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Over the past few days, a bevy of climate data has come together to tell a familiar yet shocking story: Humans have profoundly altered the planet’s life-support system, with 2015 increasingly likely to be an exclamation point on recent trends.

On Monday, scientists at Britain’s national weather service, the Met Office, said our planet will finish this year more than one degree Celsius warmer than preindustrial levels for the first time. That figure is halfway to the line in the sand that scientists say represents “dangerous” climate change and global leaders have committed to avoid—an ominous milestone.

This year’s global heat wave—about two-tenths of a degree warmer than 2014, a massive leap when averaged over the entire planet—can be blamed most immediately on an exceptionally strong El Niño but wouldn’t exist without decades of heat-trapping emissions from fossil fuel burning. Separate data released on Monday by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration showed the current El Niño, a periodic warming of the tropical Pacific Ocean, has now tied 1997 for the strongest event ever measured, at least on a weekly basis.

"We've had similar natural events in the past, yet this is the first time we are set to reach the 1 degree marker and it's clear that it is human influence driving our modern climate into uncharted territory," said Stephen Belcher, director of the Met Office’s Hadley Centre in a statement.

The Met Office data were quickly confirmed on Twitter by Gavin Schmidt, who leads the research center in charge of NASA’s global temperature dataset, which uses a slightly different methodology.

If that wasn’t enough, the World Meteorological Organization, a division of the United Nations, also confirmed on Monday that global carbon dioxide levels reached a new record high in 2014—for the 30th consecutive year. The more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the more efficient the planet is at trapping the sun’s heat, and so global temperatures rise. Since our carbon dioxide emissions have a lifespan of a hundred years or so, there’s a significant lag in this process—temperatures will keep rising for decades even if all human emissions ceased today.

That means not only will 2015 end up as the planet’s warmest year in millennia—and probably since the invention of agriculture more than 10,000 years ago—but that there’s a lot more warming that’s already baked into the global climate system.

All that extra heat is already changing the planet in complex ways. For example, as of last week, there’s fresh evidence that the Atlantic Ocean’s fundamental circulation system is slowing down.

Over the past few years, a notoriously persistent cold patch of ocean has emerged just south of Greenland in the north Atlantic. There have been several theories as to why this is happening, but most involve a slowdown of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, part of the global oceanic “conveyor belt” system of heat and water that helps regulate the Earth’s climate by cooling off the tropics and gently warming polar regions.

You wouldn’t necessarily expect persistent record-cold temperatures when the planet overall temperature is at record highs, but that’s exactly what’s happening.

The AMOC is so important that its slowdown has been linked to past episodes of abrupt climate change, like a three-degree Celsius drop in Northern Hemisphere temperatures in less than 20 years about 8,000 years ago, and formed the highly dramatized basis for the planetary chaos featured in The Day After Tomorrow. Earlier this year, an important study provided further strong evidence that melting ice from Greenland has begun to disrupt and slow down the ocean’s circulation by changing the density of the north Atlantic, with profound consequences: In 2009, East Coast sea levels sharply—and temporarily—jumped by about four inches as water piled up. Stronger winter storms and an interruption of the Atlantic marine food chain also may already be happening.

According to a new analysis released last week, scientists used data from a pair of NASA satellites to track climate-related changes in the north Atlantic—the first time ocean currents have been tracked from space. Over the last decade, the satellites were able to take highly precise measurements of the literal weight of the ocean between Florida and Iceland that corroborated measurements from a network of ocean buoys over the same general place and time. From that information, they were able to calculate that the Atlantic’s circulation is indeed slowing down, a potential climate tipping point that’s been long predicted to occur at some point in the 21st century. Call it one more data point from a rapidly changing planet.

Still, despite the blindingly clear data, there’s hope that the tide could—finally—be shifting on climate change. Later this month, world leaders will be gathering in Paris and are widely expected to agree to the first-ever global agreement to constrain future emissions trajectories in a meaningful way—possibly enough to avoid the worst-case climate scenario.

Source: Slate
http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2015/11/10/huge_el_nino_pushes_climate_toward
_records.html

One particularly strange story cropped up in the news recently: around 40 children were treated at a school in Ripon, Yorkshire, after collapsing during a Remembrance Day service. The trouble is, no one’s quite sure why it happened. Although a hazardous materials team were called in, no obvious toxic substances were found. The assembly room was warm, apparently, so the mass fainting could have been down to everyone overheating, but an alternative explanation that some media outlets are putting forward is that it was simply a case of ‘mass hysteria’.

