Not my area at all since I'm over in Scotland, but we've had the same kind of reports up here for years - the "Beast of" whatever local area. Big black cats that absolutely shouldn't be here.
What gets me is how consistent the descriptions always are. People across completely different countries are seeing basically the same thing. Large, black, low to the ground, moves fast. That's not mass hysteria or whatever the sceptics want to call it.
Did anyone actually get footage or even a decent photo? That's always the thing isn't it, people see them up close but the camera evidence is always blurry or the phone dies or whatever. Genuinely curious whether the Blue Ridge sightings have produced anything more solid than what we get over here, because our Scottish big cat stuff never seems to go anywhere evidentially despite loads of witnesses.