I had a successful talk in the spectacular 12th-century building that is Moyse’s Hall Museum in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, in February 2025. I got a lift from Bury Station to our accommodation from a local big cat witness who’s a taxi driver. Once again, the talk was almost sold out.
The audience included an old friend from way back when who lived locally and who kindly drove me around on big cat investigations back in 2015 before I could drive. Her husband, who was an adviser on Mystery Animals of Suffolk on whether “carp the size of pigs” were possible, also showed up. (Carp the size of pigs were reported in a now vanished 18th-century pond in Middleton, Suffolk. While not possible in 18th-century England, global warming means they’re now not far off as a feasible thing.)
I had brought along – I thought rather optimisticly – ten copies of Mystery Animals of Suffolk to sell. To my surprise I sold the lot. I also took testimony from audience members who had experienced big cat encounters. One had seen a black panther-like cat with a long tail that curled up, crossing the road on the southern approaches to Mendlesham back in 2017, along with their mother who was also in the audience.
The same witness described another strange experience involving phantom East of England hellhound Black Shuck, “many years ago” when they were in their early teens. It was during the peak of a time in which she had a premonition of murder, then she heard banging on the back door of the family home and swearing – it was her brother screaming to be let in. He said he had been chased to the back door by a “huge black dog” which then stood their growling at him and then “gradually vanished away.” For more unsolicited reports of Shuck see “My dad saw Shuck in the Seventies.”
I’m also now following up on a report of a big cat encounter by another audience member in Horringer, near Bury.
My talk co-incided with the Museum’s exhibition on Superstition so it included some creatures of Suffolk folklore – wildmen, evil freshwater mermaids, Shuck and the fairies. (These are all covered in detail in Mystery Animals of Suffolk.)
I unveiled at the talk my most recent map of sightings of big cats, received between July 2024 and February 2025. Also on show was my updated analysis of Suffolk big cat sightings by probably species. I showed some rather stomach-churning recently received photos of Suffolk big cat kills too.
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The 12th-century stone wall of Moyse’s Hall wasn’t very adhesive! My map of big cat sightings in Suffolk fell of it soon after this photo was taken.
Thanks to Jane Inglesfield for the photos.
There is a local event to launch the recently published book Mystery Animals of Suffolk – including an account of over 150 mystery big cat sightings