It has been 20 years since the first spotting of the ‘beast of Essex’, multiple scared people have caught a glimpse of a large, dark cat too big to be an ordinary house pet. After the Essex Big Cat Research Projects revealed that a panther of some sort could be galivanting across the Essex country sides people undoubtedly started to panic. November 2000, exactly 20 years ago a deer’s carcass was found eaten in Earls Colne, which further added to the county speculation. It made people question what would be big enough to take a deer down, kill it and devour it. Certainly, none of the creatures that would typically live in the Essex countryside.

Then a mysterious big cat was spotted in the outskirts of Witham 3 years later, a retired farmer watched the cat basking in the sun in a dry ditch. It wasn’t spotted again for another 6 years, in Wivenhoe where locals and police had all spotted the cat at different times. It would take a human 6 hours to walk to Wivenhoe from Witham, panthers can maintain a speed of 10mph the distance between Wivenhoe and Witham is 18.3 miles so it would take a panther just under 2 hours to reach its destination. Although, the real question is where and what was the beast of Essex doing during those 3 years? Panthers may only eat a deer or a hog a week they don’t need to eat a lot to survive although they have been known to snack on badgers, so a panther would be able to survive in the countryside.

4 years later, 2012 in St Osyth there were a few reports than an ‘Essex Lion’ was on the run near holiday parks. Police did search for the lion using trained marksmen however it was revealed that it was just a large cat or dog, now a large cat fits the description of the Essex beast. It was another 3 years before the beast was spotted again, it matched the same description of the previous spots and was apparently spotted in Finchingfield. On foot, it would take a human roughly 11 hours 45 minutes to reach Finchingfield from St Osyth, although the alleged panther would have had 3 years to cover this distance. So where was it in between?

Broomfield, 2016 a cat is captured. After several frightening sightings of the supposed beast, police manage to hunt it down. Except it wasn’t the beast that had struck fear into the people of Broomfield’s hearts it was Dougal, a large missing Bengal cat. Maybe the beast was just a large domesticated cat after all and the people of Essex had 16 years’ worth of fear over a hoax, all this hype for nothing. Except, in October 2017 the beast ran in front of the car on the A12 between Ingatestone and Margaretting, now you wouldn’t see a regular size cat run in front of your car, so this large animal would have to have been of been going at a considerable speed to avoid being hit.

The panther was following a pattern of being spotted once and then going under the radar for a few years except since 2015 it was spotted every year until 2018. There were 3 sightings in the space of 4 months, the first being on the A12 and then in December 2017 it was allegedly spotted in Great Notley in a field except the man who spotted it was certain it was a black leopard. And the final time it was spotted was in Sible Hedingham, there were 10cm paw prints found in the mud. Now the panther hasn’t been spotted since January 2018, when the paw print was found, indicating either the panther has gone deep into the woods or maybe it was never there. Black panthers can live up to 20 years in the wild and as of November 2020 the 20 years since the statement was released, the panther could have passed away. Although, what if there was more than 1 panther, if there was two, they could have reproduced and created the future beasts of Essex. It is very possible for a panther to live in Essex countryside and it is possible that there could be a family of beasts deep within the Essex woods. It is also possible that the beast never existed, was just a fragment of everyone’s imaginations and there is a reasonable excuse for all of these allegations. You can get dogs in all shapes and sizes, including large dogs so the paw print could have just been a large dog. And the sightings are all alleged its just their word, there’s no proof. I spoke to a local conspiracy enthusiast and student at the local college on his thoughts on the matter “you know it’s terrifying really… that a bit hulking creature could be living amongst us, that could be ready to pounce at a moment’s notice” he thinks that “It may not be probable but you know what nobody wants to tango with the beast”.