Have… have they ever seen a lion?<\/p>\n
PublishedNovember 6, 2025 2:50 PM EST\u2022UpdatedNovember 6, 2025 2:28 PM EST<\/p>\n
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When I was a kid, I was obsessed with cryptozoology, and that included a phenomenon known as “phantom animals.” In short, this was just regular animals showing up in places where they normally wouldn’t be found.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Like if a tiger was spotted roaming around Schenectady \u2014 boom \u2014 phantom tiger.<\/p>\n
Sure, maybe a Ringling Bros. tiger just made a run for it, but doesn’t “phantom tiger” just sound super badass?<\/p>\n
We’ve got a phantom animal story coming to us from Ireland<\/a>, and it had one of those simple explanations.\u00a0<\/p>\n Even simpler than a circus animal on the lam, if you can believe it.<\/p>\n Now, I’m not sure how up to speed you are on the fauna of the Emerald Isle\u2026 but lions<\/a> aren’t usually cruising around over there.<\/p>\n So, you might understand why there was some concern when a truck driver captured this video.<\/p>\n I mean\u2026 that looks at the very least lion adjacent, right?<\/p>\n According to UPI<\/a>, the video \u2014 along with several other sightings \u2014 was enough to get Garda\u00ed (Irish national police) in the town of Killaloe to open an investigation.<\/p>\n “The animal had been seen before by harvesters working on the site, but it was from a distance, moving through the trees,” forest manager John O’Reilly told CorkBeo<\/a>. “We assumed it was a deer before the video was captured.”<\/p>\n Fortunately, folks in the area didn’t have to be on edge too long about a gigantic feline roaming the area, because it didn’t take long to identify the animal.<\/p>\n