Big Black Cat Sightings: Fact or Legend?
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Cougars Ate My Dog
As housing developments encroach more aggressively upon wildlife habitat and wild animals have fewer and fewer places to go, many creatures that once were found only in wilderness areas are now spotted roaming about suburban America.
Deer eat flower gardens. Raccoons and skunks wreak havoc in basements and attics. Red foxes are even starting to take back inner Detroit. (And I don't mean Red Foxx foxes either, but actual red foxes, the kind with fluffy tails and pointy little noses and not a single prime time TV show to their credit...yet.)
Coyotes have been spotted in urban locations all over the U.S. (we see them all the time across the road here), and bears are starting to pose a real danger to bedroom communities that were once tidy, boring, and tame.
If Rob and Laura Petry were still living in their three bedroom ranch outside NYC today, they'd probably be aiming a high-powered rifle out their picture window.
Perhaps the most controversial interloper is the cougar, and more ominous still, the black cougar or black panther.
Black panthers (all-black South American jaguars) either are, or aren't, indigenous to the U.S., depending on which DNR officer or naturalist you ask. Some admit to the rare possibility of a 'melanistic' cougar (an all black one), others do not. Most say, no way. No big black cats live in the wild in the U.S., and cougars are not native to midwestern states.
Cougar and panther sightings in the Great Lakes area have increased over the past ten years, but the question is, are they real?
The amount of hysteria surrounding the answer is hard to fathom if you've never witnessed it. Simply suggesting that black panther sightings have a paranormal history can drive panther/cougar hysterics right over the edge.
A recent article I published about the paranormal aspects of big black cat sightings brought out enraged midwest cougar fanatics who informed me that cougars absolutely are native to Michigan, and that, by the way, I am an idiot.
Sometimes I can indeed be an idiot, but cougars are definitely not native to Michigan, though sightings are occurring more frequently. Plus, my article was about paranormal black cats and the legends surrounding them, not about whether cougars are native to Michigan.
Clearly, when people get this touchy and reactive about a critter, something beyond a thing with fur is afoot in the land.
Native Legends
Sightings of big black cats (jungle sized cats like cougars and panthers) have had a paranormal aspect to them for generations.
The first
non-Indian settlers of Appalachia took black panthers for a real
indigenous animal, yet sightings of the creatures were denied and
ridiculed by naturalists who claimed no panthers could survive in that
locale.
Native peoples all recognize the existence of the beast.
The Cherokee call the Appalachian black panther Klandagi, "The Lord of the Forest." The Creek Indians call them Katalgar, "The Greatest of Hunters." The Chickasaws called black panthers Koe-Ishto, which means, "Cat of God."
Native peoples also take as a given, however, that mythic animals or spirits are real, and that some animals can shift from physical to spirit at will; a fact that complicates modern discussions of whether these cats are made of meat or are instead the stuff of legend.
The correct answer could be: Both!
In the 80s and 90s, Great Britain saw its own rash of big black cat
sightings. No large cats are native to Great Britain, zero, none; so the British black cat phenomenon
was particularly odd, and led some to hypothesize that a zoo panther might have escaped and found a British habitat or was living on pets and local farm animals. Naturalists vehemently denied the likelihood of such
an occurrence, but the sightings kept coming.
The Wikipedia entry on black panthers asserts that melanistic (all black) American cougars do not exist and that the animal is a cryptid, placing it in the same category as Bigfoot, Ogo Pogo, the Loch Ness Monster. and the loup garou (the American wolfman).
Shape Shifters & Spirit Animals
Cougars are common in Colorado and the
Montanas, and have been seen as far east as Illinois and Missouri. Big black cats (which according to experts technically do not exist) have been reported as far east as Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin,
and Ohio.
The cougar is a very large predator (150-170
pounds), about 30 inches high, and 7-10 feet long. An all black cougar, if it exists, would require a large territory to feed itself and it would be difficult for such an animal to be go unnoticed or effectively hide itself in a settled midwestern locales like Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, and Illinois.
That doesn't stop people from passionately believing they saw one.
One of the most fascinating explanations of
the big black cat sighting is a paranormal one that meshes well with
Native American belief. In an excellent but little-read book Daimonic
Reality, novelist, alchemist, and scholar of all things extraordinary
Patrick Harpur assigns black cats to the same general category as
supernatural dogs (like the Michigan Dogman), and Bigfoot or Sasquatch, creatures often referred to in myth and legend as 'shape shifters.
