The Beast Of Brigstock & The Missing Man Mystery
The Huntsman Story: This case was shared with me by a listener to the show who reached out to me one evening in April as he had information on an area I have had a keen eye on for over a decade. For the purposes of anonymity, we will call our witness Thomas:
Thomas: "I watched your recent podcast on big cat sightings in the UK with reference to the Northamptonshire sightings and the main reason that I feel that I should contact you is because of the presence of a large cat, said to be black in colour that frequented an area of land east of Corby for around twenty years, from approximately 1995. I am from this area but have to say that I never witnessed this animal however I do know people that did and at very close quarters.
So The incident that I am going to discuss took place on what was probably the last Saturday in November of 2022. It took place in Spring wood which is about two miles from Brigstock, a village about 4 miles south east from Corby Northamptonshire. On that day a local shoot were moving through Spring wood on what was their last but one drive of the day. The time was around 2.00 pm to 3.00pm. They had just finished the drive and one shot bird had not been retrieved. And so an individual who was just a beater for the day went back through the wood with his dog to find the bird. This should have taken ten minutes or so given that his dog was a trained gun dog. The individual did not return.
So he was in his sixties and was an experienced shooting man. Why he did not have a gun that day I don't know. So somebody went to look for him and could not find him. There is a release pen in the wood and the gate is always closed. When the searcher arrived at the gate it was open. He entered the pen and searched to no avail. He reported back to the other members and the shoot was terminated.
A more intensive search ensued, again drawing a blank. and so the police were called. By 6 pm they were treating him as missing and enquiries were being made in the local area. Also two Facebook pages went up on the internet, one by the gentleman's family asking if anyone knew of his whereabouts and one buy Northamptonshire Police along the same lines. By 8 00pm there was a police presence on the outside of the wood along with the remaining shoot members Whom I believe were told to remain. At no time during the entire night was any attempt by the police made to search for the man. Both the Facebook postings had been removed by 9 00pm that night.
By around 11 00am the following day Sunday Paramedics were in attendance in the field to the roadside of Spring wood that's the Brigstock to Lower Benefield road. The man was either dead onsite or died in hospital.
I was told in a cryptic way that he had been found with lacerations and around three weeks later I found large prints outside my mobile home. There had been a period of rainfall and the track next to my van was like slurry. That night there was a sharp frost and when I went out in the morning and the first thing I saw were the prints. They were not there the day before. They were very clear and measured 4 1/2 inches x 3 inches. I took photos and measured them with the tape in the photos. I showed them to interested parties who said that they were dog prints. The thing is there are no claw marks showing as you would expect from a dog. I measured the distance between two of the prints and the distance was 27 inches. I live in a remote site which as the crow flies is approximately 15 miles from Brigstock the site of the incident.
This incident never made the news. If the man had suffered a health issue and died there would have been some local coverage. If he had been involved in a shooting accident it would received coverage. No reference to what happened to his dog has ever been made. To this day residents in Brigstock know nothing about the events of that night. What ever happened to this man was shut down and supressed by the authorities.
We shall now go back to around 1995/6.I was in the Spring wood area when I met a lad of around 20years of age. He had his gun with him and was legitimately on the land. We exchanged pleasantries and went on our separate ways. Within ten minutes or so he had doubled back and walked back in my direction. He was very pale and visibly shaken. He did not have his gun with him. I asked him what had happened, and he said that a large black cat-like animal had come out of the hedge less than ten feet Infront of him. He said that just dropped his gun stunned at what he was looking at. The cat then disappeared back through the hedge. I have never seen him again to question him further.
During the following 20 yrs there have been many sightings of a large cat along the road from Brigstock to Lower Benefield. Not long before the man died there was a sighting of it in Spring Wood and once again it was a close encounter with a big cat from only a few metres away. Pug marks have also been found over the years.
I am not saying that this individual was attacked by a Leopard because I was not there and nobody has said he was. What I am saying is that, there is/has been a leopard seen in the area for some 20 yrs or so At 20 yrs of age this animal would probably have been sick/injured or hungry at the time which makes it potentially dangerous to anyone/thing that encounters it. The lifespan of these animals can exceed 20 years if conditions are favourable. That's the experts view not mine. Its possible that it went for his dog and he intervened to his cost or maybe it just went for him.
What ever the truth this incident was suppressed. I do not want to stick my head above the parapet, what it needs is an outsider to look into it perhaps filing a freedom of information request to see what gets flushed out.
