Historical Black Panther Sighting, a Lesson Learned, and a Photo

As I mentioned in a post a few weeks ago, I will be making an effort to get caught up on several black panther sightings that were sent in to me over the last year or so. I was neck deep in trying to finish my book, Valley of the Apes: The Search for Sasquatch in Area X, and struggled to find the time to update all of you on these sightings. I am making the effort to correct that now. Following are a few sighting reports and one photo that I found interesting.

 

Reported November 20, 2022

“My name is Greg XXXXXX and I live in Lexington Tx. Around 1987 I was leaving the Alcoa aluminum plant through the contractor construction gate approximately 5:00 pm. Can’t remember the exact date. I started driving north on Hwy 1786 towards Hwy 79 beside the Alcoa hot lake as it was called where the water from the power plant was released into. Right in front of me approximately 100 feet was a large black panther crossing the road. I got a real good look at him. He was as big as a full-grown mountain lion but appeared to a little thinner in build. I have seen a large mountain lion from my tree stand before while hunting near Milano so I can make the comparison accurately. I would have to guess the panther weighed between 130 and 150 lbs.”

 

TCH Comment: This is a very believable and matter-of-fact report. The witness saw the cat clearly at close range and is familiar with what a mountain lion looks like. There are no signs of hyperbole in the report and I have ruled out mistaken identity. I believe this witness saw what he claims to have seen. 

 

The location of the sighting is rural and there are sufficient resources for a big cat to survive in the area. If one takes the time to zoom in on the sighting location, it becomes obvious water resources are plentiful. This is something that would be absolutely critical for any predator trying to survive in Central Texas. I find the report credible and will be adding it to my Black Panther Sightings Distribution Map.

 

Reported 6/22/22

"I saw a dead black panther on the right shoulder of the westbound lanes of I44E approximately 5 miles east of the Stroud sign on the Turner turnpike about 6:50pm Sunday, 6/5/2022. 

 

A cat is so obvious it cannot be mistaken. I saw the large paws, long legs, square head. It was in a dead pose, legs toward the street and back towards the grass, head facing west. I considered pulling off the road, essentially to gawk, but decided the safety considerations weren't worth the reasons. Had I known then that people don't believe big cat sightings, I would have pulled over. My 10-year-old son saw it too. My step daughter was in the car and she didn't see it, she was looking at her phone. 

 

With so many pick-up trucks in Oklahoma, I wonder if someone took it home, or if wildlife management can document it. I wonder if the toll pass cameras record what is in people's truck beds? 

 

I haven't followed up with wildlife management, but I am curious if there are others to corroborate.” 

 

Kathleen XXXXXX

Edmond, Oklahoma

 

 

TCH Comment: I will not be placing this sighting on my distribution map, but it isn’t because I do not believe the witness; rather, it is because she was traveling along the highway at a substantial rate of speed (likely 70-80 mph based on my experience on the Turnpike in question). While her description matches up well with historical reports of black panthers, the chance of misidentification while moving at such a clip is simply too great for me to feel totally confident.

 

The lesson here is to pull that vehicle over and pick that carcass up. If you aren’t comfortable with that, take lots of photos.

 

Reported: 6/2/22

“Hi, my name is Caleb I live in south east Missouri. I just listened to an Expanded Perspectives episode about the black cats in Texas, or something like that, and I just wanted to share my story with you because I’ve had a very close encounter with a panther, a buddy of mine - his dad actually - killed a panther due to it messing with livestock. He actually had the head and pelt for a while. I’ve had other encounters with them while hunting and such but that was the closest that I’ve ever been to one. During the podcast you stated some people say that they have leopard-like spots on them. I can say that I do remember the spots on the pelt of this particular pelt. Let me know if you have any questions. I will try to answer them the best I can. 

 

Thanks for reading." 

