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NARRATOR: On the prowl on England's wildest moors,
is this the beast of Bodmin, the mystery
cat whose sheep and cattle kills have left a trail of carnage?
Was this bushman savaged by a Tasmanian tiger,
a creature experts say died out 60 years ago?
In the Australian Outback, they search by night for a big cat
that science says doesn't exist.
Will they prove the scientists wrong?
Mysteries from the files of Arthur C. Clarke,
author of "2001," and inventor of the communications
satellite.
Now in retreat in Sri Lanka, he ponders the riddles
of this and other worlds.
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ARTHUR C. CLARKE: One of the most popular exhibits here
in the Colombo National Museum is the infamous Man
Eating Leopard of Punanai.
A fearsome beast in its day, it devoured at least 11 people
before being shot in 1923.
Fortunately, attacks by the leopards
that still remain in the jungles of Sri Lanka
are now few and far between.
But of course, there are many countries
in the world where leopards and pumas
are not supposed to exist.
Yet it's hard to discount reports
from some of these places that big cats are on the prowl where
they shouldn't be.
NARRATOR: England's West Country.
On these bleak moors, it's feared
mysterious and dangerous cats are on the loose.
All too often, the mist clears to reveal true horror.
Hundreds of lambs, calves, and even fully grown sheep
have fallen prey to the moorland killer.
Eyewitnesses talk of a huge dark creature, a leopard or puma.
Even as we filmed one frightened farmer on Bodmin Moor,
one of the beasts appeared.
ROSEMARY RHODES: I'm seeing a very, very large black cat!
Is that the cat that's been killing your--
your sheep, do you think?
ROSEMARY RHODES: It's big enough to.
It's big enough to be the one.
My goodness, it is.
Well, I reckon that's the one that's about
six foot from stem to stern.
I've had to sell my sheep.
I was losing so many.
And it wasn't just the, the kills that upset us.
It was the numbers that were left
alive, disemboweled and living.
NARRATOR: She called in the vet.
DIANA SUTHERLAND: Well, Rosemary brought in a sheep to us
in, in January that had been killed in a way
that I've never ever seen a sheep killed.
And it was just opened, as if you'd opened it with a knife.
There were also signs on the udder of actual claw marks.
There were four claw marks, one of which
had penetrated exactly like a cat claw mark.
I can't think what else it would have been.
Whatever actually killed this animal
must have taken hold of the area under the jaw
and just held there.
And certainly the big cats always go for underneath,
and suffocate.
So on, on view of that, I really think that probably
it was a big cat of some sort.
NARRATOR: This film convinced a big cat expert.
He says the beast is at least five feet long.
It's probably a leopard, and best left alone.
When Rosemary Rhodes goes at night,
she always takes her shotgun with her.
In these parts, children aren't left
alone to play in the garden.
Parents fear the cat may strike.
Farmer John Goodenough fears his land may become killing fields.
Not just for sheep, but for people.
JOHN GOODENOUGH: Well, we put this notice up
because they bring these children out for,
for walks on the moors for a little bit
of orientating-- you know, to read
maps and one thing and another.
And, and they wander everywhere.
Well, if one got stray and should walk in
on one of these things that were sleeping,
or if, if it had youngsters, cubs,
could be extremely dangerous.
It ought, it ought to be caught and disposed of in some manner.
Whether to the zoo, or, or send them over to America where,
where they want them in the wild, the wild lands [LAUGHS]
over there.
'Cause we don't want them.
NARRATOR: Sightings of mysterious big cats
are reported across Britain.
From Bodmin in the southwest to Barnard
Castle in the far northeast.
Unidentified big cats have been spotted
from Kidlington in Oxfordshire to Kidderminster
in the Midlands.
In Wales, a big cat has been reported savaging livestock.
And in Worcestershire, Sally Dyke
will always bear the scars of her close encounter
of the third kind.
In Eastbourne, news photographer Terry Connolly
had this menacing meeting.
And in Evesham, Adrian Hodges barely had
time to focus his camcorder.
Since the 1960s, the Surrey Puma has struck
fear in the suburbs of London.
Pop star Maurice Gibb of the Bee Gees claims to have seen it.
In the Isle of Wight, trackers spotted these huge paw prints.
But still elusive and still on its murderous rampage,
the Exmoor Beast has evaded capture.
Near his cottage in deep forest on the edge of Exmoor,
Major Paget King-Fretts came face
to face with one of the beasts.