All three are commonly reported in Michigan, where I currently live and write.
Harpur
does not take the same disparaging view of cryptids that others do. He notes that all cultures have easily accepted the existence of 'spirit animals'
in a matter of fact way, incorporating them into their oral traditions
and their daily life. Modern western culture is unusual and almost unique in
denying the existence of these creatures and in insisting on rigidly separating physical
reality from imaginal reality.
The word daimon comes from the
Greek and is so alien to our modern way of thinking that it is
difficult to translate literally, but means something close to "spirit
of place." Big black cats, yetis, dogmen, wolfmen: these are the spirits of
wild, lonely places. To encounter any of them is to come face to face
with ones own wildness, one's own internal landscape, and to be changed
in the process.
Such an encounter is an invitation to transform oneself.
I personally find it fascinating that as we invade the home of the wild animals, as we appropriate all the wild places where they they once lived and roamed and use them for profit and safety, the wild animals are also invading our tame, protected spaces. Partly, this is a physical phenomenon taking place because of loss of habitat. They have nowhere else to go.
But on another level, this wild invasion is a spirit/soul phenomenon.
The animals mirror our own actions and invite us to change. It is as if our own wildness is saying to us, no, you cannot split us off. We will not be quarantined. Your belief in safety is bogus, your lust for security is suspect, and all your tidy gardens are all illusory.
The animals are inviting us to knock it off, to restore balance, to listen.
Will we hear them? Can we hear them?
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Comments
Hi Jewels--It's amazing how these things travel isn't it? Who would have though Australia would have black cat sightings? Thanks for that info, it's wild! lol! :)
I live in Oregon and we CERTAINLY have cougars here (as well as coyote and bears) I have heard no reports of a black cat, but as it is believed to be a mutation, anything is possible. I saw one once in Texas....scared the %$#@! out of me as it was dusk and I was in the middle of the brush. It turned out to be a zoo escapee. In short I believe!
First off, a technical note- how do you get the hyperlinks? They are very cool. I missed that tutorial, lol.
Regarding very large black cat sightings as opposed to small ones like my Grace who must be sequestered around Halloween due to satanic wackos with ill intentions, I love your spiritual approach, "Such an encounter is an invitation to transform oneself."
One has to wonder, however, how spiritual a person feels when face to face with a cat bent on ripping one's throat.
We have cougars here as well as fox and deer. I brought my kids in at dusk to keep them safe. The cougars travel a regular circuit and visit our end biannually.
Bit of possibly relevant trivia: I ordered a Phantom Wildlife Deterrent- a recorded cougar cry- to keep fox from attacking Grace on my porch and also to keep deer from the roses.
The owner of this site writes, "My deterrents keep deer away which is their primary food... so the cougar would move on looking elsewhere for food. The deterrents also keep away other nocturnal animals that are a food source." http://www.freewebs.com/walnut_creek_enterprises/c
Interesting.
Hi Gillsie--Oh my! That would scare me too. Glad you came out of it OK.
Hi storytellersrus--Up at the top of the box where you put your text, up where the Bold Italics Underline options are is a hyperlink option that looks like an infinity symbol. Click that and copy and paste the web address into the box that pops up and presto! You've got a hyperlink. :)
I know what you mean about reasonable fear and real cougars. Cougar attacks on humans are fairly rare but if you are one of the humans being attacked that hardly matters. Thanks for the link to the deterrent--that's a great idea. :)
Awesome video Mike! Thanks! Do you think the cat in the video looks panther sized? I had a big black cat once and to me, it just looks like a cat, especially with the railroad tracks there for perspective. The cat who lives with us now is a big male who weighs 20 pounds and is probably at least two feet in length. You can hear the guy breathing hard in the background. He definitely thought he was filming a huge cat but to me it doesn't look huge.
If it is a domestic cat it's a big one. But it also looks a little less lithe in its movements than I would expect a cat to be. If it is a Panther it's a small one. The video quality isn't quite good enough to really tell. But it's not the first of such sightings in the UK. They have been reporting them (big cats) on places like Dartmoor in the south-west for years.
If I ever spot one myself I'll let you know - just as soon as I have stopped running!