 

TCH Comments: This is another account that I will not be mapping. I have heard multiple accounts of people killing a panther and keeping the pelt. Yet, there are absolutely no photos. Without a picture, this is just hearsay and I don’t feel good about placing the incident on my map. The witness claims other encounters but does not share any details regarding them. This doesn’t mean the witness is being untruthful, just that I don’t have enough details to feel good about adding it to my map.

 

I will wrap up this post with a photo sent to me from Mr. Brandon Darr. Brandon felt that the photo illustrated the different shading/coloration individual cougars can exhibit nicely and I agree with him. The only information on the photo itself is that it was allegedly “taken in Northern Mexico.” Since I’m posting it here only to show how different cougars can vary in the shade of their coats, it isn’t really relevant where it was taken.

The cats on the left and in the middle are clearly much darker in coloration that the cat on the right. I would guess the cat on the right is displaying the normal tawny-colored coat we are all used to seeing. The two on the left are much darker, especially on their dorsal surfaces. They are not, however, chocolate-colored or black. We can be sure of this by looking at the contrast in darkness between their backs/the ends of their tails and the rest of their bodies. If they were all black or dark brown, their bodies would be much more uniform in color, like the lighter-colored cougar on the right. Seeing darker-colored cougars in low light conditions could very well explain some black panther sightings.

If you would like to dig deeper into the black panther phenomenon, you might consider picking up a copy of my book, Shadow Cats: The Black Panthers of North America. In it, you get a thorough overview of the phenomenon, my thoughts on what these animals might be, interviews with big cat experts, and more. You can pick up a copy at the link above or, if you would like a signed copy, you can contact me at Texascryptidhunter@yahoo.com. 

Catching Up: Black Panther Reports

For the last few years, I have been deeply involved in several writing projects. Hopefully, you are familiar with the result of at least one of those projects (Valley of the Apes: The Search for Sasquatch in Area X). The process of writing that book was a true labor of love and seeing it published and well received was immensely gratifying. It did, along with other lower profile projects, take a LOT of time. When combined with my regular job of teaching middle school history, my responsibilities as the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the North American Wood Ape Conservancy (NAWAC), and the general stress that comes from life itself, there simply wasn’t much time left over to keep up with the blog (or much of anything else).

 

I have taken steps to simplify my life and create more time to do the things I really enjoy, like writing this blog. The results have been tangible as I have published three posts this month alone (this will be the fourth). I won’t have quite as much time once school starts in the fall but hope to average two posts per month going forward. I still have a lot to say and there are still an awful lot of strange stories to tell. In that vein, let’s move on to the real topic of this post: black panthers.

 

Disclaimer: according to mainstream science, there is no such animal as a “black panther.” The panthers of the movies and television are either melanistic leopards or jaguars. Wildlife authorities do not believe either of these species currently inhabit Texas, the American South, or any other region of the United States or Canada (the exceptions being the states of Arizona and New Mexico, in which a few transient male jaguars have been documented). Still, the reports of large, black, long-tailed cats have continued. Documenting and charting the location of the most credible reports is part of my ongoing effort to answer one simple question: what are the black panthers of North America?

 

The following is a report that I have had in my files for a while. Now that I have some time, I am going to attempt to catch all of you up on the backlog of reports that have come in to me. This account is a long one, so it will be the only report featured in this post. I have edited the report a bit for length in order to make it a better fit for this blog.  Wherever you see an elipse (…) some extra material was omitted for the sake of brevity. I do not believe my having done so changes the critical details of the report. The words you do see are those of the gentleman who forwarded the account to me.

 

Reported January 27, 2022

 

“Hello, Mr. Mayes.

