MOD & Police big cat body cover up/conspiracy theory

Rick Minters new big cat book "Big cats:facing Britains wild predators" has opened an old wound so to speak of a MOD cover up of important big cat evidence with mention of the big cat carcase seen taken into the RAF Fylingdales base in Yorkshire way back in 2004.I can,t remember which big cat researcher first broke the story then but i do remember the conspiracy theories that the story added weight to.Simply put,a carcase of a big cat was seen on the main road that goes past the base presumably hit by a car.The security guards at the gate called for a digger which took the body into the base and since then past employees have stated that the big cat carcase is being held there.This may or may not be true,i don,t know but i would of thought that if there was a carcase it would of been better for it scientifically to be transported to Porton Down in Wiltshire where the appropiate facilities would be available for any scientific analysis let alone proper (freezer)storage facilities.I realise that all major military bases have freezer capacity to store bodies in the case of say a terrorist strike or similar but it wouldn,t be the place to store the much sought after body of a big cat,in any case RAF Fylingdales is an extremely small base perched on the north Yorkshire moors engaging in space surveilance with a very small staff of highly specialised technical personal numbering around 80 backed up by a small civilian contingent such as cleaners,cooks etc and i don,t expect for one second that there is scope for animal research or any storage facilities there,the base used to be famous for the golfball shaped radar stations towering over the moor that are no longer there and the Google maps show a small research station coupled with the housing residences for staff,some from America as the satellite tracking info is shared with the USA.In a case such as this Porton Down or any of the murky private animal research labs would be Britains answer to Roswell not a small RAF base such as this.There are a multitude of private labs dotted around the country equipped to deal with any proposed big cat carcases but the many university research labs would ,i imagine be firmly kept out of the loop for they would be open to breaches of confidentiality quite easily.

In 2007 i teamed up briefly on a wildlife survey for a mammal study group with an extremely talented bio-chemist on board who had worked for some years at the research facilities at Porton Down,over a series of drinks one night which made him temporarily forget his signing of the Official Secrets Act,necessary for all government employees engaged in top secret activities and legally binding,he mentioned in some detail the fuss caused on the rare occasion when a big cat carcase was brought in to the department next to where he was working.His work capacity was to test the internal fluid contents such as blood,bile etc.The dates i was not told nor where the carcases came from apart from one which was called a Moor cat in his departement-speak,presumably being brought off one of the West country moors like Dartmoor.They were though variable enough in type and colour to be differentiated between each other.He backed up my ideas that the large cats seen all over the country were a sub-species of leopard and even went on to expand that there were 3 or 4 different types,whether or not i was being fed a pack of lies washed down with a lot of scotch is open to question however I might add to the broth that Porton Down has been involved in highly top secret affairs and is reputed to research into various diseases like rabies and anthrax having large and state of the art research facilities covering animal and bio-chemical study areas amongst others and is extremely secure with armed guards posted and no open media or public access whatsoever so impossible to verify any rumours of big cat bodies being kept there.The site is massive,consisting of as much underground as there is up top, at over 7000 acres is the size of a small town and so secretive that no single government department has complete knowledge of what goes on there,a lot of the multitude of various military and civil research departments are only interlinked with others in their immediate study areas.Porton Down being the prime candidate for holding any big cat carcases jumps to the top of the list when it is realised that in 1996 ufologist Tony Dodd speculated that alien bodies allegedly found at the site of a ufo crash in the Beryn mountains in Wales had been taken to Porton Down,the sheer impossibilty of access to the site to prove or disprove the theory only accelerated the conspiracy theories.If there ever was a big cat carcase that needed to be safely tucked away from prying eyes then there could be no safer place than this one,however in the past various big cats have been caught like Felicity the puma and a lynx in London,the latter of which ended up at the Natural History musuem i understand,these never were kept secret so why should one from Yorkshire be?As the majority of police forces recognise the existance of big cats in the wild any cover ups must be the result of knee jerk decisions taken at the time of events happening rather than overall national policy.The plot thickens.

