A ‘petrified’ driver spotted a big cat prowling in a Welsh village and believes it may have been a leopard, sparking a debate that there could be a Beast of Blaenau on the loose.
Morgan Taylor, 22, said he was making a delivery in Rassau, Blaenau Gwent, when he saw the creature.
A video shows a large cat with spots roaming around on a grassy bank beside the road.
Morgan said: ‘I was driving back home and I’d seen something in the bushes that looked a bit irregular.
‘So I slowed down in my car – my windows were down at this point – and as it approached out of the bushes, I put my windows straight up.’
A video shows a large cat with spots roaming around on a grassy bank beside the road
Morgan Taylor, 22, said he was making a delivery in Rassau, Blaenau Gwent, when he saw the creature
He added: ‘At first, I thought it was a leopard. I can’t lie. It was massive. I don’t wanna say it was as big as a toddler – it was even bigger.
‘The video doesn’t do it justice. It was about a meter and a half, maybe two meters at a push – it was a very, very big cat.’
Morgan, from nearby Blaina, said he recorded the sighting on Wednesday using his phone.
He said: ‘I was petrified; that’s the only word I can tell you. I felt like I’d seen a ghost.
‘At first glance I thought it was going to be coming for me because it was a big cat.
‘It made no noises, it just looked like it was investigating something.’
Morgan said: ‘I was driving back home and I’d seen something in the bushes that looked a bit irregular’
He added: ‘So I slowed down in my car – my windows were down at this point – and as it approached out of the bushes, I put my windows straight up’
After the footage was posted on Facebook, it sparked intense debate.
It particularly divided the UK’s big cat believers – a community that maintains that there is an elusive population of wild big cats at large.
Some said it was a lynx, perhaps a bobcat, or even a leopard.
One person wrote: ‘Absolutely clear and probably the best, most definitive footage of a big cat I’ve seen.’
Others suggested it was a Savannah cat, a Bengal, or another large domestic cat.
Morgan said: ‘At first, I thought it was a leopard. I can’t lie. It was massive. I don’t wanna say it was as big as a toddler – it was even bigger’
After the footage was posted on Facebook, it sparked intense debate. It particularly divided the UK’s big cat believers – a community that maintains that there is an elusive population of wild big cats at large
Commenting on the video, some said it was a lynx, perhaps a bobcat, or even a leopard. Others suggested it was a Savannah cat, a Bengal, or another large domestic cat
Morgan said: ‘My wife says a Savannah cat but I’m determined it was a lynx.
‘It looked like a leopard cub that was just growing up.’
The experience has led him to believe that there are big cats living in the wild in Britain too.
‘Now I’ve seen this, yes, 100 per cent I believe there is,’ he said.
In a message addressed to any doubters he said: ‘I’d say come down to Rassau and come have a look yourself, because trust me they’ll be turning around and running away.
‘I’m lucky because I was in my car because otherwise I’d have run for miles; I wouldn’t have looked back either.’