 

“I recently visited the North American Bigfoot Center/Museum in Boring, Oregon. While there, I had the opportunity to purchase a number of books, one of which was your Shadow Cats. I specifically bought this book due to its topic on black panthers in North America…

 

“…I felt compelled to tell you an accurate and true sighting of a black panther in Idaho. The sighting was at a very close range. The witnesses were my mom and dad. I’ve heard the story a number of times and the facts never change, nor would I expect them to as both of my parents are of the highest ethical standards…

 

“…The sighting took place in west central Idaho around 2012. The closest town would be Cascade, located of highway 55. My dad retired as a captain with the Payette, Idaho Fire Department and my mom was a long-time real estate agent and later worked in the nursing field… When my parents retired, they spent a great deal of time in a side-by-side ATV taking trips deep into the Idaho back country…One trip…they accessed a road off of highway 55 and headed east on a dirt road…Mom and Dad were in no rush, just sightseeing, having a nice lunch, and enjoying the day…They were traveling west back toward highway 55 when Dad’s attention was drawn to the right side of the road where a black cat was lying…This cat then stood and walked across the road in front of their ATV and slunk into the heavy timber…both of them were essentially speechless…My dad recalled saying that was a black panther and that someone’s pet had to have escaped its enclosure…My dad was well-versed in mountain lions and, in fact, we’ve both had the good fortune to see them in the wild. Both of my parents were positive and adamant that this was not a color phase or a hybrid of a mountain lion but a real black panther. 

“After several minutes…they were able to re-start down the road. A short distance later, they came upon a couple of…ranch hands. My dad explained to them what they had seen and asked the men if they had any knowledge of panther activity on or around their spread. Dad said the older man’s body language changed and he seemed concerned, leading my mom and dad to think this guy had seen the panther himself or had experienced some livestock loss…prior to my parents leaving, one of the men radioed to the homestead to make sure the women were aware of the sighting and to make sure all of the children were accounted for…

 

“…I can testify under any oath…that this story is true and correct, a class-A legitimate sighting….my parents did not know there was a following on the topic or that there were even any books written about it. If you are ever inclined to go into this area or even chat up my mom, please feel free to reach out…

 

L.A. Dove”

 

TCH Comment: While the report lacks much in the way of detail regarding the appearance of the cat itself (approximate weight, length, etc.) the circumstances would seem to rule out a case of misidentification. Both witnesses were adamant that they saw a black panther and not a dark mountain lion. The fact that the male witness had seen cougars in the wild before, lends credibility to his claim that this was no mountain lion. I must say, the behavior attributed to the ranch hands is interesting. If true - and I have no reason to believe it isn’t – one stiffened up and clammed up while the other quickly radioed home to give the family there a heads up regarding the sighting. It is speculation of course, but these seem to be the behaviors of two men who are familiar with the animal that was described. I guess we’ll never know for sure.

 

As I mentioned above, due to the length of this submission, I am going to feature it alone on this post. Others will soon follow.

 

One other thing, I am going to start adding compelling sighting reports from other states on my Black Panther Distribution Map. I think I have accomplished my original goal of trying to pinpoint the most likely places to encounter these cryptid cats in the Lone Star State. Now, I am hoping to identify other patterns on a larger scale by including all of North America. I will be going back through my records and adding some reports that reached me from outside of Texas.

 

If you are interested and would like to know more about the black panther mystery, check out my book, Shadow Cats: The Black Panthers of North America. Click the book link in the right margin or here for more information.

The Ghost Horse of the Llano Estacado

          There were no horses in North America until the Spanish began their conquest of the New World in the 1500s. While it is true that the progeny of escaped English, French, and Dutch settlers in the northeast ran wild in the eastern region of the continent for a time, the wild mustangs of the western half of the continent are the horses that continue to hold sway in the imagination of most people. These horses were the direct descendants of the Arab and Andalusian stock used by the conquistadores who plundered the Aztecs and searched for the seven golden cities of Cibola on the plains of middle America and across the deserts of the southwest. These horses were legendary for their fiery temperament and resistance to domestication. No other creature on the continent represented freedom the way the wild mustangs of the American southwest did. This is the story of one very special horse, even by wild mustang standards, that some say continues to run free to this very day.

