Chasing Shadows: Britain's Big Cat Mystery | Full Documentary 

I've seen a LARGE black cat with my own eyes, clear as day, bold as brass!! From passenger seat whilst travelling along A47, Norfolk. It was walking through a field. I googled wild cats spotted in Norfolk immediately on my phone and was shocked at the amount of reports from the exact village we were passing. I feel quite honoured 😊

My Dad saw a Black Panther in Worcestershire back in the early 90s. It was an early summer morning, and the sun was just coming up as he went out for a cigarette while working a night-shift. As soon as he opened the factory back door, he spotted a big black cat about 40 feet away, disappearing around the back of the bins and into a field. He said he'd never been so scared in all his life, and it certainly made him stop smoking at work ✌️💯

Never told anyone this before (apart form the wife). I used to be a truck driver on permanent nights travelling between Thatcham in Berkshire to Fradley Park near Lichfield every night. One morning in Sept/ Oct, 2006/2007 at about 4am, I saw what I believed to be a big black cat feeding on either a Muntjac or a Fallow deer in a fairly dense wooded area called "Langley Wood" on the southbound A34 about 5 mile North of Jct 14 of the M4. Had I been driving a car I would've completely missed it but with the added height of the truck I could clearly see it and even slowed down a bit just to make sure.

I saw one in rural Buckinghamshire in about 1999 when out riding bikes with a friend. I was about 12. It turned and looked at us and ran into the trees. It was bloody huge. 100% a big cat, because my brain immediately went “oh there’s a (domestic) cat, wonder what it’s doing out here” before registering what it was by realising the size of it. It was about twice the size of a large dog and jet black. My friend saw it too and immediately said “holy shit that’s a Panther!”. Nobody ever believed us and thought we were making it up. It was about 100ft away on the other side of a field. I looked at it for maybe 10 seconds before it ran off and got a very clear view.

Fantasticly made documentary but a few things bother me, it's mainly just wording tbh. When they say lynx aren't supposed to be the uk, that's false, lynx were native up until the medieval period where they were hunted to extinction. And if there are any breeding wild in the UK? GOOD, we need wild predators like them in the biodiversity hell that is Britain. The other thing is depending on how far you go back we had an assortment of big cats here, including european jaguar, cave lion and potentially eurasian puma. Though All of these died out in the Pleistocene, and none survive here today.

In the early 1990's ,I had a small holding on the edge of Dartmoor. I had large animals as well as breeding and showing German Shepherd dogs - my neighbours were farmers. One day one of my young dogs went walk about, and was spotted in a farmers field with sheep. The Famer was alerted, and I was contacted regarding my dog. I recovered the dog, then was told by the farmer that he had found a couple of dead sheep, and a couple were injured..he felt my dog was to blame! I called my vet to come out and check the scene, and inspect my dog. He found that there was no sheep wool in the teeth of the dog and no blood evidence, and he said that the injuries to the dead sheep, were not of a dog kill, but of a large cat, and that he knew of large cats in Devon and Cornwall. It was well known among the farming community that wild cats had been let loose by a local private zoo.

Great documentary, the from panther a at the end spoke a lot of sense. A few years back a lynx escaped from Borth Zoo in Mid Wales, it was tracked down a few days later to a caravan park nearby and shot dead. The authorities said they had to shoot it as opposed to trying to recapture it, because they couldn't be sure it was the same one. That says to me they know there are more out there.

I live in Cornwall. It's well known amongst people and authorities we have big cats down here. It's amazing no one has ever been attacked given the amount of close encounters experienced here. Me and two other men pulled a stag carcass that must of weighed 100 kilo /200 pounds 60 metres up a field toward the house and through an 8 foot locked deer fence. The next day some kind of big cat had got it over the 8 foot damn fence and another 80 metres down the field and devoured what was left. The amount of sightings and evidence over the years is abundant in Cornwall

I thought this was an Australian doco. The big cats seem to be in every continent.

My and my friend walked up some Bedfordshire country side behind my parents house when we were 13 at 3am in 2004. We got halfway up the big hill and started spooking ourselves about ghosts and weirdos. We hear rustling and stop for about 30 seconds, scared stiff but concluding it was rabbits or a fox. We took a few steps forward and then heard what sounded like a horse thudding towards our direction. We froze and out leapt a panther right in front of us. It leapt across from left to right about 5 feet in front of us. Literally like the Puma logo. I saw the teeth, not so much the body, mouth was opened wide and the teeth left a streak in the air it moved so quick. Then I heard the noise a split second later. A thunderous growl. It really was like thunder and clapped my ear drums and stunned me and my friend to the ground. We got up and run for our lives. When we got to the bottom of the hill we were shaking and laughing and crying. Ran home and woke my mother up at 5am. Rang the police and were told it wasn’t the first sighting! 100% the truth. Many don’t believe me or say I saw a fox! I know what I saw and heard. Feel quite lucky to have seen it.. and maybe to even be alive 😂 I often think what the newspapers would have been if I’d have got eaten/killed.. think it was warning me off a meal or less likely some young it had with it

