local woods. There are also some who believe that 'big cats' are supernatural, the most ludicrous suggestion I've ever heard, and then there are those overweight camo' folk who have made it their life's work to find a body of a 'big cat', and one can see why so many scoff at such souls, in the same way people laughed at the UFO anorak brigade, but it also a concern when some people refuse to look at any evidence presented to them, and there are also those 'country folk' who wouldn't even know what leopard scat looked like. So, it's a vicious circle, whether it's big cats, or once native species such as boar, or even thriving deer populations, there will always be a sceptic...the type of person who looks at an eaten deer carcass and claims it was a fox, and then looks at an eaten fox carcass and claims it was a badger,and then looks at an eaten badger carcass...in a tree, and claims a person put it there, and then claims that the puncture marks in the throat must have been made by a meat hook, and that the paw print next to the tree was made by a dog, and that the scat consisting of deer fur was probably owl pellet...and it goes on and on...but hey, where would we be without these blind idiots ? Everyone loves a debate, but when will some people realise that the animals people call 'big cats' are simply flesh and blood animals and not something akin to the Loch Ness Monster. Not even a body or film footage will suffice, because someone will always say, "Well, that probably escaped from a zoo...", there's just no pleasing a prat, and it's as simple as that I'm afraid. Photo copyright James Mitson

I've never been a big believer in spooks and spirits but do love a good ghost story around Halloween or Christmas. For those interested, on Sunday 28th October 2012 and the last Sunday of every month - 7:30 pm until 9:30pm I run an atmospheric ghost walk through the streets of historic Rochester. The Original Haunted Rochester Ghost Walk has been going a few years now, and a majority of the stories are the result of original research, with tales never being heard anywhere else. From ghostly children, phantom ladies and eerie smells, to ghostly music and a few strange creatures,the walk starts outside the Medway Little Theatre opposite the train station and finishes off at the Coopers Arms. For more info: www.hauntedrochester.blogspot.com See you there, if you're brave enough!!

Okay, so the rumours circulated that there was a lion on the loose near Clacton in Essex. How many more stories like this are going to be followed up by droves of police officers and reported on my drama hungry papers ? It's a sorry state of affairs, and it's hysteria that makes a mockery of my research because when investigators, as usual, find no evidence of the lion king, everyone starts laughing and saying that there are no large cats roaming Britain. So let's  look at the details.

Someone claimed they'd seen a lion in a field a few days ago. The story spread like wildfire, newspapers got involved, my phone started to ring, the police turned up at the location, photographs of the 'beast' began being passed around and so was born the 'Lion of Essex' legend...another unfounded scare akin to the Shooter's Hill cheetah, The Edgware Tiger, the Winchmore Hill lioness, the Sydenham leopard blah blah blah. Yep, the police had every right to investigate it as it was a matter of public safety but surely such a fuss wasn't necessary. A couple of animal trackers would have sufficed because if anyone knows anything about cats, lions do not behave in an incredibly elusive manner, lions would seek large prey and also seek a pride, and lions DO NOT inhabit the wilds of Britain, neither do tigers, jaguars or cheetahs.

There are three suggestions for the Essex lion story - 1) maybe, just maybe there had been a lion that had escaped from a zoo/private collection - or if you read some of the papers, a circus which had stopped by a few weeks previous. 2) there was no lion at all, just a bunch of witnesses who didn't have a clue what they were seeing or maybe had nothing better to do than make it up, 3) judging by a couple of reports in which witnesses described seeing a tan-coloured cat with a white chest, a puma may have been involved. Whatever the truth, if there was a lion roaming Essex - it would no doubt be used to being hand-reared, lacking excerise and keen to feast on those mutant's with their swept over fringes, white teeth and small percentage of brain cells. If a lion had been roaming Essex then the police would not have called off the search. If a lion had bene roaming Essex it would have been heard roaring on numerous occasions, would have been on the prowl for livestock, and would have left behind a few very large prints. Lions are not elusive hunters that climb trees. Lions are bloody big animals.

A few people fell for the photoshopped images floating around the internet. Newspaper reporters and tv crews flocked to the scene, once again falling for it hook, line and sinker and when no animal turned up, the sceptics mocked, scoffing at those foolish enough there would be big cats in the wild. Of course, despite this farcical affair, it doesn't explain the fact as to why for the last two-hundred or so years, peope have reported seeing large black cats, and slightly smaller puma-like cats around Ongar Marshes, Epping Forest, Brentwood etc. It also doesn't explain that in the last week I've received 11 reports of black leopard from various parts of Kent and Sussex and none of these were investigated by police helicopters.