            The great horse, white man and Indian agreed, was special. The stallion was given many names: the White Steed of the Prairies, the Pacing White Stallion, the Ghost Horse of the Plains, the White Shadow, the Winged Steed, and Wind Drinker. The horse was described as being of a white or pale cream in color with a snow-white mane and tail. Too, the mustang was much larger than the normal wild horse of the plains and his harem of mares was twice the size of a normal steed. The speed of the Ghost Horse was the stuff of legends. “He seemed to glide rather than work his legs,” one cowboy who attempted to lasso the steed once said. “He did not seem to be trying to get away, just leading us on.” The fame of this magnificent creature spread far and wide and sightings of this phantom of the prairie stretched from the Mexican desert in the south, to the Badlands of the Dakotas in the north, to the Brazos River bottoms in the east, to the Rocky Mountains in the west. He was nowhere, yet everywhere, it seemed. 

            Ranchers across the west knew that the capture of the Wind Drinker would bring fame and fortune, thus a bounty for the capture of the stallion was offered. The potential windfall caught the eye of a breeder of race horses from Bonham, Texas in 1879. He organized a venture to track down and capture the Ghost Horse. The wranglers ranged far north into Indian Territory (now Oklahoma) before finally catching sight of their quarry. The vaqueros laid all manner of traps and attempted to trick the great horse into being surrounded, but each time the stallion would bolt and “pace away like the wind.” The Indians, who had agreed to guide the rancher, abandoned the effort upon laying eyes on the great steed. They considered him a supernatural creature and the possessor of “unspeakable medicine.” From the description of one of the horsemen present on the expedition, the vaqueros did not feel altogether too differently. “When running at a distance he showed nothing but a fast-flying snow-white mane and tail that looked like wings skimming the ground…he was the most alert and the wildest as well as the fleetest animal in western America.”

 

            Likely, the most well-known tale of an attempted capture of the great White Horse of the Prairies was undertaken by a fiddle-playing character from the east named Kentuck prior to the Civil War. Kentuck, the story goes, took up with a gambler from Arkansas who went by the name of Jake. The two heard tale after tale about the Ghost Horse and, spurred on by the thought of the wealth they would most certainly attain if successful, decided to go after the legendary steed. The pair purchased pack mules, supplies enough to last half a year, and four New Mexican horses bred for speed and endurance and set off on their quest. The gambler, Jake, in particular seemed obsessed with the hunt. He said, “I don’t know exactly where to hunt, but we’ll ride on the prairies until we find the horse or until they are burned crisp by the fires of Judgement Day.”

 

            The colorful duo crisscrossed the Great Plains for weeks on end until they found themselves on the Llano Estacado, or Staked Plains, near the Canadian River in the panhandle of Texas. As weeks turned to months, Kentuck lost his enthusiasm for the effort and tried to talk Jake into calling the whole thing off. “Go back if you want,” Jake said. “Go and rot. I have sworn to get what I come to get.” Chastised, Kentuck went silent and stayed on. Eventually, the persistence of the pair would pay off and they would finally put eyes on the legendary Wind Drinker. Following a cold and wet day, the hunters were huddled in camp around a buffalo chip-fed fire. Jake was squatting and warming his hands and staring to the southwest when he saw movement. “Yonder,” he hissed to Kentuck and made for his staked pony. “I supposed it was Indians and grabbed my rifle,” Kentuck later said. “Then my eyes picked up the white horse. He stood there to the southwest, maybe a hundred yards off, head lifted, facing us, as motionless as a statue. In the white moonlight, his proportions were all that the tales had given him. He did not move until Jake moved toward him.”

            Spying his pursuers, the Ghost Horse fled to the east, against the moon. Jake later recounted, “He seemed to glide rather than work his legs, he went so smoothly. He did not seem to be trying to get away, only hold his distance. He moved like a white shadow, and the harder we rode, the more shadowy he looked.” After a bit, his horse tiring and an increasing sense of foreboding creeping into his soul, Kentuck called out to his partner, “Jake, I don’t like this. There’s no sense to it. I’m remembering things we’ve both heard. Let’s stop. We can’t no more catch up to him than with our own shadows.”

