Britain’s Big Cat Mystery – Documentary
Growing up in the countryside of rural Britain in the 1980s, it was almost impossible to get through a single week without over-hearing the mumbled and hushed whispers of nearby adults discussing the emergent folkloric legend of the ‘Exmoor Beast’ or the ‘Beast of Bodmin’ with serious undertones of angst, confusion and excitement.
For my generation, with our imaginations fuelled by comic books and the numerous Hollywood coming-of-age epics that were spawned of the era, such as ‘The Goonies’ or the ‘The Lost Boys’, the snippets of rumours and the regular coverage on the local news planted the notion of dangerous animals being secretly present within the seemingly calm, peaceful and safe splendour of the British countryside; and this is what it remained for most of us – a notion. Just simply an idea, a point from which an intrigued imagination can begin to plot its own forays of adventure in seeking to resolve the mystery at hand; however, not all minds were intrigued, and for many, the legend was regarded as exactly that – no more than a myth, a fantasy which was repeatedly refuelled by recurring misidentifications of the neighbour, Mrs. Jones’ pet Labrador dog by drunken townsmen en route home from their nightly shift, taste-testing the ales of the local tavern. As such, the phenomenon was relegated by the masses to the status of fiction and fantasy; another Loch Ness monster never to be found, another Irish alligator to elude the scientific world, another boggart or fairy to hide at the bottom of the garden and cause mischief.
Little did I know that it would take more than two decades before I found out the truth. My experience does not stand out from the huge accumulation of eyewitness reports which typically recount the glimpses of large black cats which are observed by the casual rambler or dog-walker. It did however ignite a fuse that would ultimately lead to the planning and organisation of the largest field research expedition ever undertaken in Britain in pursuit of obtaining credible, unequivocal and conclusive evidence of these mysterious large cats.
To achieve this, the hurdles and obstacles which had to be navigated were surprising. As a cynical individual drawn to conspiracies, I was well aware of suggestions that a powerful and clandestine authority (possibly based in Westminster or Whitehall) was secretly pulling strings to suppress the growing bank of evidence for anomalous non-indigenous predatory felines being loose in the wilds of Britain; however, it never occurred to me that the evidence was being suppressed by the big cat researchers themselves.
As I tentatively dipped my toe in the water, to reach out to other big cat enthusiasts and field researchers, I quickly found myself immersed in a world of fiercely segmented and tribal cliques with gang-like mentalities and sworn allegiances to their own local or preferred experts, each sect urgently withholding and hiding their best photographic evidence and their best field research, whilst simultaneously attempting to discredit, debunk and dismiss that which was found by rival researchers, in the hope that their own team will be the one to reveal the full truth and blow the lid off of this mystery; each hoping to take fame and glory for themselves with little thought for the consequences and no plan to assist in the serious and sensitive traversing of the minefield of issues which will likely present in the aftermath of such news and mainstream national acceptance.
Careful networking and the gentle building of trust within the world of big cat researchers has now culminated in the formation of a new team comprised of learned experts and professionals equipped with the most advanced technology ever used in attempt to tackle this mystery. Furthermore, their upcoming excursion into the territory of the beast will be recorded in high definition for all to see; from the ground, from the air, and also using cutting-edge thermal cameras. However, in keeping with the traditions of other more established big cat research cliques, I intend to play my cards close to my chest and do not wish to show my hand just yet.
For those who want to know more, the documentary “Britain’s Big Cat Mystery” by ‘Dragonfly Films Video Production’ is scheduled to be released in the summer of 2020…
Watch the trailer at: https://vimeo.com/315009848
Written by Tim Whittard
These cats are phantoms. I’ve seen them walk through walls. There is a well known big cat ghost that used to ride the bus in Kent, but it would never appear on film whenever I tried to record it. Not enough escapees for these cats to be real zoological specimens. My research group in Kent has been using dowsing rods to predict big cat activity and it really does correlate with UFO and ghost reports locally. Basically we believe that the cats are tulpas formed from thought/spirit energy. Some of my research might suggest memories embedded in landscape of prehistoric big cats – bit like stone tape theory. Great writing style though. Neil Arnold
Britain’s Big Cat Mystery – UPDATE
‘Britain’s Big Cat Mystery’ is the world’s first and only award-winning feature-length documentary exploring the unusual phenomenon of the United Kingdom’s population of mysterious large cats, which are alleged to be prowling the wilderness of this group of little islands nestled together on the European edge of the North Atlantic.
Throughout recent history there has been an endless stream of eye-witness reports from across the entirety of Britain, which continues to this day; from the windswept, cold and mountainous regions of northern Scotland, to the rolling green moors and woodlands of southern England, there is no shortage of sightings and reports of encounters with these beasts. Indeed, it may seem that almost every town and village in Britain has its own legend and local folklore of an unusual large cat, and there are plenty of farmers who will attest to the damage these creatures can do.
Britain has a long, colourful and complicated history of having a diverse exotic pet trade; from the days of the old British Empire, until the mid-20th century, it was deemed an indicator and symbol of status, wealth and fashion to own exotic pets, (especially big cats). The surprising popularity of extravagant exotic cat ownership in Britain is captured beautifully by the well-known viral video of ‘A Lion called Christian’; a lion cub purchased in the 1960s from the famous Knightsbridge department store, ‘Harrods’.
Incidents and reports spiralled out of control in the 1960s; and with the later introduction of the Dangerous Wild Animals Act in 1976, the situation only intensified, as exotic cat owners sought to alleviate themselves of the impending burdens of unfeasibly increased costs to obtain and retain a license to legally keep their pets. The introduction of this legislation served as a major catalyst for many unregistered private big cat owners to deliberately release their animals in preference of having them terminated.
The creator and director of ‘Britain’s Big Cat Mystery’ (Matt Everett) was inspired to start detailing this story from inception and origin to the present day, after an unexpected encounter one morning in the foothills of Exmoor, where his car almost collided with a large black cat which would have dwarfed a German Shepherd dog. The documentary’s lead researcher (Tim Whittard) had a similar experience one dark winter’s evening as he drove around a sharp hairpin bend in the spider-web network of single-track country lanes in rural Gloucestershire, nearly hitting a large powerful looking black cat that would not have looked out of place in the jungles of Asia.
This film adds substance to folklore and myth to establish the historic and scientific facts; and now, after years of tireless and extensive research, the story of ‘Britain’s Big Cat Mystery’ can finally be told with more clarity, detail and substantiated fact than has ever been possible before.
Viewers are invited to take a front-row seat and watch with anticipation as a team of experts (assembled by Rick Minter) converge on the borders of the Quantocks and Exmoor for a long weekend, to mount the largest and most technologically advanced field research expedition ever undertaken, in pursuit of clues which may lead them to find the unequivocally conclusive evidence that the scientific community craves.
In their excursion into the territory of the beast, the expert team (led by Jay Opie and Rhoda Watkins) presents a comprehensive range of equipment and field research techniques; including advanced camera trapping, bait, visual and olfactory lures, infrared cameras, night-vision scopes, thermal and optical drones, and also bio-acoustics.
Join the team, as they review newly uncovered and previously lost evidence, including long-forgotten archive footage, as well as exclusive new interviews with key witnesses to the seminal events in the history of the mysterious big cats of Britain, who until now have been unwilling to talk on camera…
COMING SOON!
Written by Tim Whittard.
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Official website – https://www.britainsbigcatmystery.com