Location: Fulham, London, England

Date: January 1 1979 Time: night

Neil Oram had supper with Maria Moustaka in her flat in Finborough Road. Afterwards Oram and Maria were sitting together on her sofa listening to music and looking out through her French windows into her garden. All of a sudden her cat went crazy. It didn’t scream, but howled like a wolf and ran full pelt out of the room up the passage into the bedroom…back down the passage…back up the passage – howling! Maria tried to catch it but it just clawed her and ran away, howling like it was being murdered.

Maria exclaimed that she’d never seen her cat behave like this. Then she shrieked and gripped Neil’s hand as a huge cat-person alighted on the wall at the end of the garden. Not a big cat, but a cat-person crouching – facing the witnesses from the top of the six foot (1.8m) high wall. Not exactly a human face. Not exactly a cat’s face. Somehow Neil knew what it was like. He felt spaced out but not afraid. It seemed to emanate a powerful, quiet ambiance as it almost floated down into the garden. Maria was shaking and digging her nail into Neil’s palm. The cat-person, roughly five feet (1.5m) tall, started to walk, upright, toward them. Almost glide-walked towards them. And as this elemental of utter strangeness approached the large French window, Neil could sense an invisible steady intense air pressure building up on the creature’s side of the window.

Neil thought the glass had cracked – but it was Maria’s cat howling even more distraughtly. The absolute black furry streak of complete cosmic strangeness raised its palms (not paws) – raised its palms so they could see them pressed against the glass. Neil thinks Maria passed out at this point, but only for a few seconds, because he pulled her awake and hissed – “just watch.” It seemed to Neil that this jet black visitor was not familiar with windows. It kept its hands on the glass for 20 seconds – the demented cat, still howling – then turned around and glided/walked back to the wall…and seemed to almost float back up a crouching position on top of the wall. It turned around and looked in their direction, then seemed to be scanning all the way around…turned its back to them…and disappeared beyond the wall. The sound of weird silence invaded the flat. The trembling cat, now silent, settled on Maria’s lap.

HC addendum

Source: Witness’s letter To Fortean Times 442, 6-2021. Type: E