            Jake, completely obsessed and wearing the look of a madman yelled back, “I told you I’m going to follow till the Day of Judgement.”

            Kentuck chose to continue the pursuit and not leave his partner, though he did hang back a bit. “Riding on and on out there in the middle of nowhere, not even a coyote breaking the silence, it didn’t seem like this world,” he later said. It was about then that Kentuck spied a jagged blackness on the ground in front of them: a canyon. “It’ll soon be settled now,” he said to himself. “We’ll soon know whether the White Stallion can cross empty space like a ghost.” At the realization they were approaching a massive drop off, Kentuck pulled his mount to a stop. To his horror, his partner spurred his mount even harder in an effort to catch the Wind Drinker. Kentuck called out, “Jake, watch out for the canyon!” His warning, if Jake ever heard it at all, came too late and Kentuck watched the Arkansas gambler and his mount plunge over the side of Palo Duro Canyon.

            Kentuck cautiously approached the edge of the gorge and peered down into its dark maw. He could not see the bottom. Neither did he see the Ghost Horse. When questioned, Kentuck said he could not be sure if the White Pacer had gone over the edge or not. He had turned his attention to his friend and lost sight of the stallion. Shortly after dawn, Kentuck found a buffalo trail that led to the bottom of the canyon. There he found the remains of Jake and the horse he rode into oblivion, a full one hundred feet below the rim of the canyon. Kentuck buried his friend in a makeshift grave where, I suppose, he remains to this day. As for the Wind Drinker, Kentuck would never again lay eyes upon him.

            Campers and hikers at Palo Duro Canyon have reported the sound of thundering hoofbeats in the night. Too, tales of a phantom white mustang running the plains and along the rim of the Canyon are still shared from time to time. In a few cases, witnesses have spied a ghostly cowboy riding hell-bent for leather after the great stallion and into the Texas night, doomed, it seems, to pursue the uncatchable until “Judgement Day.”

            The wild mustang remains a symbol of the old west. The idea that these horses represent freedom and liberty endures. According to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, there are more than 82,000 horse and burros on federal rangelands stretching across ten states today. Whether the White Pacer runs with them, I cannot say. Regardless, the legend of the Wind Drinker remains. 

 

I hope it will always be so.

 

Sources:                                                                                                                                

Dobie, J. F. (1995). I'll tell you A tale: An anthology. University of Texas Press. 

Vasilogambros, M. (2022, July 20). Westerners struggle to manage booming wild horse populations. The Pew Charitable Trusts. Retrieved November 22, 2022, from https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2022/07/20/westerners-struggle-to-manage-booming-wild-horse-populations 

New/Old Black Panther Sightings

While I have not been very active on the blog over the past year, that has not stopped new black panther sighting reports from coming in to me via email. The sightings below actually reached my inbox this past summer. While I never managed to prepare a post detailing them, I did get them posted on my interactive black panther sightings distribution map. That being the case, anyone who has perused the map since that time may recognize these accounts. I present them here for two reasons. First, I am trying very hard to catch up on the backlog of accounts and clean out the old inbox. Second, the emails provide much more detailed accounts of each sighting than the thumbnails available on the distribution map.

I think you will be impressed with the quality of the accounts below. More and more witnesses are stepping up and providing their names as opposed to submitting their stories anonymously. This makes things so much easier on me and adds to the credibility of the reports. These people saw some type of animal they did not recognize. Science says there is no such thing as a black panther. If that is the case, what are people seeing?

Reported July 8, 2018

I sighted a Black long tailed panther in late summer, 1982, on CR 154 south of CR 156, northeast if Cisco, TX. See the attached picture. The red mark near the tracks is about where it was. I was driving south on 154 and it ran from west to east across the road, barely within my headlight beams. 

