Moors and Valleys

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Story 1.

Predators on the Moors

For over 200 years, the rural communities of the United Kingdom have fallen victim to attacks by mysterious feline intruders.

As incidents involving these unidentified creatures continue to be reported, we examine the evidence and question whether there really are predators on the moors.

As he lay on his back, staring up into the starry skies above, the young commando smiled contentedly to himself.

It may not have been the warmest of evenings, but being concealed in a wood in the middle of North Devon was far preferable to perching on top of a building in the middle of Belfast, playing hide-and-seek with his opposite numbers in the Irish Republican Army.

Despite having been a Royal Marine for only a short period of time, a natural aptitude for the Lee Enfield Enforcer meant that he had flown through sniper school, landing himself a spot on one of the regiment's most prestigious teams.

And thanks to a quirk of fate, he now found himself sitting only an hour's drive from his base in Limpstone, hunting a fairy tale through the rolling Devonshire countryside.

There had been no small amount of laughter at the briefing when he and the rest of his section had been told the reason for their secretive deployment.

A farmer in South Moulton had reported that over a three-month period, something had slaughtered over 100 of his sheep, tearing their throats apart with its bare teeth.

Their mission was simple, find and eliminate what had become known as the Beast of Exmore.

For the past three nights, the five sniper teams had secreted themselves at different positions around the farm's perimeter, waiting for the attacker to reveal itself.

So far, nothing of any interest had occurred, and with only a few hours remaining until daylight, it looked as if tonight would also end in a no-show.

The sound of a hollow twig snapping loudly off to one side suddenly shattered the silence, jolting the young marine away from his thoughts.

Whilst his eyes gradually adjusted to penetrate the surrounding gloom, there were further, quieter noises, as if someone was carefully shifting their body weight.

Slowly rising to his feet, the British soldier switched on his torch and shone it towards where the barely audible sounds were coming from.

With a sharp intake of breath, he dropped the light and instinctively took a step backwards away from the threat.

Something was standing only a few feet away from him.

partially illuminated by the beam that was still haphazardly shining up from the fallen torch.

It quietly regarded the young marine from the undergrowth.

For a moment, he tried to rationalize what he was facing.

The light reflected back at him from emerald green eyes and a mouth that opened periodically to expose a set of wickedly sharp teeth.

The animal's slick black fur rippled and undulated as it continually shifted position, as if it was preparing to pounce.

His eyes shot across to the rifle, resting against a tree only a few feet away, but as he tensed ready to move towards it, a deep and throaty growl issued forth from the creature's mouth.

It continued to fix him with a hypnotic, unblinking stare, and when he again moved to retrieve his weapon, it issued a similar warning.

The young soldier's right hand settled on the pistol that was holstered at his belt.

The intruder immediately seemed to understand the gesture, and in an instant it was gone, heading off at lightning speed, weaving in and out of the tightly packed beech and ash trees.

Still shaking from the encounter, the Royal Marine finally retrieved his rifle and tried to figure out just what he was going to tell his fellow soldiers about the confrontation that had just taken place.

When the newspapers revealed in the summer of 1983 that members of one of Britain's most elite fighting forces had been posted to the middle of the countryside to hunt a big cat, the story was largely met with ridicule.

This scathing attitude, however, was soon tempered, when the government confirmed that a small number of Royal Marines had indeed been deployed, and that the situation was far from a laughing matter for the communities which had been affected.

Much like its supernatural cousins, the beasts of Dartmoor and Bodmin, The first reports of a possible cryptozoological cat hunting in the fields in and around Exmoor emerged during the mid-1970s.

Although, sightings of other feline predators stalking the British countryside greatly predate these two killers, with the first incidents being recorded well over a thousand years ago.

Welsh medieval poems make reference to a monstrous clawing cat, which was believed to hunt in the areas surrounding Anglesey.

before it was slain by a heroic warrior named Che.

Later in the 1760s, the writer William Corbett described a number of encounters with a cat-like creature which resembled a lynx.

On occasion, he observed it traversing the grounds of Waverley Abbey.

