A BRITISH Telecom engineer has provided further evidence that alien big cats are roaming across Fife following another sighting on the outskirts of Cupar.

George Brown (42) was with his partner Jill and three-year-old son George jun, when they spotted the puma-like creature in a field near Middlefield on the edges of the town, and close to a housing estate.

Mr Brown said yesterday, “It was an amazing experience. It was a bit of a shock at first, but we were able to watch it for some 15 minutes before it made off.”

The trio, who were accompanied by family pet Charlie, a cocker spaniel, had been walking in a field when they spotted something emerge from nearby woods.

Mr Brown said, “We didn’t immediately realise what it was, but when we got to within 40-50 yards we could clearly see it was a puma-like animal. Its body was a distinctive fawn colour with a black, furry curved tail.

“It was quite slimly built and was crouching as it walked out of the woods. After it stopped it lay down and began rolling about in the grass, basically just relaxing.

“It didn’t appear to realise we were there, but if it did it just ignored us and carried on with what it was doing. Our dog could sense there was something up ahead so we put him on the lead to be on the safe side.

“However, we didn’t feel threatened in any way and eventually the creature got up and walked back into the woods.”

The area is popular with locals walking their dogs and there have been several sightings of big cats in a two-mile radius of the latest incident.

Many people in north-east Fife believe that the animals spotted in recent years may be descended from exotic big cats kept at a private zoo a few miles from Cupar in the 1960s.

The owner eventually left to emigrate to New Zealand and there are no records of what became of the animals.

It is thought that laws introduced in 1976 making it illegal to keep exotic animals without a licence encouraged people who kept such cats to release them into the wild rather than have them destroyed.