The D. C. of D. C.

A loyal reader of Skeptophilia commented that the last few posts have been pretty grim, and maybe I should write about something more uplifting, like kitties.

I am nothing if not obliging.

Today's post is not only about kitties, though.  It's about something that has struck me over and over, in the fifteen years I've been writing here at Skeptophilia headquarters; how little it takes to get a weird belief going.

Which brings us to: the strange legend of the Demon Cat of Washington D. C.

[Image licensed under the Creative Commons X737257, Black cat looking down from a white wall, CC BY-SA 4.0]

There's been a persistent legend in Washington of a demonic (or ghostly, or both) cat that stalks its way around the White House and Capitol Building, and is prone to appearing when something big is going to happen -- especially prior to the death of a major public figure.

Me, I'm currently wondering where that freakin' cat is when you need him.

On the other hand, it apparently also appears prior to stuff like wars being declared and the economy tanking hard, and whatever problems we currently have, we don't need that added into the mix.

Be that as it may, the Demon Cat -- often just known as D. C. -- is an ordinary-looking black house cat, but if approached it "swells up to the size of a giant tiger" and then either pounces on the unfortunate witness, or else... explodes.

I can see how this could be alarming.  Tigers are scary enough without detonating suddenly.

Interestingly, this legend is not of recent vintage; it goes all the way back to the mid-1800s.  It was reported prior to Lincoln's assassination; and right before McKinley's assassination in the 1890s, a guard saw the Demon Cat and allegedly died of a heart attack.  It's been fired at more than once, to no apparent effect. 

It's an odd urban legend, and the striking thing about it is its longevity -- 175 years and still going strong.  Steve Livengood, chief tour guide of the U. S. Capitol Historical Society, says it has a prosaic origin.  Back in the mid-nineteenth century, the Capitol Police had a bad habit of hiring unqualified people, often family members or friends of congresspeople who were unemployed for good reason.  Drunkenness on the job was rampant, and one day, a policeman had passed out on the floor of the White House at night, and woke to find a black cat staring at him.  He freaked, told his supervisor, and the supervisor sent him home to "recover."  This started a rash of reports from other policemen claiming they'd seen a giant demonic cat so they, too, would be given a day off.

But it's curious the legend has persisted for so long.  I'm sure part of it is just that it's funny -- passed along as a tall tale by people who don't really believe it.  But some reports seem entirely serious.  A 1935 sighting claimed the Demon Cat's eyes "glow with the all the hue and ferocity of the headlights of a fire engine."  As Jordy Yager writes in The Hill:

The fiendish feline is said to be spotted right before a national catastrophe occurs (like the stock market plunging or a national figure being shot) and before presidential power shifts hands.  The story finds its origins in the days when rats used to run rampant in the basement tunnels of the Capitol and officials brought in cats to hunt them down.  The Demon Cat was one that never left.

It's a curious feature of human psychology that it's really easy to get a belief started, and damn near impossible to eradicate it once it's taken hold.  (Something Fox News uses with malice aforethought; they make whatever wild claims serve their purpose, knowing that even if they have to retract them, the retraction will never undo the damage done by the original claims.)  So stories of the Giant Exploding Kitties of Doom might sound ridiculous, but the fact that the story is still out there despite being completely ridiculous is itself interesting.

On the other hand, maybe at the moment it's just wishful thinking.

"Here, kitty, kitty, kitty..."

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There goes the sun

New from the "Oh, No, Here We Go Again" department, today we have: people flipping out over the fact that we're going to have a total eclipse this summer.

To be sure, it's a pretty cool event.  The path of totality will go from Oregon to the Carolinas, and at its widest will be 60 miles in width.  The last time a total eclipse of this magnitude happened in the United States was 99 years ago, so I suppose it's understandable that people are taking notice.  (In fact, I know more than one person who is making plans to visit the path of totality -- but if you're planning on joining them, you might well be too late.  Apparently hotels in cities in the eclipse's path started filling up a couple of years ago.)

But of course, there's nothing like a weird astronomical event to get woo-woos of all stripes all fired up.

[image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

Take, for example, the End Times cadre, who think that a completely explainable and predictable feature of the Earth's position in space -- no weirder, really, than standing in someone's shadow -- is a sign that the Rapture is upon us.  Never mind that the other 1,583,294 times these people have been absolutely certain that the Rapture was imminent, cross our hearts and hope to die, what actually happened was: nothing.

They're not going to let a little thing like a zero batting average discourage them.

"The Bible says a number of times that there’s going to be signs in the heavens before Jesus Christ returns to Earth," said Gary Ray, writer for the Christian publication Unsealed.  "We see this as possibly one of those...  We think it’s God signaling to us that he’s about to make his next move."

Ray, however, is ignoring the fact that even if you buy into his worldview, there's the inconvenient little scripture verse about how "Assuredly, I say to you, this generation will by no means pass away till all these things take place.  Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will by no means pass away.  But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only," from Matthew 24, which is inconvenient because not only does it imply that people like Gary Ray are talking out of their asses, it also states outright that Jesus said he was going to return and the world would be destroyed (along with other special offers like the sun being darkened and the stars falling from heaven) before the people listening to him were dead, and that kind of didn't happen.

Ray, though, does not seem unduly bothered by this, and in fact says that the eclipse will be super-significant because the full moon will be near the constellation of Virgo the Virgin, which of course will make everyone think of the passage in Revelation 12, "A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head.  She was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth.  Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on its heads," despite the fact that being a virgin and being pregnant are mutually exclusive conditions.

Unless you count the alleged Immaculate Conception, which frankly, still sounds a little sketchy to me.

Then, there's the fact that we won't have to wait another 99 years to see a total eclipse in the United States; there's going to be another one on April 8, 2024, which fortunately for me looks like it'll pass right over my house.  Ray, though, is excited not because of a second shot at seeing a stunningly beautiful astronomical event; he thinks it's significant because where the paths of the two eclipses cross, it makes a letter X.

*cue scary music*

So he's interpreting this to mean that god is warning us that he's going to X out the United States for our wickedness or something.

It also brings up the question of what shape Ray thinks two intersecting lines would create if this weren't an omen.

So what we have here is a deity who is warning us about the End Times using an event that astronomers predicted decades ago, despite the fact that previous astronomical events like lunar eclipses resulted in nothing special happening.  My advice: see if you can find a spot to view the solar eclipse on August 21, because it promises to be pretty cool.  And don't cancel any plans you might have for August 22.

Chances are, we'll all be here, un-Raptured, for some time to come.