My mum saw a Puma on the border between Surrey and Hampshire. This would've been like in the late 90s or so. Shes told me the story many times over the years, the story never changes, and my Mum really isn't a liar, nothing disgusts her more than lying. She was on her way to work early in the morning, still kinda dark. She has always said that it jumped out of the woods, touched down roughly on the middle line of the road and jumped back into the woods on the opposite side of the road. It jumped 2 lanes of road in 2 jumps. No domestic cat can do that, nor are any so big. Years later she met a boyfriend who had found a dead sheep, totally mauled and dragged halfway over a barbed wire fence. No way any natural predator in UK is big or strong enough to maul a sheep that bad, and drag such a heavy weight mostly over a barbed wire fence. There was 100% a big cat in my area between the late 90s and early 2000s. To my knowledge there haven't been any sightings in my area for years and years. I certainly believe that there was a Puma or other big black cat.

when i was a kid, maybe 5 or 6, i remember ever so clearly. i was walking down to my grandparents house in a very quite area because my dad and i had just got back from a long journey. my dad got out the van and walked down to the house to pick up our dog and i shut the gate behind him, i cane down probably around a minute or two after him and saw these wide pair of yellow eyes at least at my head height at the time from about 15ft away staring at my and i just ran and went inside as the door wasnt far. my dad only about a year before that had watched a large leopard like cat from inside his van walking at the top of the drive, and for years after my experience i was terrified of walking in the dark on my own

Growing up I was fascinated by big cats, loved them, still do, and I had spent many hours reading about them and looking at them. When I was in the Wyre forest in the Midlands I was on the top of a hill, thick forest either side, but a stretch completely clear of trees from the top to the bottom of the hill. And I saw a huge black cat poke it's head out of the trees on one side, and then leg it across to the other side. When I told others they all asked the same thing: "wasnt it just a big dog?" Nope! Dogs and big cats move very differently, and have VERY different silhouettes, whether it be the protruding shoulder blades, thicker more useable tail, shorter snouts etc etc. No doubt in my mind, I saw a panther.

Me and a friend both saw a large black cat, 100% we know what we saw in the village of Borstal in Kent in 2012. This cat was over 5 feet, or 1.5 meters in length and we know this for a fact because it walked directly in front of a parked car at the bottom of a country lane hill. The cat was as wide as the car from head to tail. This was no domestic house pet, this was a large black cat, the walking in front of the parked car is what sold it for us, that's all the information we needed to confirm this cat was definitely over 5 feet long.

Me and a friend saw one in the early hours of the morning at a hotel on the outskirts of Milton Keynes. We were parked up in the hotel carpark and saw the cat on the edge of the carpark next to the field. I’m fairly knowledgeable about wildlife in general and this was definitely a large black Panther

We have the same thing in Australia. Nobody official will admit it but in certain areas farmers/vets etc are well aware of big cats living in their areas.

May pay to check out what was being sold on the docks in the 1800's. Melbourne, Australia has newspaper clips of big cats being sold on their docks, so their sightings could well be valid

Shocked by the Northants headline at around 6 and half minutes. A long time ago now, maybe,1998. I was walking near Pitsford with the missus, when a large Black Cat, as big as a Lab, with a long tail drooped in the middle came walking from my right across the country lane about 20 feet away. It stopped, turned it's head and looked at me and then just went on across the lane into a field. I told the wife and we jogged down to where it went but it had disappeared into the hedgeline.

Genuinely not bothered about people that dont believe there are not big cats here, they are here, I am so lucky to have seen one, why would I lie, who am I impressing, no one, around 12/13 years ago in North Cornwall near Polzeath, I was a greenkeeper on a Golf Course and the week previous to the sighting we had a golfer come in swearing he had seen a big black cat on the course, so we all thought 'whatever', never thought nothing about it, but around a week later, myself and two greenkeepers were raking a bunker early in the morning, and I cant remember who saw it first, but we watched a big black cat chasing a deer up a steep hill, tail in the air when it turned on a sixpence, right behind the deer, shoulders were so muscular, we missed it for a second as trees obscured our vision, then it come back again, literally a foot from the deer, both flat out running, like something out of the Serengeti, and then they both went into the gorse undergrowth, and we never saw it again, it was so awesome to see, we all literally were like 'what the f', three of us were literally in awe that morning, and like I said, I was so lucky to have seen it, since then I have had three friends that have not just seen a black cat, but also beige big cats, a friend was out lamping one morning near Padstow with a farmer and saw a big black cat yards from them staring at them and then it jumped a hedge and went, also a friend hunting by Roughtor near Bodmin once saw a big beige cat walking close to a stonewall and also near where I live in St Merryn a holidaymaker told my better half she saw a big beige cat near to where they were staying in a carpark in the early hours.

In 2004 mid January I was walking my dog on Roundway Hill in Wiltshire.My dog was in the car as we were driving away to come home, and crossing the track in front of us about 50 yards was a large black cat. It's tail (raised) as it stopped, looked at us then bolted across a field. It's tail was as long as it's body. The one thing I remember we'll was its shoulders, they were big. This was about 4-5years before my first camera phone.

