A dad-of-two was left in stitches after stopping his car to help what he thought was an injured leopard, only to discover it was actually a onesie.
Ben Lilly, 40, was driving near Hebden Bridge in West Yorkshire on Saturday morning, when he did a double take at the spotty shape lying across the road.
Upon seeing the ‘leopard’, the IT consultant decided to investigate further as ‘it would be an amazing thing to find’. Giving it a wide berth, Ben slowed his car down and looked out the passenger’s window.
Ben, from Halifax, West Yorkshire, then drove past the suspected animal before turning his car around and heading back to confirm what it was he thought he saw. ‘[I] saw the markings on it. It had the tail bit on it too, so it looked really real while I was driving,’ he said.
He continued:
I thought, ‘Wow’. You hear of these sightings of big cats and around the Halifax area, there have been reports before. I spun round where I could, turned round and drove back along. I looked again – it looked real. I then parked behind it and looked from within the car.
The 40-year-old cautiously got out of the vehicle and approached what he assumed was a large cat with his ‘heart racing’ – admitting he was worried that if he got too close he might have his face ‘ripped off’.
With his phone camera poised ready to take a picture to send to his girlfriend, he realised his mistake. ‘As soon as I looked at it from the other angle I started laughing,’ he said.
After realising it was actually just a lonesome onesie abandoned by weekend party-goers – complete with a tail spread out next to it – Ben couldn’t help but laugh at his mistake, stating: ‘I was chuckling to myself. I started laughing then to save my own embarrassment.’
Fessing up to his ‘silly’ mistake on social media, Ben wrote: ‘Careful! Dead leopard in the road on way to Halifax!… Can’t believe I turned back for this!’
The dad’s post was shared nearly 6,000 times and received hundreds of comments, with a few people claiming they had to look twice at the pictures too.
Ben explained:
Living near the Pennines you do often see roadkill in the road – foxes, badgers or the odd person’s pet. When I came back later, someone had pushed it onto the pavement. A few people had commented saying they’d also seen it.
Other drivers were obviously thinking the same thing, but I was just silly enough to stop.
Incredible. And in fairness to Ben, it really does look like a leopard.
Although I’m not really sure what one would be doing in Hebden Bridge…
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A Broadcast Journalism Masters graduate who went on to achieve an NCTJ level 3 Diploma in Journalism, Lucy has done stints at ITV, BBC Inside Out and Key 103. While working as a journalist for UNILAD, Lucy has reported on breaking news stories while also writing features about mental health, cervical screening awareness, and Little Mix (who she is unapologetically obsessed with).