These reports remain both sporadic and localised to the small rural areas where they occurred.

But in the 1950s, encounters with what became known as big cats became the subject of national interest.

There was a rash of unrelated sightings right across the country, from panthers and tigers seen on the Scottish moorlands, to cheetahs and pumas encountered in the suburbs of the nation's capital.

One aspect of the big cat phenomenon that seems to set it aside from other strange tales within the United Kingdom is that it has not died away with the advent of improvements in surveillance and communications technology.

If anything, the number of sightings only seems to have increased, as the size of Britain's rural population has steadily expanded.

In August of 2000, an 11-year-old boy named Josh Hopkins was playing hide-and-seek with his brother out in the fields near his home in Monmouthshire.

He was crouching down in an area of long grass when something large and black suddenly leapt out at him.

The creature, which Josh described as leopard-like in appearance, slashed his left cheek with its paw.

leaving five deep and bloodied claw marks.

It then tried to drag him him deeper into the undergrowth, before the youngster was able to kick himself free and escape.

Five years later, the southeast London borough of Sydenham was plagued by reports of a puma entering the gardens of residents and attacking family pets.

When 36-year-old resident Tony Holder found the beast in his backyard attacking his cat, he tried to shoe it away.

His 11-year-old daughter would later describe how she watched on in horror as the creature knocked her father to the ground and repeatedly slashed away at his face and upper body.

Despite the fact that he was 6 feet tall and weighed around 210 pounds, Holder was unable to fend off the attacker, which was only scared away by the sound of approaching police sirens.

The creature was observed fleeing the address by two attending police officers and a paramedic.

and was never seen in the area again.

Two years later, large feline pawprints were discovered near the mutilated bodies of a number of fully grown deer that had been killed on the grounds of Woodchester Park in Gloucester.

Although it is a nationwide phenomenon, the overwhelming majority of sightings of these creatures have occurred in the neighbouring southern counties of Devon and Cornwall and continue to be an ongoing issue for the local police force there.

A recent Freedom of Information request revealed that officers had attended the scenes of over 200 alleged big cat incidents in the last 15 15 years alone.

In October of 2016, the police were called out to reports that a lion had been seen at a clay pit located near to the town of St.

Austell.

The attending officers found paw prints that were over 4 inches wide, pressed down into the wet clay, and the remains of a fully grown deer nearby, which had been completely decapitated.

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Three years later in January of 2019, an even more grisly discovery awaited the local constable for the village of St Mabin.

Responding to a phone call from the landlord of the local bed and breakfast, the officer found a severed and bloodied dog's hind leg lying discarded in the business owner's front garden.

The incident coincided with a series of pet disappearances in the adjacent village of Harrowbarrow, where more large feline footprints had been discovered near the affected premises.

Then, on March the 28th, 23-year-old James Stevenson looked out of the kitchen window of his home in neighbouring Callington and saw to his horror that the family's pet dog, Marley, was lying in the middle of the back garden covered in blood.

When he ventured outside, he found that the Labrador was bleeding heavily from deep lacerations which had been inflicted to his back and hind legs.

The following evening, whilst James was checking the garden for any trace of whatever had attacked Marley, there was a rustling sound in some nearby bushes.

As he watched in growing horror, a sleek black shape slowly emerged from the foliage, the light from his torch reflecting off a pair of luminous green eyes.

James shouted angrily at the creature.

and waved his torch around in an attempt to scare it away, but the animal continued steadily towards him, emitting a low and throaty growl.

At this point, the young man lost his nerve and sprinted back inside, locking the door securely behind him.

He then watched in astonishment as the predator paced back and forth in the garden for a few minutes, apparently unfazed by the bright security lights which illuminated the scene.

After some time, it finally slunk off.

as silently as it had arrived.

Given the excessively high volume of big cat sightings which have been reported to the authorities, it is likely that a certain percentage of the incidents described are either fabricated or were the result of witnesses being deceived by hoaxes.

But there is no denying that a significant number of domesticated animals have been killed over the years, and injuries sustained by human victims are certainly not a product of the imagination.