Here in Sussex we have had our own cover-ups the most famous of which was when armed police were called to the sighting of a very large panther size black cat seen in bushes at the playing fields in Peacehaven just off the Tye.This was in the autumn of 2003 if i remember and the whole area was sealed off with the police helecopter hovering above,a team of armed to the teeth police officers scouring the area and another team as back up along the track in a van.Apparently the original witness had called the local police who on seeing the cat for themselves called for back up.On being questioned as to what the drama was about the police told they were after an escaped criminal!I have 3 witness statements that mention a large black cat being seen there as well as one from a council employee and was asked at the time to "keep quiet" to prevent public panic.To be honest i would of thought that an escaped criminal nutter would be more to be afraid of than a wild cat large as it may be.In fact there were and still are regular big cat sightings in the Telscombe and Peacehaven area but none since have caused such a government departemental panic.Actually,these days the police are more often seeking the help and intellectial input of big cat researchers such as myself and others up and down the country to clear up cases where damage to livestock or property for example may be the work of a big cat or some enterprising vandal or miscreant.The police sometimes receive calls from distressed members of the public who have seen a big cat for the first time and worry for the safety of themselves and children and so the police can be glad to put them in touch with someone who is used to dealing with the aftermath of a big cat sighting in all it,s forms.These days we as "big cat people" are treated as some kind of agency to be called upon at times of need and are usually glad to be of service in allaying peoples fears,this in turn frees up valuable police time to be spent on more pressing cases..

As for the conspiracy theory of bodies of big cats being swept up off the countries roads and whisked to shady government labs like Porton Down and others does sound a little far fetched at first,for a start the council employees charged with road kill picking up duties would have to be briefed and having worked at this capacity myself once i never heard of this being mentioned,i did once though hear of a very large cat being found squashed only to hear it had been unceremoniously put in a black plastic sack and sent off to the incinerator with the other bodies of wildlife and pets falling victim to traffic as contrary to often held opinion council workers can be hard pressed and over worked.However if any bodies of big cats were to be found reaching their way to say Porton Down by one way or another then it would normally be kept quiet as we,the British public,are undeniably kept as mushrooms by the state,in the dark and fed on s*@t,which is the principal reason why any conspiracy theory would materialise.We have the media to keep us informed on the goings on that might interest us and i use the term media in it,s loosest possible form to include as in this case book authors,bloggers,tweeters,big cat researchers etc......

Watch these spaces!





www.darlingtonandstocktontimes.co.uk/news/9444103.MoD_dismisses_big_cat_cover_up_claims


BIG CATS IN BRITAIN: MoD dismisses big cat cover up claims

Territory size of a Sussex big cat/600+ square km

26 sightings this year in 21 parishes add more weight to gaining more of an understanding of the yearly range of a typical big cat in Sussex.I say typical because it is really a study of a large part of West Sussex in particular 4 big cats 1 of which is far larger than the others and has several defining features that set it apart from the others ,this has made it possible that when a sighting comes in i can usually differentiate this cat from it,s nearest neighbours,added to this i work on the farm where this cat has been very active at times and know all the surrounding country fairly intimately.In this way when sightings come in they are plotted on a map together with the habits observed by the witnesses.Big cats act differently to each other in their behavior,for example when seen one might slink away while another typicaly looks at it,s observer then runs hell for leather away to cover.Carcases found too have similarities and differences depending on which cat has killed it so a pattern starts to emerge on where which cat is at certain times of the year and what it is feeding on,paw prints too ,whilst they are found far less frequently,are as distinctive apart as human fingerprints.Colour wise all these 4 cats are black but the shapes of their bodies can be described differently however it must be remembered that body shape of a cat changes depending on what it,s up to.A friend who lives not too far away has photographed this big cat the results of which i have published on bigcatsinsussex.co.uk and has been now used in the recent,highly acclaimed big cat book by Rick Minter,in other words people from up and down the country have looked at the picture and thought it to be the genuine article.So,we have had the best chance for years to guage the territory size of this,one the countys biggest big cats.....