Mass hysteria is a fairly broad term that covers a few different types of collective delusions, so it might be more accurate to characterise the Ripon event as a case of ‘mass sociogenic illness’ or MSI – described in a 2002 paper by Robert Bartholomew and Simon Wessely as situation in which signs or symptoms of an illness spread rapidly through a group of people, and which don’t have any sort of organic cause. In a seminal paper in 1987, Wessely described two different types of MSI: mass anxiety hysteria, in which the event lasts a short time and, as the name suggests, manifests mainly in symptoms of anxiety and fear, and mass motor anxiety, which tends to be much more prolonged and manifests as a disorder of movement.

As you might expect, MSI has a fairly rich and fascinating history. Cases reported up until the late 19th Century tended to fall into the category of mass motor anxiety – outbreaks of so-called ‘dancing mania’, in which large numbers of people would reportedly dance uncontrollably for hours on end, were reported as early at the 7th Century. More recently, a famous case happened in the autumn of 2011, when a number of high school students in LeRoy, a town in the Finger Lakes region of New York, spontaneously started producing incoherent speech patterns, involuntary muscle twitches and facial tics. After having ruled out any potential environmental causes, the students were eventually diagnosed with conversion disorder - essentially, a form of MSI. The case was the focus of a Channel 4 show, The Town That Caught Tourette’s, shown in 2014.

But despite this long and notable history, there is little scientific research into MSI. Part of the problem is that, because outbreaks occur without warning, any subsequent analysis of them is somewhat opportunistic and tends to result in case reports. These are great as a starting point for understanding a medical phenomenon, but they’re not particularly useful in helping to determine the underlying cause. As such, outbreaks of MSI tend to usually be diagnosed by exclusion – in other words, other likely causes are ruled out first, and a diagnosis of MSI is used as a last resort when no other explanations are left.

In 2010, a team led by Lisa Page at King’s College London tried to address this issue, and looked at the possible predictors and frequency of MSI outbreaks. They used data collected by the UK Health Protection Agency that described instanced of ‘chemical incidents’ – events in which members of the public had, or could have been, exposed to a chemical that could have caused illness. Of 747 eligible cases, they took a random sample of 280, and applied a set of 5 criteria for defining MSI. They were able to classify 19 out of the 280 sampled incidents as episodes of MSI – so in other words, about 7% of all reported chemical incidents could be an episode of sociogenic illness. As for predictors, reporting the presence of non-smoke odours came out as a good factor, and Page’s team reported that episodes of MSI were more likely to occur at schools or in healthcare facilities.

So what about the Ripon event? Well, one of the key criteria in Page’s study asks whether the symptoms were compatible with any other environmental exposures. Reading the news stories about yesterday’s episode, it seems like a lot of people reported that the assembly room was quite warm, which is probably the simplest explanation for everyone fainting. Occam’s Razor and all that. Or, it could be yet another case of mass sociogenic illness for the record books.


Ambulance crews have treated 40 pupils at a school in Yorkshire after several collapsed during an assembly, prompting what fire crews believe was a “ripple effect” of anxiety-based nausea and faintness.

Fire service specialists said they had found no hazardous substances at Outwood academy in Ripon, North Yorkshire, and the mystery mass illness could have been caused when four pupils fainted in an over-warm assembly hall during a Remembrance Day service.

Police said one student was taken to hospital by his parents, and another received treatment at a minor injuries unit.

The alarm was raised shortly before 12.30pm on Wednesday following reports that a large number of pupils were feeling unwell. Police were called to the school along with ambulance and fire crews, including specialist hazardous substance teams.

One pupil, 15-year-old Joshua Hall, said: “We were all in assembly for Remembrance Day and people were just passing out towards the end. It was pretty scary, it was talked about the whole day and it kept getting worse and worse.”

Another student, who asked not to be named, said several students collapsed in the school hall. She said: “When the first boy was sick, we thought it was a one-off but then there was a big slap on the floor and someone had fainted. After that it was a bit of a domino effect, another three or four collapsed and then people started leaving the hall to get fresh air. One of the boys who fell was a bit concussed and had a big lump on his head. After that they ushered us out quickly and a couple of girls had panic attacks.”

Rumours of a gas leak were posted on a Facebook forum for parents at the school, but Dave Winspear, from North Yorkshire fire service, said specialists detected no hazardous substances.

He said: “Children were feeling unwell, nauseous, dizzy. The ambulance service treated children for those symptoms. We worked through our protocol to see if there was anything untoward and assessed the school for any hazardous materials.”

