Science considers the phenomena of the cat's family along with mysteries of UFO
The science is often unable to explain the incredible abilities of the animal world since the facts obviously conflict to common sense. One thing is clear: notorious pets - our pussies - take the first place among four-footed extrasensory individuals.
The researchers are convinced that the cats possess the trait of outperception (OP), or so called "the third eye".
Cats live close to humans for more then ten thousand years. Ancient people bowed before them as sacred animals and the messengers of gods. And Middle Ages distinguish by enormous fear of cats: people persecuted them, drowned and burned them down, considering cats as embodiments of devil, werewolves and witches. The Slavs treated cats quite loyally. However still it's a common belief among many countrymen in Ukraine that its better to get rid of a cat which is more then 13-year-old since from now on it becomes more artful and cleverer than his master and can personify some evil force. Pitiful peasants quite often took the fluffy old friend in the forest far from home. Only in the 20th century the scientific minds have become interested in the enigma of cats and... have reached quite a dreadlock.
As early as in 30ths the pioneer of OP-research Joseph Wank Ryan in the University of Dyke (California) has established the first in the world laboratory of parapsychology. As a result of lingering studies this scientist have pronounced cats possessing paranormal abilities such as prevision and telepathy. Easy to say, they are capable to feel the soon coming jeopardy and get to know if their master, though he is far away is in trouble or have died. Later some other researchers, the Nobel Prize winner Dutchman Nico Tinbergen and his colleague Robert Morris have revealed in cats the faculties of psychokinesis (the ability to move subjects by nonphysical means) and clairvoyance (the receipt of information in the certain inanimate subject). For more than half-a-century all these cats' "psy" were widely studied in Europe, America and in former USSR.
No one is surprised that cats can feel the approach of danger. Moreover, people actively use this ability. The cats are taken to the ships and submarines. In towns and villages on the slopes of Vesuvius on eastern coast of the Neapolitan bay there is no any family that doesn't have a cat.
Years of living on the slopes of active volcano gave this people a good lesson to rely on the fluffy pets rather than on forecasts of scientists. When it feels the volcano is ready to come on life the cat runs away as quick as it can. And its' owners are not back at step.
In the time of World War II when people permanently lived under the threat of bombing cats saved many of their masters' lives. One can find records of similar events in the history of every country at war. While acoustic plants sounded skies searching for signs of coming bombing, citizens watched closely their pussies. They new for sure that more reliable and sensitive system of early detection lied curled up near the fireplace. The mere sign of an anxiety in a cat brought people to run to a bomb-shelter taking away a four-footed guard. This cats' ability had turned out to be so significant during the war that the special medal with the words engraved: "We serve our Motherland too" was instituted in Europe. The medals were presented to cats that saved the greatest amount of humans' life.
It is obvious that cats are able to feel danger or foresee event whether it is a natural disaster, a change of weather or just an arrival of a visitor. And though some of cat stories appear to be fabrications and can't be a reliable basis for convincing scientific theory, one can explain some abilities of our "younger brothers". The famous investigator of cats, German biochemist Helmut Trebuchet have explained the talent for prevision in cats by their ability to register the presence of positively charged ions and atoms in the atmosphere. Cats are also sensitive to week vibrations of soil, modifications of an enclosing magnetic field and sounds lying outside the range of human hearing. In addition to all this, cats have a unique sense organ - Jacobson organ. This "third eye" lies deeply in their mouth. To use it an animal should stop any operations and breathe the air in. Owners can often watch this process: their pet stands with its' mouth half-opened as if it listens to something. But how one can explain other incredible talents of the whole cats' family, for example telepathy? It is known that thousand miles away cats learn about the illness or death of their masters, get worried, rush about the house. The scientist Bill Shul in his book "The Mental Abilities in Animals" describes a mysterious event happened to himself. His friend Martin, the policeman, had a cat Fidget. Once Martin went to another city and on his way a car to death knocked him down. Martin hadn't had any family, so his friend, departing on funeral, supposed, that he would be the only visitor. But he was mistaken: cat Fidget too came to tell his master the latter "farewell". The cemetery servant told that the cat had been sitting since morning near the prepared grave being aware for whom the grave was intended.
There are a great number of stories about cats-the-healers, cats-the-avengers, cats-the-prophets and even cats-the-ghosts. Besides the latter are met not only in England - the motherhood of ghosts. Nevertheless the most known cat-the-ghost is just therefrom. This creature "...vanished quite slowly, beginning with the end of the tail, and ending with the grin, which remained some time after the rest of it had gone". Of course, it's a Cheshire cat from "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland". Lewis Carroll, that is Charles Dodgson, was from Darsberry in Cheshire which is not far from Kongletown, where in the beginning of the 20th century, they say, in the ruins of the ancient abbey lived a ghost of a large white cat. In his lifetime he was a pet of a Mrs. Windge, the minister of the abbey. One day the cat didn't come back home, but some days later Mrs. Windge suddenly heard a familiar scratching at the door: the cat was sitting on a threshold. It refused to come in and a minute after disappeared as if he melted in the air. For 50 years hundreds of people saw that Kongletown cat and tourists came specially to visit the abbey. Such a mysterious story could easily astonish the imagination of a modest Oxford mathematician. So the Kongletown ghost served as a prototype of a smiling Cheshire cat. By the way, Lewis Carroll had such a living concern to paranormal that in 1882 he entered the society of mental researchers.
Many things happen nowadays as well. Some owners missing much their dead pets say they allegedly can see the ghosts of their cats. Sometimes repeatedly, sometimes once when the cat comes to say "goodbye".
The eyewitnesses tell that cats are able to see the ghost of a dead member of family and even follow on its' heels.
This cases, as many others are yet impossible to check or explain and to refute as well. The same is true to say about the ability in cats to cure people. Fluffy healers have treated thousands of people. Today cats are specially chosen for treatment of different diseases including serious mental disorders. They are selected by breeds and temper, personal characteristics and even by the coefficient of intellectual faculties since unusual traits are more inherent in clever animals.
Scientists consider cats to be the link between people and the area that is beyond the ordinary human perception so we can only suspect for its existence. That's why cats' abilities remain one of the biggest mysteries of our century.
Translated by Tatiana Karpova (Moscow)
(MSU, Biology faculture, Dep. zoology and ecology).