[Luna]

Dartmoor Mystery Beast
Some very intriguing photos of an unidentified ambling creature on Dartmoor
By Merrily Harpur July 2007














This enig­matic beast was seen by Martin Whit­ley, a pro­fess­ional fal­coner, Devon born and bred. On 9 June, he con­tacted the nat­ional re­search net­work Big Cats In Brit­ain to relate the foll­ow­ing experi­ence:

"I was flying a hawk on Dart­moor with some Amer­ican clients, when one of them pointed out this creat­ure. It was walk­ing along a path about 200 yards [180m] away from us. It was black and grey and com­par­able in size to a minia­ture pony. It had very thick should­ers, a long, thick tail with a blunt end, and small round ears. Its move­ment app­eared feline; then ‘bear-like’ sprang to mind. There was a party climb­ing on the tor opp­os­ite, making a racket, but this it ignored com­pletely."

Martin’s Amer­ican clients took a series of photos. They show the Dart­moor land­scape, the school party on the tor, and in the middle dist­ance an animal which seems to change shape in each frame, from cat, to bear, to pony, to boar, to vari­ous breeds of dog. Indeed, mem­bers of the BCIB group in­voked nearly the whole of Crufts in att­empt­ing to give the creat­ure a ‘rat­ional’ explan­at­ion, while the prox­imity of Hound Tor sugg­ested to some a poss­ible kin­ship to Devon’s spect­ral Wisht Hounds.

Martin, how­ever, is adam­ant that the animal was not a dog: "I have worked with dogs all my life and it was def­in­itely not canine. I have also seen a collie-sized black cat in the area, about 10 years ago, and it was not that – this was a lot bigger."

While he does not claim to know what the creat­ure was, his impress­ion through­out was that it was more feline than any­thing else, a ver­dict con­firmed by the experi­ences of his neigh­bours. "I am about as local as it gets and liaise very closely with all the land­owners in the area and have dis­cussed my sight­ing with sev­eral of them. You would be sur­prised at the number of people who have seen black big cats (and some­thing resembl­ing a small bear) in the area, over the course of the years. Of course, being Dart­moor farm­ers they would only ment­ion it when some­one else says they have seen one…" (BCIB)

In crypto­zoo­log­ical circles, the ‘grail quest’ is for good photos or film of myst­ery ani­mals: only these, it is gen­er­ally thought, will pro­vide reli­able ‘proof’. How grat­ify­ingly para­dox­ical it is, then, that when such photos do turn up, far from clar­ify­ing the myst­ery they app­ar­ently
com­pound it more deeply, frame by frame.

SOURCE
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If this is truly not a dog, then could this animal be the inspiration behind the many Whisht Hound/Black Shuck-type legends?

[Chupa]

it's very thick-bony, isn't it?
on the first picture it even looks like a black bison
hmmm...it's quite probable they have discovered a new species...

...and such creatures all always inspirational for folks

[Matt]

This is a weird animal- I'd not heard of any mysterious animals who appeared to change their shape. The way it appears in the first photo is really strange. It seems to look a lot like a boar in the last image.

[Catseye]

Matt, on Jul 29 2007, 06:55 PM, said:

This is a weird animal- I'd not heard of any mysterious animals who appeared to change their shape. The way it appears in the first photo is really strange. It seems to look a lot like a boar in the last image.

Weird looking thing! It does look like a boar to me.

[Matt]

i have heard briefly about the way spirits can possibly change shape or form, so perhaps this animal is an example of this kind of spirit. It would definately be one of the first times- if not the first- that a shape-changing spirit was captured on film.

[Gigan]

wowza! some excellent photos!

It sure doesn't look like a big cat though.... I wonder what on earth it is?? the second picture it almost looks bear like...


weeeird!

[Minty Freshness]

iwona, on Jul 29 2007, 06:26 AM, said:

it's very thick-bony, isn't it?
on the first picture it even looks like a black bison
hmmm...it's quite probable they have discovered a new species...

...and such creatures all always inspirational for folks

Exact same thing I thought, Bison.

[Gigan]

A Bison? on Dartmoor? ye gods man!

seriously, if thats what it was, it would be tracked pretty quickly. I am leaning toward a species of feral dog. At first I thought maybe a highland cow, but it doesn't seem big enough.

[Chase]

I couldn't agree more Gigan, although on first inspection it does look like some kind of Pig! Although Im sure we'd know about Pigs on Dartmoor.