What people need to realise is that there are smaller exotic cats roaming the UK, but stories pertaining to lions, tigers and cheetahs must be taken with a pinch of salt, and if by chance a lion does turn up in the local woods, then it has simply escaped from somewhere and will be recaptured usually with the use of a tranquilliser, or sadly shot dead. Over the years lions, tigers and the like have escaped from private menageries, zoo parks and the occasional circus, but they don't escsper and then live forever more in our wilds - can you imagine a tiger escaping from a zoo and then exisiting in your local wood for years without detection ? It doesn't happen. Mind you, if a black leopard cub, or puma kitten was released it could survive easily in the wilds of the UK, there's plenty of food and cover, but these animals exist by using stealth.

Give it a few months and another big cat scare story will hit the newspapers, televsion reporters will turn up to the scene in their droves waiting for the cat to emerge from the shadows and give an interview, and the 'big cat' hunters/researchers will arrive in camo' gear, salivating at the thought of being involved in another 'mystery.' It happens all the time. One of the only occasions the story turned out to be nothing more than fiction was in 2001 when a lynx was found in Cricklewood in London. It was underweight and had an injured back leg, suggesting it had been kept illegally as a pet - but the newspapers and the like had a field day and I really felt sorry for the animal as it was hunted through the back gardens of leafy London, but thankfully the animal was only tranquillised and was sent off to a zoo. In 2005 when a man claimed he was attacked by a leopard in his garden at Sydenham, police tured up with taser guns...it left me asking who was the biggest threat, a cat which had probably not been in the area whatsoever, or the police and the press, eager to create another witch-hunt. 

I must admit that not every day of mine is spent in the woods of the south-east searching for elusive 'big cats.' In fact much of my time is spent writing - it's my job - and a job I love doing. I consider myself a folklorist, but always try to keep the 'big cat' research separate, because to me, studying non-native animals is simply a relation to zoology, and I always try to destroy the silly myths going about that all these 'big cats' are demonic entities and ghosts or that they don't exist, but believe me it's amazing some of the peculiar theories you read about! However, I've always loved a good ghost story - I'm not a huge believer but the power of the ghost story cannot be denied, it's the sort of tale we love at Halloween, or at Christmas, and it's great for kids to read and enjoy such tales whether they believe them or not - in it's far more entertaining than watching 'The X Factor'! I've always enjoyed reading the creepy fictional tales of M.R. James, Charles Dickens and the weirder yarns of H.P. Lovecraft, and have been heavily influenced by them in regards to to writing about folklore. Ghosts are never likely to be proven to exist, but if you are interested in escaping from the tiresome 'Fifty Shades of Grey' trilogy - which have clearly been written for people who don't normally read - then why not check out my latest book HAUNTED CHATHAM. Okay ,so I can hear some of you laughing, and asking "How on earth is a place like Chatham haunted...?" Well, the town has gotten so much bad press over the years - yes, the term chav, although a gypsy word originally, was attached to the place, but just because, like so many other places, it has succumbed to chavdom, doesn't mean it's not got a history.

I spent some thirty years of my life in Chatham, and felt the need to write a book on its folklore, which for attaches itself to history. Over the last couple of years I've written ghost books on Rochester, Maidstone, Ashford, but Chatham has so many stories too. Every Halloween people flock to Fort Amherst, but now it's time to read the what really goes on in those tunnels and whetehr some of the tales are all they are cracked up to be. Another great place is Chatham Dockayrd in fact it's one of Chatham's most haunted locations. Then there are the tales about the Theatre Royal, now merely a shell that sits on the High Street, but we must'nt forget the obscure tales of haunted houses, ghost-infested pubs and parks.

The book will be available in all good bookshops and online of course. And it'll make great fireside reading especially at Halloween or Christmas. I've even slipped in a few tales of creepy creatures too, as well as phantom aircraft and even a spectral sausage slasher! All to be taken with a pinch of salt of course...as all ghost stories should be.

And should anyone want to know more about the ghosts of Blue Bell Hill, Pluckley and the likes then check out my other books and also the forthcoming SHADOWS ON THE SEA: THE MARITIME MYSTERIES OF BRITAIN and KENT URBAN LEGENDS both due early next year. I'll also be doing a few book signing locally to watch this space.

