A woman who keeps her cat flap open so her pet can come and go as it likes was staggered after discovering a series of unexplained footprints on her kitchen floor. Ellie Morton, from Stockport, had been away for several nights and left her dad in charge of looking after her cat – and he was the one to stumble upon the puzzling sight.
« My dad went round to feed my cat and my kitchen looked like this, » she began in a video, highlighting the trail of muddy footprints leading to her pet’s food dishes. « If anyone knows what animal these prints look like that’d be great. » Ellie continued her video, focusing on one of the footprints – which clearly weren’t make by a cat. « I’m sorry, what? » she exclaimed, « whose is that? »
The prints, marked by notably large sharp claws, seemed to be roughly the size of a small human hand. Ellie also revealed that the trail extended into her living room and « made a right mess ».
She concluded by informing her followers that she had subsequently purchased an outdoor camera to monitor any activity near her door. Ellie later told Newsweek: « He [her father] initially thought it was a fox or a badger. »
Ellie went on: « However I’d been complaining that I kept hearing my cat flap opening and closing for weeks when my cat was sitting with me. So I already suspected something had been coming in. This just added to our suspicions. »
The clip has since racked up more than 700,000 views. Writing in response, one TikTok user confidently stated: « That’s a badger 100 per cent. »
A second person asked: « Could it be a badger? They have have pointy nails and those paw prints also have five. »
And a third person was of the same opinion: « From the size of the print and number of claws I’m going to say badger. It’ll be looking for food. Glad your cat’s ok because badgers are aggressive. »
Others, however, speculated that the markings were merely from a boot heel rather than any type of creature. « It’s a heel of a boot, you can see the rounded outline (where you are saying the claws are), » one TikTok user suggested.
Another agreed: « They’re boot prints. not claws. You can even see the outline of the front of the boot in one photo. » And another person claimed: « It’s literally the print of the Doc Martens heel you can see on the right side in the video. »
Nevertheless, Ellie responded: « Doesn’t look anything like that in my opinion. We thought badger! Looks almost identical to anything I find on Google. »