I was gamekeeper for the area encompassing Moss Plantation Knowsly. In 2004 I was in camo waiting for a barn owl to do his round of hedgerows. It was pre twilight so enough light to see vlearly. Rabbits were already on the fallow field feeding. Then i saw a large cat like animal with a very long tail. It was all black and had the head of a panther. I know the area very well, over 40 years. I could tell its size from the background and it was a good 5 to 6 feet. I never went in the woods again of a night after that. I only told my wife.

That dead “lynx” is not in fact a lynx, it’s a bobcat, a smaller, American cousin to the European lynx. The tail color, head shape, body color, facial markings, and size give it away immediately

22:47 I love how he's trying not to laugh

I grew up on a farm in south Wales and I've seen what I can only describe as a Lynx a few times. The hunters all claimed they'd all seen it too. Grey fur and I thought it was some other animals at first but then it broke the treeline and you could clearly see it was a Lynx. My cousin claims he came face to face with it once too

They definitely exist, both me and my father have seen one. I saw a puma shaped cat (although it was black) run out around 100 yards ahead whilst driving in the road and have to crouch and duck under a fence railing at least 2ft off the ground in 2004 between Newmarket and Cambridge. My father saw a black panther in the 90's whilst driving at night between Wimbish Army Barracks and Saffron Walden. He say the yellow eyes in his headlights and slowed to a stop about 30 ft from it. It just sat there and snarled silently at the van he was in. He saw it clearly and in full beam lights for a good 10 seconds - a large black panther, no mistaking it.

Few weird animal mysteries were as spooky as the Surrey Puma. Here in NZ, we get rumours that there are moa birds, who often stood eight feet high and were hunted to extinction centuries ago, still alive in the deep forest of the South Island every few years.

I saw one in the late 80s in Scotland. 5 of us in a car saw it clear as day leap across the road right in front of us on the road over Sheriffmuir just north of Stirling. Unmistakably a black leopard/panther. It was too long and low to be a dog and very big, very quick. It was a cat, a huge black cat.

We know snow leopards exist, we know where they live and yet it can take months and months to actually spot or film one.

Hey just a heads up.. that predator pee spray you are using is often used to deter predators. E.g Big cats like pumas, Leopards, tigers etc are territorial. And if they smell the scent of another cat which has marked there territory. They will stay clear. So probably a bad idea using that!

I've seen a huge black cat with cubs in 2003 near Hullbridge in Essex walking through a field going into a woodland next to a rail track. I didn't have a camera but to this day I'm 100% what I saw. The cat had a very long tail and was many more times the size of a domestic cat.

I saw one in August last year north Lancashire. I was smoking on the doorstep and I saw a dog gallop up the field away from me across the road from me it stopped half way up the field turned to the side and dropped its head to sniff at something in the grass then I noticed it's beautiful black colour rounded head and extreamly long thin tail. I never thought to get a photo of it I just looked in awe I thought I was dreaming. Then it turned round and bound of 30-40 feet in 3 leaps before suddenly stopping and suddenly skulking and looking back at me because it realized I was watching it. But what separated it from a dog was it got down in a small bed of nettles and disappeared looking out at me every few minutes just it's round ears poking out of the nettles. I've never seen it since but I know there was one in the area but I believe it was on the move because. Of all the people venturing into rural areas durin lockdown

Myself an a colleague saw a panther in 2017 in Staffordshire. It was reported in the Burton Mail. We’re both quite big nature geeks and both agreed as to what we saw, no more than 20ft in front of my car. After it happened it became apparent there had been a lot of sightings in the area.

100% real, I saw one in a field as I drove to Cornwall from Bristol back in 2011. It was a large black cat, I said to my mum who was driving and she told me it was just a myth! I had never heard of it and that's how I discovered the tale. She asked if it was a cow but I know 100%, it was a big black cat!

My dads seen it clear as day and seen the paw prints (Oxfordshire countryside) but also I can’t believe you guys didn’t put up the best footage I’ve ever seen, it was on a programme that aired on itv (I think) in the late 90’s, the vid showed a very large black cat walking through a corn/wheat field along the tractor tracks and was taller than the crop and had a very long tail, it then leapt over a barbed wire fence with ease (domestic cat would walk through/under the fence) and disappeared in to a wooded area.

I live in Cornwall and i remember 10 years ago i used to drive a Ambulance that was converted into a Video library. My brother used to sit next to us as we drove around door to door delivering the dvds and video tapes. One evening we were driving a country road nexr Bodmin, and we were chatting along and we both stopped talking as this rather large Cat, Much bigger than a domestic cat was running in the road, or rather leaping, we have rather large Cornish walls in our lanes and it just kept running along the road and then just leaped up onto the cornish wall and went, so fast. We were both very quiet and it made us feel quiet scared and on edge We only had a few hundred yards to travel till the next door we had to call on and non of us wanted to venture out into the dark evening as it was not far away from the sighting. We did mention it to the home owner and they just took it in there stride as many people have seen something similar and they were not fazed by the affair.

