KITHRA WRITES: Falmouth beast returns?

This could be another sighting of that elusive “Falmouth Beast” or it could just be something more mundane. Unfortunately the story only consists of these 3 paragraphs, but I’ll keep my eye on it and see if anyone else comes forward.

http://www.falmouthpacket.co.uk/news/fpfalmouth/4534464.Penryn_woman_spots_strange_animal/
7th August 2009

Penryn woman spots strange animal

A Penryn woman has spotted a strange animal in her garden which could suggest that the mysterious beast of Swanpool has moved elsewhere.

Celia Prynn saw what she first thought was a cat at the bottom of the garden but was not certain because its head was out of proportion with its body....

FALMOUTH BAY WEIRD CATTYTHING LATEST

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

So Shiela Bird has come out of the woodwork to report that she has also seen the strange semi-bipedal cattything of the woods between Maenporth and Mawnan. Shiels and her brother first entered crytpozoological circles in the mid 1980s when author Graham McEwan reported in his book The Mystery Animals of Britain and Ireland that she and her brother had seen Morgawr.

I interviewed her in the early 1990s but decided not to include her testimony in my book The Owlman and Others. Doc asked me to point out that Sheila Bird had never been "Shiels's bird".

Sheila is a well known local author who has been around for many years. She was very kind to my ex-wife and me when we visited her, and told us stories of UFOs and seaserpents. The fact that she saw the cattything should not really surprise us..

More on the Swanpool Beast

Our friend Kithra has given an update to the story of the Swanpool mystery creature on her blog:

http://kithraskrystalkave.blogspot.com/2009/02/falmouths-weird-creature-update.html

She also writes:

I found this longer article about the weird creature spotted in Falmouth, in the local weekly edition of The West Briton, so thought I'd forward it; although it doesn't really say much more than was reported in The Packet newspaper:

http://www.thisiscornwall.co.uk/falmouth/Experts-puzzled-sighting-Swanpool-beast/article-708934-detail/article.html

Eat yer heart out Edward Lear

Those of you who have read my book, The Owlman and Others which is set in the woods around Mawnan Old Church in southern Cornwall, will know that there is an ongoing sub-text about Edward Lear. Lear (1812-1888) was a painter, poet, artist, writer and composer of nonsense poetry and limericks. His work is also the subtext of Seven Sunflower Seeds by one of my favourite authors, the late Sir John Verney an author who's glorious prose should be read by every fortean.

I quoted both Verney and Lear in The Owlman and Others and so I suppose that I should not be overly surprised at the latest developments surrounding the new Beast of Falmouth Bay It was seen in a set of woodlands which join on to the woodlands where the subject of my most well known book is said to roost.

These woodlands are already the home of a twisted, scarified owl, and now seem to be the haunt of a sililarly twisted and scarified pussycat. We confidently expect a visit from the pigs, and a pea green boat. Watch this space....

http://www.nonsenselit.org/Lear/ns/pussy.html

RICHARD FREEMAN: THE FALMOUTH CREATURE; A SAD POSSIBLITY

I don’t like cats, I never have, I’m a dog man through and through. Cats decimate small mammal and bird populations. Around he world they are responsible for a number of extinctions the most famous being the Stephens Island Wren (Xenicus lyalli) that was found only on one small island in New Zealand and wiped out by introduced feral cats in 1895.

I wouldn’t be wantonly cruel to a cat, or indeed any animal, though. Which is why I find what discovered last night very disturbing.

In an answer to my posting on the mystery beast of Falmouth and its possible identity as an aye-aye or a springhare a lady called `Eve` suggested it was something called ‘a twisty cat’. I had not heard of this before so I did some research.

Twisty cats, also known as `squittens` or `kangaroo cats` suffer from a deformity of the radial bones in the front legs. Known as Radial Hypoplasia it causes the front legs to become stunted and almost useless. Sometimes the cat can walk on them in a wobbly fashion but in other cases it hops on its hind legs.

Radial Hypoplasia can occur as a mutaion in nature on rare occations but in the USA there is a sick trend in breeding these unfortunate animals for his specific deformity.

http://www.bestweekever.tv/2008/11/06/twisty-cats-so-adorable-its-retarded/

Every time I think I can’t despise the human race any more, my own species proves me wrong. I sincerely hope this appalling trend is not getting a foothold in the UK.

I hope the Falmouth beast is not a poor deformed cat, but Occam’s Razor says it’s more likely than a springhare or aye-aye.

I’m hoping to contact the eyewitness herself but in the meantime here are some pictures of cats with this sad deformity, bred on purpose for the entertainment of sicko humans.

YET ANOTHER MYSTERY CREATURE FROM FALMOUTH BAY

A very peculiar news story has just been published by the Falmouth Packet Newspaper.

"It was between 4pm and 5pm when Sam Bradbury left work and decided to go for a walk along the coastal path. Halfway around she spotted something moving in the bushes, but was unprepared for what she says she saw. She said: “I assumed it was a bird or maybe a dog being walked that was rustling the bushes. I stopped as I got nearer, when I realised it was neither.

It was a little bigger than a dog and had the face of a cat with eyes that were glazed over and luminescent like a lion’s at night. It left when it saw me but appeared to only walk on two hind legs much like a kangaroo would and had behind it a bushy tail like a fox.”

This story is very peculiar, not only because I have absolutely no idea what this creature could be, but because the aforesaid footpath is right in the middle of Owlman country. There have been no owlman sightings reported to us since 2002, but as we know from our own experience opver many years it is a particularly strange bit of woodland.

Richard Freeman, our Zoological Director suggests that it looks like a springhaire or springhaas, a south African rodent that looks superficially like a small kangaroo. They are kept in several British zoos, and as they are not in the slightest bit endangered, and not covered by the Dangerous Wild Animals Act it would not surprise us at all if they were kept locally by a private collector.

We know someone in the Falmouth area has a taste for exotic rodents because, a few years ago, we had a report of a jerboa turning up at Falmouth Art College.

Richard Freeman is contactingThe Falmouth Packet as we speak, and will be getting in touch with the original witness. Ain't Fortean Zoology grand!