Mystery animal???

[kyle7630]

Who knows? My inexperienced eye really wants to say coyote just because I have not seen them and don't really know much about them. BUT, my wife is from Montana and she grew up seeing them. She is sticking to her guns and saying that what she saw was not a coyote.
I've never seen a mountian lion either,but I don't think what I saw was quite that big. I'm guessing around 65 lbs tops. I wonder if there are any bob-cat hybirds? My excitment may have put some additional weight on whatever I saw. Another thing, all of the sightings were within about 6weeks and none since. The mystery deepens...

 

[MagsC]

This is the article I was talking about. Interesting anyway.
Franklin County's Wild Crypto Zoo

During the past four years The RFP Research Project has received
numerous reports from residents of Western Arkansas concerning wild
animals they have seen that did not resemble any known native or
exotic species.

One such report was received from a life-long resident of Franklin
County in early August of this year. On August 17 the writer drove to
Ozark to meet the witness. It was a coincident that Lucille Elders'
Barnes News column in the Spectator that day mentioned another
sighting of an enigmatic animal by a Cravens resident. Ms. Elders
herself had seen one of the animals about a year ago, and wrote about
the encounter in her column dated September 15, 2004.

The witness the writer had arranged to meet in Ozark is Harley Edgin
who lives northeast of Ozark on the north side of Highway 352. The
property consists of about 200 acres which is used for cattle
ranching. In the fall of 1991 Mr. Edgin and a friend were driving
across the property checking on the cattle when they observed two
animals standing in the field watching the vehicle. Mr. Edgin stopped
the truck, and looked closely at the animals. He and his passenger had
initially thought they were seeing two coyotes, but they soon realized
they could not identify the animals. The animals sat down on their
haunches and nonchalantly watched the vehicle for a few minutes.
During that time Mr. Edgin picked up his binoculars and looked
intently at both animals for a short time. He then passed the
binoculars to his passenger. The animals then ran to a barbed wire
fence along the north side of the pasture and stopped beside it. At
that time the animals were about 100 yards from the vehicle. The
animals stood for a few minutes as the witnesses alternately continued
to watch them through the binoculars. After a few minutes the animals
turned and ran under the fence and into the woods.

Mr. Edgin stated the animals were unlike any he had ever seen. He said
that one animal was about 5 inches shorter than the other, the larger
being about 3 feet tall at the top of its shoulder. Both were about
the color of a bobcat, with heads that seemed oversized for the
bodies. The head and nose were noticeably more like a canine's than a
feline's. According to Mr. Edgin the most noticeable feature on the
head was the animals' ears. He stated the ears were unusually large
for the size of the head. The ears were reportedly mule-like, about 6
inches long, with tufts of hair growing from their tips. He noted that
the neck was also thick and muscular. He stated the animals had tails
that were catlike, but longer than a bobcat's and shorter than a
cougar's. He particularly noted the tails were rounded on the ends,
and not pointed like a dog's.

He said the animals possessed massive chests and very muscular front
legs. Their back legs were noticeably shorter, causing the back to be
sloped like that of a hyena. When the animals ran, he stated they
"pushed off" using their front legs, landed on all four feet, and
continued their travel in that springing fashion.

Mr. Edgin stated that on three other occasions from 1995 to 1997 he
saw one of these same mysterious animals. He said that two of those
sighting occurred on a tract of land south of the road from Watalua to
the junction of Highway 219. On each occasion Mr Edgin was driving
across the open field on that property and had a different passenger
each time. Each time the occupants of the vehicle had an unobstructed
view of the animal, and it appeared to match in all respects the
animals previously seen by Mr. Edgin. During one of those encounters,
the passenger saw the animal first and initially thought it was a
deer, then decided it was a coyote, and finally decided he could not
identify the animal. Mr. Edgin then attempted to run the animal down
in the open field with his truck. He stated his truck came within 20
feet of the animal, but he was unable to hit it. After the animal ran
away, the passenger was still in awe of what he had seen and quietly
told Mr. Edgin, "There ain't nothing right about that thing."

During Mr. Edgins' third encounter with one of the unknown animals on
the same property, it was standing in the edge of the woods beside the
pasture. He and a passenger watched it for about three or four minutes
before it walked into the woods.