While the cause remained unknown, Winspear said the assembly hall was warm at the time. He added: “We are of the view the children just fainted and there was a ripple effect throughout the school. More children felt anxiety and started to feel concerned and the thing has escalated.

“I would like to assure you, we have carried out a very thorough assessment and found no hazardous materials or anything untoward in the school environment.”

A spokeswoman for Outwood Grange academies trust, which runs the school, said four students fainted during assembly, one of whom bumped their head. “Following the assembly, a further 20 students presented themselves during the course of the morning complaining of feeling faint and dizzy. At this point the academy, again as a precaution, called an ambulance.”

In all, the trust said, 40 students were treated on site. All later rejoined lessons or went home as normal.

Yorkshire ambulance service said it received a call at about 11.30am reporting that a number of students had “fallen ill suddenly with nausea and feeling faint”.

It said: “We dispatched a number of resources to the scene including a doctor, three ambulance crews, two rapid response vehicles, a number of clinical supervisors and our hazardous area response team.”

Source: The Guardian
http://www.theguardian.com/science/head-quarters/2015/nov/12/the-ripon-
ripple-of-anxiety-and-mass-hysteria

The first European to set foot in Mississippi was the Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto who discovered the Mississippi River in 1540. The first European settlement, however, was French constructed in 1699. Not to be embarrassed by the Spanish and French, the British took over what is now Mississippi in 1763, only to give it to the fledgling United States after the Revolutionary War. The state ranks in the low thirties in size and population, but what it doesn’t have in land and people, it makes up for in catfish. Mississippi is the leading producer of farm-raised catfish, not just in the United States, but in the world. Its geography consists of low hills, farmland, forests, swamp, and coastline. Famous Mississippians include, wow. This isn’t fair. Author William Faulkner, playwright Tennessee Williams, musicians Elvis Presley, B.B. King, Muddy Waters, Howln’ Wolf, John Lee Hooker, and Bo Diddley, NFL greats Walter Payton, Jerry Rice, and Brett Favre, talk show host Oprah Winfrey, Muppets creator Jim Henson, civil rights activist Ruby Bridges, and, quite possibly the greatest voice on the planet, James Earl Jones (Darth Vader). Is it fair this much coolness came from one place? Oh, wait. Mississippi is also the birthplace of Lance Bass of NSYNC, and Britney Spears. That levels things a bit. Gallup polls show Mississippi to be the most religious state in the country, probably because people are trying to pray away all those monsters.


Mississippi Mermaid

The Pascagoula River meanders eighty miles through southeastern Mississippi eventually draining into the Mississippi Sound. Once home to the Pascagoula Indians, it is now home to mermaids. The legend of the Mississippi Mermaid is also that of the Singing River, as the Pascagoula is also called. According to the website of the Smithsonian Institution, a princess of the Biloxi tribe, Anola, was in love with Altama, Chief of the Pascagoula tribe. When the Biloxi chieftain, angered by this affair, led his tribe to war against the nearby Pascagoula, the peaceful Pascagoula tribe – men, women, and children – joined hands and sang a dirge while they walked into the river and drown. Since that time, the river has been known to sing. Some say it is from the Pascagoula tribe that still swims beneath the waters.

An 1892 article in the New Orleans Times-Picayune says people came from far and wide to listen to the “flutelike sounds that are rubbed off from the river, as a deft hand brushes melody from the rim of a crystal goblet.”

A Catholic missionary from de Soto’s time wrote the local Indians believed there were mermaids in the river that would appear on “the surface of the river, as if the still air had been flapped into a whirlwind by myriads of invisible wings.”
Scott Berry, 42, poses with his record 792-pound, 13 feet and 5 inch long Mississippi alligator.


River Monsters

While we’re still in the river, there are more things than mermaids to worry about in Mississippi’s waters. Although sharks are saltwater animals, bull sharks that can grow up to twelve feet long use the shallows of Mississippi’s freshwater rivers as nurseries. That’s not all. The prehistoric-looking alligator gar, that have been reported to grow up to 200 pounds in some states, are babies compared to Mississippi’s enormous toothy terrors. According to the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks, the largest alligator gar caught in Mississippi weighed 327 pounds, and stretched 8 feet, 5.25 inches.

If the alligator gar is prehistoric, the gulf sturgeon is Triassic. Literally. Sturgeon fossils date back to the Triassic Period, around 245 to 208 million years ago, and still live worldwide. Gulf sturgeons inhabit fresh water in Mississippi, and make alligator gars look small. Although the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said these fish grow to about 300 to 400 pounds “maximum,” there are legends of these beasts getting up to 1,000 pounds. Fortunately for swimmers, neither the sturgeon, nor alligator gar is harmful to humans. Or are they?