 

I was contacted today by a man who asked me whether I knew anything about a lynx that was found dead on the outskirts of Chatham in 1926. It was a new one on me I must admit, and I'm hoping that a search of newspaper archives will reveal more. Even so, the most fascinating aspect of the story was that the man (a farmer) who found the carcass took it for analysis to 'a zoo.' The lynx had in fact been shot on his farm in an area 'not far from the high road' and it was rumoured to have escaped from captivity although this was never verified. It's these older reports which intrigue me more because they prove that there have been sightings of 'big cats' in the Kent wilds for a long, long time, and yet sceptics are very keen to dismiss the modern reports as if they are part of some hysteria or mass hallucination. It also brought to mind the case of a lynx, housed in a Bristol museum, which was shot dead in the 1800s and then stuffed.

On Sunday 5th August a complete sceptic to such reports had his own strange encounter. At 9:00 am the witness in question was leaving Istead Rise, and driving a long the Weotham Road when suddenly in front of his car a large black cat, which he described as 'panther' casually strolled, from one field to the other. The witness was absoloutely stunned by the sighting. As were the two golfers recently at Dungeness who were on their local course when a lynx stared stright at them before moving off into undergrowth. Daylight sightings are not unheard of, cats still like to bask in the sun or move from a to b before laying up somehwre. In the last two weeks there have been 16 'big cat' sightings reported to me, and half of these were made in broad daylight, including a black leopard near Blue Bell Hill another from Shadoxhurst in Ashford in which a woman reported seeing a black leopard rummaging through the sacks at the end of her drive. The cat measured over three-feet in length and the tail alone was 2-ft long.

A majority of sightings take place at night and often involve motorists. For instance, a black leopard was seen on 22nd July  at 9:10 pm near Hucking my a woman in her car - the cat turned and crossed a field a short distance away, whilsy fifty minutes later but in Rusthall, Tunbridge Wells, another female motorist reported seeing a big, black cat that crossed an unlit road, but then spotted the car headlights and turned back. One of the most impressive sightings however took place on the 24th July at Goudhurst. The couple in question had throw a chicken carcass into their garden to feed the local foxes when during the early hours the security light came on. The witness looked out of the window and could hear a strange snuffling noise and was then shocked to see a massive black cat. When the light went off the cat bounded away.

When you receive as many eye witness reports over the years as what I have, you find it impossible to dismiss every one. Not every witness is out to perpetrate a hoax and not every witness gets it wrong. A few decades ago a naturalist who was investigating the Surrey puma leegnd claimed that all the witnesses were seeing dogs!! This theory is incredibly bizarre - I don't know of many stray labradors roaming the remote corners of Kent of a night and whilst dogs do get loose, they do not resemble 'panthers' in broad daylight. And they most certainly do not lick prey clean and leave fang marks. The photo below shows the skull of a pig killed in Sussex. The unfortunate victim was stripped clean, and there are two deep puncture marks on the lower jaw. In the same area foxes, ducks and deer have been found eaten, scratch marks discovered  6-ft up a tree and unusual scat also found. As I often say to sceptics, if you can tell me what animal did this I'd love to hear from you, although there is only one animal that would leave these type of signs. I'm sure however that there'll still be those among you who say "There's no evidence..."

Okay, so it's an almost too dramatic headline to believe, but this isn't the first time a motorist travelling through Kent - or through the UK for that matter - has had to halt their vehicle and sit in awe to watch a large cat speed across the road. Yep, the sceptics are already laughing - because let's face it, all these witnesses must be mad, just like the Sussex resident who recently found two eaten foxes and a stripped calf in the woods on her farm (the victim had two large puncture marks in its skull)- the same woman who has found enormous scat and twice seen a huge black cat. It's almost as if the sceptics are desperate that all these 'big cat' sighjtings be untrue, but sorry to disappoint you but they aren't. Mind you, I'm now waiting for the smart alec to come forward and say why didn't the lorry driver get a photo - which is about as stupid a statement as I've heard considering people rarely drive with their cameras at the ready and also do not expect to see a five-foot long black cat run across the road in front of them. And then the sceptics say, well, the driver probably made it all up - despite the fact that two other motorists saw the same animal as it crossed a wooded stretch of road in Challock in broad daylight. The lorry, carrying gas canisters almost collided with the animal which raced across the road into the woods.