Judi Jones

TCH Comment: Cisco sits in Eastland County in north-central Texas and is known more for being the location of Conrad Hilton’s first hotel and the Marshall Ratliff gang’s infamous “Santa Claus robbery” than it is for cryptid cats. Eastland county is comprised of 932 square miles and has no large cities. There is ample room and resources for a big cat to survive in this rural area. This is the second documented sighting of a large, black, long-tailed cat in the immediate area around Cisco. The previous report also involved a motorist who saw a big black cat cross the road in front of him near Lake Cisco in 2014. The witness in this case took the time to mark a map showing the location of her sighting. I have added this report to my black panther sightings distribution map.

Reported July 16, 2018

Hello there!

My name is Aynslie Andrew, I am from Honey Grove, Texas. My apologies for it being so late, but I’m shaken from what I saw tonight! 

As I was on my way back into town around 10:30 PM, headed from Telephone, TX to Honey Grove, I was coming out of Bois D’Arc bottom. With the new municipal lake coming in, a lot of dozing of trees has taken place... (Driving at night, I am always alert and looking for little critters in the road) Ahead of me, I saw a reflection of eyes, and I slowed quickly as I usually do. With my bright lights on, I saw a figure, cat-like, LARGE creature. I slowly drove closer, probably going 15 mph. The animal, scurried into the ditch, as it did that, I got a better look. It was a large black cat-like, I wanna say like a jaguar or panther type animal. VERY long tail— almost as long as the animals body. Anyway, as it entered the ditch, it was as if it had hunkered down, with the reflection of my headlights it seemed as if it was watching me, (keep in mind at this point i was probably going 4-5 mph, barely rolling) I was shocked!! It was something I have NEVER seen before. Once I got home, I began googling for other sightings, and I came across your blog. I’m not sure if you’re as active as you used to be, but I thought I would send my sighting in to you anyway! 

TCH Comment: Another road crossing report. The details of this sighting are very similar to other reports I have received. The behavior of the cat – crossing and then hunching down low to watch the vehicle pass – is one that has been observed several times. The sighting location is just south of the Caddo National Grassland area. The Grassland has two bodies of water – Coffee Mill Lake and Lake Crockett – and is bisected by the Bois d’Arc Creek. The Bois d’Arc, as creeks go, is a major waterway that stretches from just west of Whitewright, west of the sighting location, to the Red River on the Texas-Oklahoma border to the northeast of the sighting location. It is a major thoroughfare for all types of wildlife and some rather odd animal sightings have taken place up and down its length. Other sightings of “black panthers” have been reported from the areas surrounding the spot where this visual took place. I have added this report to my sightings distribution map.

Reported July 22, 2018

I saw one cross a dirt road about 12-14 feet in front of me on the LA/TX line in the Sabine river bottom in DeSoto Parish LA about 6 miles below Logansport. I was riding an ATV and it happened back in 1990. It was a huge black cat with a small pointy head. Its neck seemed bigger around than its head. I thought that was odd. It was about 7-8 feet long tail and all. Several others I know have seen them in the same area. You can find lots of huge cat tracks in muddy parts of clearings around there. People says we're "crazy" or "lying" but I really saw one...very close....and it wasn't a little kitty cat. It was in the evening before sundown so it was daylight and there's no mistaking what I saw. I'm so glad I got to see one. It was a thrill!

-       Thomas Ratcliff

TCH Comment: Normally, I do not chart sightings outside of the borders of Texas, but am making an exception in this case as the visual took place practically on the Louisiana border. This sighting took place just north of the spot where the Sabine River has been impounded to form Toledo Bend Reservoir and the Sabine National Forest. It is prime habitat for a predatory cat as it is loaded with prey species like hogs, deer, and smaller mammals. “Black panthers” have been rumored to roam the area for decades.