MAJOR PAGET KING-FRETTS: I came out to shut this gate
one evening.
And as you'll see, there's a path
that I keep cut in the woods.
To my utter astonishment, I saw a large black cat-like animal
squatting in the middle of the path.
It was squatting like a cat will squat in front of a fire,
and it had a cat-like face, a round,
flat face with pointed ears.
And I realized at once that I'd seen
something strange that I'd never seen before in this country.
And my immediate reaction, of course,
was this must be the famous Beast of Exmoor that had killed
so many of my neighbors lambs.
NARRATOR: That farmer lost 50 lambs.
Soon other farmers found their flocks were being massacred.
They banded together to hunt the cat,
but the beast continued its killing spree.
As losses mounted, a squad of crack commando snipers
from the Royal Marines moved onto the moors
under Andy Buchanan.
ANDY BUCHANAN: Got a team of guys together.
Zeroed the weapons in, and the night sights because we decided
we would operate at night.
Because the beast-- I'll refer to it as the beast--
operated purely at night.
One of the guys saw it.
And he couldn't fire at it, because there was
a farmhouse right behind it.
From what I've seen and heard, I think it's a large cat
of the puma variety.
But that's not 100% until it's hanging by its heels,
which I don't think it will be.
NARRATOR: While Britain's big cats prowl on, across the world
the Australian Rare Fauna Association
stalks its own prey.
PETER CHAPPLE: OK, everyone.
I think we're pretty well organized.
Can you come in please, and we'll just have a--
NARRATOR: Arthur's mission, to hunt down
an animal whose very existence remains a mystery--
the Queensland tiger.
PETER CHAPPLE: You're going to be taking the western route,
remember.
Cars two, three, and six over on the eastern route.
Don't leave your circuit at all, right?
Keep recording everything you see.
You know, the usual procedures.
And we'll rendezvous back at 20:30.
NARRATOR: Scientists refuse to believe
there are big cats at large on the Australian mainland.
Eyewitnesses disagree.
The searchers hope the textbooks will have to be rewritten.
PETER CHAPPLE: Well, we try to go to areas where
reported sightings of, of the animals
that we study at this time of year are most frequent.
But every now and again we get a tantalizing sighting or two,
which makes us say well, let's go
out and do some more research.
This particular animal we're talking about
is, is something that's often referred to as the Queensland
marsupial tiger.
NARRATOR: From the rain forests of far North Queensland
all down the eastern coast have come
reports of Australia's big cat.
In 1910, a hunter in Kuranda boasted,
"Most of the tiger cats I've killed
were about four feet long with black stripes."
From the Ballandean Mountains in 1925
came reports of an animal that was, "Very savage.
Its coat was beautiful and striped like a tiger."
In 1923, frightened locals told the director of Melbourne's zoo
about a large tiger cat as big as a bulldog with brindled fur
and very large eyes.
They said it doesn't hesitate to attack a man,
and often killed their dogs.
This unique picture from Ozenkadnook
is the only known photograph of the Queensland tiger.
PETER CHAPPLE: Last, last time-- -What about Dad?
PETER CHAPPLE: Last time she saw a wombat, she ran over it.
[LAUGHS]
NARRATOR: Tonight Arthur's search has drawn a blank.
Well, it was very good if we were looking
for ring-tailed possums.
We saw plenty of those.
But I can't say we've had too much success tonight.
So I guess there's always another day
and we'll just keep on plugging away
and see how lucky we can be.
REPORTER (ON RADIO): Cairns city,
fine and moderate with fresh southeast
winds with a top of 30 degrees.
NARRATOR: At Radio 4CA in Cairns,
the Queensland tiger is the topic of today's phone-in.
REPORTER (ON RADIO): At five past nine, it's 26 degrees.
DJ: I thought it was a myth.
I don't think it's a myth anymore.
Because last time I mentioned it,
we had about half a dozen calls from people
who swear they have seen this creature
in a limited area, fairly small area
here in far north Queensland.
If you're one of those people, can you give us a call now
and give us a bit of a description of that that beast,
the Queensland tiger?
Hello?
Who's that?
FRED MARTIN (ON RADIO): Fred Martin.
I'd like to have a talk about that tiger.
DJ: Have you actually ever seen one?
FRED MARTIN (ON RADIO): Yeah.
We was going on the bush track in a vehicle.
And it had been hit early hours of the morning
lying dead beside the road.
It was liked an average size cattle dog, a gingery color.
A face more like a, a bull terrier.
