Big cat captured on video? Panther like beast spotted in countryside

Mr Chapman, 48, was staying at the Redbeck Motel in Crofton when he captured the animal, believed to be a big cat, on camera, as it was prowling through nearby fields.

He said it emerged from the bushes at around 8pm on Wednesday.

Mr Chapman, from North Yorkshire, said: “I was on the phone to a friend looking out of the window at the fields, watching the rabbits, and this big cat just came through the hedgerow.

“It was just casually walking across the field.

“It’s clearly not a domestic cat.”

He added: “Whereas normally these things are a case of blink and it’s gone, this was in no rush to get across the field.”

Mr Chapman said the animal looked similar to a a panther.

But he hopes an expert will be able to shed more light, based on its characteristics.

He said: “It will be interesting to know what it was. I know there are big domestic cats but it certainly didn’t look like one.”

It is not the first time a “big cat” has been spotted in the district.

There have been several reported sightings of the ‘Beast Of Ossett’, which hit national headlines in 2000. Observers likened it to a big black Irish wolfhound.

Three years later there was a report of a large black cat stalking the village of Wintersett.

There were also sightings of a panther or puma like beast roaming between Alverthorpe and Ossett in 2006.

An animal, smaller than a Labrador but bigger than a cat, was spotted along a disused railway track between Wintersett and Newmillerdam in 2009.

And a “panther-like beast” was spotted roaming farmland in Notton in 2011.

Last year, there were also reports of a big cat on farmland near Kirkthorpe.

Mr Chapman quickly ended his phone call to catch this latest creature on camera.

He said: “I was surprised. I was trying to get a bit of actual proof of what it was on video. It was so clear to the visual eye.”