This sighting suggests that multiple witnesses were either hallucinating, or in cohorts (despite not knowing each other) to create a story, or c) they actually saw a big (non-domestic) cat run across the road in front of them. This echoes another recent report from Tenterden where there have ben many sightings of large cats over the years. On this occasion - during another sunny day - a man walking his two dogs through a wood started to talk to a woman, who was accompanied by her two dogs when all four animals began looking ahead. The women stated, "Is that a cat ?" and the man began to walk towards it in time to see a very large animal slinking through the undergrowth.

He described the animal as being a "black leopard"....not on overly large domestic cat, not a dog - but a very long sleek cat he'd only seen previously in a park...in Africa. And then there was the sighting made by a zoologist who was walking his dog in woods near Gravesend recently when a large black cat - bigger than his own Alsatian - slinked onto the pathway ahead, about 30 feet away, and turned back on itself and slipped into the bracken.

Sceptics may argue that eye witness testimony is usually unreliable, but time after time people are seeing these animals that it's almost become a boring subject for newspapers to cover, the same headlines, "big cat seen again," and the same arguments put forward by the sceptics, but I would love to hear from any sceptics as to what people are seeing. Sure, not every sighting is of a big cat, I've interviewed witnesses over the years who really didn't know what they'd seen or in some cases had simply seen a large domestic cat or fox, but the scat, the eaten carcasses, the paw prints, the hair - isn't this evidence that speaks volumes ? If police are on the trail of a serial kiler, they don't expect him to walk out in front of them - so they look at the clues and hope to find evidence, and this is being done weekly by researchers across the UK - and still the scepticism. Even writing posts such as this is something akin to banging one's head against a brick wall but it's nice simply to mention occasional sightings in case others wish to report their finds and sightings, but it seems as if there's no such thing as a credible witness, so if a zoologist and police oficer's statements can't be believed then we've got no hope.

I'm hoping that a number of people who read this blog were interested by the wallaby sighting caught on film recently near Ashford, at Pluckley. A lot of people have questioned as to wether such marsupials exist in Kent, dewspite the fact many escaped from enclosures when we had the storm in '87. The excellent footage can be found at: http://www.kentonline.co.uk/kentonline/news/2012/may/10/wallaby_spotted_in_pluckley.aspx

I was recently asked by someone why there's no 'big cat' footage as clear as the footage concerning the wallaby. A wallaby is a relatively shy creature but certainly not of the intelligence of an animal such as a black leopard or puma. A large cat most certainly would not walk up to someone, especially if they have a dog in tow. The wallaby may have been curious or simply unaware of the witness, and judging by the footage the woman's dog didn't have a clue what was going on!

It would be interesting to see if any eaten wallaby carcasses turn up - in Australia where there are many sightings of so-called 'big cats' every year - wallabies are ideal prey for an elusive predator.

Over the last month there have been some interesting 'big cat' sightings. One particular active area is Bearsted at Maidstone, a rural village thick in woods that stretch for miles. We are unsure as to whether the animals een recently at Blue Bell Hill is the same animal seen roaming Bearsted, but the area could provide suffcient habitat for a female with cubs. At the end of April a man jogging at 7:30 pm stopped dead in his tracks when he saw, up ahead about 20 metres away, a large black animal side-on on the pathway. Bavely, or some would say foolishly, the man sprinted to where the animal had slinked into the undergrowth but could find no trace of the animal as there had been long grass and woodland. A prime example of how stealthy a cat can be. There has also been a sighting near Penshurst where in the past paw prints have been cast. There have also been sightings near Mereworth, the site of an ancient and vast woodland.

Did anyone read about the recent sheep killings in Yorkshire whcih many tabloids covered ? It seems that a lot of people were keen to blame a 'big cat' for the carnage despite the fact the photographs shown online suggested nothing of the sort. Around 20 sheep were said to have bene savaged in a night, which sounds to me like the work of several marauding dogs. One photo I saw of a killed sheep showed no signs that a large cat had been present meanwhile recent photographs of alleged 'big cat' remains in Scotland have divided opinion. An animal - measuring more than 2ft in length -and have a set of seemingly fearsome fangs - was found dead by a man walking. The pointed, 18 in long tail, seemed to get a few people thinking that the animal was a cub of a large cat, but a lot of people upon seeing the photo's suggested it was a dead otter.

