Caught on film … the beast of Helensburgh

Published on Tuesday 28 July 2009 22:01

THE mysterious big cats of legend are on the prowl once more.

A military policeman yesterday spoke of his shock after capturing what appears to be dramatic footage of a big cat prowling close to a Scottish naval base.

Chris Swallow, a dog handler based in Faslane on the Clyde, said he was "stunned" to see a large black cat on a nearby railway line.

The officer, in a friend's garden in the Churchill Estate in Helensburgh on 30 June, initially believed he was looking at a Labrador crossing the tracks.

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But on closer inspection he said he became convinced he had seen one of the mysterious big cats that reportedly roam Britain.

PC Swallow said: "The animal wasn't moving the way I expected a dog to. It was then I realised that what I was seeing was a big cat. I ran to my car to grab my mobile phone for a picture.

"I stood on the rail bridge in Winston Road and got a still photo and a couple of minutes of footage of the animal moving up the railway line."

The sighting comes only a week after Strathclyde Police alerted the public that a big cat may be on the prowl near Ayr, after a farmer's horse was attacked by what the police said was "possibly a puma".

Big cats have been seen in the area before, with several reports of a large tan-coloured creature – the "Coulport cougar" – in the woods and hills around Loch Long in 2004.

John Belshaw, HM Naval Base Clyde's pest control officer, said he was contacted by police in 2007 about the sightings.

He said: "I have had a look at Chris's footage and have to say that I do not believe it is a domestic cat or a dog."

The naval base animal is the latest in a long line of sightings of big cats in the UK – Palug's Cat reportedly roamed Anglesey in the Middle Ages, while the Beast of Bodmin has been regularly seen since the early 1990s. Most are thought to be panthers. Explanations range from escaped zoo and circus animals to a mass release in the 1970s following the Dangerous Wild Animals Act.

Shaun Stevens, a researcher for Big Cats In Britain, a group that investigates animal sightings, said the animal in PC Swallow's photographs is "certainly not a domestic cat".

He said: "Knowing that the width of the rail tracks in Chris's video is 4ft 8in, the animal is clearly in excess of 4ft."