A lot of the data already gathered has been published for public perusal here on these blogs but also on the website with the exception of sensitive material and sightings evidence that is location private for one reason or another like the farmer concerned wanted his place kept out of it.I have attempted to analyse this data as thoroughly as i can to produce a series of findings which can be repeated elsewhere dependant on habitat type and prey numbers.What is quite clear is that the findings so far confirm some previous data inputs and surprise or turn on their head others.

To start with as a general rule of thumb a big cat will be seen in an area of a clump of parishes once at a certain time of year then maybe again very often a month later then possibly,if the hunting is good,a couple of months after that or instead may visit several months later.This has been noticed over the years.In other words it will only either actively hunt or pass through 2 or 3 times a year but usually in the same seasons.This has been observed by myself and others on countless occasions to be now almost a rule of thumb.Big cats are not scavengers but hunters and to survive can only predate loosely in any given area before their prey gets wise,coupled with this they have competition with others like foxes who share at times similar hunting techniques and prey like rabbits and foxes are often well established in the areas that a big cat may be in.As regards to deer they are usually the younger ones taken,first year fawns,not the adult roe and so there,s a limited number of these taken.So we can see here at a glance that a big cat would need a much more vast and varied habitat than it,s most similar rival a fox.

With every rule of thumb in nature there is an exception and our principal cat of study shares this with the others in that it has an area/s where it,s seen far more regularly than in other places.It has areas that are the edge of it,s range and on reaching these it is forced to turn in for geographical reasons.For our cat it,s the major coastal,downland towns and it,s here that it,s seen more regularly in fact 12 of these clumps of sightings where it,s been seen this year have been at these places but i feel it,s a mistake to regard them as a pattern that is repeated elsewhere but the data has just not come in,in other words big cats in Sussex are repeatedly being seen at turning points of their range whereas at other points they are habitually seen/frequent much less.A breakdown of these turning points have seen the cat hug the coastal downs for it to then turn inland and head for the general Weald area.The downs as a whole is mostly open,as the photo above shows,but has pockets and in some places has clumps of cover like scrub extending into very extensive woods,it has been noted to hunt successfully on certain parts of the downs but spends a larger proportion of it,s time on the Weald where prey numbers and hunting cover are extremely higher.What has been noted especially this year is the effect that land clearance and the resultant stock fencing has on a big cats ability to hunt.The recent leap in lamb and beef as well as corn prices has made farming a little more worthwhile were it not for the corresponding jump in compound,fuel and other costs and it,s had the effect of a new type of enclosure of the land.Stock fencing put up to accommodate the countys increasing number of sheep and cows,in particular wire topped sheep netting against closely trimmed hedges makes for poor cat hunting places as does the recent fad of large enclosures of deer fenced ground commonly called by it,s misnomer of rewilding.It,s a fact that Sussex is a lot less wild than it was say even 5 years ago,farms have had to make more use of the same amount of ground just to keep going and this has had the knock on effect of pushing off the Sussex big cats from ground they previously frequented.Cut down or even just reduce the width of a hedge,add a stock fence and you have removed deer habitat, greatly restricted their movements and in turn their predator the big cat will visit somewhere else.

So,to the square size of our big cats range or at least to what is known for the months of december and january the data is very thin to say the least but it,s thought it heads north to the Wealden sandstone ridge where the denser forest hides it from observation.I said in the previous post on spring movements that it,s range extends to around 140 sq.km however there was around 12 days of the month where it wasn,t being accounted for,this year however fresh info has come in which rather reaffirms what was previously thought but couldn,t be confirmed in that it did indeed range a lot further west than stated and most likely a fair bit further north east which makes it 18 kilometres north to south and 26 km east to west making this around 468 sq.km.This area has now been confirmed by exhaustive analysis of fresh info coming in this year and if we couple this with the highly likely deep winter supposed range in the far north we have a figure of 638 sq.km.This is huge,far bigger than previously thought and i must admit i,ve gone over everything so many times to check but i keep getting the same results.I realise that anyone reading this will confer and compare these results to range sizes of big cats like leopards on foreign soils who can move around in areas a quarter of this size but it must be remembered that Sussex is heavily populated with large and small towns peppering the country and fracturing suitable cat habitat.Large house building programmes have gone up on the edges of nearly every urban area reducing former farmland in Sussex by several thousand acres every year.