I think that's it's important, either way, for people to know what they are finding in the wilds of the UK - animals do die, but in 99% of cases are scavenged and decompose very quickly, but it's amazing how many people miss signs of local nature let alone a presence of a large, predatory cat. Wherever you go it's always worth taking photo's of anything unusual you find.

Left - domestic cat photographed at Sussex.Over the last two days I've conducted two lectures to more than 300 people, and it's always amazing how many people come forward to report sightings of 'big cats' that otherwise they would have kept quiet. Witnesses come from all walks of life but it does help when someone who sees a 'big cat' has had some experience with differing species of cat. One chap came forward to say that a few years ago whilst walking at Pembury he'd seen a black leopard - I completely trusted his opinion as he'd worked with leopards many years ago. In the last few weeks there have been sightings of lynx and leopard from varying parts of Kent - Longfield (lynx), Dartford (black leopard), Sjeppey (black leopard), Sevenoaks (lynx) and Hempstead, near Gillingham (black leopard), Sitingbourne (black leopard) and in most cases I could say that I trusted the witnesses and their descriptions. However, it must be said that not all witnesses know what they are seeing, and too many times photographs and blurry film footga eof alleged 'big cats' makes its way onto websites and into newspapers when the reality is the images clearly show nothing more than domestic cats. This is very frutrating. I recall a few years ago one of the reputable (!) tabloids featured a photo on its front page of an alleged 'big cat' perched on a wall, whilst several cows grazed near it. The paper at the time claimed the photo showed the 'beast of Bodmin' and yet anyone with half a brain could tell it was a domestic cat - the shortness of the tail, the small pointed ears 9which happened to be close together), the short legs etc, etc. This happens all the time, and time and time again it allows the sceptics to make a mockery of decent research.

I present here a handful of images taken by people who claimed they'd seen a 'big cat' - naturally, some people will have genuine misinterpretations of dogs, feral cats, foxes etc, but the first image, taken at Jevington, Sussex, a few years ago, is interesting because the witness was adamant he'd photographed a black leopard. The photo made the local newspaper and yet clearly shows a domestic cat - even from a domestic cat anyone with a good eye should be able to tell the different between a leopard and a domestic cat - even a leopard cub shouldn't be confused with a domestic cat. The leopard has a long, curving tail, rounded ears, a muscular frame, especially in the shoulder and measures between 4 - 7 feet in length. Even a large domestic cat cannot match the description of a 'big cat'.

Left - the 'blob' of Sheppey - a domestic cat.The next image was taken at Sheppey not long ago, and I don't blame the witnesses for photographing it. The image shows a black dot in the distance, sitting at the edge of a field, stalking prey, but again, despite being a poor photo it does not show a black leopard. Also, another image more recently was passed around varying sources after someone claimed to have photographed the 'beast of Essex' and yet once again it is simply an unusual species of domestic cat. Whilst there are known to be smaller exotic cats in the UK - such as leopard cat, jungle cat, ocelot, and possibly caracal, and even jaguarundi, the photographs that appear in numerous papers etc, clearly do not show anything remotely exotic. It baffles me why newspapers etc use such images. Last year a paper down in East Kent sent me several photographs of a 'black cat' slinking along a street in the early hours of a morning. The reporter asked me what I thought about the "interesting photo's" andI just burst out laughing. The photo's clearly showed a domestic ca, nothing more nothing less, and yet several members of staff at the paper were sure this was a big cat. I get so many photo's sent to me by people who claim they've photographed 'big cats', and 99% of the time the images are of domestic animals, nearly always a moggy skulking along the edge of a field. Last year I visited a lady in Northfleet after she phoned me to say she'd photographed a puma in her back garden. I refuse to gte excited about any call until I fully investigate further, and in most cases photo's, and even a lot of sightings turn out to be nothing. Even so, I travelled to Northfleet and chatted with the lovely lady who showed me where in her garden this 'puma' had been and then she produced the photo - a domestic cat, albeit a rather matted loking one, sitting on a paving slab in her garden. The paving slab, in length, measured about 12 inches, hardly a monster cat! I asked the woman if she knew what a puma was, and she said, "Yes, that's one in the photo!"