This in itself is difficult to explain when one considers the fact that Britain, as a rule, does not have any particularly dangerous wildlife, and certainly nothing that could claw and maul a dog as large as a Labrador to within inches of its life.

As with similar mysterious and evasive cryptids, such as the flying humanoids of South America, the big cat phenomenon is one that proves as frustrating to prove as it is to debunk.

Photographic evidence of reported encounters is nearly always of poor quality, with an undefined dark shape depicted from a distance and perspective which makes it impossible to achieve any sense of scale.

Legends and tales of large and aggressive feline creatures can be traced back to every corner of the United Kingdom, from the aforementioned beast of Anglesey to the soul-stealing catsith of Scotland.

These mythical and magical creatures often share similar characteristics to another long-standing Celtic legend, that of the ghostly black dog.

Shapeshifting dogs and hellhounds are a cornerstone of many ancient stories in British folklore.

Covered in dark black fur, these monstrous apparitions were said to be the harbingers of death and emissaries of the devil himself, sent to drag hapless victims down into the depths of hell.

And to some commentators, the legend of the black cat has become linked to that of its canine predecessor.

Some proponents of their existence even believe these big cats may be supernatural, travelling through portals between different realms, much like the exotic wildlife spotted in other, unassuming parts of the world, where they wouldn't normally be seen.

But as the population's belief in magic and fantasy naturally declined as science and technology progressed, reports of ghostly black dogs also began to fade away.

Some analysts argue that those sightings have now been naturally replaced by encounters with inexplicable large predatory cats, explanations for which may have far more rational origins, but prove equally as difficult to resolve.

In his book Feral, writer George Monbiot argues that humans are still hardwired to fear the appearance of feline creatures, due to the threat that animals such as lions, tigers and panthers have historically presented to previous generations.

He theorises that the human brain will sometimes misjudge the size of an unknown creature seen moving towards them from a distance, and naturally exaggerate the threat that the approaching animal represents to the observer.

The fact remains that there are no known breeds native to the shores of Great Britain, which match the detailed descriptions given by those who have allegedly encountered these creatures at close range.

Is it possible that an unknown prehistoric species has somehow managed to survive and reproduce for centuries out in small isolated enclaves, continually managing to pass undetected?

Whilst Whilst the idea of sabre-toothed tigers and Neolithic panthers roaming wild in the Devonshire countryside may seem somewhat fantastic, the natural world continues to find ways to subvert and surpass human preconceptions.

In April 2002 for example, the headless carcass of a three-foot-long cat-like animal was discovered lying at the side of the road in Bodham on the north-eastern coast of Scotland.

Analysis of these remains by scientists at the University of Aberdeen found that the dead creature was actually a hybrid, similar to the native Kellis cat, which comprises elements of both domesticated cats and also a larger breed of wild cat.

So perhaps the larger predators that are now venturing closer to Britain's urban areas are the evolutionary successors of a foreign species that was somehow introduced to the United Kingdom, which then went on to reproduce with native animals.

It is interesting to note that during the Victorian era, an unprecedented number of fantastic beasts were imported from the far reaches of the British Empire, for the delight and satisfaction of the general public.

By 1895, London itself possessed over 200 exotic animal shops.

Reports of big cats suddenly exploded during the 1970s, at a time when the keeping of exotic animals as pets reached its peak.

The issue of deadly species being illicitly transported into the country for eager collectors prompted the government to pass the Dangerous Wild Animals Act in 1976, which is believed to have prompted some people to release their more problematic pets into the wild for fear of possible prosecution.

When a mysterious Canadian lynx was shot and killed in mid-Devon after killing local livestock, examination of the creature's teeth determined it had spent some time in captivity prior to being released into the wild.

Similarly, a puma captured by an Inverness farmer in 1980 was found to to be highly domesticated, so much so that it would even allow its captors to pet it.

Whilst to the inhabitants of other countries, the existence of unexpected predators in rural areas capable of killing cattle and the occasional unwary human being may be par for the course, the alleged sightings of big cats in the United Kingdom continue to fascinate the population.