I have never seen a big cat here in the UK but i have heard one, in Central Scotland. I took my sons over to the end of a field near a gorge to shoot can's with a .22 air rifle. I wanted to teach them how to do this safely.. We sat cans at a massive rock {{ used for backing }}. There had been people walked along a path well behind us and a disused railway, with their dogs. We waited till no-one was around. I fired 3 shots. On the 3rd all we heard and felt was this loud growling from behind the very old, raised railway. I swear the deep/low, yet loud growling, went right through our bodies, we truly 'felt' the growls. I have NEVER felt anything like that in my life and i have been an outdoors person all my life. I got my sons aged approx 10 n 12yrs old behind me. I told them to keep calm, no sudden movements, do NOT run or make any loud noises. I told the boys to watch for ANY movement in front of us as i watched behind and to the sides. I walked backwards, {{ so my sons were behind behind me }} ALL the way, till we got back onto a street. Even then i was still looking behind every few seconds. When it happened i remember thinking, this slug gun wouldn't touch what made that noise. In my mind, i was just going to hit anything that appeared, with the butt of the gun. It would have been totally pointless to fire a .22 slug at it. Whatever made that noise, was big, really big. We got home, i told my friend and they laughed. Because of their reaction, i never told anyone else. Myself and my sons never went over those braes {{ woods }} for years after this. We have never forgot about it as it was terrifying. I have no need to lie, i have no evidence except my 2 son's word and my own. We never made a big thing of it and tbh this is the 1st time i have spoken about it, since my friend laughed. I guarantee you though, she wouldn't have laughed if she had been with us. Funny enough, i then googled big cats Scotland and there had been a sighting of 1, 14 miles from us the previous month. I do believe people are seeing the same big cat or 2, patrolling their territory, 100 miles in either direction. I am very suspicious of some of the things on this video. I honestly think there are set ups, as some things don't make sense. I also find it funny that you guys put a couple of trail cams out, hoping to find a big cat. Cat's as big as what is being spoken about here have huge territories, up to 125 square miles. I doubt sticking 2 camera's out in woods is going to do the job. You need an experienced tracker and hunter to help.

I've been keeping up with this for a long time now, can't wait to give this a watch. Congrats man, well done! 👏

Saw one once in Essex, close to the Suffolk border whilst out walking my dog sometime in the late 90's. It was just sat chilling in the middle of a crop field close to a wooded area where I'd regularly spot deer, so it clearly had a food supply. The land was owned by a friend of my dad's who said he used to be missing mysteriously live stock if he left them in any of the fallow land close to that wood overnight.

Great video guys. Really well made. I have some anecdotal “evidence “. In the mid 80s, in a field west of the motorway between Godalming and Guildford, I saw a large black cat. It was walking slowly and at first I thought it was a dog, but then I realised it was a large cat by the way it moved. I was in a moving car, so I only saw if for five to ten seconds . I gave up recounting this story years ago as I soon realised nobody believed me. I know what I saw though. It was 100% a leopard sized black cat.

My dad saw a big cat down Wigmore Lane, Luton late one night whilst walking our dog. He said it was sitting in the middle of the path. The thing that he noticed the most was its size and its fluffy tail. He said it was almost like a raccoons tails and was really fluffy. Some years later myself and a few mates noticed something big walking through long grass while we were climbing and building a tree house in this old oak tree that was at the bottom of a builders yard that was half way up cockenhoe hill. We jumped out the tree and ran for our lives. Have no idea what was making the grass move it was well hidden. The grass was well over waist hieght in length.

Montana resident, and wild game hunter. It's possible you have some or a breeding population of lynx, in my opinion, in the UK. The public are unlikely to notice rabbit carcasses nor are they likely to be in remote places where these cats would prefer to hunt at night. Mountain lion/Puma? Not so likely. Your red deer population is closely monitored, so you are definitely not losing enough red deer (whose carcasses are later seen in trees- usually in the autumn when the natural leaves die back- can you imagine the British public's reaction to just one such sighting? I saw in the news the other day that residents of England called 999; and not just a few- over a 100! because it was snowing and they heard snow thunder... ) and the odd sheep is definitely not enough food to sustain a single puma over the year, nevermind a breeding colony. In Montana we get the odd wolf attack on sheep/cattle, and the wolf is often hunted down and dispatched with. If your farmers had dozens of sheep going missing over a year, they'd know about it. A black leopard can live up to 18 years I'm told, so it's possible a released 'pet' was sighted for many years after it's release. Just my thoughts, though!

Great documentary. Caught a glimpse of what i believe to be a black Leopard last week. Didn’t have enough time to get a video but it wasn’t a domestic cat or dog. This was in County Durham.

There's definitely big cats roaming the British country sides. A law that was past stopped people owning large wild animals in the 70's. Many of the rich owners let them free instead of killing them. I grew up in the Midlands in the countryside and I have family members who came face to face with them. A sheep's remains were found 20 feet up a tree with huge cat like prints near by.

In the early 90s, i was walking my dog in the clear moonlight. In a nearby field i saw a large black animal, moving swiftly across the open grass. The unmistakable gait of a large cat. By the way, this sighting was approximately 300 metres from the boundary of peak District national park.

I saw a large black cat the size of an adult male leopard or jaguar walking along the edge of a field near reading in berkshire in 2006. No mistaking what it was since i am a nature photographer who has travelled across asia and africa and seen big cats in the wild. My mother saw a similar cat near slough in berkshire a few years back. Her friend saw what she called a 'skinny lioness' (puma) in windsor in 2003.