Left - the 'beast of Essex' - simply an unusual species of domestic.I'm sure to this day she still has the photo and probably tells her family and friends it's a big cat and that I was mad for dismissing it, but as I always say to people, regarding 'big cat' evidence, you have to eliminate everything else first before considering 'big cat'. Another image I was sent came from a Mr Owens and reported seeing an unual spotted cat roaming around the outside of his property at Goudhurst. When he sent the photo I was amazed to see a lovely Bengal Cat. The striking markings, long tail, and muscular shoulder didn't suggest a 'big cat' but certainly an expensive pet that had obviously escaped from somewhere. The Bengal Cat is hybrid of domestic cat and leopard cat, and is a formidable predator in the wild but will be more than happy to show itself to humans. Nowadays such cats are kept as pets, and other forms of smaller exotic cats are also doing the rounds, some costing around £12,000! Not the sort of animal you'd want to escape from your house.

One must always remember that on too many occasions ohotographs that appear in newspapers or on internet sites and even on the news, are dubious to say the least, and if such an animal doesn't look like a leopard then it most likely isn't. It's always great to receive photographs of posisble 'big cats' and their evidence, but always try to get some type of scale when photographing animals from a distance, don't just take one photo, and if you can, try to approach, or at least, if the animal moves out of sight, go to the area and get a photo of you standing there, to judge height etc. Only recently film footage showing an alleged 'big cat' at Gloucestershire was palstered all over the main news (even though the footage was taken over a year previous) and to prove it was a 'big cat' the local researcher visited the area with a cardboard cut-out of what I presume was meant to be a 'big cat' although it looked like a deformed domestic cat. These are the sort of problems in judging scale etc, but hopefully the photo's I've presented here will give you an idea of what not to look for! Below, beautiful Bengal cat photographed in Kent in 2009.

 

 

 

 

A majority of people who see so-called 'big cats' in the wilds of Britain, are usually walking or driving alone. When these people report their sightings they are ridiculed, but on the occasion there are sightings which involve two or more witnesses. As I mentioned in a previous post there have been numerous sightings over the Easter period of so-called 'big cats' across the south-east and I've received around 10 sightings in three days, 9 of these have been in broad daylight. A majority of these are under investigation. However, when I receive reports of 'big cats' people often ask me if their children are safe to go out in the woods. I can understand why some parents are unsettled by the possibility of a large, predatory cat roaming their backyard. Today was one of those days. In the last two days I've had 3 reports of exotic cats involving small children. One of these came from the wooded areas of Sittingbourne, and involved a group of small children playing in woods near their houses. All of them came running home screaming, telling a parent they'd seen a large cat. One of the children said it was a "jaguar". Now, there are no jaguars roaming the UK, but after speaking with the worried parent it became clear the children had seen a lynx. Interestingly enough they all described, separately, the white underside of the animal as it gazed at them as it sat on a log. They all described a yellowy-orange coat, which had unusual mottled markings. (Left - Mick Cole claimed these wounds were inflicted by a lynx he cornered)

The lynx was said to have been eradicated from Britain's a woodlands a few thousand years ago. Some researchers believe it was an elusive enough animal to have hung on until modern times, but this has never been verified. We do know, however, that in the early 19th century a lynx was shot dead toward the West Country, and many 'big cat' researchers often quote naturlist William Cobbet who in his Rural Rides book spoke of seeing a large cat in a tree at Waverley in Surrey a few centuries ago - although this animal may have been the wildcat, now confined to Scotland. The lynx is a beautiful leggy animal, known for its short almost tuft of a tail, its tufted ears, and striking mottled coat. I had the fortune to share a cage with a lynx a few years ago whilst working with the BBC, and these animals are incredibly elusive.

It's highly unlikely the lynx seen in Sittingbourne was eyeing up the children for dinner. The animal was seen not far from a pheasant pen, and such birds would be ideal prey for a cat. I can certainly understand the concern of parents though when their children run home screaming they've seen a big cat in their woods. Parents want people like me to do something about it, but I cannot take the law into my own hands and build a cage and attempt to trap an animal. It's a catch 22 situation. I always advise that people do not approach, corner, injure such animals, and yet at the back of my mind there is always that worry that one day, just one day a large cat will strike at a child. Take for instance the case a few years ago now of Gravesend man Mick Cole who allegedly walked into his back garden and saw what he first took to the be a fox with a rabbit in its mouth. Mick, an optician, approached the animal which allegedly took a swipe at his hand leaving several nasty gashes. Some would say the witness should have gone to Specsavers, but joking aside, if this really did happen then we have a problem. The animal was simply defending itself, no wild animal should be cornered. Fair play to Mr Cole, he said it was his own fault, but if this had bene a child can you imagine the uproar it would have caused, especially when you consider the controversy recent alleged fox attacks have caused.

