"I thought I would tell you about my black shuck sighting as it was pretty recent (about 10 years ago), and there were lots of witnesses. The area mentioned is St Nicholas Church in Basildon Essex.

When I was 14 /15 I spent a lot of time outdoors messing around with a large group of friends. We would meet up after school, hang around street corners causing mayhem, the usual teenage antics. Because we were such a large group, sometimes as many as 30 people, we were often moved on from our little spots by the police, and had to find new 'homes', kind of like a wandering band of nomads!

 
I'm pretty sure it was October 1995 when this happened, and we had recently begun hanging around at an old church on a big hill near my house. We all knew the surrounding countryside like the back of our hands as we had grown up roving around in the trees, and never thought anything of the fact that we were hanging around in a graveyard at night.

 
Anyway, this particular evening a group of 7 girls had broken off from the group and walked down the sloping road away from the church. We were a ten minute walk away from the others, and well out of earshot. We sat down in a circle at the base of a small rise in a field, and the sun had set behind the rise so it had a pretty glow to it. We were chatting away when we heard something being killed in the bushes, like a rabbit screaming. One of my friends said jokingly 'it must be a werewolf', and I just laughed and said it must be a fox killing its dinner.

 
About two minutes later I looked up to the rise and saw the biggest black dog/wolf/thing I have ever seen. I'm pretty sure I uttered the F word, and everyone turned around to look. I know a lot about dogs (I'm animal mad and used to be a vet nurse), and this was taller than an Irish wolfhound, but bulky like an Alsatian, with huge glowing eyes. It started to growl at us, and just stood and stared. I can still hear the sound it made in its throat even to this day.

 
I told everyone to get up really slowly and walk away, and DO NOT RUN, as it may chase. We all took about 5 steps, someone shouted 'RUN', and we all descended into mass hysteria and bolted back up the hill. Of course no-one else in the group believed us. 

My best friend still hasn't forgiven me for leaving her behind, as she hated dogs anyway, and was traumatised for ages. When we all get together we still talk about it, 9 years later. I've seen many paranormal things, but for some reason this one incident still incites fear in me.

 
Also, about 4 years ago, I had almost forgotten about the dog sighting, and I took my terrier for a walk up there. I don't often go there, as I now live about 3 miles away, and I kind of stumbled into this field not thinking. I paused on the rise as I suddenly remembered where I was, and the dog started to growl. We shot out of there pretty quick I can tell you!"