My husband finally convinced me I should call. He listens to your show every week. I'm calling from Cardinham, here in Cornwall. This happened back in October 1993. I was 37 at the time. I'd been working double shifts that week at the shop, completely exhausted, but my dog Jessie needed her evening walk. Around half past ten that night, I took her out onto the moor near our house. Just a quick walk, nothing unusual. It was dark out there. No moon that night, just me and Jessie on the footpath. Cold too, proper autumn chill coming off the moor. I had my torch but I knew that path well enough, walked it hundreds of times.
Something hit me from behind. Hard. Knocked me straight to the ground, my torch went flying. I remember the impact, then everything went fuzzy for a moment. When I came to, I was lying on the path and Jessie was right there next to me, growling. Not her usual bark, this low, serious growl I'd never heard from her before. I looked up and that's when I saw it. About ten feet away, just standing there watching me. A very large, dark colored cat-like creature. Not a house cat, nothing like that. This thing was massive, sleek, all black. The tail is what I remember most clearly, three, maybe four feet long, curved upward at the end. And it was making these grunting sounds. Deep, throaty noises. I just froze. Couldn't move, couldn't think. My head was pounding from the fall and Jessie kept growling, standing between me and this thing.
We stayed like that for what felt like forever. The creature just watching me, making those sounds. Then it turned and moved off into the darkness, didn't run exactly, more like it just melted away into the moorland. Soon as it was gone, I grabbed Jessie and got myself home as fast as I could manage. I called the police that night. Devon and Cornwall Police came out the next morning, examined where it happened. They found a large footprint in the mud near where I'd fallen. Took some strands of hair from a gorse bush nearby. They told the papers I was suffering from severe shock, which I was. But I know what I saw. What people don't realize is this wasn't the first time. Farmers on the moor had been losing sheep for years before my encounter. Rachel Roberts at Ninestones Farm, she'd seen it multiple times. Lost at least ten sheep to something. She even sold her whole flock eventually because of it.
[ Story continues in the full game... ]