There is little doubt that there is a high degree of truth to many of the accounts that have been recorded, with inexplicably large paw prints, the remains of violently savaged animals, and sometimes even an uncomfortable encounter with the killer creature itself.

Whether these mysterious invaders are simply a case of evolutionary superiority, or there is a more sinister and unearthly explanation for their existence remains to be seen.

Just remember that if you find yourself alone out in the countryside of Great Britain, keep your wits and your running shoes to hand.

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Story 2

There is something in the valley

Tucked Tucked away in Canada's Northwest Territories is an area of outstanding natural beauty, inaccessible by conventional means.

For decades, people have crossed its boundaries in search of a great fortune which is rumoured to lie there.

Many have emerged empty-handed, but yet more have never returned at all.

Is there something in the Nahani Valley?

Pausing in order to take his bearings, Lefebvre turned to assess how far behind his companions were lagging.

Predictably, the pair were still some distance away, visibly struggling to negotiate the scattered trails and passageways between the towering boulders.

Smiling to himself, he reached into his pack for a slice of dried bison before promptly continuing on his way.

The seasoned trapper had been travelling with the two Mounties for the past three days, and so far, neither had been able to match his pace.

He would be lying if he said he took no pleasure in their discomfort, having no love either for the RCMP or the obnoxious officers they employed.

But it had been a tough year, and despite his dislike of the police, They were paying good money for him to escort them, and they had little choice.

The section of the flat river which they needed to reach was a great distance from the nearest settlement, with few guides ever having been there.

From what he understood, they were searching for a prospector at the behest of his fiancée.

Apparently, the missing man had failed to turn up for his own wedding, with Lefevre suspecting this would most likely be a case of cold feet, rather than anything more sinister.

He had travelled a short distance more when something caused him to stop again.

There,

not far from the trail, was the badly decayed body of a lynx, trapped in a snare which had been concealed.

The sight of the dead animal made Lefebvre uneasy.

It was unusual for a man to set a trap in this part of the world and then to forget about it.

The old trapper was stud munching thoughtfully on his bison when the two lawmen finally caught up to him.

They seemed predictably uninterested in the discovery, despite Lefebvre's observations, and so in due course their journey continued.

But it soon became clear that there was something to the trappers' concerns.

The travellers began to encounter more traps, each filled with the undisturbed and decomposing carcasses of lynxes and foxes.

Lefebvre took little satisfaction in watching as the two policemen slowly began to comprehend the importance of the unattended unattended traps, realizing that their mission now looked far less hopeful than when they had first set off.

A short time later, they encountered a half-submerged boat, trapped by undergrowth at the side of the river.

A cursory inspection suggested it had most likely been holed by rocks, but there was no trace of the owner.

They were only a short distance from Irving Creek now and their destination, but there was a visible quickening in the pace of each man.

The fate of the log cabin was evident before it came into view, with the air ahead thick with the scent of burned wood and must.

Lefevre had stood back and watched as the Mounties unholstered their weapons and approached what little remained of the burned-out structure.

He was more interested in what might be hidden in the trees which surrounded them, rather than the blackened ruins before them.

When he eventually moved up to join the two officers, he was surprised to see the missing man's furs and supplies untouched, stacked up in a neat pile a short distance away from where the cabin had stood.

The prospector's body lay nearby, his rifle beside him, with its barrel crudely bent out of shape, and in one charred hand, he was clutching a six-shooter.

But it was the missing head that most disturbed the trapper.

Lefevre had grown up hearing stories of what what happened to the people who died in this valley and had no intention of joining their ranks.

He made it clear to his customers that he would be heading back to civilization within the hour, with or without them.

No arrests would be made for the murder of Phil Powers, and sadly, he would not be the last man to die in such circumstances in this place.

To the wider world, it is known as the Nahani Valley, but to those who have visited it, it goes by a much more sinister name, the Headless Valley.

The Nahani River Valley contains some of the most stunning scenery in the Northwest Territories, as well as the area's highest peak, Mount Nirvana.

