The cougar supposedly disappeared in the eastern United States more than a century ago, a symbol of America's natural history and our unspoken fear of what lurks in the wilderness.

Or have a few of the elusive cats survived, an archetypal ghost that never left the forest at all?

Just ask Zeke Scaggs, who says he's heard an unnerving squall, hiss and growl in the night that didn't come from any house cat in his rural Montgomery County neighborhood.

"It was a mountain lion," said Scaggs, who swears he saw one outside his house two years ago even though the last confirmed cougar in Virginia was in 1882. "I'd stake my life on it."

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wants to talk to Scaggs and the thousands of others who say they've seen Puma concolor couguar in the eastern United States.

In an effort to solve one of nature's great mysteries, the agency said it has started reviewing scientific and anecdotal information to determine the status of the eastern cougar and not as a prelude to reintroducing the region's top predator.

The eastern cougar has been presumed extinct in the wild for more than a century, shot, trapped and poisoned by European settlers who considered it beastly pest.

But the nocturnal feline remains protected by the Endangered Species Act and the subject of fascination for scientists, amateur naturalists and cougar aficionados alike.

The law requires a review every five years of all protected species, but limited funds and higher priorities have postponed the Fish and Wildlife Service's review of the eastern cougar since 1982.

The Fish and Wildlife Service has contacted wildlife agencies in 21 Eastern states and Canadian provinces in the past month.

The review, which is to be completed this summer, will look at confirmed and unconfirmed sightings, biology, habitat, conservation measures, laws about captivity and other data about the nation's largest cat.

If the eastern cougar is determined to be extinct, it will be removed from the endangered species list. If its presence is confirmed, an updated recovery plan will be drafted.

Among the other imperiled species whose status is being reviewed this year are the Virginia big-eared bat and the Virginia fringed mountain snail.

But it is the eastern cougar that's drawing the most attention among the Eastern species that are living on the edge.

Many cougar enthusiasts believe the majestic cat was never fully eradicated and that wildlife agencies deny its existence out of ignorance or because of the time and expense it would take to manage the endangered species.

Among the 15 verified reports of eastern cougars since 1950 were a kitten killed by a vehicle in Kentucky in 1997, a cougar killed and another captured in West Virginia in 1976 and scat from Massachusetts in 1997.

Wildlife scientists deny any cougar cover-up. They say the growing number of eastern cougar sightings are most likely bobcats, dogs, deer and other cases of mistaken mammalian identity.

Some of the sightings could be pet cougars that escaped or were released -- there are thousands of captive cougars in the United States, not all held legally -- or western cougars that occasionally roam into the East, said Diana Weaver, a spokeswoman for the Fish and Wildlife Service.

Weaver said biologists are looking for breeding population of eastern cougars, not individuals that are escaped or released pets with South American or Western DNA that means they were of captive origin.

"Our biologists are going into this review with an open mind," Weaver said. "They would be excited beyond belief" to rediscover the eastern cougar.

The agency also will consider recent research that indicates the eastern cougar is not genetically unique and that all North American cougars could be categorized as a single subspecies.

The eastern cougar also is known as a mountain lion, catamount, puma, painter and panther. It once ranged across eastern North America, but hunters, habitat destruction and a decrease in deer, its primary prey, led to the cat's demise by the early 1900s.

Today, mountain lions live in many parts of the West but are also being increasingly reported in the Midwest and the East, according to the Cougar Network, a nonprofit research organization that's among several groups devoted to proving the existence of and seeking protection for the mysterious cat.

Since 1970, the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries has received 121 reports of cougar sightings, mostly in the mountains of Western Virginia.

Many more people say their sightings haven't been documented because wildlife officials curtly dismiss them, while others say they never bothered to call authorities because they've heard they won't be taken seriously.

VDGIF Capt. Ron Henry, head game warden in Southwest and central Virginia, said most of the cougar reports he receives each year are actually bobcats, coyotes or domestic dogs.

Like other wildlife officials, Henry said he's heard the cougar conspiracy theory about the government's hiding their existence or secretly reintroducing them into the East's remote areas.

"I've even heard we're air-dropping them into the mountains here," he said, chuckling. "But we do take cougar reports seriously. We don't treat them all like kooks. We just tell people we're still waiting for photographic or physical proof."

Rick Reynolds, a VDGIF wildlife biologist and the state's cougar liaison, said he's looked into some sightings, including tracks and road-killed carcasses, but none has turned up proof.

He said many sightings may stem from the cougar's roots in the American psyche -- a meat-eater that inspires an instinctual fear of the dark and an idealized longing to connect with the East's original wilderness.

"People want to believe these majestic cats still exist," Reynolds said. "I'm not discounting that someone could see one, but it's most likely a released or escaped pet.

"The cougar is like the bison and the elk -- they're part of our history in the East. To search for that is very intriguing ... and if it could be confirmed, it would show there's a wildness there that hasn't been lost."

Among those reporting a mountain lion in Southwest Virginia is Barbara Webb of Montgomery County.

She said she, her husband, Gary, and son Devin were shocked when they saw two cougars several times in 2002 on their rural land. One was all black.

Webb said a game warden told her the photos she took weren't good enough to warrant further investigation.

"I know what we saw," she said.