AIBU to think friend was mistaken about seeing a 'black panther' behind my house?

[HourOrTwo]

So last week friend turned up on my doorstep in a right state, saying she'd just seen a 'black panther' run across road and disappear into field behind my house!! I said it must have been a dog or badger but she no it was definitely a big black cat. She was very upset and shaken (left her bike in road and ran to my house on foot, would not tell me what was wrong until we were inside!)

FYI we live in a rural area, only one other house nearby. Our garden backs onto fields with woods nearby. Road is more of a lane, hardly any traffic.

Friend said she'd cycled round bend in road when big black cat about 5ft long with a long tail ran into road about 10m from her, she braked, cat froze and 'snarled' at her then ran rest of way across. She saw it go through hedge then lost sight of it. She said it sort of 'slunk' across moving low to ground and had a strange shaped head. I can't think of anything else to fit this description, any ideas?

I told her it had to be a big black dog but she was having none of it, insists it was a big cat. Apparently it moved like a cat. She doesn't have any vision problems, she wasn't drunk or anything (I did wonder at first). She does get scared easily though and can be bit hysterical e.g. she is scared of wasps and dogs. She wanted to phone police but I talked her out of it and when DH came home he gave her a lift home.

Thing is DH has taken this seriously!!! He won't let DD (7) play in garden unsupervised, has cut back all bushes around house and won't let me walk DD to school (2-mile walk through fields). He also reported it to police though unsurprisingly they declined to investigate. They said there haven't been any other sightings. DH has been examining garden 'for signs'. Last night he thought he heard 'a big cat coughing' (!!!) when he was standing at end of garden. Naturally he didn't see it.

AIBU to think this is all crazy and my friend must have made a mistake?

If I start an 'I've seen an alien' thread', I suppose half of you crackpots will claim to have seen one of those too.

vindsceen I'm in durham and I've seen one just like that many times
5pm on Wednesday on boomerang I think

Pmsl at large hedgehog. shoulda gone to spec savers :o

Primula! Now you being silly. The panther was less than a metre away from me. It was huge and the tail was huge. Local paper full of sightings. Also on a still summer evening you did hear them. Its fact!

We were driving around looking for an abandoned village we'd heard about.

Inbur? Inver? Forget. Was about 12 years ago.

How long do Panthers live? He/she may be long gone.

think I saw him on prebends bridge too. students!

We saw (and investigated) a big cat kill when we were out walking. The kill of a cat is very different to a dog. We found prints around where is chased a herd of deer up a very steep slope.

My dp has seen one on the side of a road about 5 miles from our findings.

Am itching to do more investigative walks!!!

I've seen one too! 13 years ago when I was staying in Cornwall (our place was in the Middle of nowhere). Looked out of window and saw it slinking across the field. Was so big I thought it was a large dog at first but it was definitely a large black cat with a long tail. I never saw it again though!

londonrach, As someone who spends a great deal of time out in the countryside i am very aware of the tricks the night can play on our eyes. Shadows can fool us into thinking we are seeing things that aren't really there and even the average domestic cat can appear to be much larger than it actually is. So I have absolutely no doubt that what was actually seen that night was an hedgehog.

Primula I'm surprised you find this so hard to believe if you spend a lot of time in the country. There are thousands of sightings every year across the uk. It's really not that unusual.

I've seen one too, about 20 years ago, in rural Oxfordshire. It was part way into a field near some woods. When DH and I saw it, it saw us, had a look and loped off into the woods. Absolutely no doubt as to what we saw. I rang the police who cheekily asked if we were on the way home from the pub. We weren't.

primula stop being ridiculous a hedgehog could never emulate the size of a big cat no matter what shadows were cast or in what light.
You may just be jesting but I've also seen one in broad daylight how do you explain that with no shadows or tricks our eyes play at night? I was only about 7 but I've remembered it frequently and it's over 30 years ago.
It was in a woodland area were I was playing with my friend my older brother was with us too.
It was massive and black....I was so scared I remember just freezing I didn't say anything to my friend of brother I just knew they wouldn't believe me.

There was no mistaking the one I saw either, it was broad daylight and it crossed the road in front of my car (which I had to stop) and it looked me square in the eye as it did!

Ladyflumpslot that will be the bloody enormous black cat in Tilshead. I swear the first time I saw it I thought it was a Big Cat. Triple the size of a normal cat!

Everythingwillbeok. When you're 7 years old, even a small black cat would appear to be much larger. if everything I thought I saw when I was 7 was actually true, then this would be a bloody strange world!

Thing is DH has taken this seriously!!! He won't let DD (7) play in garden unsupervised, has cut back all bushes around house and won't let me walk DD to school (2-mile walk through fields). He also reported it to police though unsurprisingly they declined to investigate.

Primula i grow up in the country. I know what a hedgehog looks like. I know how to walk through the woods down wind so i can see deer. I spent hours walking through the woods with my friends and in the streams near my home during my childhood and teenage years. It was ONE metre from me and i never said it was dark. It was a summer evening at 5pm. My ex was with me by my side. After the jack russell chased the panther off we found the deer which had been eaten in a certain way. As someone who grow up in the country you know what i mean. The deer looked different. There were very long stratches on the bones and the way the meat was eaten. Like nothing ive seen before. We returned with a camera to take a picture of this poor deer (red deer..young doe by looks of it). Ex still has these photos. Its fact!

Also the tail was huge!!!!! Huge. Almost the size of its body and very bushy....

Just about everyone on this thread claims to have seen one of these big cats. So statistically that would mean that just about every woman in the UK has seen one. Mmmmmmm, something doesn't quite add up. My logic thinking and common sense is obviously wasted on this thread. Therefore I'm getting out while I still have my sanity. I love you all dearly but i'm afraid you're a little too unhinged for my liking. Love and peace.

I am DYING to see a big cat. My brother and I spent every summer of our youth in Cornwall with eyes on stalks in desperate hope of seeing the Beast of Bodmin, always referred to in our house as 'that lovely big cuddler.'

Primula, mn is a massive site. Do you not think maybe 1000s of people have read this and not commented as they have nothing to say and haven't seen one?

DH and I saw one when we were coming down back of Helveyln on a cold, really windy, sleeting February afternoon. It was about 150m below us on a flat area of grazing, coming towards us to about 300m away chasing a ewe. My first reaction was to go running down yelling at it for chasing sheep, thinking it was a dog, but it wasn't. It was a panther and when the ewe jumped a stream and carried on running, the panther stopped, walked up and down by the stream, sat bolt upright the way a cat does and looked about, then slowly walked back the way it had come, we were still high above it and it kept stopping and glancing back to the stream. We took pictures but they are just a black lump through the sleet. My DH likes to deny it now, but we watched it for about 3-4 mins and talked every possible creature through looking at it and it was a black panther. We also decided that a dog would probably have jumped the stream and carried on the chase rather than such feline like behaviour. I registered on a big cat sighting website, but heard no further.

Shosha1 - I did consider the possibility that I had seen a very super sized domestic cat, but in reviewing my recall, the cat I saw was far too long to be a moggy and its tail was just different - long and heavy and not tapered. It was also quite low to the ground. I've lived in the countryside for the majority of my life and am not generally considered suggestible. I had never given Big Cat stories much credence until I saw one for myself. What surprised me most was its proximity to housing. I wonder - do they eat fish?

primula are you absolitely sure you didn't see one of these?

You more likely to comment on this if you seen a panther. Ive written before on mn about me seeing that cat