In the world of Fortean Zoology there are few creatures seen more often than a big cat that would be perfectly normal if it wasn’t being spotted on continents where it isn’t supposed to exist at all. Big black cats have always had an association with magic and witches, particularly around Halloween. But this latest cat wasn’t a witch’s familiar but rather a wild animal far larger than normal by several feet. The Black Cat of Lithgow has been spotted.
The black cat was spotted around Mount Walker, where it has been seen for a number of years by witnesses such as Marika Vervoorn who was interviewed by the Lithgow Mercury. And as the sightings begin piling up it seems this black cat has little intention of making the acquaintance of any of the locals – something they are perfectly fine with.
And reading through the sightings, they seem to oddly parallel sightings that have happened halfway across the world in Texas. For years cryptozoology blog Cryptomundo has been chronicling the reports of big cats seen in Texas and other places ranging from simple appearances in the wilderness to on-camera video footage of the creature being spotted in the middle of the city.
And Texas isn’t the only place the creatures have been seen. Places as far North as Northeast Wales have also spotted the creature – even giving rise to an official investigation to discover what the creature was up to if it indeed did exist. In fact, all over the UK investigations were launched including Shipley where a mysterious lynx had been spotted by witnesses enough times to get the Shipley city council concerned.
What are these mysterious creatures so often witnessed in the wilderness and in more urban environments? Are they escaped animals from zoos and private collections? Or is there a different explanation for these mass sightings? Is it possible they are actually somehow operating outside of what we understand as space and time instead jumping from location to location? Or are they even big cats to begin with? Could they somehow be ghosts or elaborate hoaxes designed to scare locals? Experts have for years stated that big cats would be particularly difficult to hoax – especially if they move – because the creatures are very much unlike most other creatures we see. They have slower more agile gaits than most dogs, and they would be impossible to mimic by putting a person in a suit of any sort. As a result, and because the widespread sightings are so common, big cat sightings have been given far more weight than some of the other cryptozoological phenomena in the media. But if it is happening, then why are they never found dead?
For years it has been a source of frustration among cryptozoologists that a dead panther has never been discovered, nor has one been hunted successfully in all of the attempts by locals to apprehend the mysterious creatures. Some would say this suggests a paranormal explanation, but in the end it only makes them more unexplainable.