My friend and I were in a couple of sleeping bags sleeping in the forest near Symonds Yat. in Gloucestershire. I was asleep and she was buried in her sleeping, nothing exposed when she became aware of something near by. She heard it approach and sniff the closed sleeping, and obviously she was shitting herself. After a few moments the animal withdrew, and she found the courage to peak out her bag. She said it was a Labrador sized black cat staring back at her with yellow eyes. Thankfully I slept through the hole thing !!

I have seen a lynx running along a wall around a field in Wales. A black leopard crossing the road one evening near Edenbridge in Kent. We lived on a farm a few miles away from there a few years earlier where three young redpoll were found dead next to each other. I found a big cat footprint on the same farm along a badger trail in a wood another time. and about half a mile from there my dog ran off and I heard some bloodcurdling sounds while my dog was barking in a way I had never heard. He came back to my side with such fear in his eyes and his tail between his legs. Something had scared him terribly. A couple of years ago along the A12 between Colchester and Chelmsford, I saw a dead wallaby on the side of the road, along with the usual badgers, foxes, muntjac and pheasants. I enjoyed your video and know these big cats are about.

I hate to peddle to the crazies, so I'm reluctant to even mention it but I'm 99% sure I seen one. I'm an avid outdoorsman, but this was seen at work in Cambridgeshire. It was the time of the year when the sun was rising around 0600 (April i believe) and i used to sleep at work in the countryside. My favourite thing to do was wake up, grab a coffee, grab a smoke and step in the garden that overlooks all the field's to watch the sunrise. Usually with a soft mist for that time of year, but this morning was clear. I seen a big black object walking a few hundred metres away, along a line that would have divided two fields and had a small line of trees (only 3 or 4). I spent minutes wrapping my brain around it because it moved like a feline, but was too big. My brain was literally struggling to process what it was as I'm quite logical in my thinking. I came to no other conclusion than a big cat.

iv seen 2 of these big cats while out metal detecting in Northamptonshire ...1 was completely black and the other was a creamy beige colour

The video at 29:45 is definitely a big cat, you can see the long tail and it digs its haunches in and springs out as it turns...

Excellent documentary. The footage near the end of something chasing the deer was very intriguing. I would have liked to see some experts clean up and analyze that footage. I live in South Florida just outside The Everglades and have gone exploring and filming in there for many years. My dream has always been to encounter a Florida Panther. I finally happened across a mother and cub about a year and a half ago but unfortunately I didn't have my camera ready. There are certain places they are known to inhabit and they constantly get captured on trail cams yet in person sightings are very rare. They are extremely illusive. I believe there is a decent chance that there may be a few wild big cats in the UK however I can't imagine so many people would have seen them. And the fact that people usually report black panthers is very telling.

Yet to be Wildlife Manager here! So I'm from Hungary, we do have an active Lynx population of like around a 100 individuals, they're a constant breeding population but these animals (and wild cats in general) are very secretive; and even tough our population is pretty dense they're still a rare sight to behold! In Brittain (which in area is already larger than what we have here) I can imagine a very small population (a bit like what we have here), because these animals live in solidarity that's why you wouldn't find like 3-5 in an area but one and that one might even be a very careful one So in short I find it pretty believable About the jaguars and puma tough, maybe there was once a couple of them being released and slowly dying off in the years, some might even survive but the thing is that by now they're most likely gone The one on the trail cam footage is most likely a big black cat tough, there's no doubt about it! Same for the individual hit by a car

Interesting documentary lads. It was interesting for me looking at the kills, I've suspected a large cat in my local area for sometime, and have found two kills, a deer with it's back end missing, and a sheep, which looked identical to the one shown here, with it's innards and rib catch missing. I've also seen a large golden beast chasing deer in the long grass, my husband and I initially thought it was a large dog, but agreed it's movements didn't appear dog like at all, it had no bounce. You've inspired me to set up deer cams ;)

Watching this now because yesterday my partner and l saw what we believe was a puma in the field behind where l live in Clearwell Gloucestershire. I have only lived here since beggining of Lockdown and have only found out since yesterday that they have been seen in the very close proximity in recent years.

I saw a leopard sized black cat with a very long tail walking along a hedgeline (so was able to be clear on the size) in the field adjacent to where I lived on the Suffolk/Cambs border. A neighbour to whom I mentioned this told me that about thirty years earlier when he was a teenager, a group of local shooters had driven all the animals out of a local small wood using beaters, of which he was one, and he had seen a big cat flee from the wood. That was only a couple of miles from where I saw the big cat, but about thirty five years apart.