There’s no question with actual alligators. Alligators have killed two people in 2015 in the United States. That might not sound like much, but shark attacks have only resulted in one death in the U.S. this year. In Mississippi, alligators grow big. In 2014, hunter Scott Berry, 42, killed a record 792-pound, 13 feet and 5 inch long alligator in Mississippi waters.
Bigfoot in Mississippi?


Mississippi Mud Man

Whether it’s called the Skunk Ape, Swamp Ape, Booger, or Mud Man, this hulking, hairy beast is Mississippi’s Bigfoot, and there have been some good sightings, like this one from November 2013 in Vicksburg, Mississippi.

David Childers was taking pictures in an abandoned playground, trying to capture a paranormal occurrence, when something large began to crash through the trees, according to the Jackson, Mississippi, Clarion-Ledger. “A creature, I don’t know what it was, about six feet tall. And it just bolted off through the woods,” Childers told The Clarion-Ledger. “It was definitely a shaggy coat to it, like a grayish-brown color. When it made the noise that spooked me, I looked over, and it looked like it stood up and just bolted off.”

He’s not alone. Not long after, a man working near the old playground discovered a large, unshod footprint about nine inches long, and six inches wide. Hair he found near the print was grayish brown, just like that of Childer’s monster. According to The Clarion-Ledger, historic evidence of a “wood ape” in the area date back to 1721.
The Pascagoula River Alien.


Pascagoula River Aliens

Whether this was an alien encounter, or something out of the realm of cryptozoology, the reality is two men saw something in 1973 near Gautier, Mississippi that scared the hell out of them.

The two co-workers were fishing on the Pascagoula River one Thursday night when they saw a blue orb in the sky floating towards them. They watched it until it stopped and hovered above the water about 100 feet from them. As it crawled closer, a strange noise began to emanate from the orb, then the terror started. A hatch opened on the side, and three creatures emerged.

The monsters were five feet tall with “bullet-shaped heads” and no necks. Their mouths, ears, and noses were nothing but slits. Cones “like carrots” protruded from their heads. Their arms ended in claws. The monsters buzzed at the two, then lifted them off the ground with their claws, and floated with them into the orb.

After an examination, both men were left on the ground in shock as the orb disappeared into the sky.

Source: Mysterious Universe
http://mysteriousuniverse.org/2015/11/exploring-american-monsters-mississippi/

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In light of the Pennsylvania dogman encounters and incidents that our group is currently investigating, there is a legendary bi-pedal canine supposedly roaming the rolling uplands and mountains of neighboring Maryland. This post includes a few reports & updates I've collected over the years.

Back in May of 2011 I posted a narrative describing the Snallygaster, legendary beast from my neck of the woods in Maryland. Another cryptid from this region is the Dwayyo...not as well known as the Snallygaster, but just as terrifying to those who have encountered the creature.

In the late 18th century, the Pennsylvania Dutch started to settle on the other side of the Mason-Dixon Line in Carroll, Frederick & Washington Counties. Not long after setting down their new roots, tales of the Hexenwolf started to circulate. The description of this beast was similar to the Dwayyo...'a mammalian biped with features similar to a wolf, but the stance and stature of a human.' These farmers raised livestock for food and revenue, so it was important that their domestic animals be protected from the beast. Decorative five-pointed 'barn stars' may mean numerous things, such as a builder's mark or bringing luck, but I have been told that the real reason for these stars was the belief it was a talisman against baneful spirits or other dark entities...in particular, the Hexenwolf and Snallygaster. There is no reference as to the success of the 'barn stars'...but sometimes a bit of non-conventional intervention can go a long way in making someone feel more safe.

The first literary mention of the name ‘Dwayyo’ or 'Dewayo' officially known as Dwayosapientherapsida Australopithecus Rexus, comes from a sighting in 1944 in West Middleton, Frederick County, Maryland. Witnesses heard the creature make ‘frightful screams’ and there were footprints attesting to the claims of the sighting. I recently posted an first-person account of an encounter in Middletown, MD (Frederick County) in the early 1960's.

