The Clashindarroch Beast is found... and it's a cat

[Ninshub]

Scotland’s Mysterious Clashindarroch Beast Caught on Camera

Brett Tingley April 4, 2018
http://mysteriousuniverse.org/2018/04/sc...on-camera/

Last year, sheep farmers in Scotland were horrified by a series of brutal sheep mutilations for which no definitive cause was found. Naturally, it was immediately speculated that some sort of large, unidentified feline species was behind the attacks. In the United Kingdom, many of the recurring cryptid sightings revolve around mysterious big cats, feline creatures far too large to be normally associated with the British isles.

Judging from the new footage of the Beast, researchers estimate the animal to be around 4ft (1.2m) in length from nose to tail. The footage was gathered and analyzed by Wildcat Haven, a Scottish conservation group whose goal is to catalogue, identify, and protect the wildcats of Scotland. Wildcat Haven’s Kev Bell told the BBC that despite the doubt surrounding the existence of these beasts, this new footage is undeniable:

I’ve been fortunate to get footage of quite a few of these ghost cats; there’s about 10 to 15 of them here in the Clashindarroch. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I first saw this cat, he is enormous, a magnificent animal. Some people say that the wildcat doesn’t exist anymore but we know different and wildcats like ‘The Beast’ prove it.

Little is known about these elusive and mysterious cats, and most of the information known about them comes from footage gathered from remote wildlife cameras. It remains unknown how these species have survived in the region and avoided hybridization with other feline species as has happened with many of the extant large cat species, although recent studies suggest hybridization and crossbreeding may be less common than was previously thought.

Here's the story of cattle mutilations from last year:
Huge Mystery Beast Roaming Scottish Highlands Eating Sheep

Brett Tingley March 11, 2017

According to The Independent, some type of massive, bloodthirsty feline is roaming the Scottish countryside picking off helpless sheep and eating them nearly whole. Local farmer Susan Mackay is the most recent victim of the beast after she recently discovered a 50-kilogram (100-pound) ewe perfectly skinned and eaten whole not 100 yards from her farmhouse and has no explanation as to what might have killed the animal.

[Image: cat1.jpg]

Hi, Ian 

Have you any thoughts on what could possibly have reduced this ewe to bones, overnight ? That little cat caught on camera doesn't seem even remotely plausible as a candidate to me. It looks like the work of a pack of hyenas with attending vultures to pick it clean but they don't have those in bonny Scotland.

[Ninshub]

lol. Yeah, that's a good point now that I think about it! I have no clue.

Edit: this other article talks about "huge black cats" in parts of England, and there's this picture though it's hard to know what size it is:

[Image: bodmin3.jpg]

A week later, the same newspaper received a similar report of an usually large black cat in Swadlincote, just a few miles west of the first sighting. An anonymous eyewitness described the creature in that sighting as a “jet black cat around one and half feet high” which ran quickly into the woodlands surrounding the town.

Reports of large cats are nothing new to many of the highland areas of the U.K. For decades, large cats and cat-like creatures have been seen around the Bodmin Moor area near Cornwall in Southern England. While some recent claims have been made that the “Beast of Bodmin Moor” is merely an abnormally large house cat, several large animals have been eviscerating sheep and other livestock around the Scottish highlands lately, reviving curiosity in the U.K.’s massive mystery cats. Now, several sightings of a large panther-like animal have been reported in central England, deepening the English big cat mystery.

Huge Unidentified Cats Are Terrifying English Towns

Brett Tingley June 11, 2017

lol. Yeah, that's a good point now that I think about it! I have no clue.

Edit: this other article talks about "huge black cats" in parts of England, and there's this picture though it's hard to know what size it is:

[Image: bodmin3.jpg]



Huge Unidentified Cats Are Terrifying English Towns

Brett Tingley June 11, 2017

That cat definitely looks more the part. But the ewe has been so decimated I think it would take quite a few of those, plus birds as well. I'm puzzled by it.

[Ninshub]

I'm puzzled too.

One person investigating this said:

“The same pattern is happening. Whatever animal is doing it, it manages to peel the skin off, probably because it doesn’t like the wool, and it skins the sheep in a most expert way - removing the skin along with the wool.
“It has a very powerful bite. It crunches right through the bones and kills the animal very easily. 
“It’s a very interesting phenomenon.”

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/ho...16711.html

[Ninshub]

Maybe people had puma as pets who got loose:
https://www.northern-times.co.uk/News/Ha...022012.htm

I have previously mentioned that I attended, some years ago, a weekend seminar hosted by Patrick Harpur - an English author and expert on folklore, mythology and alchemy, to name but a few of his interests. A couple of hours of the seminar were given over to his sister, Merrily Harpur, who has written a book on these mysterious and elusive big cats. It wasn't particularly of huge interest to me at the time so my memory of the talk is quite dim but I seem to remember her theory that these creatures come and go between our reality and some other. Much like her brother's argument that the UFO phenomenon is tied into folklore and our "aliens" are the fairies of yesteryear.

Anyhow, here's a little taster from his website on the work of Merrily:

http://www.harpur.org/MJCHcatbook.htm

http://monsterusa.blogspot.co.nz/2007/05...eview.html

Maybe people had puma as pets who got loose:
https://www.northern-times.co.uk/News/Ha...022012.htm

It appears to be way beyond the ability of any big cat. It looks like the work of a shoal of Piranha fish (impossible obviously). This happened overnight not far from her house (she said ?) so if it had been a pack of pumas they would have surely heard something. It's so unusual I would be tempted to say it was a hoax but that doesn't seem plausible either. I have no idea but thanks for posting it.

I seem to remember her theory that these creatures come and go between our reality and some other. Much like her brother's argument that the UFO phenomenon is tied into folklore and our "aliens" are the fairies of yesteryear.

Yeah, I dunno. But I did see a 'ghost' dog a few weeks back that would chime with this idea. I was walking back from a neighbour's house along a small, semi-rural road in the early evening/late dusk when I saw the silhouette of a large, shaggy dog (like those long-hair Alsatians) trotting down the road towards me. It didn't have the sense of coming at me specifically, more that it wasn't paying much attention to my presence, focusing instead on it's own business. Once it got to about 3 metres away, it turned and moved into a solid fence-line, disappearing. First thing I did was check if the fence was definitely solid and impassable. It was. Weird, hey?

Apart from moving through a solid fence, the other thing that strikes me as odd is my lack of even a slight jolt of primal fear upon seeing a large, unknown dog coming towards me at a fair speed. 

Of course, I'm not completely ruling out a trick of the dusk light, but it's very unlikely, imo.

This is the shape I'm talking about:



Anyway, so there.

P.S. I bunged this in here as I didn't think it came even close to meriting a thread in personal experiences.