Everyone (myself included) wants what they're looking at to be extraordinary. How many stumps have you seen that look like bears or elk? Hell, every sound I hear in the woods at night is a big hungry grizz coming after me.
Case and point, the recent mutant wolf that was floating around the web a few months ago. It was obviously a wolf to me, but I swear folks thought it was some crazy unknown creature.
Every photo I could find on a google search was either clearly a bobcat, clearly a cougar, or a tropical/asiatic spotted cat (ocelots, leopards, etc).
As the saying goes, when you hear hoofbeats, think of horses not zebras.