The creature then came to prominence after a story ran in the Fredrick News Post in November of 1965. Reporter George May wrote in the article, “Mysterious Dwayyo Loose in County” that a young man, named anonymously as ‘John Becker’ heard a strange noise in his backyard which was situated on the outskirts of Gambrill State Park. Upon going out to investigate the noise he initially saw nothing, so he headed back in. It was then that he caught site of the creature. Something was moving toward him in the dark, Becker was quoted that “It was as big as a bear, had long black hair, a bushy tail, and growled like a wolf or dog in anger.” The thing quickly moved toward him on its hind legs and began to attack him. He fought off the creature and drove it back into the woods, later calling police to report the incident.

The Frederick newspapers also reported other sightings. Several hunters saw a strange black beast roaming the woods. An Ellerton woman reported that residents of that area had heard something cry like a baby and scream like a woman for several months. A Jefferson woman said that she saw a strange dog-shaped animal about the size of a calf chasing some cows on a farm near her home.

An Adamstown, Maryland woman called the paper and insisted that "this trash about the Dwayyo be stopped." She said her daughter was being treated for a nervous condition because of all this talk about the Dwayyo.

In the summer of 1966, the creature was again sighted on the outskirts of Gambrill State Park. A man only referred to as ‘Jim A.’ encountered the Dwayyo as he was heading toward a camp site. It was described as a shaggy two legged creature the size of a deer that had a triangle shaped head with pointed ears and chin. It was dark brown in color and when approached it made a horrid scream and backed away from the man. Jim described it as having an odd walk as it retreated, it’s legs, “stuck out from the side of the trunk of the body making its movements appear almost spider-like as it backed away”.

In the Fall of 1976 another sighting of the Dwayyo took place in Fredrick County near Thurmont, between Cunningham Falls State Park and Catoctin Mountain National Park. Two men drove off route 77 and unto a private road so they could ‘spot deer’ by their headlights in order to see how thick the native population had become before deer season. To their surprise, they did not catch a deer in their lights but instead a large animal ran across the front of their car. They described the creature as, “at least 6 ft tall but inclined forward since it was moving quickly. Its head was fairly large and similar to the profile of a wolf. The body was covered in brown or brindle colored fur but the lower half had a striped pattern of noticeable darker and lighter banding. The forelegs (or arms) were slimmer and held out in front as it moved. The back legs were very muscled and thick similar to perhaps a kangaroo. This was not a hominid type creature; it did not have the characteristics of an ape. It was much more similar to a wolf or ferocious dog however it was definitely moving upright and appeared to be adapted for that type of mobility. I was particularly impressed by the size and strength of the back legs, the stripes on the lower half of the body and the canine-wolf-like head.” - from The Michigan Dogman: Werewolves and Other Unknown Canines Across the U.S.A. (Unexplained Presents)

Later in 1978 two park rangers were near the Cunningham Falls area when they encountered “a large hairy creature running on two legs”.

Paranormalist Robin Swope relates an anecdote from a witness who says she was driving on Coxey Brown Road near Myersville, Maryland late in the summer of 2009 when she had an strange feeling. It was as if she was being watched. The road was lined with trees, she was on the outer edge of Gambrill State Park, and the forest was beginning to grow thicker. According to her, as she turned on Hawbottom Road, where her friend lived, the feeling became overwhelming. The hairs on the back of her neck rose in terror as she sensed the unseen eyes upon her. She wanted to stop the car and take her breath, she was afraid that she would veer off the road and hit a tree because she her nerves were getting so unsteady that she began to shake. But she knew that whatever was watching her, and following her was out there, and she took what little comfort she had by being safer inside her rust rotted car. Still, to prevent a wreck, she slowed down as she headed south, and that was when she saw the creature.

At first it was a blur to the right of her periphery vision. Something that was moving through the trees, a shadow that flickered as it went in and out of sight on the edge of her vision. It was a brown smear of color that popped out in contrast to the dull dark grey trees that she passed.

Whatever it was, it bobbed through the underbrush and between the trees to keep pace with her car. She thinks at the time, she was going around 25 miles per hour. She then slowed down once more to take a good look to her right, and make sure that she was not seeing things. As her car slowed to a crawl, the brown blurry smear of color seemed to bound out of the woods closer to the road. With a massive leap the hazy color became flesh as a huge dog-like animal on two legs emerged from the foliage.

The fangs are burned into her memory. Huge fangs from a mouth grimaced in anger and hate. She could feel the fangs as if they were ripping her skin while the creature stood there panting on the side of the road. Drool dripped from its huge mouth as she heard a loud growl, and she looked into the dark eyes. Darkness took up its entire eye, there was no white at all. It was if she was staring death and hell head on in dizzying madness.