I contacted our witness via email and arranged a call, which took place on 8th April 2025. We chatted for an hour or so whilst I was brought up to speed and Thomas was able to give me more information that will help with trying to unravel this strange and quite disturbing case. Which I think you will agree deserve a deep dive. Thomas gave me all of the information before we spoke, so I was able to let him know about the other reports in areas all within a short distance of Corby.
Thomas: The reason I wanted to speak with you Deb is that I think the information I have is significant and there are a number of red flags. I also believe we have been lied to by the powers that be for a very long time, and one of those lies is that the countryside is a safe place to be, as at times, it is not. When I was younger I spent time out in the countryside all over the UK and I never gave it a second thought, but now I wouldn't be out in the far reaching places on my own anymore. I have a really bad feeling about what is going on. I have reached out to other researchers and investigators with this information as I feel it is important for the general public to know. There are some very disturbing things happening and it is been hidden and hushed up, I believe by the authorities.
Each summer farmers make reports of bright lights seen from above circling the area. And one mans mystery demise was wiped from the internet within hours. The man went missing in strange circumstances and was found deceased after a couple of days.
When I was looking for information on the area I came across one of your interviews with a gentleman called Fred, who saw a Werewolf like creature at his window one night before he passed away. I am really familiar with the area and I have passed the farm on occasions in the past. Very close to where he lives is an area called the Warrington Crossroads and I often refer to this as the Warrington Triangle due to its position. There have been some very strange, unexplained cases to all four directions. And there is a weird private woodland that is posted for Army Cadets that has several bunkers sitting within it. I believe this is central to the activity happening here and reports of strange lights in the sky go back to the 1950's. Drivers on the roads report their cars just stalling and stopping for no reasons whatsoever.
Jenny Randles gave an account from a gentleman who in the early August 1973 was driving his mini from Northampton at around 1.30am on the A428. He got as far as Little/Great Houghton. He remembers looking at the clock tower on the old church as he past and he noted the time as 2am. He was immediately hit with a bright white light and his next memory is coming to on the bridge at Bromham in Bedford. He saw a man going out to get his morning paper who called the emergency services. The man was taken to hospital for several days until deemed to be ok. One thing to note is that when he was found, he was wet through and there had been no rain that night.
One strange aspect is that his car was found by a farmer close to Turvey on the other side of the Warrington Crossroads. The corn in the field was up, and in those days it was a lot taller than the corn plants you see now. The farmer contacted the police who attended and everyone was puzzled as to how the car came to be in the field as there were no indentations of it entering the corn field, in fact it looked as if it had been dropped in there from above. There was no explanation as to how it got there!
At the time I didn't stop and I didn't know about the story Jenny Randles shared until a few years later. But there was something really off about the whole situation. Now I see the connection and wonder if
what happened to the man in Jenny's story had any connection to the man I saw that night in the rain? I raised this as it adds to the information on this area. So many strange things happen here. Its a place where three counties meet.
It was at this point in the chat I told Thomas about my connection to Glassy Gleamer who was Fred's friend and carer but also a long time researcher of the strange and unexplained. He also lives in the Bedford area, and I have heard him mention so many of the places that Thomas mentioned. The creature he has seen on occasion is called the Three Counties Werewolf, and I don't believe in coincidences. Both men are researching the unexplained in the same area without knowing each other. Between them they have amassed a great deal of information.
Which brings us to the case which prompted Thomas to contact me and other members of the Paranormal community. And now, knowing the details is a very worrying case indeed of a man who goes missing, only to be found dead in unusual circumstances and it seems the incident has been covered up. It centres on a local man who was a beater at one of the shoots in the area.
The man was in his 60's and was employed as just a beater for that day, the shoot took place between 2 - 3pm. On the last drive one of the shot birds was outstanding so the beater and his dog went in to find it. This should have taken no more than 10 minutes at the most. When he didn't return people searched the area for him. His family made posts on Facebook asking for help. By 8 00pm the police were stationed on the outside of the wood, along with some of the shoot members and they never went into the wood to search? Then the Facebook postings were removed that night even though he had not been found. Around 11 00am the following day which was the Sunday, Paramedics were in attendance in the field to the roadside of Spring wood. The man was either found dead onsite or he died in hospital but he had noticeable lacerations. I am unsure as no official statement was made.
One local man stated there were upwards of 30 officers out that night and the man was found in an area that could have been easily searched, meaning he was out there all night and into the next day before he was found. When the chap went over to the police to see if they needed any assistance he realised that the fire arms squad were involved due to the missing man being an experienced shooter, but he didn't have his gun with him that day. The woodland is very small, so he and I have no idea how it was even possible to go missing there. Other than the police presence you wouldn't have known anything was happening. The police did a house to house check to see if anyone had seen him but nobody had. And nobody knows what happened to his dog?