Although these results have not been conducted with the radio collaring that backs up results found abroad by the various big cat groups and i rue the day that this would ever happen over here,we are superbly set up in this country in having a vast amount of witness data to analyse that is completely absent from,say,Ingwe in Africa which a far lower human population.It is open to sceptism quite rightly in that no genetic analysis has taken place and that too much emphasis is on witness reports and carcase investigation and not enough on spoor but that is just the way it is.In fact this area size does concur with similar sizes that the other big cats from across Sussex would have given the number that it is thought are here(at least 12 no more than 18) and this territory size is necessary given the prey needed to keep them going throughout the year.In fact if we take a 600 odd square km block it does fit in very nicely with the other cats areas.It does all seem to fit.These results cannot though be compared to other areas of the country i think as Sussex has a peculiar range of habitat and soils that restrict or enhance big cat movements depending on the type of season but i,m sure that it,s relatively typical in the large amount of ground needed by our apex predators the big cats.....

Closet yet big cat sighting in West Sussex/pictures

The above 2 photos of a big cat in West Sussex( copyright Carol Cowley all rights reserved)taken by Carol Cowley at a sighting recently have stirred up controversy amongst the big cat research world.Inherant sceptism is a necessary trait in this game with each separate shred of evidence subject to intense scrutiny.I am the first to admit that the first picture has some of the appearances of being a dog were it not for the fact that the tail length obviously belongs to no known canine breed,the ears too are exactly the shape quoted by most of the big cat sighting witnesses in being more rounded than pointed.The hang of the right paw also looks a bit cat like to me.All this being said,if i was presented with these pictures and didn,t know the history behind this ongoing investigation conducted by Carol Cowley and myself and took them as being the sole piece of evidence i too would err on the side of caution and might be tempted to proclaim them as being photos of a dog,albeit a strange one at that and i might also explain the cat-like features as being mere tricks of the light and not the real deal so to speak.

In fact,any evidence cannot be looked at in isolation, think,but has to be part of a whole series of different perspectives on other things too like was the sighting/photo in an area where big cat activity has taken place?15 sightings from multiple witnesses this year alone.This cat in fact has been studied intensely over the last 3 years and probably a lot more if it,s as old as we think it is.Was it doing what would of been expected of it?A handful of occasions were when the cat was not disturbed immediatly and was observed doing just this thing that is just poking and possibly sniffing about which is what cats do.Was there any other evidence?Well,not on this occasion but on others and at nearby locations paw prints,deer,fox,badger and bird carcases attributed as big cat kills were found and out of the deer, fallow carcases which can only be pulled down by a very big cat,all this has been published on these blogs and the website.A final question would be on the integrity of the witness,in other words was it a hoax?Carol Cowley has produced several pictures now of this big cat all taken with her little compact camera one of which especially has been published in a forthcoming book on big cats by the acclaimed West Country based author Rick Minter and has been verified as being a photo of a big cat by various other researchers up and down the country.Her other work has produced the only deer carcase attributed to a big cat this year as well as investigating numerous sightings and uncovering information of immense value to gleaning knowledge of big cat behaviour.

Here i have offered a little background material to back up these pictures for public scrutiny however it,s not my intention to convince anyone of whether these pictures are genuine or for that matter any other big cat pics nor any other evidence produced.Everyone is entitled to their opinion.If anything,all material is published for public information only though it has to be said the agenda is to prove how essential big cats are to the natural balance of things and seek only to avoid conflict with humans.Scrutiny is valued however to offset home-spun conclusions which can spin off onto tangents too wild to be even plausible.So,given what i,ve mentioned here the above pics appear to me to be very much the real deal,taken obviously,not in isolation.....

Black fur found at deer kill site

When no evidence is evidence?

