big cat sighting in Plymouth

It does look reasonably fox-like but if it absolutely has to be a cat I think I'd go with something like Savannah cat or maybe a golden/bay cat. ;)
 
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Looking at it's body shape and tail I think it's clearly a fox...
They never seem to have a good camera phone when aliens, ghosts or big cats in the UK are photographed !
 
To me it looks very much like a dog that my neighbour as got seems to move in the same way and as the short hair the same (name of species unknown but will ask)
 
Don't read the comments! :)
Some people are a bit thick when it comes to animals.

It's a really crap photo, it may well be a cat but it's virtually impossible to tell. It could be a horse for all I know!
 
I think the original 'story' i.e. the rather poor photo taken by a lady, still
stands. Its just been mimicked by a few other people photo-shopping(or whatever they do) pictures and its those that have been debunked as hoaxes, not hers.

Btw, the outline of body and tail looks like a fox to me (they are pretty short-coated at this time of year, particularly the growing cubs) but the indistinctness of the photo makes for the usual doubts.
 
yes, exactly. The woman herself thinks it is probably a fox (according to the articles), and it is clearly not a cat of any sort. There is neither "faking" nor "debunking" with regards to the original photo.
 
Chlidonias said:
um, no it hasn't. The article you posted says no such thing.
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Shouldn't worry about it-B.S. seems to think he's the authority on big cats in the UK and aggressively attempts to dismiss and debunk any mention made on this site-check the previous thread on this subject.

I have seen a "big" cat in the South of the UK (and I was with one other witness who actually stopped the vehicle we were in as it crossed the road in front of us in broad daylight) and so has my father-I don't know what it was as it clearly didn't fit any known species and my own bet would be an over-large feral animal.

I have cats myself and it 'trotted' in the manner of a cat as it moved quickly over a railway viaduct. It would have been maybe three times the size of a normal house cat.

In the case of this photo, it most clearly resembles a cheetah in shape-oddly, the most dog-like of cats-I suspect it probably is a greyhound or similar given the long skinny legs.
 
The fake that had the believers drooling at the mouth...
Within the past week there has been a small flurry of alleged sightings of a "puma" along with "photographic evidence" in the fields at Tamerton Foliot in Plymouth. The small coverage that was within the local press then hit the daily tabloids, the press made a meal of it and the believers fell hook line and sinker for a pack of lies.

The Plymouth puma? Mystery of the 'big cat' photographed on the outskirts of the Devon city | Daily Mail Online

Is this the latest sighting of a big cat in the Westcountry – or just a fox? | Western Morning News

What appears to be a feline walking across the grass does appear to be somewhat strange looking, not quite true. The front leg is bent and the overall picture appears to be similar to a cardboard cut out, there is a lack of depth, a lack of movement and a lack of reality coupled with a picture quality that fails to make sense.

Then we have another story, same place but different people and a new picture. This new picture is of a puma but the image is somewhat poor as compared to the overall rest of the image still itself. The image was taken from a tripcam and was time stamped and date stamped, both showing very clear image but not that of the alleged puma. This image of the puma was all wrong, for a start, there is what we call or term ghosting, this ghosting appears over the spine of the alleged feline, you see white ghost marks. The next is that there are five legs. Then we get to the man body of the feline, this is showing what appears to be a skinny puma as the ribs are showing. This part of the image shows the use of tone management tools. Thus, the image shown is not real, it is a photoshopped image, but a question then arises; where has this image come from?

After googling for the image, you find his same image from a website: Cougar and this website is for holidays and eateries within the Montezuma area. The picture of the puma within this website is the same as that of the alleged puma image taken by the tripcam in a chicken coop at Tamerton Foliot, Plymouth.

After sending this information onto the newspapers that covered the stories, I received a reply email back informing me that Neil Arnold, the dandy ghost writer, has beaten me to it by some 20 minutes.

However, the believers still believe and still maintain that the pictures are real... Alas, common sense and fake images just do not mix.

There have been numerous websites commenting on the so-called puma (mountain lion/cougar) allegedly caught on film in the UK this week. However, after a quick trawl on the internent you will find two sites that use the same stock image (1) Cougar and (2) https://animalcorner.co.uk/animals/puma/

Controversy around the sighting of a ‘big cat’ in the Westcountry gained momentum today – as hoaxers and humourists joined in the ‘spotting’ of unusual animals in the region.