Mr. Edgin left and came back with a another friend who brought along a
gun. They reportedly found the animal's tracks in loose soil and
leaves inside a cedar glade. The three men noted that the animals'
front paws left tracks that were generally round like a cat's, and
were about three inches in diameter. The back feet left similar but
smaller tracks. Mr. Edgin stated the tracks were unusual in the fact
that the front paw tracks were about 12 to 14 inches apart in the
side-to-side direction, while the rear paw tracks were only about half
that distance apart in that direction.

Mr. Edgin's last sighting of the animal occurred in 1996 or 1997 when
one of the animals crossed Highway 219 in front of his truck just
north of I-40.

Mr. Edgin had previously arranged for the writer to meet with other
area residents who have also seen animals they could not identify. The
writer spent two days interviewing those witnesses.

The close-up encounter that Geraldine Wyers' described was ominous and
frightening. Her detailed observations portrayed an aggressive animal
that has been similarly described in reports from Montgomery County
Arkansas and from LeFlore and McCurtain Counties in Oklahoma.

Ms. Wyers stated that in mid-summer of 1994 or 1995 she drove alone to
a small branch below a stock pond dam on the parcel of land on which
Mr. Edgin had previously seen two of the animals. She went to the
property to destroy a beaver dam on the branch, and to attempt to kill
the beavers that had built it.

She said she parked her pickup truck in the edge of a field within
about twenty yards of the beaver dam. When she exited the truck, she
left the driver's side door open. She stated she destroyed the beaver
dam and went back to the truck to get a .22 caliber, semiautomatic
rifle which she loaded with ammunition. As she walked upstream away
from the truck to find a place to conceal herself and wait for the
beavers to return to the dam site, she heard a strange bird-like sound
coming from across the branch. As she slowly walked toward the sound,
she began to hear loud moaning sounds. She thought the sounds were
coming from some kind of animal in great pain. As she slowly and
carefully walked toward the sounds they diminished in volume. When she
reached a point about 20 yards from the truck, she saw an animal
crouched and watching her from the other side of the branch. She was
less than 10 yards from the animal at that time. The bizarre and
intimidating appearance of the animal reportedly caused her to freeze
in fear. She said the animal's description generally matched those
given by Mr. Edgin. She stated the animal's head was in fact massive,
but it had canine upper teeth that extended two or three inches
outside its mouth, and she saw blood on those teeth. She stated she
could clearly see the animal was intently watching her and it was
poised as if ready to spring in her direction. She had the distinct
impression the animal was in no way afraid of her or the rifle. She
was carrying the rifle at her hip in both hands and pointing forward.
She momentarily considered drawing the gun to her shoulder and
emptying the 19 shot magazine of long rifle bullets into the animal,
but she quickly decided the animal was too large and too close for her
to ensure she could get off enough shots to kill it before it reached
her in a full charge.

She began to carefully, and very slowly, walk backwards toward the
truck without taking her eyes off the animal. She was moving her feet
a few inches at a time, and it seemed to her she would never reach the
safety of the truck. When she finally did reach the truck, she stepped
beside the opened door and slowly placed her right foot on the floor
board. Only then did she briefly take her eyes off the animal to reach
for the door handle. She immediately grabbed it, sat down on the seat,
drew her left leg inside the cab and slammed the door shut. The second
the door closed she heard and felt the animals impact against the
outside of the door. She frantically started the engine and raced
through the property to the main entrance gate. She opened the gate
and hurriedly drove to Mr. Edgin's home, not remembering whether or
not she had closed the gate to prevent the cattle from leaving the
pasture. She then found the driver's side door was bent from the
animal's impact.

The ferocious appearance and lack of fear of humans which Ms. Wyers
observed were also noticed by an Ozark businessman who had a close
encounter with one of the animals in Johnson County. The man stated he
was in his pickup truck and stopped at a highway intersection north of
I-40 when one of the animals walked closely past the driver's side of
the truck, around the front of the truck and back down the other side.
The animal reportedly stopped just past the end of the truck where it
was brightly illuminated by the truck's taillights and brake lights
where the driver was able to see it in his passenger side mirror.
According to the driver the animal remained at the rear of the truck
for nearly a minute, but it would turn its body to shield its eyes
from the vehicles that were passing on the highway in front of the
truck. This particular witness stated he clearly saw both upper and
lower canine teeth outside the mouth of the animal. He said the
animal's body and head were massive, and the jaws appeared to be wide
and powerful. He stated the top of the animal's head was just below
the bottom edge of the window openings as it walked past the truck.
His description of the animal generally matched those given by Ms.
Wyers and Mr. Edgin, although there was one notable exception. This
witness estimated the animal's weight to be close to five hundred
pounds. The animals seen by the other witnesses were estimated to
weigh about 250 pounds. This witness was, by his own admission, very
fearful of the animal, even though he was inside his pickup with the
windows up during the encounter.

