New Mystery Cat Photos
Posted by: Loren Coleman on May 13th, 2009
New trail cam photographs from different sites in America have surfaced of large seemingly black panthers.
A new image from North Carolina, received May 12, 2009. Click image for original, uncropped photograph.
An Illinois trail cam photo, previously seen, but circulating anew, mid-May 2009.
Interestingly, there are vague composition similarities in both of these trail camera shoots.
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.
The second photo is one that we’ve seen before. To me it looks like a pug or some similar small, short-faced dog rather than a cat, although the photo is hard to evaluate because of the backlighting from the sun.
The first photo does look like a black leopard, But I have doubts about whether it’s a real trail cam photo and not a fake. Especially after enlarging the photo, there are a lot of details do not look genuine. And like so many other photos of cryptid cats, the important details of the head and ears are conveniently obscured by “leaves” (or inconveniently obscured, depending on your point of view).
Well unlike most of the photos that surface of ABCs, the top one has an object to use as reference for the size of the cat. Clearly the feline shown in the top photo is larger than the base of the tree in the uncropped version, so I think we can rule out a ordinary house cat.
I hate to say it but I believe that this is just a regular house cat. It does have that panther stance in the first pic but my cat pull off that look every now and then when stalking things in the yard. In my opinion its just a large tom cat .
I can tell you from personal experience, having been within 10 feet of a black panther, that the top photo looks to be the real deal. The bottom one looks to be a large housecat. We started seeing these large cats in the upstate of South Carolina in the mid 1980’s. I personally have seen them 8 times. My closest encounter was at night on my way home from work in 1986. Came up over a rise and in the middle of the road stood a jet black cat probably 120lbs. I stopped about 10 feet from the cat and he stood and looked at the car for about 15-20 seconds and then trotted into the field to my left and was gone. They are still here. Just last year, a biologist from Georgia was stalked by one on the Chattoga river, which is the border between Georgia and South Carolina. I get so tired of hearing that these are released pets. There is no way that all these sightings over all these years have been released pets.
Before we can even consider these photos to be anything other than a domestic animal we need some reference for size. A trail cam is a contolled enough environement it would be simple for a human to walk in the same spot for another trail cam photo, or maybe even set a measured device like a stick marked in feet and inches at the spot before walking through to trip the camera.
If the submitter is not willing to establish the scale there is no reason to suspect these animals are larger than ordinary domestic cats.
The first photo does look promising. Indeed. House Cats can assume that stance, though. So in that sense I agree with Kittenz. Wonderfully (or is it terribly?) ambiguous. Maybe…
I agree that the second photo does look like a house cat.
Big one, though.
The first one is your basic Felis domesticus based on the size of the bark patterns in comparison.
I’m not sure about the bark patterns for comparison. Ash trees tend to have that same sort of pattern all through their life span. I’ve seen a number of ash trees that I can’t get my arms around, and they look just like that. So it’s really down to whether the shrubbery around it is made up of small trees, or big blackberry bushes.
It looks like a dog to me O.o.
The face looks elongated like a snout. My dogs take on this stance quite often. It’s about the size of a medium sized dog.
I won’t stick to that theory mainly because the tail looks to be all wrong for a dogs tail.
House cat and House cat.
If you look at the saplings in the 1st pic, which are generally a few inches tall, the size perspective screams house cat.
I’m an amateur fossil hunter who lives in Central Texas, and consequently I get to talk to lots of ranchers and rural people–and I can tell you one thing is for sure. These black “panthers” exist here and aren’t even all that uncommon. I have had person after person over the years tell that they have seen them, and even shot them. When I go on a rancher’s property I like to ask them various questions, including what is the most unusual animal they’ve seen on their land, and usually they say a bobcat, or ringtail cat or a coyote–that kind of thing. But every so often I meet a person who says they saw or shot a black panther. The first few of these stories kind of shocked me, but after a while I got used to them. These guys have zero reason to lie and I never once asked if they’d seen a black big cat—they volunteer the story. Most of these ranchers aren’t real sophisticated–and I don’t even think they realize that these cats aren’t supposed to exist in the US. They talk about them as if they were on the same level as a coyote or bobcat. I have a bullchit detector from hell and know when somebody’s trying to yank my chain so I am convinced these cats exist. Most of the accounts I’ve heard seem to come from the north Texas area–near Denton, that general area. I have no idea what these cats are but I am inclined to believe they are melanistic mountain lions. Cougars are rare here but they do exist–and they kill goats. Ranchers don’t tell people when they shoot them because, I’m sure, they feel it’s their business and don’t want animal rights people getting on their backs.
