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?

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

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.

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.

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!

Exact same thing I thought, Bison.

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.

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!

It is possible its a wild dog.

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

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:

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.

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

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...

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...

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

hahaha Sammy....i never thought about it this way,
but i suppose, if the cat was to be male, than yes, supposedly his advances would be heard in whole Dartmoor and farther away

ROFL ok thanks for that mental picture Sammy. I think.

It sure as hell wasn't a cat that birthed that thing, unless it was one of those mysterious black panthers that's been sighted around those areas. If it was, then that dog must've been drunk before he decided he was going to try to give a panther a booty call. Somewhere around dartmoor there's a blind, 2 legged, 1 eared dog limping around...

LMAO!!!!
That's an even better mental pic Luna....hahah!!!

He'll think twice before using that pick up line again...

Hahah...maybe...but the dog was probably thinking....that was the best_____ i ever had..

*covers eyes*
Sammy Sammy Sammy...

*shakes head*
wow...lmao!!!

lmfao!

You're on a roll today Sammy!

Demon of Dartmoor? That's just another shaggy dog story
· School cook says 'beast' is her pet Newfoundland
· Blow for monster watchers as myth is shattered

Esther Addley
Saturday August 4, 2007

Guardian

It was the most ferocious creature seen in Britain since the last terrifying unidentified beast, prompting mild alarm among ramblers and high excitement among tabloid newspaper editors. The so-called Demon of Dartmoor, variously identified as a bear, wolverine or panther, was photographed on the moor several weeks ago and described as "terrifying" and "really fierce" - the cause, it was said, of a rash of sheep savaging in the area.
Last night, however, the disturbed of Devon were sleeping easy in their beds once more. A 34-year-old school cook from Heathfield, near Newton Abbot, came forward to say that she knew the identity of the monster: her two-year-old dog Troy.

"I was in stitches when I read that someone thought Troy was the beast of Dartmoor," Lucinda Reid said yesterday. "I spotted that it was him right away, you can tell by the shape and the way he is walking. Even some of my friends were ringing asking if the creature was Troy."

It is the second blow in a week for Britain's monster watchers, after the revelation that a supposed great white shark photographed off the coast of Cornwall was in all likelihood an entirely harmless basking shark.

That revelation came after the case of a photograph taken in May of a "cat-like creature" on Bodmin moor in Cornwall, favoured site for beast enthusiasts. It was later identified as a squirrel.

Ms Reid, who lives 10 minutes from Dartmoor, said passersby were occasionally alarmed by her 12-stone Newfoundland, but described him as "a big softie". The breed, originally working dogs from the Canadian province, is known for its docile temperament.

"A lot of people can be a bit afraid of him at first because he is so big and black. I suppose from a distance he may not immediately look like a dog," she said. "Newfoundlands move very slowly, not like normal dogs, because they are so big. We have got family in Canada and they say Newfoundlands sometimes get shot by people who mistake them for bear cubs. Thankfully we don't have to worry about that in Devon."

Reports of beasts roaming the countryside have increased over recent years, with more than 10,000 supposed sightings since 2000, according to Beas****ch UK. They included 5,931 big cats, more than 1,000 wild boar and 51 wallabies.

Since the Surrey puma was first sighted in the 1960s, unidentified felines have been reported across Britain, including the Beast of Brentwood and the Wildcat of the Wolds.

While many have been exposed as fakes - there has been a recent spate involving cuddly toys, say enthusiasts - documented cases of wild cats do exist. Hairs found in Lincolnshire in 2003 were found to belong to a leopard; two years later a lynx was captured in Cricklewood by the RSPCA. A police report released last year confirmed that a cat shot in Norwich in 1991 was also a lynx. The animals are believed to be exotic pets that were released or escaped.

Chris Mullins, founder of Beas****ch, said he knew of at least five big cats living close to his Leicestershire home.

But he remained unconvinced by Ms Reid's identification of the Dartmoor Demon. Scrutinising a photograph yesterday he said: "To be honest, going without the tail, it looks like one of those shaggy cattle."

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007
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SOURCE

Unfortunately, a photo of this womans dog did not accompany the article. I'll be sure to add it if I run across it

a newfoundland???
oh, how cruelly it destroyed our sublime theories!!!

To be honest, I can't see how the animal could possibly be someone's pet dog- I'm really surprised about how people were saying in the article about the resemblance to the woman's dog and how they all thought it was definately him. I don't really know what a Newfoundland looks like, but I can't see how the weird creature in the photo can look like one. Perhaps they are just trying to give a "normal" explanation for the animal's presence. If it is an ordinary dog though, it is certainly a very strange-looking one...

Just a dog!?
Noooooooooo!

That is one weird looking dog.
It really really looked like a bison in one pic and a boar in another....
that zoology site will be crushed...

Yeah Lily, oddly enough, nobody in that thread over there has made mention of it yet.

OK! Here's the prime suspect, Troy


This photo came from BBC News, it was the only pic they had. Rather a lousy shot if you ask me.


These pics below are NOT Troy. But they're Newfoundlands, to give you a better idea of what the breed looks like.





It was hard to find pics of them that weren't groomed to perfection. In my opinion, a dog running loose out in the country is not going to have every hair in place. It's probably going to be a bit shaggy looking from rolling around and such. Which might make the dog look bigger than it really is.

I still want it to be a hell hound tho

He thinks its pretty funny......

Nice Sammy!

*pffft*

well. so much for that! And here was me thinking we had an actual cryptozoological break through.

*sulk*

That pic is great Sammy, I needed that laugh, thanks

awwww... poor Gigan

Pocky?

I still think the "dog" looks more like a bison in the first photo- I was surprised that a Newfoundland is such a well-built looking dog, but the first photo still seems to show something quite different (to me anyway...).

I tend to agree...besides,.... people living there are just trying to be rational....