Reported July 22, 2018

Hello, my name is Troy Coon. I know your usual sighting reports consist mostly in Texas and surrounding areas, but I thought you might be interested in hearing the reports of “black panther” sightings in close proximity to my home in Appling, Georgia on Lake Clarkes hill/Strom Thurmond. I have lived in the area for 11 years and over the past 6 of them I have heard several accusations from close friends and locals of black panther looking cats being seen off a local road known as Ridge road. Which isn’t but 1 mile from the location in which I saw a large black cat with my own eyes. Early this morning (last night to me) at approximately 3:50 AM on 7/22/2018 I was driving down Keg Creek Dr. and saw a very large black cat dart across the road in front of my truck, so fast it looked almost a blur. I quickly whipped my truck around and shined my bright lights into the tree line and very clearly saw a very dark colored large cat with a tail as long as its body and thick all the way through. I estimate the cat was around 55-70 pounds and roughly 4.5-5” long nose to base of tail. I managed to get a video of the large cat, it’s not very clear but I hope it helps you in identifying the animal. I’m and avid hunter and I’m very familiar with relative size of an animal compared to distance and I can assure you it was no house cat, and the tail obviously rules out a bobcat which are common in the area. I’m excited to hear your input on the matter, for some reason it won’t let me attach the video in this email but I will send it in a separate email with “Georgia panther” as the subject.

Thanks for your time.

TCH Comment: I will not be charting this sighting as it took place in Georgia; however, I wanted to include it so as to show that the “black panther” phenomenon is not limited to Texas. The video included in the report was indistinct so I did not post it here.

Reported August 5, 2018

Hello Sir,

I am a degreed horticulturist, native Houstonian, and spent high school and college years in Angelina County. I also was, and am again, a secondary science teacher.  I currently teach AP and academic science classes at Seven Lakes High School, Katy ISD.  At the time of this incident, I was in my second year managing a private research farm NE of Monaville, in central Waller County.  There are wooded creeks and the Brazos River bottom within a few miles of the site.  I lived at the farm with my wife.

It was early March, 2001, when my dogs, two black labs and two great Pyrenees, awakened me with raucous barking at 4:30 a.m.   I slept lightly until it was light enough to see, about 6:30, when I went out to see what they had.  They were continually barking all that time. We had chickens, geese and ducks at the farm at that time.

Behind the houses was a tank, or pond, for livestock. I approached the direction of the dogs and realized they were at the pond's edge.  I walked up over the bank of the pond and saw the four dogs had cornered an animal against the water's edge.  The dogs were lunging and then backing away, barking all the while.  I was some 75 yards from them.

The creature was at first sight what I took to be a black bear. (As absurd as that idea was, what else could it be?)  But it wasn't.  It was round and flat of face, small pointed ears, a short muzzle, and a bit larger than the size of the male Labrador; he was a good hundred pounds. It was black by all appearances. It was not a bobcat; I've seen many bobcats and this creature was three times a bobcat's size, if not greater.  Its behavior was to have its back toward the dogs, and its head toward the water.  It was on its haunches, but silently swayed its head and neck back and forth.  It would turn its head occasionally to face the dogs, looking over its shoulders.

I was shocked.  I knew I needed a picture, and ran back to get my camera.  I found it, but it was out of film.  By the time I got a roll loaded it was full-on daylight.  I ran back out to where they were, the cat--and I believe without any doubt it was a feline--had run off and the dogs had, too.  I followed tracks across a pasture in the dew from my truck. They all took off to the SE, toward Little Cypress Creek, had crossed the fences, and we're gone. 

Later the dogs returned, unscathed.  A few days later I asked a neighbor about this incident, his reply was "You saw the black panther.  There's one that's been spotted for several years here in the Brazos River bottom."

I know the official explanations for what I saw.  I also know, clearly and undoubtedly, as a research scientist and teacher, that a large black feline was cornered by our dogs that day in Monaville.

Regards, cCc.

TCH Comment: What an amazing account from a highly qualified witness. I know well the frustrations that were 35mm film game cameras. They were extremely limited in their usefulness and caused me many painful moments during the early days of my cryptid research. It is too bad this cat did not show up before the camera had used up all of it film.