Its beauty has resulted in it being designated a National Park Reserve, one which covers a breathtaking 12,000 square miles.

There is a reason why the sprawling forests and flowing waterfalls have remained untouched by modern civilization.

The terrain that surrounds them is so unforgiving that the only viable way to access the region is by helicopter, a luxury which was unavailable to prospectors back when gold was first discovered there at the turn of the 20th century.

Those willing to gamble everything on a chance at finding an untapped seam of the precious metal had little choice other than to trek into the depths of the valley, living out of temporary camps or hastily constructed cabins.

They would not be heard from for months on end, most usually emerging from the forests with nothing to show for their labours.

But in 1904, two brothers staggered back into the town of Fort Liard laden with gold.

Frank and Willie MacLeod had journeyed to the region from their home in Edmonton at the start of the year, claiming to have located a hidden and vast fortune, which they would later be returning to claim.

The following year, having invested their wealth in tools and supplies, the pair disappeared back into the valley, boasting of the riches waiting there to be mined.

As time passed, the people they had promised to share their booty with waited patiently for their return, but they never reappeared.

Three years after the brothers were last seen, Charlie MacLeod led a party into the Nahani Valley in search of his missing siblings.

The skeletons of the two men were eventually found lying in the ruins of their camp, both missing their heads.

One of the pair was lying underneath a stack of blankets next to what had once been a fire, indicating that he was decapitated as he slept.

On the other side of the fire, his brother's arm was reaching out for a nearby gun, his blankets thrown aside as he tried to prevent his own death.

A decade later, another search party would venture forth into the valley, this time in search of a missing man named Martin Jorgensen.

The Swedish national was a hardy prospector who had spent decades plying his trade all around the Yukon.

In 1917, Jorgensen had sent a message to the neighbouring town of Ross River, telling a friend there named Paul Field that he had struck it rich.

This was the last that was heard from him, and the following year, Field located Jorgensen lying dead in his burned-out cabin, his head missing.

Four years later, a pair of prospectors stumbled across the frozen body of a trapper named John O'Brien.

The former soldier had survived the horrors of the Great War, only to meet his fate in the Nahani Valley, and the manner of his death would prove shocking to those who found him.

O'Brien was sat fully clothed and frozen next to the smouldering remains of his campfire.

It was as if he had been suddenly and unexpectedly flash-frozen, a mug of coffee still clutched tightly in one hand, despite being sat right beside a roaring fire.

Not long after the discovery of the frozen trapper, another body would be found in a hauntingly familiar location.

Yukon Fisher was a notorious local troublemaker who had made his home in the depths of the valley back in 1912.

Described by those who had encountered him as a giant of a man, the outlaw had fled civilization after severely wounding a barman with a broken glass during a drunken fight.

Though the injury he had caused was severe, the victim had ultimately lived, but the amount of blood loss had convinced Fischer he had killed his opponent.

Even when told by visitors to the area that he was not a murderer, Fischer refused to return to society, surviving by raiding the camps of prospectors and stealing from the snares of local hunters.

And then, he seemingly vanished from existence.

In 1927, the skeleton of a tall man was found lying in the undergrowth near Bennett Creek, mere yards away from where the bodies of the MacLeod brothers had been slain.

A.44 caliber rifle lay on the ground alongside it, the barrel inexplicably bent out of shape, and the burned remains of a shelter were also located nearby.

Equally as disturbing as the killings which have taken place in the Nahani Valley are the disappearances of travellers within its boundaries, and the circumstances regarding how some of these poor souls have vanished are as baffling as the manner in which the murdered victims were found.

In 1926, May Lafferty was a member of a hunting party which had ventured into the Headless valley.

Somehow she became separated from the rest of her group.

Despite repeated search efforts, no trace of the missing woman was to be found until several months later when a native hunter named Big Charlie claimed to have seen a woman matching her description.

The hunter stated that he had been travelling through the valley when he had caught sight of a woman climbing a nearby rock face.

She was naked and visibly distressed, as if trying to escape from someone or something.