One of the delights in life is to got to pastures new,have a look around at what,s not been looked at before,at least by oneself and with every turn of gaze something of interest beckons to be studied with eyes glimmering with expectation.Not on this occasion though for a different yearning gripped,a desire to check out a place where a spectacularly "strange" event had taken place some 9 months previously to see if any new trace of something could be gleaned,if not then this could mean possible confirmation of previous theories.Let me explain.
Last autumn was notable for a glut in deer carcase finds that were attributed to big cat kills,4 in 3 weeks,5 in total.One in particular stood out as being the finest example i,ve ever come across a first year roe neatly eaten with no mess like fur or blood scattered and in an area of high big cat activity,a picture of it is on the evidence page of bigcatsinsussex.co.uk.The spot where the deer was caught was clear with neck fur found and scraping of the hooves as it aphyxiated in the cats grip,then marks in the ground visible where it was dragged for 15ft over a small stream to be consumed that night last november.Checking out the nearby barbed wire fence i retrieved a decent clump of 1 & 1/2 inch long soft,black fur.A trail camera was set up but showed only the usual foxes,badgers,tame black cat and a few weeks later a return of the roe deer.The tame black cat however was short haired of a length of 3/4 inch i might add.
Anyhow,sending off a portion of the fur found to be examined by the eminent Dr.Legg of the Booth museum in Brighton the results came back as belonging to the domestic cat variety,so no leopard involved in the roe deer murder mystery we should concur.Not to be outdone i also e-mailed a photo of the carcase to a big cat study group in Africa who replied "definitely eaten and probably killed by a big cat,most likely a leopard" they replied "where did you find it?" to my answer of in Sussex i received no further comment.In fact,i didn,t actually find the carcase myself but got to it a little after the fact and coincidentely the daughter of the landowners is actually involved with a camera safari group in South Africa and originally thought of a big cats involvement with the kill but i digress.
Well ,enough of the history of this case and more on the news,for a start there has been no further sightings in the immediate area,i checked the fence again bearing in mind that this is now 9 months down the line and not a single strand of black fur was found despite going to the lengths of examing each and every barb with my trusty magnifying glass remembering that last year 2 different barbs had this long fur on them indicating at least 2 passes by whatever animal had left it with the large amount of left indicating also multiple passes.Apparently the local tame cats are still active around the place.So,getting to the point the fence at 18" is too high for a domestic cat to shed fur on it,this is indicated by none left on it and the height of said cats to be 12" high at the shoulder.
The facts as we have them:something big and silent had killed,dragged and ate that deer in a big cat-like way.Something left it,s fur on the fence which was longer than the tame cats present.Something had to be big enough for it,s body to scrape an 18"high fence and that something made multiple passes.That something had a domestic cat ancestry as prooved.It seems to me that that something had made multiple passes under the fence before it succeeded in it,s quest for prey that much seems likely but the most intriguing thing about this conflicting evidence is the domestic cat results,this has happened to me before and i suppose i,m meant to be disapointed that it wasn,t a leopard but i,m not.My quest is to uncover the truth by discovering and examining the evidence however conflicting that may seem and not to pigeon- hole theories to slot in where they could be expected to go.It would be expected that for a cat to be large enough to pull down an animal the size of a young roe deer(about 70lb) it should be at least of leopard size and ancestry.In fact,bizarrely enough i have a multiple witness report given to me from a much respected big cat researcher from the West Country which states that they saw a very large,alsation sized big black cat close up and mentioned that the eyes had slits,we all know that tame cats eyes retreat to slits like foxes whereas leopards go to dots like dogs........

