Evidence for a Feline Sixth Sense

Scientists Tackle the Mysteries of Cat Intuition and Psi Trailing

Apr 6, 2009
Jennifer Copley

Some Believe That Cats Have Supernatural Abilities - Manuela & Stefan, Wikimedia Commons

There are scientific explanations for many spooky feline abilities, but there are also reports of feline intuition that are not so easily explained.

There are a number of reputable believers in feline psychic ability. Those who assert that cats and other animals possess supernatural intuition include Cambridge University’s world-renowned biologist, Dr. Rupert Sheldrake, who has studied more than 1,000 reports of psychic connections between people and animals.

Psychic Pets

Sheldrake has noted that some cats and dogs respond to the death or suffering of their owners even when far away from them, predict dangerous events such as bombings and earthquakes, know when a loved one is calling on the phone before the call has been answered, and hide in anticipation of a visit to the veterinarian well before their owners haul out the pet carrier. In addition to Dr. Sheldrake, other researchers have asserted that cats are clairvoyant and telepathic, including Dr. J.B. Rhine.

Psi Trailing

Hailed as the father of modern-day parapsychology, J.B. Rhine studied Psi Trailing in animals, a phenomenon whereby animals travel long distances to find their owners. Animals navigate using the earth’s magnetic field, which explains how so many of them have been able to return to a prior home even when they have been transported a great distance away. However, magnetic field navigation doesn’t explain cases of lost pets that returned to their human families after those families had moved far away to places the animals had never been.

Skeptics, such as renowned zoologist and ethologist Desmond Morris, claim that in such cases, a stray animal that looks like the original pet happens to show up at the family home, and wishful thinking causes the owners to assume that the hopeful stray is actually a long-lost pet. But some of the animals that have turned up on their families’ doorsteps have unique features that were used to positively identify them.

Sugar, a cat that found his family 1,500 miles away in their new home, was recognized due to his unusual bone deformity. In preparation for an impending move, the family had regretfully given Sugar to their neighbours as they thought the long car journey would be too hard on him, but traveling on foot by himself, Sugar somehow managed to find them. Sugar walked from California to Oklahoma, an incredible journey that took more than a year, to be reunited with the family he loved.

A similar authenticated case is that of a veterinarian who moved from New York to California, leaving his cat in the care of others back in New York. Several months later, a cat that looked much like his came strolling into his new residence in California. Not inclined to make assumptions, the vet thoroughly inspected the new arrival. To his amazement, he found a telltale bone growth on the cat’s tail, specifically the fourth vertebra, the result of a long-ago bite that his cat had sustained. Thus, he determined that his cat had indeed travelled 2,500 miles of unfamiliar terrain to find him.

The Debate Continues

Of course it’s quite possible that the widespread phenomena noted by Sheldrake, Rhine, and other researchers have scientific explanations that have not yet been discovered. In the meantime, the skeptics will remain skeptical, asserting that much of the evidence for feline extrasensory perception is anecdotal and probably the result of coincidence, while believers in feline psychic abilities will continue to believe, asserting that such phenomena are too common and universal to be dismissed.

Not everyone agrees that cats are telepathic or clairvoyant. Other theories have been put forth for many of the uncanny abilities that felines possess, and some of these have been scientifically proven. For more information on the science underlying feline abilities, see Do Cats Have Psychic Abilities?