Q: The Winged.... cat?

[chrisberez]

this is just plain weird.

A winged cat has been killed by villagers near the Central Russian city of Kursk. The locals drowned the deformed puss after believing it was a messenger of Satan, the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper reports.

On entering her yard, Nadezhda Medvedeva saw how a stray cat stood up and, just like a chicken, stretched out two wings. She said that at that moment her hair stood on end. The locals had no doubt the unlucky cat was a messenger of the devil, the Vlasti.net website writes.

Um... what?

Despite the fact decomposition had already set in, the correspondent form the local Komsomol newspaper confirmed the cat did actually have wings.

Oooookay.....

 

[geni]

A know genitic abnormailty "Feline Cutaneous Asthenia" cases turn up from time to time. So there is a fair chance this is true.

 

[chrisberez]

A know genitic abnormailty "Feline Cutaneous Asthenia" cases turn up from time to time. So there is a fair chance this is true.

Yeah. it's just very strange. I'd never heard of this sort of thing until now.

 

[troy jones]

Hmm...while some of the articles on that news site appear legit, there are also tabloid-esque headlines like "Boy Raised by Dog for Seven Years" (naturally accompanied by a stock photo of a dog but no photo of the alleged boy).

And of course the winged kitty story, accompanied by an incredibly grainy sepia-toned photo of a wet cat with no apparent wings. Do Siberian journalists still use cameras and film made in the late 19th century?

Maybe this is Russia's version of Weekly World News.

 

[Gastric ReFlux]

Too bad they couldn't have caught it when it was alive and had a vet install the Pet Lojack chip in it. Then we could have tracked it with satellites to where hell and its home is.

 

[Rolfe]

A know genitic abnormailty "Feline Cutaneous Asthenia" cases turn up from time to time. So there is a fair chance this is true.

Well, there you go. You learn something new and useless every day. (I'd heard of the human condition, but not that it occurred in cats.)

I'll just trot off home to feed my 26-toed moggy now....

Rolfe.

 

[Psi Baba]

Well, there you go. You learn something new and useless every day. (I'd heard of the human condition, but not that it occurred in cats.)

I'll just trot off home to feed my 26-toed moggy now....

Rolfe.

It's also caused by matted fur forming wing-like tufts that flop around. There's already a thread in Community:
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=44122 where imagineNoReligion has posted a link to a good article about winged cats: http://www.messybeast.com/winged-cats.htm.
Rolfe, there are times when I swear Dexter can fly, though he has no wings. I think he levitates but I can't prove it, so it's purely anecdotal at this stage. He didn't climb up there:

 

[Anders]

This reminds me of a passages in a novel by M Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita, where a human sized cat has a big role. The cat is a companion to Woland, or Satan (yes the one and only), and in the aftermath of Satan’s departure from Russia, black cats in the whole of Russia are accused of being Satan’s dominion, and they are usually killed on the spot.
[edited to add:]
And the cats was usually accused of standing up on their hind legs!

 

[Rolfe]

He didn't climb up there:

Rolfe.

 

[Ladewig]

Is it just me or does that cat not look dead? I expect a limp neck, closed eyes, and whiskers not sticking out.

 

[Blondin]

...
And of course the winged kitty story, accompanied by an incredibly grainy sepia-toned photo of a wet cat with no apparent wings. Do Siberian journalists still use cameras and film made in the late 19th century? ...

If you check out the messybeast.com site linked by Psi Baba you'll find the exact same photo with the caption "Manchester Winged Cat (1960s)". What a coincidence!

 

[Undodog]

Which reminds me. One morning last week, I was lying in bed contemplating getting up for work when my girlfriend and I heard a loud rattling from the bathroom.

Had I been a bored housewife and watched too much LivingTV I would have immediately thought that a relative who had ‘crossed over’ may have been trying to contact me.
As it was I thought, ‘burglers’.

So I jumped up only to see a black cat run past me and down the stairs.
Thankfully Housewife-mode still didn’t kick in and tell me that this was actually the spirit of my ex-cat, Tobias, who was all black and was killed last year.
The skeptic in me thought, ‘a neighbourhood cat has got in through a window’.

Phew! I was right. ‘Mikey’ from across the road had jumped in through the open front window. A window that is very high up and is just big enough to fit an agile cat through. He was waiting at the front door to be let out.
Debunked!

BUT what if… what IF… Mikey remembered which way he got in and made a quick escape before I even got out of bed?
I’d have been left with a unexplained ghostly rattle in an empty house.

So as unlikely as it seems, can cats account for a lot of unexplained bumps in the night? They can easily get in, knock something over, and get out again without a trace. Is this a more plausible explanation than a dead relative accidentally crossing over into your dimension from theirs and breaking your stuff?

 

[Yeah_Right]

Atomic Kitty

I wonder if that cat was flying in from the Chernobyl area?