I think it is without a doubt some kind of wild dog... theres plenty of places to hide there!

[Minty Freshness]

It is possible its a wild dog.

[pucker]

The very last photo almost looks fox-like...I don't know any foxes that get that big but you never know..My aunt lives up in the moutains of Reno Nevada and I've seen packs of wild / feral dogs, black ones just like the color of this animal...i think it could very well be a wild dog as well...great find, thanks for sharin

[Lily of the Lake]

I'm seeing a bison in the 1st pic and a bear/pig in the last few.
I'm so conused!
Good Find Luna

[Luna]

Lily of the Lake, on Jul 31 2007, 08:48 AM, said:

I'm seeing a bison in the 1st pic and a bear/pig in the last few.
I'm so conused!
Good Find Luna

Thanks!

I agree with most of you about what you're seeing. I'm not sure about the first one, it looks like it has it's head turned to the right, and out of view to me. The 2nd and 3rd one it looks like a big dog, the 4th one it seems to have a bit of a arched back like a bear, the 5th one, again looks like a dog to me with a big fluffy tail, and I see a boar/pig in the last one. The last picture is what throws me. If it's a dog, it has a very short, stubby looking muzzle.

EDIT: I found this photo that shows how close it was in proximity to the school children, and also helps give it a bit of scale:

[Lily of the Lake]

Luna, on Jul 30 2007, 09:26 PM, said:

Thanks!

I agree with most of you about what you're seeing. I'm not sure about the first one, it looks like it has it's head turned to the right, and out of view to me. The 2nd and 3rd one it looks like a big dog, the 4th one it seems to have a bit of a arched back like a bear, the 5th one, again looks like a dog to me with a big fluffy tail, and I see a boar/pig in the last one. The last picture is what throws me. If it's a dog, it has a very short, stubby looking muzzle.

EDIT: I found this photo that shows how close it was in proximity to the school children, and also helps give it a bit of scale:

Whoa, this one almost looks like an ape...
O.o
These are some crazy pics...

[Luna]

Lily of the Lake, on Jul 31 2007, 12:36 PM, said:

Whoa, this one almost looks like an ape...
O.o
These are some crazy pics...

I think that it's actually pic #2 from the first set of photos. In the first set it's been blown up. The positioning of the rocks and the pose are the same. If the pics have all been blown up, I hope that more originals are released at some point.

[SammyTerry]

Luna, on Jul 30 2007, 11:01 PM, said:

I think that it's actually pic #2 from the first set of photos. In the first set it's been blown up. The positioning of the rocks and the pose are the same. If the pics have all been blown up, I hope that more originals are released at some point.

Very interesting ...looks to be definitely from the K-9 species, they said Its move­ment app­eared feline
which may suggest some kind of fox...whatever this creature is..it looks to be Huge.
But one things for sure...it's not a werewolf.

[Luna]

SammyTerry, on Jul 31 2007, 09:55 PM, said:

Very interesting ...looks to be definitely from the K-9 species, they said Its move­ment app­eared feline
which may suggest some kind of fox...whatever this creature is..it looks to be Huge.
But one things for sure...it's not a werewolf.

lol true Sammy, true.

I've been reading over the forum at cryptozoology.com. A person claiming to be the witness who took the pictures is answering questions about the incident under the username "Dartmoor Hawker" over there. After reading through the thread, I'm pretty convinced it is indeed the actual guy. I'm not sure what the rules are here for posting a link to a different forum. I'm not a member there, and I'm not promoting them, I just think there's nothing like getting the story straight from the horses mouth. If this link is violating any rules, I'll remove it straightaway.

http://www.cryptozoology.com/forum/topic_v...6594&tid=24

[Chupa]

i just read the whole thread under the link you posted, Luna
this is an interesting forum, people are very curious there and ask a lot of questions,
which is good, because they gained some interesting informations as a result
hahaha, but still they don't have a clue what this beast could be (neither have i), although most of them claim it does look like canine
my opinion is still the same,
this might be some new species, which came into existence as an outcome of interbreeding of local feline & canine species...

[SammyTerry]

iwona, on Jul 31 2007, 09:32 AM, said:

my opinion is still the same,
this might be some new species, which came into existence as an outcome of interbreeding of local feline & canine species...

My gawd,...Iwona...can you imagine the delightfully horrible sounds that would have been made..?
I know cats scream and cry like crazy when their mating...

[Chase]

Its a great pic though! Dartmoor more then likely harbours all kinds of bizarre life...