Report from Mark Fraser
Two sightings of a big cat seen in Ayr
January/February 1969?
Westwood Avenue in Ayr, Jan-Feb 1969?
"It was around 1968-69, and it was also winter, I think it may have been January or early February. I was ready to leave for school so it must have been around 8.30am. I opened the back door and saw a huge cat on the step, ready to rummage through the dustbin, which sat to the right hand side of the door, I got such a shock that I slammed the door shut immediately. I did not tell anyone because I knew they would not believe me. When my brothers and I left for school about five minutes later there was no sight of the cat."
"It was quite unusual in the way that it looked at me when I first opened the door, (it seemed almost human-like, its eyes that is.) The cat must have been as big as a puma or a tiger. Its head seemed enormous, and its body had I stood beside it would have come up to my waist. (Remember I would have been eleven years old at the time, and was at that age quite small at four feet six inches."
"It was stripy, like a like a ginger cat. It's whiskers seemed really long and its paws enormous, (I remember its paws because it was about to rifle through the bin.) I know I saw it only very briefly because I banged the door closed but I can remember it clearly. It was not like a tiger in the zoo, it was like a big inflated version of a house cat. There was talk of a family of wild cats near our school in the lane, but although we played on the swings there I never saw them."
"Its funny the cat was not in the least bit afraid when I opened the door, it did not move while I was there, it obviously moved when the door was closed. By the way, it had been snowing but the snow was not lying very thick, it was sort of slushy. I remember looking around the garden for paw prints, but there was nothing to be seen."
The witness also had a second sighting several months later. This time the cat was sitting on the garden wall.
"This also happened around 1968-69. I had been out playing and I decided to go home, at the entrance to our house there was a wall about two and a half feet in height with a hedge either side. Sitting on the wall was a large cat it was really big and had a large head and sort of thick neck that went into sort of broad shoulders, (A bit like a pit-bull terrier) the body was also large, (It was hard to say how tall it was as it was sitting, but it was much larger then a house cat.) The cat was a sort of black\brown colour. Being frightened of cats I stopped at the path and would not pass it. It seemed to be watching me aware that I was frightened of it. It hissed and spat at me and stretched its claw out, (The claw paw was really large like an adults hand\fist clenched.) The cat would not let me pass, it kept' spitting and sort of growling, (A throaty noise.) I ran off up the toad to my friends and when I came half an hour later the cat had gone. It really had strange eyes as well they were very dark. The whole incident was frightening, because the cat seemed to be aware of my fear. This was the second time that I had seen a large cat.
Jan-Feb 1969?
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