When pressed on who he thought her pursuer might be, Charlie replied that he had not intervened, as he believed it to be the devil himself.

Lafferty's remains have never been located, and at the time she went missing, she was not far from the Flat River.

Two years after she vanished, Another party travelling alongside the same stretch of water would also lose one of its number.

To those who knew him, Angus Hall was a tempestuous and impulsive character.

When the party he was with would not increase their pace, he had set off alone, determined to be the first to find evidence of a hidden gold seam.

Hall's companions had allowed the prospector on his way, knowing it was best not to reason with him, and had followed his tracks as he pushed on.

But several meters along the path, these tracks had suddenly ceased mid-stride.

All that remained of Angus Hall was one final muddy boot print, as if he had been lifted off the ground by something as he walked.

Then in 1936, two more prospectors vanished.

Bill Eppia and his partner Joe Mulholland had spent years in the Nahani Valley in search of fortune.

The remains of their log cabin were found burned out on the shores of Glacier Lake, but the bodies of both men were not inside and have never been found.

As with the killing of Phil Powers in 1931, no person has ever been arrested for any of the murders which have taken place in the valley.

When asked who they believe to be responsible, members of the native Dene tribe have laid the blame firmly at the door of a mysterious and enigmatic community.

The Naha people are said to be the original inhabitants of the Nahani Valley, but shunned contact with other tribes.

Their name translates as, the people over there, in reference to the distance they kept from their neighbours, and they were believed to possess almost supernatural powers.

Naha warriors were described as being exceptionally tall and powerful.

They were immensely strong and hid their faces behind terrifying masks.

The tribe is rumoured to have died out centuries ago, but unlike similar societies, left no buildings or settlements behind.

They simply disappeared into the mists of their surroundings.

The Dene claim that the Naha would cut off the heads of those that strayed into their territory, as a warning to other trespassers to stay away, and that the killings are the work of the descendants of this murderous people.

In 1945, It was reported that a miner named Ernest Savard had been found dead in the Nahani Valley.

The Ontario native was lying in his sleeping bag, his head having been cut from his shoulders and propped upon a nearby rock.

As recently as 1983, a hiker in Canada's Glacier Bay stumbled upon the belongings of a missing prospector.

The witness reported hearing a ghostly moaning coming from the surrounding undergrowth.

before catching sight of a mysterious masked figure approaching, who he quickly fled from.

The slayings of prospectors in this region are eerily reminiscent of identical killings in Arizona's superstition mountains.

There too a mysterious force is said to protect a hidden cache of gold, lying in an undisclosed mine named the Lost Dutchman's Gold Mine.

Many victims of these killings have also been found, headless.

Other, more fantastical explanations for the killings have also been suggested.

Drawings found in nearby caves show what appear to be mastodons, with the bones of these ancient creatures also located by archaeological digs.

Is it possible that there are prehistoric species protected by the isolated nature of this environment?

One such creature alleged to inhabit the valley is known by the Dene as the Wahila.

From the descriptions provided by their writings, this monster is some form of amphision, a cross between a bear and a wolf.

It would crush its prey to death with powerful arms, before feasting on their remains.

It is possible that such a creature might also be the descendant of the dire wolf, another prehistoric species believed to be extinct.

There are also rumours of a race of strange creatures known as the Nooknuk.

fur-covered humanoids who carry primitive clubs and cook the bodies of those they kill before eating them.

A string of UFO sightings throughout the region's history completes the full set of supernatural explanations.

And whilst the prevailing belief is that the victims of the Headless Valley are most likely the victims of greedy and far more human killers, the haunting stillness of the region makes such propositions seem entirely plausible.

As with the legend of the Lost Dutchman's Mine, It seems that mysterious forces seek to frustrate the efforts of people to mine gold from beneath the surface of the North American continent.

And whether such killers are paranormal in nature or altogether human, they continue to operate beyond detection.

So, if you find yourself gripped by a desire to chase fabled fortune in the untouched wilds of North America, take caution from the fates of those who have gone before you.

Do not become another victim of the headless valley.

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