I need to stress here that the photos in this article are obviously large housecats–I’m an outdoors guy and spend most of my free time in the wild so I know what I’m talking about. No rancher here in Texas considers the large black cats they shoot or see as being like Bigfoot or anything like that–they see them as threats to livestock. It’s that simple.
oh i’m SO happy someone has got some proof of big black cats here in N.C. I do believe in an earlier post i said that there were big cats in N.C. Thank You Loren for getting some from people with them, and my opinion, first one is a black panther/leopard, second, a house cat, maybe a pug but not sure
Domesticus Hoaxicus is the only thing here…
1st Photo – Drop it into photoshop…everything on the back of the “animal” is smooth except for the artificially elongated, “pixalated”, see-through tail. Also, the face is purposely “smudged” (photoshoppers will be familiar with this “technique”). Other than the two “ends”, the rest of the cat trail cam pic appear real.
2nd photo – Bad lighting, shadow side of animal makes it appear “black”. Not saying the animal isn’t legit, but it could be a tawny colored large cat in bad lighting. Depth of field with the trees in the back make it hard to determine size, however. Unless what appears to be “wheat-like grass” in the back ground is actually full grown corn, I think we have a house cat size animal here.
Hello just joined. I think the first picture says Catawba County, NC, and I live in Catawba. It’s really nice to think that a black panther could live in my county. It would be really helpful if I knew where this photo was taken, especially where the water in the background is because I have a few guesses.
I’ll tell yall if I see anything.
The first one is large enough for it to be a panther type, but as a graphic designer, the edges of the cat itself look too crisp and “worked” on to be real. I have a feeling someone got a great picture of a black cat and photoshopped it so it looked bigger than it really is. Not that hard. Nor is it hard to place it into the picture behind a few things. Notice the placement of things around its head and how its stomach is a little weird in shape. It is my opinion that this is a photoshopped domestic, black house cat. Though I have to say that the tail and shoulders look convincing. Maybe, who knows.
I know for a fact they exist. People around here in wisconsin have never had any doubt cougars existed. One of my dads friends even had several pictures of a black panther that he saw just 10 feet away. He showed the pictures around too everyone like they were any ordinary animal.
I’m not saying that black “panthers” or some other large dark colored or black cats don’t exist. I think that so much smoke has to lead to a fire somewhere 😉 . But not these photos.
The first photo looks fake. It looks like an altered photo of a black leopard cub or black domestic cat and the photo just does not look genuine. The second photo is obviously a small animal; I see something more like a pug dog, others see a house cat, but it’s certainly not a “black panther”.
I meant the size of the patterns, not of the trunk. Also note the leaves on the ground for size clues. I’m not saying that there are no large cats back east! Just that this particular image isn’t of one.
I live in the tri-state area of Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Ohio. The Ohio Valley. We have some pretty thick woods and most is still virgin forest. I have seen an animal that looked exactly like the first picture. It was near West Alexander, PA. It crossed the road as I was driving to work. It was an eery sight to say the least. I didn’t know if black panthers inhabited our forests, but I am a believer now. We do have mountain lions and some other smaller wild cats, but this was a much larger cat than I have ever seen in this region.
Something is wrong with the lighting here. In the top photo the light is falling on the tree – nice detail in the bark. So why is there not more detail in the fur? Even black shows light and dark, reflections, ripples, etc., when the light is shining on it.
That snout is way too long for a cat. I’m no expert but doesn’t it look like a dog with his ears pinned back? And the tail…seems wrong on all counts.
On the other hand…how about this?
but I still don’t like the lighting.
They both look like house cats to me.
The proportions are not the same as a jaguarundi’s. It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that jaguarundis (or some similar, previously undescribed species) are at the root of some “black panther” sightings, though. Cats are very adaptable and the woods in the eastern US are thick and extensive. So, while I feel sure that this photo is contrived, I wouldn’t bet against jaguarundis living wild in North Carolina.
