A British couple's backyard barbecue took a wondrous turn when they spotted what they believed to have been a black panther crossing a field with a meal of its own. According to a local media report, the intriguing sighting occurred earlier this month as Paul Murtha and his wife were on a weekend trip to the community of Northumberland. Shortly after setting up their camper for the getaway and sitting down outside for a bite to eat, his attention was drawn to a sizeable animal off in the distance. "Look at the size of that! What is it," Murtha recalled his wife exclaiming as she pointed to the large black creature crossing a field.

Suspecting that "no one would believe how big it was," Murtha filmed the curious creature with his cell phone. While he conceded that the video is less than stellar, the witness insisted that "this did not look like a house cat. It was the size of a small Labrador." Perhaps even more chilling than the big cat itself was that the animal appeared to be carrying an unfortunate rabbit that was presumable the predator's next meal.

When Murtha shared his footage on social media, it received an understandable mixed reaction with some agreeing with his assessment that the animal was a panther and others arguing that it was simply a very large house cat. That said, British big cat researcher Tim Whittard called the video "really rather fascinating." To that end, he noted that Murtha measured the fence posts seen behind the animal in the video and found that they were five-and-a-half feet tall, "which could have significant implications when determining scale." What do you think of the possible panther footage? Weigh in with your thoughts at the C2C Facebook page.