Quite solid, big teeth. DJ: Yeah.
Gee, I wish you'd picked it up and--and taken it somewhere,
Fred.
FRED MARTIN (ON RADIO): Yeah.
We never even thought about it.
DJ: Yeah.
Who's that?
TED FRANCIS (ON RADIO): This is Ted Francis.
DJ: Hello, Ted.
Are you talking about the Queensland tiger, Ted?
TED FRANCIS (ON RADIO): Yes.
Oh, one Sunday, I decided I'd go over to the river
and do a bit of panning for gold.
TED FRANCIS: I looked into the [INAUDIBLE]
and saw this cat, which looked back at me.
And it had white stripes on it, and the hair
would have been a dark color with the white stripes.
DJ: The stripes were white?
TED FRANCIS (ON RADIO): White stripes, yeah.
DJ: Against a darker background.
TED FRANCIS (ON RADIO): Darker background, yeah.
TED FRANCIS: Going on the, the markings,
and the size of the cat, I would say it must
have been a Queensland tiger.
DJ: Hello, Charlie.
CHARLIE TUTT (ON RADIO): Well, I've listened with interest
to Fred, Ted, Stan, and Dan.
I think there's a Queensland tiger, and I've seen it.
CHARLIE TUTT: Well actually, Nigel and I were both cutting
pine-- hoop pine-- up on Mt.
Stanley, which is at the headwaters
of the Brisbane River.
And we were walking along a snigging track,
and suddenly I saW00 it looked very much like a tiger.
And it did two half rolls on a big old pine stump that must've
been about that wide across.
And the tiger took up the full distance across like this.
And as it was doing the couple of rolls,
I said to Nigel, "Hey Nigel!
Can you see that-- what looks like a tiger--"
NIGEL TUTT: "Do you see what I see?" you said.
CHARLIE TUTT: Oh, "Can you see what I see?"
DJ: Charlie, this was the Queensland tiger, wasn't it?
CHARLIE TUTT (ON RADIO): Of course it was.
And--
CHARLIE TUTT: And the most distinctive
feature there was two curved, horizontal white stripes.
And surrounding that were these typical tabby cat-- dark gray
and merging into ginger.
It reminded me very much of a, a cat that
is going to spring on prey.
And I think Nigel said, "Well, we'll keep our axes handy."
NIGEL TUTT: [LAUGHS] Right.
We'll keep our axes handy.
CHARLIE TUTT: And we walked--
NIGEL TUTT: Oh!
CHARLIE TUTT: And we walked by.
And when we walked by-- NIGEL TUTT: Boy!
CHARLIE TUTT: I don't think Nigel actually
saw it leave the stump.
But he saw it after it left the stump.
It was a tiger of some sort.
And that's why one didn't talk about it very much.
Because bush people were mostly pretty skeptical.
But I've reached the stage in life
now if I tell it as it was, then that's how it was.
DJ: Good on you, Charlie.
We'll talk to you again one day.
CHARLIE TUTT (ON RADIO): Thank you.
Cheerio for now.
DJ: That's Charlie.
What an amazing story.
NARRATOR: More and more Australians
believe the Queensland tiger will emerge from the Outback
to confound the experts.
ARTHUR C. CLARKE: As for the possibility that some countries
may be harboring cats unknown to science,
that could well be the case.
Every few years, zoologists are surprised to discover
quite large animals previously unknown to them.
They're usually quite well known to the locals,
and indeed are often eaten by them.
NARRATOR: In Tasmania, reminders of the thylacine,
or Tasmanian tiger, are everywhere.
But not the beast itself.
The last pathetic survivor died in Hobart Zoo in the 1930s.
Since then, it became officially extinct.
From the end of the 19th century,
thousands were flushed from their lairs in jungle
and scrubland, sentenced to death by the bounty put
on their head.
For each dead Tasmanian tiger, the hunter
earned five pounds, equal almost to a month's wages.
Today, far from the city, deep in the bush,
Rusty Richards plies his trade as a forester
with only his bullock team and his dog for company.
Usually.
RUSTY RICHARDS: Normally it was, it was funny feeling.
Seems like if all the hair stood up on the back of your neck
when you see something you've never seen before.
I've seen every other animal in the bush.
You know, he was standing on the track.
He's about as [INAUDIBLE] to that tree away.
And he's had his head turned back
and his little prick ears stuck up like that.
I couldn't tell what he was til he turned round.
And when he turned round, he had the thick tail
and the long brindle stripes going down him.