I’ve always been intrigued about large cats living in the UK, It started when I was at school and I read Colin Dann’s book the Siege of White Dear Park part of the Animals of Farthing Wood series if anyone knows of it. I was always on the lookout when visiting Dartmoor with my parents while on holiday but obviously never saw anything. But just a few years ago some thirty or more years later I did actually get to see my first wild cat, not a black leopard (unfortunately) but a lynx and I’m absolutely sure of it. It was while driving home from a friends in the evening. I saw movement on the side the road obviously a animal of some kind so I slowed up as I have a habit of near misses with animals fairly regularly as I commute early to work and often see Badgers, Foxes and Deer. This was clearly not one of those. I only witnessed it for a few seconds before it entered the undergrowth. But it was clearly fairly stocky, flat faced, had a stubby tail, pointy ears and light in colour I just can’t see I mistook it for anything else I had clear sight of it in my headlights and only being twenty foot or so from it. I’m sure of what saw was a very healthy looking Lynx. Anyway it made my day…

im a regular camper hiker i did not believe these story's as iv spent a lot of time in remote woods and hills, seen few random things but could be explained. 3 years ago in Yorkshire we was camping and early hours they was some kind of big cat like prowling round the camp it was next to my tent and woke me up, the dog i was with was shacking in fear and this was a brave dog. i was petrified and froze in the tent i know it was not a dog, me and my friend finally started shouting and and screaming banging pans, we heard it growling not like a dog but a cat like, after some time we got out the tent to see a big cat like animal walking away i never been back there or camp in the wild again

I enjoyed that. It would have been interesting to look at evidence of big cat escapes from private and public collections relating to the sightings. The general frequency of such escapes, whether the animals are recovered and how long they were at large would have been interesting too. Having said all that, it was a well put together programme that I thought was well balanced.

Considering the UK was part of the Roman Empire and these animals were kept as pets by the elite it doesn’t surprise me that their descendants exist. We have big cat sightings her in Australia as well.

Really enjoyed watching this. Keep up the good work! Great evidence found. I live by Cannock Chase where there were rumours of big cats but not heard of anything for ages.

One of the best docs I've ever seen on the subject- lots of fun! At some point, as an idea, could another documentary be produced from the sceptical side of things? I'm like Cookie- a huge fan of the idea, but a (very interested) doubter- it'd be good to see the sceptical side of the argument discussed in more detail sometime. Great stuff again!

The thing spotted at 29:59 is what I spotted 35+ yrs ago. Id bought an escort mk2 and had a run to Whitby . On the way back somewhere between Danby and the turn off to Commondale a dear shot right across the road , as I composed myself after slamming my brakes on something which I describe as a flying bear appeared in pursuit. It must have leapt 20' or so. BTW there are thousands things like buzzards, badgers and deers and most of the 66million population have not seen one.

100% out there .seen with my own eyes when out fishing. It was a black leopard no more then 20ft away in the corn field chasing a rabbit .the same cat was spotted agane a few weeks later .it is one of them things you don't really believe it till you see it yourself.

I came across a large black panther/puma? While cycling in Derbyshire on 9th Sugust 23 5am. It stopped , looked at me and then just walked off. Terrifying.

_My ex boyfriend used to work on a farm in essex and the farmer kept 2 pumas illegally in a barn, if people are keeping these illegally they must be escaping or being released_

The outtakes were hysterical 😆😆 great documentary. I have seen a mountain lion near my rural home. I have recently watched Ross Kemp: Britain's Tiger Kings, you would not believe how easy it is to get your hands on a big cat despite the dangerous animal act. I believe it was a pet once as mountain lions are popular exotic pets.

It's amazing how that old chap manages to have an interest because of sightings since 1984 36 years ago yet all he has as evidence is half eaten animals. So now the cat looking like dead animal on the road. He goes on about getting pictures and states a four foot long tail why is this not show in the photo and why does he not have a picture of the whole body to show it's true size say by placing something next to it. After all he states he takes the picture why not more. I would of takes loads. A dead animal ie a normal cat can be made to look large in photos and white lines vary so again why no location of the road so the lines can be verified in size. I know big cats exist but his story's seem a bit far fetched from truth and more his own mind. Foxes also eat dead animals in the same way when they find a dead animal. Badgers can bite through ribs if they want to..

Definitely a breeding population of puma. My ex husband witnessed one in 2006, clearly visible and scaleable, sadly no photo. Then in 2021 he saw another - again very clearly (sadly no photo). But the two sightings were only 400m apart. Highly unlikely to be the same animal. I myself have seen a black leopard on two separate occasions, in rural Perthshire. The first time was in daylight about 6am, was very clearly a very large animal, sleek, with an extremely long tail. I could easily judge the scale by how it bounded onto the road in front of my car, across the road, and up a high embankment and over a fence at the top. The second time, it was at night, and again it bounded onto the road in one leap, then another leap it was off the road and away into the forest. It was certainly not a dog. Both times they occurred, were before camera phones.

