Late ‘90’s, three of us driving west on US 33 just east of Harrisonburg, VA - I was driver. Mountain lion crossed the highway just in front of us right after we went over peak of Blue Ridge Mountains, Skyline Drive.
All 3 of us saw it - blew us away.
I went to JMU from 83-90. One job I had there in the summer was Gypsy Moth surveyor, where we checked traps in the spring and counted egg cases in the fall. I talked to one guy out in the sticks who’d seen one multiple times on his property near the W. VA border.
A professor who worked with fish and game said several wolves and a couple mountain lions had been killed by autos over the prior few years, but it wasn’t publicized because they didn’t want folks to go actively looking for them.