Has Spain's "Gorliz Panther" Returned?

By Scott Corrales
Inexplicata-The Journal of Hispanic Ufology
UFO Digest Latin America Correspondent

Spain: New Encounters with the “Gorliz Panther”
By Javier Resines

On a day like today, October 22, 2005, a resident of Erandio who had gone to the Gorliz Hospital to visit a relative saw a strange animal around six o’clock in the afternoon. “I was strolling with my 14-year-old nephew around the parking lot, next to the pine trees behind the center, when we saw the panther. It was ten meters distant from us. It slowly advanced five meters, stopped, turned its head and looked at us fixedly. Its eyes glowed like a demon’s. After that, it took off running and vanished into the pine trees. We were paralyzed; my legs trembled.”

The one recalling this experience for us is Emilio Torvisco, 31, to whom the animal he had seen was a panther. “It was black, came up to my knees and had a very long tail. We saw it perfectly, as we were a few meters away and there was considerable light,” he added.

Uncle and nephew rushed out looking for help. “Since we didn’t come across any policemen, we called the Ertzaintza. A squad car was dispatched to the Gorliz Medical Center minutes later. The witness showed officers the place through which the animal had fled. One of the policemen, armed with a shotgun, entered the dense forest on the slopes of a mountain. A shot rang out, and the Ertzaintza officer emerged. “He told us that he’d seen the panther and fired a it,” according to the witness. It could be that he injured the animal, although no carcass has been found.

From that moment on, an intense search operation began to find the animal. Elements of the Basque police, forestry agents from Base Gorria and members of the Gorliz urban guard converged on the hospital. Park rangers and Ertzaintza agents, armed with rifles and telescopic sights, entered the pine forest to find what could be a very large feline.

At seven thirty in the evening, another patrol from Base Gorria joined the search, adding four more guards to the operation. These experts ascended the mountainside and looked for clues to the animal’s whereabouts, aided by flashlights. The operation, hindered by the rain, was suspended at a quarter past eight in the evening, due to a lack of light, and resumed at first light the next day with even more people and tracking dogs. But the search was called off around four in the afternoon due to a lack of positive results.

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