Report from Ralph Barnett via George Markie
Couple's Late-Night Encounter With 'Big Cat'
By Ralph Barnett in the Dundee Evening Telegraph 24 th September 2002
Saturday afternoon's sighting by an off-duty police officer of an unidentified large black cat on the outskirts of Carnoustie, as reported in yesterday's "Evening Telegraph", has prompted a Dundee reader to go public with his own brief encounter with an identical animal the previous night, this time in an even more urban setting.
The man, who did not wish to be named, said, "My wife and I had been late-night shopping at Asda, Milton of Craigie, and were heading along Drumgeith Road when this huge black thing shot across the road in front of the car.
"We only saw it for a split second because it was travelling so fast and I reckon it went from one side of the main road to the other in no more than three bounds before disappearing into the bushes and undergrowth.
"I thought initially it was a fox but my wife, who seems to know more about things like this than I do, told me in no uncertain terms that you don't get black foxes and, anyway, it was the wrong shape and size for a fox.
"This animal was at least the size of a very large dog and was jet black and it had a thick, round tail like a cat rather than a bushy tail like a fox.
"I did think, for a moment, of stopping the car and having a poke about in the bushes but, on reflection, I realised that it might not be a particularly good idea to go looking for something that was obviously so large and powerful."
The eye-witness said, "Whatever it was it must have come across a fair bit of open ground before we saw it because the direction it came from is all just playing fields.
"I know the area pretty well and, at night, there are plenty of rabbits out there so I suppose it could have been hunting.
"This thing looked for all the world like a big cat - the sort of thing you'd expect to see on a David Attenborough wildlife programme rather than crossing the road in Dundee on a Friday night - and I've certainly never seen anything like it before in my life.
"In the past I would have probably have just kept quiet about it for fear of being ridiculed but, after reading the piece in yesterday's 'Tele' about the policeman who saw a big cat in Carnoustie at the weekend, I thought that maybe it's not so strange after all."
Dundee Evening Telegraph, 24 th September 2002
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