On a spring day about 1991, an animal similar to the ones described by
the witnesses was also seen near the Belt Cemetery north of Ozark by
two local women. Ruby Tolton and a relative had gone to the cemetery
to do clean-up work when they saw a deer run from the woods into an
open field behind the cemetery. When the deer reached the center of
the field they saw an animal burst from the woods in hot pursuit. The
women were very puzzled because they could not identify the obvious
predator. They could plainly see that it was not a dog or coyote,
although it appeared to be some type of canine, rather than a bobcat
or mountain lion.

A similar animal was seen by an employee of a local utility company
when it crossed Highway 219 about three miles north of I-40. The
witness stated the animal ran across the road toward the creek on the
west side. The man stopped his vehicle and got out of the truck to try
to get a better look at the animal. He saw it standing and watching
him from about 100 yards away, but the man could not identify the
animal. As he watched, the animal sped across the creek, and with
apparent ease and obvious agility, scaled the steep bluff on the other
side and disappeared into the woods above it.

One of the witnesses vividly recalls driving to a local farm with her
small children in the 1980s to pick purple hull peas, and being told
by the farmer (now deceased) to park close to the pea patch and to
watch her children closely. When she asked why, he told her he had
recently seen a large, aggressive animal he could not identify near
the pea patch. He said the animal was intimidating and showed no fear
of him.

In the Cravens area northwest of Ozark the local residents have also
reported seeing an enigmatic quadrupedal animals, although the
descriptions of the animals seen in that area are basically the same,
the descriptions are significantly different in some respects from
those previously recorded.

The most pronounced difference between the descriptions from the two
areas is in the length and size of the neck, and the angle of the neck
in relation to the body when the animal is standing alert.

Ms. Lucille Elders, her son and another relative who have seen the
strange animals in that area at close range report that the animals'
necks are disproportional long for the size of the animals' bodies.
Ms. Elder's son, who saw one of the animals at night on two occasions,
particularly noted that the animal's long neck was held in a very
upright, and somewhat awkward looking position when the animal stood
watching him. He stated the neck was very thick, and the head was
"fat". He estimated the top of the animal's head was about 3 feet from
the ground when it was watching him.

One resident of the Cravens area reported that the animal he saw had
long ears. The animal seen by Ms. Elder was reported to have "small
like ears."

Anecdotal reports from this area indicate the strange animals have
been recently seen by other residents. One rancher reportedly saw such
and animal resting on a hay bale in his pasture. According to some
residents, these animals have been seen in the area for generations.

Based on the variations in the descriptions of the animals seen in
Franklin County, it seems there are either two separate types of
enigmatic animals in the area, or there is one species that manifests
very unusual changes in its appearance while growing to maturity.

The animals will probably never be accurately identified - or properly
classified if they are in fact an unknown species - until their DNA
profile has been examined by professionals in that field. While DNA
can sometimes be obtained from a wild animal without it being killed,
the odds are in this case that one of the animals will be shot by a
farmer or rancher, or will be run over and killed while crossing I-40.
If such an event occurs, and the animal still can't be identified upon
close inspection, the preserved carcass would be of great interest to
science and to the world in general.
By Tal H. Branco Guest Writer
Charleston Express 10/1/06

 

[eeiko321]

Quote:
LOL!!!

 

[chickbea]

I didn't read all of the guesses, but do you have wolverines in your area?
How long are the thing's legs?
Oh - I just saw that you are from NC - I guess it isn't a wolverine unless it is really, really lost!

 

[eeiko321]

Quote:
well they did mention it being HUGE....
i dont think wolverines are huge

 

[Connie]

I thought it might be a panther might of got out of a wild live refuged We seen one the first time about 10 miles from our house then our friends told us about a pair of the getting lose from the wild life refuge not far from our house about 15 years ago sence then we have seem some about 2 miles from our house during the night you can here then scream every once in a great moon they are dark gray to black and move very quickly and look like a 60lb cat