Reading all these comments I can’t believe that people see anything other then a large black cat. Of course it can’t be confirmed that these are panthers, but really people, A dog?!? Really?!? Amazing that we can all look at the same photo and see completely different things. Someone captures actual pictures and it’s still not enough proof. This is a big world we live in and we are discovering new species of animals, insects, plant life…all the time, yet there are so many non believers…even when photo’s are produced! What is the point of even trying to capture photo’s when people won’t believe anyway. Why is it so far of a stretch to just believe? More people believe in God with no proof of existence (anyone capture a pic of God yet?), then they do of things that have a higher probability of existing. Even if these are “housecats” like some seem to think…those are 2 rather large housecats that I wouldn’t want to be around. I would like to know who on here has a black housecat that big to compare with.
“I would like to know who on here has a black housecat that big to compare with.”
I have Halloween and Jinx, both large cats, mother and daughter, and Gonzo, a male. Jinx is shiny jet black, Halloween is velvety inky black. Gonzo is sooty color. All three have been mistaken for panthers by bikers, hikers, and passers-by. People who had to get right up close to them before they coiuld accept that they are house cats. Another of my cats, Buster, a cinnamon-cream color tabby, has sometimes been seriously mistaken for a cougar.
Cats look bigger than they really are, when you see them outside hunting. Especially seen from a distance, or without a clearly visible nearby object for reference.
Y’know, I am *so* tired of people bleating “Photoshop” whenever they run into a pic that challenges them. Most people couldn’t tell what a Photoshopped image was if it came stomping out of the forest and shook their trailer.
I’m also a graphic designer, and I don’t see evidence of fakery here. When you place (import) a graphic (such as the implied cat) into another file, there are telltale signs of blurring, sharpening, cloning (copying one part of a picture to another area) that would have to be performed to edit the cat into the picture. Those signs are just not there.
Whatever that creature is, it’s part of the original picture.
Oh, it still *possibly* *might* have been done by a master Photoshop expert, but frankly I don’t think somebody that could get one by me would spend all the time necessary to edit a low res pic to make it *look* like a low res pic without leaving telltale digital artifacts (please, if someone has the original pic without the cat, post it here and prove me wrong, I dare ya).
grafikman: leave it to you to say what I would say and make it more fun to read.
I am – as my kids would once have said – beyond tired times a billion plus a hundred times a million billion, plus one plus a hundred hundred, of the Photoshop debunk crowd.
If you say it, you MUST SHOW IT. Grow up if you believe otherwise. This is about evidence, not about idiots awed and cowed by electronic city-man magic. If you need to roast a missionary, don’t bring it here, please. Thank you.
Although sure those shots could be something other than domestic cats, that’s what I’d bet they are.
The big one looks like it wants to be a leopard when it grows up, or maybe one of those legendary black mountain lions. But the tail gives it away.
Meow.
The first photo looks photoshopped. I think the belly looks weird. I think they cropped together a tiger or leopard, a dog, and a background photo. I’ve done it before. It isn’t that hard. You can even get around cloning by getting a few similar pictures to clone from.
I live in Lake Norman, NC (Catawba County). I was doing some landscaping work at a home that I worked at frequently. The road that the home was on had houses all along the lakeside of it. Opposite of the lake, however, was a large wooded tract of land with no homes. This area stretched for miles with no development and was known to be fully stocked with deer and other wildlife. I typically ate lunch on a stump in those woods in an effort to get some type of relief from the heat. I was walking to my stump one day and as I got roughly 15 feet into the area that cat shown in the first picture jumped straight into up out of a dry creek bed and over a large patch of saw-briers, then proceeded to “disappear”. It went from a laying position to eye level (6 feet) with no momentum needed. It was roughly 10 feet from me when it decided to take off. It scared me enough to make me literally sick.
I was reluctant to tell this story because at the time, in 2007 or 2008, no mention of anything like this had been made. I did tell it the next day, though, at the store I got my landscape supplies because it was something that I couldn’t not tell. All of these people were friends of the family and I expected as much criticism as I received. Ironically, a wildlife officer stopped in while I’m catching a hard time and proceeds to show a picture taken on a game camera in Lincoln County(adjacent to Catawba). It is very real!