A photograph that emerged this purporting to be of a large cat-like creature was said to have been captured on a sensor-triggered camera near a chicken coop in Plymouth at night – even though the image actually came from America.

Someone purporting to be called Doreen Smith, of Whitleigh, Plymouth, sent in an image of what she claimed was a big cat-like animal that she suggested was caught on a camera in the early hours of the morning outside of her chicken coop - which she said had been attacked by some kind of animal at night in recent months - in the same area that an earlier image emerged of an unidentified animal at the end of a garden.

The photograph, said to have been captured at 2.47am Friday morning, was a hoax taken from a shot of an animal in the states – fuelled by speculation of the earlier 'sighting' of the big cat of Whitleigh in Plymouth

The image from Doreen, whose identity could not be established, emerged a day after office worker Carole Desforges, 59, took a photograph of an unidentified big-cat-like creature as it bounded past her living room, also in the Whitleigh area of Plymouth.

Ms Desforges first thought it was a fox but after taking pictures of the animal is now uncertain.

Some friends have suggested it could be a puma, lynx or even a leopard.

Her son, Dave Desforges, said: "My mum photographed it in her garden. She thinks it's a fox, but I'm not convinced."

The Western Morning News reported last year how there had been more than 200 big cat sightings in Devon and Cornwall over the last 13 years - which also included a tiger.

The tiger was said to have been spotted in Exmouth, which other callers reported big cats in their house.

A puma was spotted in Efford by a Plymouth man who called to report it to police.

The number of calls, which hit 220, peaked in 2001 when there were 30 in a year.

Four people called to report not sighting of big cats, but livestock they believed to have been killed by big cats thanks to claw marks on the corpses.

Not all sightings are reported to police, with some going straight to big cat groups.

Danny Bamping, from Plymouth, of the British Big Cat Society told reporters at the time that there had been 40 reports of big cats in Devon and 30 in Cornwall last years.

He told the BBC: "In Britain 75% of the reports are of big black cats, but the unanswered question is what they are.

"There's no doubt in my mind that they could be black leopards, but possibly a hybrid of a wild and domesticated cat."
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Big cat controversy fuels speculation - and hoaxes and humourists | Western Morning News
 
We are yet to see a perfect photograph of any British Wild cats why?

Maybe one reason is the people who see the cats and take the photographs do it without thinking and are not experts in the field.

I can work a digital camera to a good degree but a phone camera well that's another story.

Another reason maybe there are none.

Photoshop comes in very handy for certain people, who was it who said a photograph never lies?
 
bigcat speciali said:
What appears to be a feline walking across the grass does appear to be somewhat strange looking, not quite true. The front leg is bent and the overall picture appears to be similar to a cardboard cut out, there is a lack of depth, a lack of movement and a lack of reality coupled with a picture quality that fails to make sense.[QUOTE[


I'm a bit sceptical that its a cut-out or model. The 'bent' front leg may in fact only appear that way due to something being in front of the foot? The head does look catlike but I note it is in line with the top most bar of the fence so that could be cropping/obscuring longer or pointed ears. Picture quality is surely the product of a snatched phone photo?

I accept that any follow up 'sightings' or photos are not genuine though.
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bigcat speciali said:
The fake that had the believers drooling at the mouth...
Within the past week there has been a small flurry of alleged sightings of a "puma" along with "photographic evidence" in the fields at Tamerton Foliot in Plymouth. The small coverage that was within the local press then hit the daily tabloids, the press made a meal of it and the believers fell hook line and sinker for a pack of lies.

The Plymouth puma? Mystery of the 'big cat' photographed on the outskirts of the Devon city | Daily Mail Online

Is this the latest sighting of a big cat in the Westcountry – or just a fox? | Western Morning News

What appears to be a feline walking across the grass does appear to be somewhat strange looking, not quite true. The front leg is bent and the overall picture appears to be similar to a cardboard cut out, there is a lack of depth, a lack of movement and a lack of reality coupled with a picture quality that fails to make sense.

