Mysterious Black Panther Seems to Vanish in Fayette County PA (July 16, 2026)
From: Researcher Stan Gordon
A section of the Chestnut Ridge in Fayette County. Many cryptids have been reported for years along the ridge. (Stan Gordon files)
One of the mystery animals that keeps showing up in Pennsylvania are black panthers. I am not talking about mountain lions or cougars. What witnesses have been reporting for many years in the Keystone State are being described as black leopards or black jaguars. They have been seen by hunters and other witnesses in wooded areas. They have also been reported in more populated locations as well.
There are few such animals in captivity and I am not aware of any cases of escaped leopards or jaguars that could explain the appearances in more recent years. For example, on March 30, 1983, in a suburb of Pittsburgh, an auto mechanic in daylight was putting a headlight on a vehicle when heard a loud thump and saw what he described as a black panther leaping over the hood of a car in the nearby car lot.
The animal had a dead animal in its mouth. The witness explained in detail what the creature looked like. It had a very shiny black body that was about three and a half feet long, and a tail about four feet long. The animal originated from a nearby wooded area and soon after being seen returned to that location.
After the mechanic’s encounter, others reportedly saw a similar animal in those same woods. The local authorities were contacted and that led to a search conducted by Pittsburgh police and animal control officers with weapons and tranquilizer guns. Some tracks were reportedly found. The searchers never found the animal, and no animals were missing from the zoo or elsewhere. Over the years I investigated some cases that suggested that black panther encounters are indeed mysterious, and at times have similar characteristics to some of the very strange Bigfoot cases that I investigated in past years.
Since the late 1960s, I have received information on hundreds of Bigfoot sightings in Pennsylvania including this year. When I began to investigate those reports so many years ago, I believed Bigfoot was an unknown animal species. During a major wave of UFO and Bigfoot sighting in Pennsylvania during 1973 and into some of 1974, I investigated some extremely strange Bigfoot encounters. It became apparent that Bigfoot was much stranger than an unknown flesh and blood species.
For example, On February 6, 1974, in a heavily wooded remote area of Fayette County, PA, a woman was in her cabin home watching tv that evening when she heard a noise on her front porch. Something was knocking around some empty pop/soda cans sitting out there. Thinking it was some wild dogs, the woman grabbed her 16-gauge double barrel shot gun and loaded it with one shell of eight shot ammo. She was going to shoot over the head of the dogs to scare them off. When she opened the door, to her surprise, there were no dogs. Six feet in front of her stood a seven feet tall gray-haired Bigfoot. The frightened witness pulled the trigger and fired at the creature. She told me there was a bright flash of light and the creature just disappeared. Other cases with similar strange details were also being reported.
For comparison, here is a very unusual black panther encounter with similar details. This incident occurred on a cold early morning in February of 1983, also in a rural area of Fayette County. The witness was just returning home when he noticed that his car was overheating. When he arrived at his house, he pulled into his driveway and went inside to get some anti-freeze. As he opened the hood of the car, he heard a growl behind him. The man turned and noticed a large black cat about twenty feet away. Seeing a stray cat in that area was not unusual. What happened next was indeed strange.
The man went back to putting more anti-freeze into the car. Seconds later the man heard a louder growl. He turned and looked and could not believe what he saw. The cat had now physically grown to twice its size. The man threw the can at it and he did hit it. The animal growled loudly at him then it walked outside in an area that was well lit.
The man ran inside his house to obtain a pistol. When he returned the animal was still, nearby in the yard. The man fired a shot at it. Moments later, that solid-looking creature just disappeared. He never saw it again. What he saw looked like what he had seen in a zoo. It was described as a black panther with a long tail and glowing yellow eyes staring toward him.
I also found out during my investigations that sometimes when there is a localized outbreak of Bigfoot encounters, black panther sightings are also being reported by the locals. This occurred in the early 1980s on the border of Westmoreland and Armstrong counties.
There have been many very strange, detailed cryptid encounters taking place in the Keystone State in past and recent years. There appears to be a physical and non-physical aspect to some of these cases. For lack of a better term, I will call it interdimensional for now. What we are dealing with seems to be beyond our present scientific understanding. This is why we do not find bodies of these creatures.
Cryptid sightings have been reported from many locations across the state in both wooded and urban areas. There are some areas such as the Chestnut Ridge that extends through sections of Westmoreland, Fayette, and Indiana counties in southwestern Pennsylvania that have a long history of not only cryptid encounters but also other anomalies as well.
More recently, another black panther encounter took place that also seems quite unusual. Research Jim Brown investigated the case. Jim is a very scientifically oriented researcher. Jim’s website is www.jimsdestinations.com.