In 2005 a man living in Sydenham, south-east London, claimed that he was leapt upon one night, by a black leopard, which was in his back garden cornering his domestic cat. There's no evidence whatsoever to suggest this story was nothing more than a hoax but it didn't stop the press and the police swarming the scene looking fot he 'beast of Sydenham'. There was also a report over Easter concerning a young girl who whilst walking home to her house in rural Maidstone saw a very large black cat pacing back and forth near a dead tree. The girl was petrified and told her parents who phoned me. Then, several more people reported seeing a massive black cat near Blue Bell Hill. The animal had been quite happy to visit a few back gardens.

I'd hate to think what the response would be if a child claimed they'd been scratched by a large cat. Mind you, a few years ago a Josh Hopkins, who lives in Gloucestershire claimed he was scratched by a black leopard which clawed him across his face. Interestingly, apart from the newspapers, no-one else seemed to respond to this alleged encounter. Are the authorities happy for this to continue, or are they waiting for the time when a large cat actually attacks and eats a child ? In the United States with cougar, and in Africa and Asia, with leopard, attacks are rare but they do occur. Strangely, in the UK most attacks on humans, especially children, are carried out by dogs, and whilst these cause uproar, there appears to be no real against people owning such dangerous animals. Leopard and puma are, of course, a different matter, they shouldn't be here. At the moment such animals seem very comfortable with the UK wilds, and there is easily enough prey to support a viable, albeit small population. A few years ago I liaised with professional animal trapper and tracker, zoologist Quentin Rose (who sadly passed away) and he always looked beyond the silly mystery and scepticism regarding these 'big cats' and was concerned about the rise in numbers and potential attacks on humans. He believed that such animals required an official investigation but also stated quite categorically that this would involve trapping such animals and either shipping them to zoo parks or destroying them. I don't condone either of these methods and this seems unlikely to happen due to lack of time and resources from the groups concerned. Even so, an attack on a person, especially a child may change all this.

For now, there are only two opinins on 'big cats' in the UK - they do exist or they don't, and it doesn't go anywhere beyond this. Official groups, such as 'Natural England', have stated in the past that there's no evidence to suggest such animals exist, this is a rather worrying statement considering the amount of evidence that does exist. Sceptics state that these stories are made up yet haven't a clue about what 'big cat' evidence looks like, and then there are the believers, most who are quite genuine people who've simply gone out of their way to report something unusual. Of course, the situation brings with it the weirdo's and conspiracy theorists and paranormal views, and most mysteries do have that effect, but when you cast aside the nutcases, hoaxes, and misinterpretations, there's still a significant body of evidence to suggest there are black leoard, puma, lynx, and some smaller species of cats roaming the UK. As I always state, no evidence is good enough, and even if a child - perish the thought - is attacked, I'm sure someone will scoff, or dismiss the case or claim it was simply an escapee. One part of me hopes the dreaded attack will never occur and that these cats are left alone - in that case the sceptics can continue to bitch, but there's another part of me that wants to see official investigations, which will cost enormous amounts of money, and possibly involve trapping some of these cats for the sake of science.

I recently read another of those predictable blog posts from someone claiming that 'big cat' sightings were hyperbole (exaggeration). That's fine by me, it's your opinion, but try telling that to four screaming kids and a terrified and deeply concerned parent. I'm sure there are many people out there willing to laugh at 'big cat' sightings and my research, but when I present evidence such as deer found high up in trees, rams and their fleece rasped off, large chains of scat consisting of deer fur, scratch marks 10 feet up a tree, enormous paw prints unlike a dog, then I expect the sceptic to tell me the alternative as to what did this and instead of sitting behind a PC saying what can and cannot be, try getting out there and looking at the evidence and interviewing the witnesses you claim are insane or making all this up. At the moment, my money is on the very likely possibility there are large cats around. I'll prove to you there is, but can you prove to me there isn't ?

 (Left - lynx shot in Northern Ireland in the 1990s)