October 23, 2005
Phantom Felids Roam the Country…Still Whether you call them Phantom Panthers, Black Panthers, Mystery Felids, or Mystery Cats, sightings and reports from North America’s Midwest and East continue to roll in. The Associated Press’ Jim Suhr, with a dateline out of Carbondale, Illinois has written a good summary article of recent happenings. Carbondale was my old stomping grounds in 1965-1969, when I was being educated as an undergraduate Saluki, at Southern Illinois University. It was a hot spot from which to study reports of cryptid felines back then, so there’s no reason to think it would change now, what, forty years later! It sounds like folks need to be reminded again that these sightings have been going on for a long time. Suhr’s article begins with the Kenny Tharp find last December near New Boston, Illinois, of a dead 98-pound cougar and goes from there. It is a good survey.
About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct).
Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015.
Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.
Filed under Breaking News, CryptoZoo News, Cryptozoology, Mystery Cats