The following is the report that Jim Brown provided on this incident.
Witnesses Observe Large Black Cat near Smithfield, Pa
Date / Time: Thursday, July16, 2026 Approx 8:15 PM
The witness contacted me on Friday, July 17,2026 regarding a sighting of a large cat in his backyard the day before. He and several other people saw it. The following is a transcription of the phone conversation we had related to what he saw and what happened.
“Several of my friends and family had gathered for a cookout. The evening was warm and we were just sitting around talking when I looked up and saw this cat about 25 feet away just standing in the yard watching us. But it was no ordinary cat. This thing was much bigger.”
I asked him to describe the animal.
“It was solid black. Long tail, almost dragging on the ground. I would guess it probably weighed 40, maybe 50 pounds. Not fat, just large, well proportioned. It held its head low, like it was getting ready to pounce on something. I called one of my friends over and his immediate comment when he saw it was “What the hell is that?”. I watched it for a few seconds and told him to keep an eye on it while I went to get my camera.”
(NOTE: The witness is an experienced photographer and uses a DSLR camera with floodlight attachment. He likes to do wildlife photography and is well aware of proper photography methods and techniques.)
“Was only gone a few seconds and came back after getting my camera out. As soon as I started back to where (my friend) was watching, the cat ran behind a pile of cement blocks on the edge of the field and was out of sight. By now some of my other guests had also came up to see the cat and several of them also got a good look at it.
I told my friends to sneak around the other side of the pile of blocks and try to chase it out while I had my camera ready to catch it when it came out on my side of the block pile. They did so and as they approached the pile they saw nothing. Meantime I saw nothing come out. We had the entire back side of the block pile in sight and there was nothing there at all. Just grass and a couple small sumac trees. The cat was gone. Completely. And it did not run off into the field.
Ordinarily the hay in the field would have been high enough a cat might sneak through, but in this case, they cut the hay Monday, and the grass was only about 3 inches high. No way that cat could get away without being seen.”
I asked whether it might have been a bobcat.
His response:
“No way in hell. I know what a bobcat looks like. First of all, the ears were short and sort of laid back on its head. The other thing was the tail. Bobcats have short tails. This thing had a long black tail that drug behind it. Not only that, most bobcats have a pattern on their body. This thing was black, solid black. And the eyes had a glow to them. Because of the direction it might have been eyeshine but still it just didn’t look like it. Sort of a green / yellow glow. Not real bright, but still present. I have seen bobcats. This was no bobcat.”
When asked for a better description of the “Block Pile”. His response:
“Block Pile might be overdoing it a bit. It was only about 15 or so 8-inch cement blocks left over from a project. It was hardly big enough to hide an animal that size, let alone give it room to go anywhere or hardly turn around. There was no fence line or anything else the cat could follow since the field itself goes right up to my yard.”
The witness said they all kept an eye out for it, but they continued their cookout and finally turned off the lights and left about midnight. No more evidence of the cat.
Jim Brown
Independent Research Associate
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Synopsis:
This report occurred during a series of other cryptid, UFO, and low-level orb encounters that are being reported from widespread areas. Many of these cases are still under investigation.
If you have seen anything related to UFO/UAP sightings, Bigfoot, or other anomalies, please contact me at 724-838-7768 or via information on my website at: www.stangordon.info. I am especially interested in Pennsylvania cases.
Addendum:
Jim Brown on August 6, 2026, was able to conduct interviews with a few more witnesses to the unusual black panther encounter that had taken place in Fayette County. The following is his report.
August 6, 2026 Follow-up
I was able to obtain contact information for three of the other guests present and did a brief phone interview with them. Two had nothing new to add, describing basically the same thing; a large black cat. I also asked about any emotional response; That is how they felt when they saw it. One witness said he didn’t really feel anything like that, only a slight concern if the cat should decide to take after them. (It didn’t).
The second guest said he saw a dark smoke or mist above the block pile and debated this with a couple others who also saw the cat but no smoke. I asked him to describe it, His response:
“Like a dark mist above the blocks. It only lasted a few seconds then faded away as the others came around the back of the blocks. I don’t know why they couldn’t see it but regardless of what the others said, it was there.”
The third lady with the group also saw the cat from a greater distance, she did not go up when the others walked around the block pile. She said she was going to go with them but she suddenly felt a sense of fear when she made eye contact with the animal. It was then it ran toward the blocks. She emphasized she felt both fear and sadness. She could think of no reason for that feeling, only that it was there.
I will keep this case open in event anything new develops.