Reports of mysterious 'big cat' spotted in Yorkshire - but is there a similar beast lurking in the Peak District?

There has been a short film released of the sighting and it appears to show a cat-like animal roaming around the Dean Clough Mills in Halifax.

The footage shows the apparent large cat coming out of a sheltered car park close to Stod Fold. This is the second sighting of the suspected wild animal after the Piece Hall also released video footage earlier this week.

There seems to be a lot of relation to a similar animal spotted in the Peak District over the years. Since 2007, the Derbyshire Police force have fielded many calls from people who say they have seen a black panther - or some other big cat.

One of the last sightings was in 2016 when Mike Newton was driving up the B6521 past the turning for Grindleford station at around 7am when a “black shape suddenly bounded down onto the road”.

At the time, Mike said: “I was so surprised I couldn’t quite believe what I had just seen and my mind immediately raced to work out ‘logically’ what it was. It was big and completely black. It had a long body and a deep chest, and a head that wasn’t raised high on a neck.

“I was fairly sure what I saw was a black panther, ridiculous as the thought might be.

"A longer haired, large black Alsatian would have been the right colour and size, and could have had a deep chest, but something in the behaviour and movement of this creature told me it wasn’t a dog of any type.

“I slowed down by the point where I had seen it. There was no owner, no walker around. And I don’t think a dog, even a stray would have vanished so fast. I would think it might loiter, sniff around the wall, perhaps trot down the road at least before finding a gate to go through rather than leap over the wall on the left side of the road.”

Have you seen anything resembling a wild cat roaming around the Peak District?

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