Monaville is an unincorporated community in Waller County centered roughly at the intersection of FM 359 and FM 1887. The Brazos River flows just to the west of the community. The area is very rural and lightly populated. Numerous stock ponds – large and small – dot the landscape in the area. Possible prey species such as deer and feral hogs are plentiful. Sightings of large, black, long-tailed cats have been reported up and down the length of the Brazos for years now. This report has been added to my sightings distribution map.

Reported August 16, 2018

Mr. Mayes,

I enjoyed reading your book, Shadow Cats.  You did a great job.

I grew up in Rockdale, in Milam County.  During my high school years, some upstanding people would report having seen such cats, usually in a tone of amazement bordering on awe.  The sightings were often as simple as driving down a dirt road and having a black panther cross the road.  Everybody believed they were there, but it was about a once in a lifetime experience to actually see one.

Later in life I became aware that game wardens and “scientists” would argue that black panthers did not exist.  It was very hard to square those arguments with a lifetime of hearing relatives and friends swear to having seen the cats.

In about 2000, I bought a small piece of land in Bastrop County on the West Yegua.  I moved a junky trailer out there to live in while I made land payments.  Built a small deck on the front.  By and by, I adopted a cat that had been dumped in the area.  One evening, after dark, I went out to sit cross-legged on the deck and pet the cat.  As domestic cats do, it put up with the petting for a little while and then uncurled and got up to sit in the classic upright Egyptian cat statue pose.  It seemed focused on something out in the yard (low weeds) in the security light.  After a few minutes, I began to get curious about what it was looking at, and examined the general area.  To my surprise, one of the shadows in the yard did a 180 and started low crawling away.  Under the security light, I could see it was a black cat with a very long tail.  Probably 3 1/2 to 4 feet long from nose to base of tail, but seemed light, perhaps 40-50 pounds.  It low crawled to the high weeds at the edge of the tank and disappeared. I doubt it was just curious - my little cat might have ended up as the evening meal.

It’s a very odd moment to see something that you have heard about all your life, but had begun to think was as unlikely as Sasquatch.  It’s also very difficult to dispute the evidence of your own eyes.

A few years later, I left my place one morning to run into Bastrop for something.  It was about 10 AM on a gray morning, very overcast.  As I turned a corner on Stockade Ranch Road, I saw a big black cat crossing the road.  I gunned the truck and tried to close on the cat to get a better look.  This cat was bigger than the first one I had seen. It was crossing pavement so I noticed something I would not have otherwise. The paws on the cat were huge, bigger than I would have expected.

The cat was crossing from Stockade Ranch to a low area across the road. I did not realize it then, but found out later it might have been hunting. At that time, the Stockade kept its round bales in a small pen in that pasture so the cows would not tear them up.  I was later told that the big black cats like to get on top of round bales and then pounce on the rat population below.

Sorry this email is so long.  Great book.  

Marshall Enquist

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Round Rock, Texas XXXXX

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TCH Comment: I found both of Marshall’s accounts interesting; however, I will only be charting the second account on my sightings distribution map. I do not doubt Marshall’s story, but the low light conditions during the first sighting make a misidentification possible. Again, I think it is quite possible, likely even, that Marshall is right and saw a big dark-colored cat. I just am making a true effort to keep a very high standard as to the sightings I catalog on my map. I have no qualms at all as to his second sighting as it took place in broad daylight. I found Marshall’s observation regarding how big the cat’s paws were very interesting. I have heard this from several black panther witnesses. Did these people see a juvenile cat that had yet to “grow into” his paws or is this a trait common to these large black cats? There is actually a small cluster of sightings in the immediate area where this sighting took place. It may very well be an area that bears watching more closely.

As mentioned at the beginning of this post, these are older accounts that I received this summer. There are multiple reports that are much more recent that I am going through now. I will have a post prepared on those accounts very soon.

In the meantime, please email any black panther reports – or sightings of any odd or out of place animals – to me at Texascryptidhunter@yahoo.com