Campers see big cat in Sussex woods/interview

Sheep are not eaten by big cats in Sussex

The Sussex big cats do not target either sheep or lambs.This statement has provoked much debate among the local big cat researchers and it,s fair to say i,ve had to defend these words quite vigorously.The principal point against these facts is that out of a commercial flock of say 6000 breeding ewes that would produce say around 11000 lambs,would,say,the sheperd/ess miss a few that were taken overnight with no trace and strat worrying what happened to them or would the sheer numbers involved mean that in all likelihood a dozen here or half a dozen there not be noticed at all.
Modern sheep farming in Sussex is a highly mobile operation with in reality all flocks are actually split up into hundreds of ewes spaced out wherever the lambing fields are with the stockmen actually doing rounds of many of these fields in a single day.Many rent the grazing and only put what each field or group of fields can handle.This means that they are more easily kept an eye on and believe it or not anything amiss is usually noted promptly.Fencelines are quad biked along as are bramble or scrub patches looking for fleece either stuck in the wire or on thorns that would be a telltale sign of predator attack.
Foxes do take lambs on occasion as do badgers however fox kills are easily noticed as they tend to go for orphaned or triplet new borns not yet acquanted with their surrogate ewes or the ones caught up in the said fences or brambles.In "08 i think it was we had a 2" fall of snow in april around lambing time on the downs and the resulting wind blown drifts "drowned" 50 or so new borns,the quick thaw revealed that the local foxes got wind of these easy meals with themselves cubs to feed and then went on to have a go at the lambs as they got a little older which is unusual as often foxes just go for the afterbirth.Foxes tend to drag a carcase a short way while they are eating it and the evidence of their kills is easy to notice as much fleece is lying around and the site tends to be messy.The messiest are the badgers though and these have the strentgh to drag the lambs into deep cover often squeezing then through the sheep netting.All the shepherds i know or have spoken to would notice any of these goings on and it would appear by what i,ve been told so far that lambs taken by either foxes or badgers would be well down on previous years with only a couple reporting any problems and neither of these involve big cats.At the South of England show next weeks i,ll have a chance to chat to a few others and find out more.In fact, like deer,lamb carcases are never carried very far away.Take the Telscombe lamb kills saga from last year where a big cat definitely had been killing the lambs,every carcase was found in the surrounding scrub and was consumed there,the bodys didn,t just mysteriously vanish and all were immediately noticed by the farmer.Even up to the 20 kilo lambs which are a heavy load for the bit bigger than a labrador big cat that was seen amongst the sheep at night with lamps to carry over the fences and it appeared that it had copied the badgers in pulling the bodies through the netting.I had never seen anything like it before which made the exception rather than the rule.
So,would a few lambs missing not be noticed occasionally by a particularly hard pressed farmer?Well,maybe for a short while in the uplands up north where say black faced sheep drop their young without much problem and little help from the sheperd but here too from what i,ve been told they are very much on the ball as their foxes really do take lambs on a regular basis but here in the more sheltered south the favoured meaty crosses can sometimes struggle to give birth and all available hands will be on deck to help.Every ewe is tagged and the numbers of lambs noted,this is rudimentary stockmanship to guage which are the best breeders and when they are moved off the lambing fields any and exact shortfall of numbers will be noticed.I checked this out last year with sheperds and found out that as usual all casualties were accounted for,of course i can,t speak to everyone but if anyone knows any different then please tell me?
In addition to this any flock that is continually harrased either at night or by day is extremely noticeable by their owner who will find out the cause pronto,it just so happens that like foxes big cats suss out potentially new hunting oppurtunities well before they go in for the kill so to speak and will be seen in the fields amongst the sheep at night before any lambing takes place,this so rarely happens i can count the occasions happening on one hand.
It is my opinion, weighted by all the available evidence,that on the very rare occasion for lambs to be taken by a big cat that firstly the evidence is plain to see and only when it has cubs to feed and for some reason the natural food like the rabbits has been denuded.There is no evidence to the contrary,if there was then i think i would be the first to say it.A healthy scepticism and constant questioning of the facts helps us all understand big cat behaviour that much better and to analyse what we know or think we know already but there is drawing the line between supposition and fact by examining the evidence.It is often supposed that a sheep carcase is found by a member of the public and just because a big cat has been seen in the area 1 and 1 makes 5 in that the conclusion will be that a big cat has killed the said sheep,it then gets reported to the press and supposition becomes fact overnight without any analysis of the carcase,investigation of the scene or any of the photos,if any,made available for public scrutiny.When on the odd occasion it does happen for real it all gets blown out of proportion.
Looking for evidence of big cats being anywhere beyond the usual witness statements is extremely difficult and very trying on the patience as very little if any is found when we know full well a big cat has been very active in an area,it can be tempting when looking for clues to jump to conclusions in our haste for some sort of evidence but looking around sheep fields for sheep carcases will only prove in the long run ,i,m sure,that the title of this piece is the normal current of affairs........