Then it leaped, arms outstretched with claws grasping the wind. Instinctively she stepped on her gas pedal with all her might. The squeal of her tires seemed as if her car too was screaming in horror at the thing that emerged from the dark looming forest.

She did not look back. She didn’t want to know if the thing was following her. She didn’t feel the eyes upon her anymore. She was too shaken to really feel anything at all. When she made it to her friends house, she sat in the driveway shaking as she looked around to make sure the creature had not followed her there. The house was also in the woods, at the opposite side of the State Park. When she felt safe, she made a mad dash for her friend’s door, and banged on it frantically.

He did not know what to make of her story. The witness knew he did not believe her. He had lived in the woods all his life, and had never encountered what she had seen. He assured her that it must have just been a dog, perhaps a rabid one at that. Her mind was playing tricks on her. But the young woman knew what she had seen that late summer day. It was no dog. It was something out of a horror movie come to life before her eyes. Though she told nobody what she felt it really was, she called it a werewolf. That is until after she did some research in the local college library and came up with the name that others had called it when they too saw the forest come alive. She had encountered the Dwayyo.

Sources:
'The Dwayyo' - Ghosts & Legends of Frederick County
Frederick News Post

The Werewolf Book: The Encyclopedia of Shape-Shifting Beings

Monsters of Maryland: Mysterious Creatures in the Old Line State
examiner.com - Pastor Robin Swope

The Dragon Keeper's Handbook: Including the Myth & Mystery,
Care & Feeding, Life & Lore of these Fiercely Splendid Creatures
wesclark.com

Mysterious Creatures: A Guide to Cryptozoology, 2 Volume Set

Weird Maryland: Your Travel Guide to Maryland's Local Legends and Best Kept Secrets

The Michigan Dogman: Werewolves and Other Unknown Canines
Across the U.S.A. (Unexplained Presents)

Source: Phantoms and Monsters
http://www.phantomsandmonsters.com/2015/11/update-dwayyo.html

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AFTER years lurking in the shadows, it looks like the Beast of Bolton is back.

There have been numerous sightings of a mysterious black creature stalking the town dating back to 2006 – with the last being five years ago.

This time, an eyewitness has described seeing a panther-like animal with ‘greedy yellow eyes’ in Farnworth last night, Tuesday November 10.

Terrified Natalie Kay described the moment she came face to face with the elusive animal while driving her Vauxhall Zafira along Doe Hey Road at around 9.30pm.

“I was coming back from the shops and this thing just appeared in front of my car. I had to slam the brakes on,” said the 28-year-old.

“It just stopped dead right in the middle of the road and was staring at me.

“I knew it wasn’t a dog. It looked like a cat but it wasn’t. It was much bigger and had a long tail, pointed ears and these greedy yellow eyes.

“It was about the same size as the bonnet of my car. It was really scary. I haven’t seen anything like that before. The next minute it dashed off. It was really fast.”

Natalie said the beast ran down the dirt track that links Doe Hey Road to Harper Green Road, between Higher and Lower Doe Hey Reservoirs.

Shaken, Natalie returned home to Carnation Road, Farnworth, where she told mum and dad, Linda and Ray, about the encounter.

“I was trembling when I got in,” she said. “I told them about what had happened and they said something like that had been seen before.”

Natalie’s mum and dad found a picture of a black panther online, which Natalie confirmed as looking similar to what she had seen.

“I didn’t know there was anything like that around here – that other people had seen things,” she added.

“There are playing fields near where I saw it. It’s scary when you think that children play around there.

“You hear of these animals in jungles, but you wouldn’t think anything like that could live in Bolton.”

Danny Bamping of The British Big Cat Society has previously told the Bolton News that it’s ‘quite likely’ the Beast of Bolton exists.

There have been several notable previous sightings:

* In June 2006, head of English at Rumworth School, Anne Wright, said she saw the creature as she looked out of the bedroom window of her home in Spring Meadows, off Radcliffe Road in Darcy Lever.

* After a three year hiatus, the beast was back in 2009, when Peter Wood, of Poulton Avenue, Breightmet, spotted the animal in Leverhulme Park.
  
* Around the same time, Barry Calvert said he spotted it near the Schoenstatt Shrine, in Kearsley.

* In October 2010, Hollands Nurseries worker Barbara Cooke she saw a panther-like animal in a field in Bromley Cross.

Source: This Is Lancashire
http://www.thisislancashire.co.uk/news/14023866._It_had_greedy__yellow_eyes____Beast_of_
Bolton_spotted_after_5_year_absence_by_terrified_driver/