I read about the sighting in Britain. It's an interesting phenomenon. I've never worried about running into a big cat, but bears--those things scare me. :)
You have and host such fascinating hubs, pgrundy! I actually saw a mountain lion/cougar a couple of years ago while living near the Shawangunks (Gunks to the natives; upstate New York). He crossed my path while I was driving home from work. It was, at the same time, both exhilarating and frightening for me. He was golden in color and must have weighed at least 160 pounds--majestic and intimidating. He took his sweet old time crossing the road and then proceeded to pounce up the hill like Tigger. I've never seen another one since. Simply amazing.
I think my family had a cat that was a shape shifter. Informative and entertaining article, PG.
Hi dohn--I'd love to see something like that! I'm glad you got to witness the cat from a safe place. Thanks for stopping by!
Tom--I think my cat is a shape shifter too. He keeps shifting to a bigger and bigger shape!
Thanks for another interesting article. Shape shifting has always been an intriguing read...
Hi Nancy--I love that kind of thing too. Thanks for stopping by. :)
Pam: As much as I love reading about the paranormal, I had not heard about the black cat shape shifters, sounds intriguing! And speaking of animals in urban areas, when I lived in NY, in Kew Gardens, Queens, I would on occasion see a racoon, and this is unheard of in an urban area. Here in Oregon, they visit our backyard, we even have named one Rocky.
Fun read!
Thanks VioletSun--I think raccoons are everywhere anymore. They are cute, but I understand they can hurt you pretty bad if you get too close. Thanks for stopping by!
Everything you write I find brilliant, but this piece struck right where I live. Your conclusion is certainly the truth.
Some years ago, in Northern Ontario, my brother and I had an experience with such a 'black cat' or cougar. We happened to have our pug dog along at the time, and the disturbing thing was that he too seemed to see it.
However, I would have to say that he (the pug) was sensing our own fear, and not an actual animal. I say that because I don't want to believe we saw an actual black panther in Northern Ontario, even though it looked for all appearences like such an apparition.
I think that what you conclude, about the animals moving to another, spiritual dimension, where they manifest themselves to us, is the correct one.
But it will always be a mystery to me how a pug dog could look so frightened by something that only my brother and I were seeing on the 'spiritual plane'.
Please keep writing. Your pieces are a delight.
Thanks Woody! I appreciate you sharing that personal anecdote, and I know what you mean about your dog. I have a cat who reacts to things that don't seem to be there, and it can be really creepy. On the other hand, maybe your dog really did see what you were seeing. Thanks for your comment! :)
Great conclusion! I was waiting for you to draw the psychic link and you kept me in suspense.
Thinking back to your hub on UFOs and how traumatic experience translates itself into fantasy imagery, I wonder if the appearance of these black cats are not the product of some sort of eco-guilt, which has certainly been on the rise since the early '90s.
On the other hand, regarding what you say of security, perhaps the weirdest 'security' tactics humans have is seeing ourselves and our products are distinct from the natural world. Isn't the internet as natural as a beaver's dam?
Thanks for another provocative reading experience!
Hi Arthur! I think yuppie guilt is a powerful thing and I also think it's a largely unconscious thing, so it makes sense that a big black cat invading such habitats could be a projection. I'm fascinated with the lust for security here in the US--the gated communities, the SUVs that look like tanks. I feel that same lust myself but I can't afford it and have never had it so I've just had to get used to living as a target and it's not really all that bad. It's not like we're around for that long anyway. But I always wonder, what are we so afraid of here? It's a weird, weird thing. Thanks for your thoughts!
Yikes, I lost my whole comment when I tried to take out a sentence, sorry. Great hub. I love the idea of the big black cats and it's interesting they're tied in with shapeshifter legends because I wound up writing them that way in a novel.
I find them very plausible. I think most people don't realize just how well animals can hide from humans. Black animals are very well camouflaged for hiding at night or in the dark and naturally gravitate to dark places so they can't be found. Cats naturally hide, they're ambush predators.
They could be non-native melanistic leopards because there's been over a century of zoos and circuses losing leopards in a big country that has game in it. This is one of the other plausible "real animal" possibilities, that some ex-captive leopards happened to really establish themselves well and are spreading. If it was a small gene pool it could be an entirely melanistic one.
I have heard of spotted leopards getting established after known escapes, seem to recall that there may even have been some black ones too. But that could have happened anywhere there's enough game for them to thrive. Cats are adaptive.
And like you said about the physical animals and spiritual meaning, they can easily be both.
