THE BIG CAT COVER-UP
Are officials hiding truth about mystery beasts?
ARE big cats stalking the British countryside and is the truth being covered up?
That’s the question being asked by researchers after a series of mysterious events involving sightings of big cats being followed up by official silence.
Now there are suggestions secret Men in Black-style government agents are at work, removing evidence of big cats.
In one incident earlier this month, the body of a puma vanished after a string of credible reports.
The big cat, otherwise known as a mountain lion or cougar, had been killed in a collision with a vehicle in Winchester, Hants, on June 6.
Several eye-witnesses reported the incident and the news quickly reached a nationwide network of undercover big cat researchers, who immediately sent local members to investigate.
But upon their arrival at the scene, the body was already GONE.
Jon McGowan, the wildlife expert, naturalist, taxidermist and star of upcoming award-winning independent documentary film ‘Britain’s Big Cat Mystery’, is not surprised.
He has been investigating reports of British big cats for decades and believes there is a conspiracy to suppress the truth about the phenomenon.
“Big cats are killed on British roads more commonly than you might think,” he said.
“The authorities send anonymous teams in unmarked vehicles to recover the dead bodies before the press or witnesses can record the evidence. “I have a similar story myself.” Jon once saw a dead cat on a roadside which he estimates may have been up to 9ft long including its tail.
Other onlookers and witnesses thought the animal was “a dead lion”.
Disappeared
Jon was late for an important meeting and so was only able to take one photograph of it before leaving the area near to a busy military base.
He planned to come back later that evening to recover the body, but it had mysteriously disappeared by the time he returned.
Big cat researcher Frank Tunbridge, from Gloucestershire, says Jon’s theory is true.
Frank said: “I know that a guy hit a big cat on the Monmouth Road, heading out of the Forest of Dean. He thought it was a golden Labrador and phoned the police to report it, but the Forestry Commission had rangers in the area who went to check it out.
“Not long afterwards, the rangers phoned their office to report that “it’s no golden Labrador that’s been hit, it’s a lynx!”
Frank added: “The rangers were told to keep their mouths shut and were instructed to bury the body in the forest.
“Gamekeepers have been known to do the same.”
On May 18, 2012, a dead animal was found in Cullen, Morayshire, which was thought to have been a big cat.
The body had dark fur and large teeth and it was reported at the time that the remains would be sent to Bob Wallace, from the now disbanded ‘Big Cats in Britain’ group, for analysis.
Bob never got the remains.
He said: “I am unable to shed any light as to where the remains of the animal ended up but can assure you they never came to myself or the group.”
It seems this was yet another case of a vanishing body of a weird dead animal, found somewhere it should not have been, with a trail of awkward silence left in its wake.
Other similar cases include an alleged jungle cat hit by a car in the Avon Valley in 2015; a report by Lincolnshire Live on November 21, 2017, of the body of a black leopard found on the A1, which several eye-witnesses stated had been put in the back of a truck and removed by highways workers; and a report by the Oxford Mail on March 9, 2020, of the dead body of a puma-sized big cat on the central reservation of the A34 near Kidlington, which also was mysteriously removed.
Perhaps the most famous case, likened as the ‘ Roswell incident of the British big cat phenomenon’, is that of a black leopard found on the A169 Pickering to Whitby road on June 9, 2004.
Reports at the time state that numerous witnesses saw a group of anonymous personnel load the body into an unmarked vehicle and take it into nearby military base, RAF Fylingdales.
An investigator even spoke with a guard on the gate of the base who acknowledged the incident and admitted seeing the leopard’s body come in.
At the time the Ministry of Defence (MOD) denied the claims had any credibility.
And in more recent Freedom of Information requests, the MOD have stated they have no records of the incident or any bodies of big cats at the base.