Colne Engaine: Growls – is beast back? (From Gazette)

Colne Engaine: Growls – is beast back?

9:27am Thursday 27th March 2008 in Beast of Essex By Emily Parsons

A couple called the police after hearing a "panther" in Colne Engaine.

The man and his wife were having a cigarette in the garden, in Rainbow Way, at about 7.45pm on Monday when they heard a noise.

They described it as a "deep growl, as if from a panther or tiger", which came from fields on the Halstead side of their garden.

The man told police he has lived in the area most of his life and was "a country boy", yet he had never heard a sound like it before.

Recently, the so-called Beast of Essex - a black panther-like creature - was sighted in Colchester and near Harwich.