I knew no one would believe me when I told them,
but I didn't worry about it.
That's all there was about it.
NARRATOR: In a lifetime spent traveling the world,
Hans Naarding has seen many strange sights.
One night in the Tasmanian bush, he woke at 2:00 in the morning
and switched on his spotlight.
HANS NAARDING: I saw an animal about the size of a Labrador.
Grayish coat, which was of course, sopping wet.
You could very clearly see the stripes on his shoulders,
which I counted.
There were about 12, but they faded out towards the back.
And he had that characteristic big diamond shaped head
of a, of a Tasmanian tiger.
And at one moment, he actually dropped his lower
jaw and his tongue fell out.
And he slightly turned his head.
I could see his teeth.
And he just stood there.
Well, it was one of the highlights of my life.
It was just-- blew my mind.
NARRATOR: Bob Green, once curator of the Launceston
Museum in Tasmania.
Of all the evidence brought to him,
the most graphic comes from bushman
Lloyd Poke and his photo album.
BOB GREEN: In all this prowling that you've
done over the years, Lloyd, how close have you got to him?
What's the closest you've ever been.
LLOYD POKE: Well, I've actually had one in my hand, Bob.
I've got photos here somewhere.
I jumped on him, over top, and I scruffed him like a-- round
the neck like a, a dog.
But I found out he had no loose skin there.
And I had to really dive the fingers in and crash down
on top of him to hold him down.
Had my legs and knees a little bit far apart,
and he kicked up his hind leg.
And that's where he caught my arm, sort of ripped my jumper.
BOB GREEN: See what you think of this.
Fellow brought me this a while ago.
And he said, "What do you think of that?"
And--
LLOYD POKE: That's a ripper.
BOB GREEN: That's--
LLOYD POKE: Oh god, it's really conclusive, actually.
Evidence.
BOB GREEN: Well, you can't imagine--
LLOYD POKE: You can't imagine anything else.
BOB GREEN: From anything else, can you?
LLOYD POKE: You don't see them every day though.
It's not an every day thing you see.
BOB GREEN: No, my word.
No, well that came from out the other end of Tasmania.
NARRATOR: Maria Island lies off the coast of Tasmania.
Here, the world's expert on the Tasmanian tiger
has set up a reserve for it.
For Eric Guiler, it's an act of faith.
In a lifetime of searching, he's never seen one.
DR. ERIC GUILER: Well, the notion
was that we would have somewhere to put
a pair of Tasmanian tigers, if we were
lucky enough to catch them.
Or if somebody produced a pair, we'd
have somewhere to put them.
And we looked at this island, which presents,
presented everything we wanted.
It, there's an open, open grasslands like we,
we have here.
I was at long point further down.
It has savanna woodlands.
It has mountaintops.
It's got a range of the habitats that you get in Tasmania.
And, and it had enough food in the form of wallabies
for the thylacine to feed on.
We're getting fewer and fewer reports of the animal.
And I think it's very, very, very
much teetering on the edge.
It's, it's very, very dodgy.
There's no point driving in a vehicle,
'cause you don't see footprints, you don't see signs, you,
you don't hear anything.
So you're, you're just walking, walking, walking.
I've walked over most of Tasmania
looking for the darn thing without any success.
Get a bit depressed at times.
ARTHUR C. CLARKE: I'm sure that in some cases,
people really are seeing big cats.
In Britain in the 1970s, a law was introduced to regulate
the keeping of dangerous pets.
Sadly as a result, some big cats were released into the wild
by owners who were unwilling or unable to obey the law.
NARRATOR: In the north of Scotland,
a female puma walked into a trap.
Her captors called her Felicity and found a home
for her in a wildlife park.
And in the Isle of Wight, Stewart Skinner
laid a mystery to rest when he shot an Asian leopard cat
which had once been a pet.
In Shropshire, this Asian jungle cat
was found dead by the roadside, 3,000 miles
from Egypt, its native habitat.
Cryptozoologist Karl Shuker believes it may even have
interbred with local pet cats.
KARL SHUKER: As far as big cats living in Britain,
I don't think there's any doubt anymore.
There's certainly pumas.
There is a large type of black cat, which
the black panther-- the all black version of the leopard--
is the closest fit.
There are other jungle cats, certainly.
There are a smaller type of spotted cat
called a leopard cat, and quite possibly the lynx as well.
So you have quite a range of different cats living
in Great Britain at the time, all of which
have escaped from captivity.
