The story of the Ghost Cat – just in time for Halloween

On another message board, I had mentioned the ghost cat and several people asked me to tell the story. I thought you all might enjoy it so I decided to share it here too.

Back in the early 1980’s, not long after my grandfather passed away (I guess it must have been 1982 or 1983) we had a very strange visitor here in this very house. My grandmother and grandfather had a cat named Ya-hoo (pronounced yay-hoo). He got his name from when my grandparents were taking care of him for us when he was just a little kitten. My mom, dad, and I had gotten a cute little Siamese kitten. My grandparents had gotten one of the other kittens from the same litter but it passed away so my mom decided to see if they would want to keep our cute little kitten. She asked them to take care of the baby knowing that they would probably bond with it. My grandfather did not know I had trained the kitten to climb up my leg (very painful when I was wearing shorts!) and up the rest of my body then sit on my shoulder. He was leaning against a tree watching the kitten as it played in the front yard when the kitten decided to climb up his pant leg. My grandfather told us that the first thing he said when he got down from the top of that tree was, “YA-HOO!!! That’s how the kitten got its unusual name. My grandmother hated the name Ya-hoo and always called the kitty Snoopy. I will refer to him as Snoopy for the rest of this story.

Snoopy was a very mean cat. My grandfather trained him to be this way and was proud of how mean this cat was. Of course, Snoopy was never mean to my grandmother and – besides my grandparents – my mom, dad, and I were the only ones who could pet this cat. I loved to play with Snoopy when I came over here to stay the weekend with my grandparents and often went home with my hand covered in bloody scratches. My cousins also spent the weekends here but neither of them could get near that cat without being hissed at or chased into another room. Chris would get the worst of it while his brother, Tim, would try to ignore the cat and never let the cat chase him around although he did get attacked more than once.

My grandfather passed away in 1981 and Snoopy calmed down just a little bit although Tim and Chris still had to be careful of him. My other cousin, Jeremy, was also spending the weekends here at my grandmother’s house by then and he got along with Snoopy better than the other two and, I believe, he too was able to pet the cat on occasion.

One night, about 6 months or so after my grandfather passed away, we started noticing the shadow of a cat in the windows. We thought maybe Snoopy was in the in the windows but, whenever we would look behind the curtains, there was nothing there. We thought that there might be something outside making the shadow but the shadow appeared in several different places in the windows. One night when I was in the kitchen, I saw the shadow cat clearly in the kitchen window. The curtains in the kitchen were somewhat see-through and they were a much lighter fabric than the other windows so, not only was there a shadow, but I could sort of see what looked like a Siamese cat and the curtains also bulged out a little as if there was a cat there. It was night time and dark so I couldn’t be certain of what I was seeing. I went over to look behind the curtain. There was nothing there.

The shadow cat or ghost cat as we started to call it appeared for several months in the windows and was seen both day and night always in the windows and – as we would later figure out – always when Snoopy was asleep and in a different room.

Then, one night, I saw the ghost cat. The shadow was in the living room window and it showed up clearly as the headlights from a car exiting the mobile home park across the street shined in the window. I couldn’t believe how strong and clear the shadow was so I was certain that there had to actually be a cat there this time. Snoopy had gone to bed with my grandmother so I wondered if maybe one of the strays from outside had gotten into the house when the door was open. I went over and carefully peeked behind the curtains and there it was – a Siamese cat that looked a lot like Snoopy. I knew it wasn’t Snoopy because Snoopy had gone to bed in my grandmother’s room. It turned to look at me and, when I looked away to call one of my cousins to come see it, it disappeared. This was the first actual sighting of the ghost cat but not the last.

The ghost cat continued to appear in the windows but one night it surprised us all. Chris and I were in the kitchen getting a snack and Snoopy came up to me and allowed me to pet him. Chris was nervous because Snoopy used to chase him but this time Snoopy just ignored him. Normally, Snoopy would not accept food like lunch meat but he ate several bites that I handed to him and was not even getting agitated when I would pet him while he was eating which was very odd. And his fur was incredibly soft. He also purred as I petted him which was unusual. To me, the purring sound was very loud as if it echoed around the room but Chris didn’t seem to notice it. A few minutes later, Snoopy went into the living room and sat down under the pull-out sofa bed that Tim and Chris slept on when they visited. Tim was already in bed but awake and reading so I don’t think he saw the cat. I went in a couple of minutes later and Snoopy was gone. I asked Time where Snoopy was and he said, “Snoopy went to bed with grandma a couple of hours ago.” I just stuttered in disbelief, “But–But I–I was just feeding him lunch meat a couple of minutes ago!” Chris, who had come into the room behind me, and I just stared at each other. We knew that there was no way that Snoopy could have gotten out of the bedroom and there was no way we could have confused another cat with Snoopy. There weren’t even any other Siamese cats around that house. Chris says he does not remember any of this but I wonder if he is just worried that somebody will think he is crazy if he says he saw the ghost cat too.

If my memory serves me right, Jeremy also saw the ghost cat out in the open and thought it was Snoopy but I cannot be certain of this. I do know that Jeremy saw him several times as a shadow in the window though.

By now, the ghost cat was making regular appearances in front of me. This was when I realized that he only appeared when Snoopy was asleep in another room. Most of the time, I would just catch fleeting glimpses of him or see him clearly in the window where the curtain was open. But one day he made another appearance in the living room.

I was sitting on the couch watching TV while my mother visited with my grandmother in the kitchen. Snoopy – or a cat that looked exactly like him – came in from the kitchen and, as I leaned down to reach out my hand to him, he came up and sniffed my fingers then rubbed up against my hand. His fur was sooo unbelievably soft. Then I realized it wasn’t Snoopy. From where I was sitting, I could see into my grandmother’s bedroom and see Snoopy laying on my grandmother’s bed curled up and asleep. A loud purring sound seemed to echo all around me as I petted the cat. I called my mom and my grandmother into the room.

“This isn’t Snoopy”, I said as looked down at the cat and continued to pet him, “Snoopy is in the bedroom asleep.”

Both my grandmother and my mother watched as I petted the cat but neither seemed too shocked — a little surprised but not too shocked. After a couple of minutes I looked back up and grinned at both of them then looked down. The cat had disappeared. My mom looked into my grandmother’s room at the sleeping Snoopy then back at me. We all were pretty sure of what we had seen.

For quite some time, the ghost cat continued to make his appearances in the windows and, if I remember right, once or twice in front of my grandmother. I quit going over to my grandmother’s house for the weekends shortly after I turned 18 so, other than a few times of seeing his shadow in the windows, I never really saw him again after the time he appeared in the living room. I believe he continued to appear right up until Snoopy passed away a couple of years later but I am not sure. One thing is certain though, the ghost cat never appeared again after Snoopy passed away.

We have a couple of theories about the ghost cat — or I should say my mom, grandmother, and I had a couple of theories. The ghost cat was either Snoopy’s astral projection or maybe my grandfather using Snoopy’s appearance to come back to visit us. I believe more in the astral projection theory but, since Snoopy and the ghost cat are both gone, we will never know.