Comments on: Andrews AFB’s Two Mystery Cats

By: Joan Woodward

Joan Woodward — Fri, 18 Aug 2006 17:46:12 +0000

About 3 months after the April 2006 reports of "big cats" at Andrews AFB, another minor report of a black, mountain lion sized cat came from an area about 12 miles SSE of Andrews. A Brandywine man reported seeing the cat walking about 20 feet away as he mowed his lawn. Animal control found no traces. Report came from WTOP news radio station.

By: Laura-Kathleen

Laura-Kathleen — Sun, 02 Jul 2006 23:51:54 +0000

I live on Andrews AFB and thought the whole cat thing was sort of funny. The two cats were supposedly spotted jumping over the fence onto the base by security forces. Then they were seen at the commissary. Security forces went around the residential housing telling everyone to keep their children and pets inside. The cats were later spotted seen leaving by again jumping over the fence, and the next day seen in the urban area surrounding the base. I wish I had seen them because the whole thing seems very hard to believe.

By: Jeremy_Wells

Jeremy_Wells — Tue, 02 May 2006 16:54:37 +0000

Bunny Man? Wonder if the creators of the Donnie Darko movie are familiar with this? It’s the first I’ve heard of him.

By: jretzer

jretzer — Mon, 01 May 2006 21:46:00 +0000

Here's a page that describes teenagers recounting the bunnyman story in Prince George's County, Maryland, where I grew up. Strange thing. No one, to my knowledge was ever able to definitively describe it. For some, it apparently was as simple as a maniac in a bunny suit; but the stories we heard was that it was a large swamp creature.

By: jretzer

jretzer — Mon, 01 May 2006 21:35:04 +0000

As kids, we lived in mortal fear of the bunnyman — especially after a teacher told us that he had been sighted nearby. Burke VA is close enough to southern Maryland for people to have sighted him in the swamps.

By: stompy

stompy — Mon, 01 May 2006 21:29:30 +0000

I thought the “bunny man” was in VA. It is as a matter of fact- Burke, VA

By: brianinja

brianinja — Sat, 29 Apr 2006 17:51:22 +0000

We’ve already heard the official response, “If a large cat is here, it would have been brought in from another area.” I’m a newspaper reporter and editor in Maryland and have been documenting mystery cat sightings for the last few years, which you can read here.

I’m continually baffled by the closed mindedness of our state’s natural resources personnel in these situations. We routinely have two or three black bears a year meander through some of Baltimore’s suburbs, which lumber east from mountains of out west, but we’re told it is “impossible” for a mountain lion to take such a similar path into the area. I’ve heard some hypothesize if the Eastern cougar were rediscovered living in the area much of the remaining developable land would be immediately locked down due to what would have to be an endangered status of the big cat. That’s most likely just a conspiracy theory, but something has to be at play here. The most intriguing aspect of Thursday’s sightings was that one of the cats was described as being black. Science has not identified a melanistic cougar and if black bobcats are more common than previously thought, this could lend credance to the many black panther sightings we get each year.

By: jretzer

jretzer — Sat, 29 Apr 2006 02:15:36 +0000

I grew up in the Andrews AFB area back in the 70s (we could throw a rock from our yard to a runway) and it was a hub of crypto stuff — there were lots of reports of big cats, as well as the “bunny man”, the “goat man” and batlike swamp creatures. There were a lot of wooded, swampy areas in and around the sprawling base.

By: John Ryan

John Ryan — Fri, 28 Apr 2006 22:22:28 +0000

I’m reminded of a ‘big cat’ scare in the same area of S. Md. about 35 years ago. I wrote a letter to Strange Mag. describing a big cat that I saw with a friend when I was about 12. It wasn’t a cougar; around that same time reports from the Clinton, Md. area were surfacing of sightings of a big cat along Piscataway Rd., there was an article in the Wash. Post, I don’t know what year. I’d be surprised if the sightings at Andrews AFB turn out to be cougars: the sightings will end, and we’ll hear nothing else about it.

Regards,

John Ryan

By: MattBille

MattBille — Fri, 28 Apr 2006 19:20:10 +0000

Added thought: I’ve never quite grasped the rationale for why authorities would deliberately dismiss evidence of cougar presence. The usual thinking it that having cougars would scare people and depress tourism, but tourism and outdoor activities like hiking and hunting in the West are extremely popular despite the well-known presence of cougars. Outside of a voter initiative in California, environmental law and regulation to protect cougars hasn’t resulted in any serious closures of land to recreation or curtailment of other activities, so that doesn’t seem like a good reason either. Loren, you no doubt have some thoughts?

Regards,

Matt