A Cryptid That Turned Out to be Real — Scotland’s Kellas Cats

Photo by David Boca on Unsplash

Britain has its fair share of cryptids. The most famous of them, of course, is the Loch Ness Monster.

There’s no evidence, of course, that “Nessie” exists, although people still love to go hunting and the Loch Ness tour boats are equipped with sonar to watch out for her (Nessie is always referred to as female).

But there’s another cryptid in the UK…ABCs.

ABCs stands for Alien or Anomalous Big Cats, and stories about them show up regularly.

The Various Origins of the ABC

There are a number of theories about what ABCs actually are. They’re generally described as the size of a large dog, black, and aggressive towards livestock (and occasionally people). People have even shown up with injuries after being mauled by one.

There’s a whole bunch of theories:

1. They’re lynxes. The Eurasian lynx was certainly around in Britain until a few centuries ago, when we hunted them to extinction whilst cutting down too many trees. The theory is that they aren’t quite extinct. (There’s now a plan in the works to potentially reintroduce the lynx to Scotland to control deer numbers, although obviously the sheep farmers are unamused and it’s unlikely to happen any time soon).