I saw a lynx back in 2004 , came out of some woodland in Lympne in Kent . It saw me , froze for a moment and then slinked back through the fence into the woods . I could estimate its size by the fence posts . What really struck me was what a beautiful face it had but what stumpy legs . Round about that time there were several sightings on the nearby Romney Marshes

Big black cats do exist in this country, I seen one in december in North Yorkshire. Was about 06:00 and I was on my way to the Malton Rally there was a car behind me, I seen this animal it was walking along the hedge at the side of the road. At first I thought fox, but as I got closer it was bigger than a fox. And it was jet black, daylight had just broken and the jet black colour stood out. It couldn't have been a dog as it was in the middle of nowhere and no dog walker about. The people in the car behind must of seen it as they suddenly stopped and turned left up the track where the animal went. When I got to the rally I was speaking with a marshal who lived local to the area and I was telling him what I seen. He knew where I had seen it before I told him and he said "I see them all the time" I was shocked at how calm he was when he said that.

last one i saw was about 30 years ago, sitting by the side of a country road. pulled up and got out and he loped off. the most distinct things were the eyes caught in the headlights, far larger build than any domestic cat but the most distinct part of its appearance was the thick heavy tail. When i told local game keeper and his brothers they weren't phased at all and said they had seen the 'puma' multiple times. About 50 odd years ago i saw a similar large cat leaping up into a hay barn and that was about 300 mls away from the second sighting. ps over the last couple of years reasonably local to my second sighting i have come across the remains of two separate fresh deer carcasses, one just the head the other the head and neck vertebrae. Both of these were miles from any publlc roads so in my opinion were not the remains of road kill.

Im from cornwall and we always know there is big cats roaming out there. It dates back to when britain introduced the exotic animal license/permit, many rich people living in cornwall and devon released their animals, theres an estimated 40 or 50 alive

There are definitely big cats out there I live on a farm and about 8-9 years ago we had a dead chicken on the lawn that had been completely stripped, some might say a fox but I've seen fox kills and it wasn't a fox, the same night my mum heard what she described as a raw so I played her the sound of a black panther and straight away she said that was it. The other thing was footprints the stride length was 4ft walking what ever it was had been chasing something properly the chicken and when it was running the stride length was 6foot. At the time we had a rottweiler and we compared her feet too the foot prints and it was more than double her print. Definitely something weather there are breeding pairs or not. I have also seen a large cat print up in Scotland just out side Dundee.

Met a man who cleans ovens. Dose wildlife photography as a hobby. Showed me some photos of a puma in a graveyard in Oxfordshire near Witney ways....insane

I live near the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire and there have been a few sightings, one by someone I know (this was many years ago). I've never seen anything but do believe they are there. They have been sighted near Hartpury, Gloucestershire too.

I grew up just between the lake district and the yorkshire dales, and the farmers there often had sheep killed just like this, skin stripped, choked with neck punctures, and all seemed to be convinced big cats were roaming the area. There are areas around there in the valleys of 20sq miles + of bogs and woodland where you could wander for weeks and not see another human. Lots of deer, sheep and small mammals and lots of small spots to hide in. There can't be a large number of them, but im sure its possible Puma or some sort of black Lynx are out in the UK.

So I found a dead big cat and then went off for a two hour meeting 🤔

Driving through Aston/swallownest area on the outskirts of Sheffield in the late 90s,about 3am, I saw what I thought was a black Labrador walking along the pavement,as I got closer and my headlights hit it,it turned to the side, and I could clearly see it was a black panther,it lept over a privit hedge. A few years later in the press,on the front page was a pic of a large black cat,taken in the same area I’d spotted it

Lots of exotic pets where set free when the law on keeping them changed.

I live in Norfolk never seen one, have tracked them in soft ground and found scat. My next door neighbor saw one very local, she may be right I could not say but the following day my wife walking past the same spot said our spaniel glued himself to her side [very unlike him] became wild eyed and furtive. Not exactly convincing I know, might help if I tell you I grew up in the African bush and know the difference between cats and dogs tracks and scats.

Perhaps 22-23 years ago I was fishing boscathnoe reservoir, Cornwall, winter time, as it was just getting light so probably 7:30ish, my friend and I seen a big cat walking up a hedge line for around 50 yards before jumping over the hedge into the next field and out of sight. Definitely puma like in appearance

Seen and heard a large black cat in the new forest while walking with my parents and dogs on 3 separate occasions. Bloody scary.

Interesting that Benjamin said he never heard of any more sightings past 2010 when in 2012-2016 there were sightings in Cornwall including a foal that got killed in 2016 and partially eaten with all the marks of a big cat and there were big cat prints in the mud of the field and around the dead foal. The local police said it was "wild dogs" which was of course bull because people from Newquay zoo checked it out and said it was definitely a big cat. There hasn't been any (or any that was deemed news worthy) sightings since then though. Basically they come and go and occasionally take the odd livestock which is how it's always been. A dead deer was also found in Tehidy woods near Portreath up in a tree although I heard nothing else about that case. Interesting that the women after Benjamins information says there's little physical evidence when there's been plenty. There's even accounts of droppings being found, sent off to the government only for the reply to be dog droppings. A zoo then sent their own leopard droppings to the government to see what the result would be. Same result...dog droppings. It's a cover up.

Me and 2 colleagues saw a very large black cat walking along the middle of a hedge in 2022 in east Devon nr Honiton. There's been lots of other sightings by well respected people in the area over the years

Send a freedom of information request to police in West Midlands about the time they had marksman on watch for panthers due to the sightings and evidence of finding sheep corpses up 6ft walls and in trees

Brilliant work lads. I've had a really really great time ' walking ' with you. Was so happy when I found out part 2. Bless everyone.

i’m from pembrokeshire and there’s been sightings of farms all over my dad seen one walking the dog about 20 mins away from my old house and farmers from around here will tell stories even near my house there’s a woodland and there’s story’s of dog going weird and scared

I remember going to half penny ... A cordened gate... There were no birds. Quiet. It felt creepy. We couldn't get out fast enough.. then, when leaving we saw " warning, big cats been active here". X

You saw a big what in the early hours of this morning sir? Lmao 😂

What a great docu' esp with all the renewed interest...brilliant work here.

