Phantom Black Cats of Michigan

In the mid-1980s, people in southeastern Michigan, from Flint to Manchester and Milford, reported black panthers in their fields, yards and roadsides. There are no black panthers native to the United States, and no conclusive evidence ever confirmed one in Michigan.

In Flint, reports peaked on August 13, 1984 when three workers at the Fisher Body Plant witnessed an enormous black cat in an alley; the Flint Journal reported four other encounters that day. By December, a truck driver saw a massive black cat with gleaming eyes dart across his path. Two teenagers reportedly fired a shotgun at a 140-pound black panther that year, but their shot missed.

In Manchester, a couple watching a panther walk toward them on a trail saw it enter their backyard and snatch chicken from their grill. Don Burger of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimated 80 pounds. Police chief Bill Zsenyuk chased feathers into tall grass as the animal screamed. “I`ve got 34 years in law enforcement, and I have never been so scared,” he said. Burger said they baited a box trap with live chickens, “but the cat was too smart for us. We could see where it had watched the chickens, but it never went into the trap.”

In Milford in 1986, a palomino horse was found in its pasture with its throat torn open, and the black cat got the blame. Accounts differ on that one: the story credits the panther, but an animal expert said the gash on the horse’s neck “was a wound a cat could not make,” with no tooth punctures or claw marks, and he believed the horse had cut itself on a barbed-wire fence. In a drainage ditch where the panther had supposedly been seen, trackers found only coon and dog prints.

The Michigan DNR investigated. Superimposing footage of a witness’s video with a pet cougar showed the “panther” was about house-cat size. Bill Walker of the Ann Arbor News noted that a big cat needs a good-size meal roughly weekly to survive, yet there were no reports of missing farm stock. John Stuht, a wildlife specialist with the Michigan DNR, told the Chicago Tribune in 1985, “You would be surprised how many people raise cougars. There are more cougar pets in this state than there are wolf pets.” Exotic pets are big business, the Tribune noted, and panther kittens could be ordered through animal supply houses for about $2,500, with no state wildlife rules covering them because they aren’t native.

The Tribune’s October 1985 story moved the trail to Indiana. That August, several people around Michigan City reported a large catlike animal, and from the number of reports, at least 40, Detective Kenneth Waltz said he was convinced an unusual animal was or is in the Michigan City area. Rumors circulated that the cats had been owned by a Detroit sports figure or rock musician who ordered them released.

The first phantom-like black great cat was reported from Munuscong Bay in 1954; a 1972 deer hunter found only a buck’s head and antlers left after a kill blamed on the mystery cat. Sightings continued into the 1990s (a video captured a large feline near Camden) and as recently as 2021, when truck drivers reported a black panther near Flint’s I-75 freeway.

The Michigan DNR investigates reports of cougars in the state and has formed a cougar team to track them.