Then we have another story, same place but different people and a new picture. This new picture is of a puma but the image is somewhat poor as compared to the overall rest of the image still itself. The image was taken from a tripcam and was time stamped and date stamped, both showing very clear image but not that of the alleged puma. This image of the puma was all wrong, for a start, there is what we call or term ghosting, this ghosting appears over the spine of the alleged feline, you see white ghost marks. The next is that there are five legs. Then we get to the man body of the feline, this is showing what appears to be a skinny puma as the ribs are showing. This part of the image shows the use of tone management tools. Thus, the image shown is not real, it is a photoshopped image, but a question then arises; where has this image come from?

After googling for the image, you find his same image from a website: Cougar and this website is for holidays and eateries within the Montezuma area. The picture of the puma within this website is the same as that of the alleged puma image taken by the tripcam in a chicken coop at Tamerton Foliot, Plymouth.

After sending this information onto the newspapers that covered the stories, I received a reply email back informing me that Neil Arnold, the dandy ghost writer, has beaten me to it by some 20 minutes.

However, the believers still believe and still maintain that the pictures are real... Alas, common sense and fake images just do not mix.

There have been numerous websites commenting on the so-called puma (mountain lion/cougar) allegedly caught on film in the UK this week. However, after a quick trawl on the internent you will find two sites that use the same stock image (1) Cougar and (2) https://animalcorner.co.uk/animals/puma/

Big cat controversy fuels speculation - and hoaxes and humourists | Western Morning News
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again, have you even read the articles you link to? I presume you at least skimmed them given you quoted the entirety of one of them.

The original photo looks like a genuine photo to me - like some others here I lean towards a domestic dog, greyhound looks like a suitable match - but there is nothing in any of your links that even hints at it being debunked as a hoax. It is just a photo taken which has garnered a lot of speculation.

Your posts about a follow-up hoax using photoshopped puma photos from other websites are not accompanied by any links at all.
 
Chlidonias said:
again, have you even read the articles you link to? I presume you at least skimmed them given you quoted the entirety of one of them.

The original photo looks like a genuine photo to me - like some others here I lean towards a domestic dog, greyhound looks like a suitable match - but there is nothing in any of your links that even hints at it being debunked as a hoax. It is just a photo taken which has garnered a lot of speculation.

Your posts about a follow-up hoax using photoshopped puma photos from other websites are not accompanied by any links at all.
Click to expand...

Oh I have read the article, the first poor quality image could be a dog, it could be a cardboard cutout, it could even be a photoshop image...as the image is that poor then who knows but it is not a "big cat". As for the second alleged picture which turned out to be a hoax and a photoshop job, andthe press have no corrected themselves and also withdrawn the original s as it was pointed out that the press were had, then yes, I have read the story, have you?
 
bigcat speciali said:
As for the second alleged picture which turned out to be a hoax and a photoshop job, andthe press have no corrected themselves and also withdrawn the original s as it was pointed out that the press were had, then yes, I have read the story, have you?
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no I haven't read the story, you haven't provided any links to it.
 
I've read that article. It only has a couple of paragraphs about the puma photo, and it was pretty much incidental to the original story. I thought you were talking about an article which actually had photos on it because of what you wrote earlier:

bigcat speciali said:
Then we have another story, same place but different people and a new picture. This new picture is of a puma but the image is somewhat poor as compared to the overall rest of the image still itself. The image was taken from a tripcam and was time stamped and date stamped, both showing very clear image but not that of the alleged puma. This image of the puma was all wrong, for a start, there is what we call or term ghosting, this ghosting appears over the spine of the alleged feline, you see white ghost marks. The next is that there are five legs. Then we get to the man body of the feline, this is showing what appears to be a skinny puma as the ribs are showing. This part of the image shows the use of tone management tools. Thus, the image shown is not real, it is a photoshopped image, but a question then arises; where has this image come from?

After googling for the image, you find his same image from a website: Cougar and this website is for holidays and eateries within the Montezuma area. The picture of the puma within this website is the same as that of the alleged puma image taken by the tripcam in a chicken coop at Tamerton Foliot, Plymouth.
Click to expand...
 
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