In an article by editor Bob Rickard entitled ‘Once More With Felines’, reviewing recent mystery cat reports in Britain, the opening section of the first line reads as follows: “Our last round-up of alien big-cats (ABC) – we have decided to adopt this acronym – was in FT 42…”.

Although previous issues of FT contain numerous accounts of feline cryptids, they had only ever been referred to variously as ‘mystery cats’, ‘phantom felines’, ‘phantom panthers’, ‘MAs’ (Mystery Animals), or by location-specific terms such as ‘Exmoor Beast’, ‘Surrey Puma’, etc.

However, back in 1980, Janet and Colin Bord had referred to ‘alien big cats’ several times in the mystery cat chapter of their book Alien Animals, though they never abbreviated the term to ‘ABC’.

Hope this helps.

All the best, Karl