Wouldn't surprise me at all. There's a long history of black panther sightings across Appalachia that mainstream wildlife biologists just keep dismissing as misidentified black bears or whatever, which is honestly insulting to the people reporting them. These aren't confused hikers, a lot of them are experienced outdoorsmen who know what they saw.
The frustrating thing is that melanistic cougars have never been officially documented in North America but melanistic leopards and jaguars absolutely exist, so the genetics are clearly possible. And jaguars did historically range into the southern US. Whether we're talking about a relict population or something else entirely I don't know, but the Blue Ridge corridor specifically gets these reports constantly.
Anyone who saw it - what was the size estimate? Shoulder height relative to surrounding vegetation or vehicles is usually the most useful data point. Tail length too, that rules out a lot of alternatives. And what time of day, because lighting conditions matter massively for colour perception in dense tree cover.