They have that meaning. They do represent something outside perception. I like black cats, always have loved them and thought of them as beautiful, big or little. I'm not crazy enough to go tempting fate by approaching wild cougars but the cougar is my personal totem. I have had a profoundly spiritual experience with one that was tame and represented the World Wildlife Fund, in a tangible way I also helped contribute to his getting a mate and having cubs.
If one turned out to be an African leopard they'd be all over it looking for it as a zoo/pet escape and not think of it as a native creature at all, that cat would spend its life in the zoo and wind up being used to explain all the sightings in its area -- even if it left behind a mate and cubs and grown cubs.
And it could actually be all three -- some escaped leopards finding a place to establish themselves, black jaguars coming up from the South, possibly finding it physically easier than spotted ones to hide, and a melanistic cougar variant being reinforced by current environmental conditions when all the yellow ones got driven out.
Whatever they are, I'm pretty sure some of the stories are literal and people have seen big black cats that are there. The ones that also involve missing livestock and pets, pug marks and sounds of cats along with the sighting, are more likely to be both physical and spiritual. But any physical encounter with the wild could produce a spiritual response.
Thanks for ruminating on the meaning of the big black cats -- that is very cool too.
Hi Robert--Thanks for your thoughts on this. It's funny how people tend to frame things as either/or when, as you point out, it's often both/and! I do find it a stretch to imagine a big black cat finding room to live undetected where I live, but weirder things have happened. The DNR used to deny coyotes lived here, but now they are so prevalent they had to admit, yes, they're all over the place. :)
Well I have seen two black panthers . They were not something paranormal and it was no house cat . They were flesh and blood animals ! One was in my back yard and my daughter also saw it .It was at least two feet tall and a young one and made a sound that no house cat alive could make . It stayed around our home most of the morning . I saw it twice that day . The other one I almost hit with my car and I was very close to it . I was looking up at the top of it's back out the side window of my car ( a Ford Pinto ) . I have yet to see a house cat that big . It also left a five inch foot print in our yard . It was stealing our geese . Something paranormal would have no need to eat !!! I think you need to rethink your theroy on black panthers .
I live in upstate N.Y.(Broome county)I seen a large black cat on my way home. When I say large i mean when I first seen it I thought it was a big German Shepard that lives in that area.
Till I got closer as it was running up the road in front of me and it looked back at me and it was not a dogs face or tail.I was going about 50mph and hardly closing in on him then he through his tail and tuned 90 degrees off the road.
I have never seen a dog turn 90 degrees at a full sprint.
Then a couple weeks later my father see him run across the road in front of him on his way to my house.
Both times it was late dusk so I guess it could have been a dark brown mountain lion/cougar. But it look awful shiny black . So if anyone around me has seen the same drop some lines.
Hi Jerod--That's pretty cool. I'd love to see a big cat like that. We see coyotes sometimes here, but I've never seen a big cat. Thanks for sharing that story.
I looked at the footage of the cat on the railroad tracks in Argyll Scotland. That is no house cat. The distance between the insides of the railroad tracks is 4 feet 8 1/2 inches (assuming it's a standard gauge track, which it appears to be to me, as an experienced railway watcher). From the outside of one rail to the opposite outside edge is a little over 5 feet. If you look at the length of the cat, and move it's image over top of the tracks (which I did with a simple graphics program) the image of the animal touches both rails. Way too big for a house cat. Not even Garfield is that big.
Seeing the black panthers on the railroad tracks seems to ba a common thing . They have been seen here in Missouri walking along the railroad tracks as well .
Psychology does not agree with myths
The black panthers are NOT myths !!!!!!
We just moved to Arizona. My husband and I were walking our daughter right before sundown and we both saw a large black cat. It was much much bigger than your average house cat. I lived in Michigan all my life and did not see one till we moved. Strange.
Hi prgrungy
I think anyone who says big cats cannot live in urban areas in probably in denial. I suggest the native American legend about black cat spirits might be because the cats were (and are) unbelievably elusive. Below is an articke about a black cat in Scotland - there is debate about whether it is domestic.
http://www.thesun.co.uk/scotsol/homepage/news/2559
cat-is-filmed-on-railway-tracks-in-Helensburgh.html
Jewels says:
4 months ago
I thought that legend was only in Australia - it obviously travels. Sightings happen in the Aussie bush every now and then and it stirs the media. You even get these blurred pics. Who knows?