Fantastic documentary. Don’t lose heart...if the lifespan of a big cat is 20 years max, then there must be some breeding if they’re still being sighted since 1976.

I worked night shifts so I found it hard to sleep on my nights off.It was a stifling summers night I had swung open the casement upstairs windows & was just leaning out.Between 3-4 am I saw a jet black animal come up & stand in the middle of the road.It looked about the size of a our family black Labrador, I thought it odd it didn’t notice me starring down at it.Leaning out further under the street light I could see it distinctly had the face of a cat & more the body shape of a cat!! I thought wow they have bloody big Tom cats in London.I did see it again same time of night, as a child my brother was a volunteer at the Zoo I went with him visiting at the Zoo a lot.It reminded me distinctly of a black Jaguar that was housed there but not so large.Within a week in the local paper in South London there was a report about several sightings of the self same animal I had seen.Reports speculated it was living on the abandoned railway tracks locally.Now this really got to me because the direction this animal came from was the road that ran down from our house to the unused tracks in question!! This was in 1987 in South London, I think realistically it was an exotic pet dumped & was fending for itself, no one was on the overgrown unused tracks plenty of cover & safety & at the most quiet time of the night it was out hunting & just sauntering about!!

This is actually scary since I go on long walks into the woods in the summer with my 4 year old. Literally in the middle of nowhere. Woods are linked to Brecon Beacons. Never seen anything besides squirrels, rabbits and dogs with owners. But this will be in my head now.

I saw a lynx in huddersfield it was watching my kids play in the garden everyone was thinking im going crazy.....3 week later it was on front page of examiner. Thay didn't tell the public about the escape due to fear of the reaction but was confirmed to be back with it's keeper. 2005 ish. Big head popped up from behind a tree then it was gone 15/20 foot away. What a buzz that was❤. Brilliant film guys 👍

I've only been following this topic for a few days, since I saw what I thought might have been a black panther in Hampshire. I have no doubt of its size, from 1.0-1.5m body length, because of a roe deer nearby. I can't be sure of its identity though, because it was quite a distance away. The animal that closest fits the description of what I saw was a black panther (i.e. melanistic leopard). Could it have been an escapee? Of course. No evidence of breeding from my sighting, though other people have reported seeing cubs. The oddest feature of the sightings for me though is something that was briefly mentioned in this excellent film: why are none of the leopards in Britain ever spotted?

first sentence from this guy "so where'd you get this shotgun?" "from the Americans, they use this to hunt terrorists" i like this guy, dude walks around with an FAL.

So beautifully made Makes me feel happy I live in glorious Devon💢💢💢

I've had two possible encounters over the years. The first time, I was driving back home through a semi rural area in my Ford boring (Mondeo). It was very late - around 2-3 AM. All of a sudden, I saw what I'd describe as a 'black flash' of movemment right in front of the car. I was doing around 25-30 MPH at that moment as the road is quite twisty there. A split second later I felt the impact as whatever had flashed in front of my car hit head on. I immediately stopped and looked around, fully expecting to see a dead or dying large dog but instead there was nothing, except the front plastic bumper was almost completely torn off the car, all split and crumpled. Inside one of the cracks I could see a small amount of blood and a few clumped black hairs. I have been a dog and cat owner all my life and although I am not an expert I can say that at the time, I didn't feel those hairs were from a dog, more like a cat but thicker and coarser. Anyway, even though I checked each roadside, and the immediate area either side of the road - empty fields either side, I found nothing else. I've always maintained since that it must have been a large dog of some kind, purely because that would be the most logical, but I always felt it was something else, but of course I never did find out. The second time was many years later, I was driving my Land Rover from Manchester to Leeds, over the M62 just as you climb up onto the moors. Anyone who has driven a classic Land Rover up that hill will tell you I was doing around 45 MPH at the most. They aren't known for their speed. There is, at one point, like a drainage channel that climbs up the side of the motorway, and up the edge of a steep embankment. You can see it very clearly as you approach. It was daylight still, but about 1/2 hour before twighlight. As I approached I saw a dark looking animal - it was definitely an animal, walking up the drainage channel. When I got closer the animal stopped for a moment, it was cat like, had a very long tail with a distinctly bushy end. It wasn't black, but a lighter tan/dirty yellow colour. I couldn't make out any markings or patterns. As I drew alongside, I could see it was about the size of a large dog such as a Doberman or German Shepherd, but much more heavily built and I could see the muscle mass very clearly, especially around the shoulders and neck. It had long whiskers, very distinct. And then, I'd passed and that was that.

Good job guys. I can tell you poured a lot into this.

i lived in Cairnie by Huntley (aberdeenshire) in the 90's. There was a cat tracked on the local Tv news it was like a cool thing to see everynight as they tracked it straight towards us. The damn thing came straight through our croft. Scared the livestock, my dog and me. something I'll never forget..