The man who was the head of the shoot had made a report some months earlier of coming face to face with a large black cat. The wood in question is stocked for shoots, there is a large pen where the birds are raised and it is an area used by people for that reason. He said on that day he saw the cat in the thick brambles, they looked at each other and he held himself together and walked past it, so we know a large cat has been seen in the area. In fact there are several reports in all of the counties of large black cat not native to the UK and the sightings are increasing.
I wanted to look and see what other cases where around the three county boundary and realised there is Ministry of Defence land in pockets in all the areas. RAF Alconbury and its reports of the Hard Stand monster, often called the Standing Wolf which was seen on the base by several serving personnel. In the 1970's a group of three men along with their dogs, were guarding the bunkers within a large, fenced off area. A radio call went out informing the men that there was an intruder within the perimeter and that shots had been fired. The head guard could make out a figure in the fog and as he approached it he was screamed at full in the face by what can only be described as a man-like, bipedal creature that bounded the fence to the North of the base.
The man described the creatures as hairy, standing approximately 5’9” in height, and had intelligent, human-like eyes, a flat nose, and large ears. The teeth were large but not fanged. The face was narrow around the eyes, but the head flared out again at the top. It had very muscular, frog-like thighs. He believes (but is uncertain) that it had reverse articulated legs like a horse.
A mechanic who was: “carrying out some routine work to an F-5 Aircraft, parked on the runway went missing whilst doing a job that should have been completed in an hour. When he failed to make the telephone call, requesting a lift back from the Hangar, a search went out to find him. They found him sitting in the aircraft, as white as a sheet, with the canopy closed. Although they asked him, many times, what it was that he had seen he refused to go into great detail for fear he would see it again but he described a terrifying hairy humanoid, which had walked past the aircraft.
Wesley Uptergrove who also saw the humanoid creature said he tried to pursue it in a truck as it escaped heading north of the base. He described it as 5ft 9″ tall, with human-like eyes, a flat nose, and large ears.”
Sergeants Lee and Jackson had a terrifying experience one night, while on patrol with their two dogs, they saw some movement near the towers and called the Main Gate to check if any workmen were still on-site. As they approached the tower, they came face-to-face with a hairy figure. The dogs stopped in their tracks, absolutely terrified, frantically trying to get away. The truck arrived just in time to see the creature, whatever it was, climbing over the security fence, where it was last seen entering the North Woods.
Another man who was 20 years old when he was stationed at RAF Alconbury saw the creature too when it was in a secure weapons storage area. It seemed shocked and surprised to have been caught off guard and the man froze in total fright. He was armed with a .38 and never once considered using it. There was no aggression on its part. It is not human. It has a flat snout and large eyes. Its height is approx. 5 ft and weight approx. 200 lbs. It is very muscular and thin. It wore no clothing and was only moderately hairy. It ran away on its hind legs and scurried over a chain link fence and ran deep into the dense wooded area adjacent to the north end of the base. "I was extremely frightened but the fear developed into a total commitment of trying to contact it again. I was obsessed with it. I was able to see it again a few weeks later at a distance in the wooded area. I watched it for about 30 seconds slowly moving through the woods"
I asked Thomas if he knew of any other strange experiences in the Brigstock area and he told me about an event that happened over 20 years ago. He was cleaning his car one afternoon along the farm track towards the sharp bend that leads to the barn when he saw a young lad of about 20 who had his gun over his arm and was walking towards the woodland. About 10 minutes later he came walking back towards me and he didn't have his gun with him. He was clearly very shaken up. I asked him if he was ok and where was his gun and he said he walked around the corner in the woods and came face to face with a large black cat. He looked at it, it looked at him, he dropped his gun and the cat ran off.
Between the sightings of large cats, numerous Wolf like creatures and several Wose sightings the area is indeed one of mystery. It has all of the things we look for in areas of high strangeness, lots of Ley lines, County borders, Nature reserves on old MOD land, and many operating Military bases. The UFO reports in the area continue to come in, along with so many large cat reports that I am leaning towards Thomas advice that we really are not that safe in the countryside and we could be shadowed, stalked and followed without ever knowing it.
The man who went missing was an avid outdoors man, he was in a wood he knew well, with a dog he trusted. What happened to him, and why was the woodland not searched by the police, in fact it was cordoned off with officers so no search could take place? Why was there no mention of this case in the local press, or even the national papers. The man went missing and was found in unusual circumstances, yet there is no trace of it that I can find online.
Thomas asked if I could make a Freedom of Information request for the area and that's what I have done the results were neither confirmed nor denied
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