Residents of a sleepy village in England are growing concerned as several pets cats have mysteriously vanished over the last year.
The unsettling spate of feline disappearances in Burpham, England have led heartbroken cat owners mystified and fearing the worst.
"They can't just disappear into thin air, but that is how it feels," resident Victoria Holland told the Littlehampton Gazette.
Holland is understandably upset about the weird mystery as she has lost two cats to whatever is responsible for the disappearances.
Another woman who also lost her cat worries that the missing pets may have fallen victim to someone sinister, musing to the newspaper, "is it some mad bird person trying to stop cats?"
Strangely, all of the animals were microchipped by their owners, but apparently the technology either cannot track them or failed to find the lost cats.
One owner even enlisted a specially-trained dog to sniff out the location of her lost cat, but that proved to be futile as well.
Seemingly at their wit's end over the confounding cat disappearances, affected residents are hoping to raise awareness about the issue in order to both protect other pets from whatever is lurking in Burpham.
Source: Northhampton Gazette