NARRATOR: Local vet Gareth Thomas believes
Jasper is part jungle cat.
GARETH THOMAS: I was impressed by this little cat
when he came into me for neutering, very soon
after I was presented with a jungle cat.
And he's had such striking resemblance in many respects
that I, I immediately sort of put
two and two together and possibly made five,
I don't know. But--
Well, then, I'd only--
GARETH THOMAS: So the, the, the markings
and so forth, the actual shape and facial markings
are very, very similar.
I think it's a bit too much of a coincidence for the two
to be in the same region at much the same time.
NARRATOR: Banchory, Scotland.
Police Sergeant Eddie Bell is closing in on a killer
And why are you heading for the institute?
SGT. EDDIE BELL: Well, believe it or not,
I've got a sample of dung in this tub, which
we hope has come from a cat.
It was found next to a dead sheep
last October at Barnard Castle in County Durham.
The sheep had been killed, we think, by a large predatory
animal, probably a cat.
So we're hoping that this dung's also come from the animal
and it'll prove beyond doubt that whatever killed
the sheep was in fact, a cat.
So, does it actually look like it's come from a cat?
DR. HANS KRUUK: Not just look.
Smell it.
SGT. EDDIE BELL: Yeah. Yeah.
DR. HANS KRUUK: It smells like a cat.
Completely different from a badger or from a wild cat
or from a fox or a dog.
It's, this is typical of a rather acid,
and I think a very unpleasant smell.
The size is another thing.
It's, it's much larger than anything that a fox or a dog
would produce.
You know, it looks exactly like the scats that I've
seen in the Serengeti, made by cheetahs,
by lions, and by leopards.
SGT. EDDIE BELL: Right.
Yes.
So are you surprised to find something
like this coming from England?
DR. HANS KRUUK: In England, yes.
Absolutely.
I mean, this is totally out of context basically.
If I found it in East Africa, there'd
be no doubt that this is leopard or lion or cheetah, whatever.
But in England, no.
This shouldn't happen.
ARTHUR C. CLARKE: So many of us now live in cities
that we're shamefully ignorant of the multitudinous creatures
that share our planet.
So it's not surprising that some big cat
reports turn out to be hilarious cases of mistaken identity.
CLAIRE CARSON (ON RADIO): Classic FM News.
It's four o'clock.
I'm Claire Carson.
Reports are coming of a lioness on the loose in North London.
Police say there have been two positive sightings
and another eight possible sightings
of the beast in Winchmore Hill.
People are being warned to stay indoors,
and a police helicopter has been brought in
to help the search, along with zoo experts
with tranquilizer darts.
Police say no zoo or circus has reported an escaped lion.
DAVID BOOTH: And Lia spotted like, a creature
walking along the bank.
So [INAUDIBLE] what do you make of that?
I said, "A bit big, isn't it?"
LIA BASTOCK: And I said, "I don't know what that is.
But I think I'm going to go and get a camera if I can."
SUPT.
BOB WAREING: Well, the witnesses were convinced that they
had seen a young lioness.
And they actually described it as being
about two and a half feet tall to the shoulder
and having a short, light-colored coat
with very big padded paws, and walking very distinctively.
LIA BASTOCK: They brought other men with nets, big nets.
And all of a sudden, there were helicop--
well, I think one helicopter, but it was pretty
noisy-- circling the area.
But by that time, we'd taken--
DAVID BOOTH: Six pictures.
LIA BASTOCK: Well, Dave had taken the photo.
SUPT.
BOB WAREING: Well, after about two hours when we finally
saw the enlarged photograph, we felt considerable relief
when we actually found out what the animal
was according to the expert eye that was cast over it.
NARRATOR: And the expert's verdict?
The beast of Winchmore Hill was Bilbo, a marmalade tomcat.
CARMEL JARVIS: Yeah.
I learnt the real truth at about five o'clock when
the police went down the road saying
that you could now come out.
That they believed that the, the lioness was actually--
ooh-- a domestic cat.
I don't think he wants to be a real lion at all. [LAUGHS]
I think Bilbo's quite happy being a pampered pussy cat.
[LAUGHS] I think if Bilbo ever met a real lion, he would run.
Run and hide.
ARTHUR C. CLARKE: I hope that some of the big cats now being
hunted will indeed prove to be of an unknown species,
or even creatures that have defied extinction.
But I've one plea to the hunters.
If you do see a mysterious big cat, by all means shoot it.
But with a camera, not with a gun.
Please don't make it really extinct.
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