Emily Brown
Cats often look like they know more than they should, and for one feline named Oscar, that apparently meant knowing when people were going to die.
Oscar didn't sit in front of a crystal ball, or have visions of people meeting an early end - at least, we don't think he did - but he did seem to have an eerie knack for knowing when people were approaching their final hours.
The cat showed off his skills after he was adopted by Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Providence, Rhode Island, where he hung out with the patients and staff.
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Dr. David Dosa, a geriatrician who worked with patients at the Steere House, told Crossroads Hospice in 2016 Oscar was 'initially... a very scared cat' when he arrived at Steere House in 2005.
“He wouldn’t really like to come out. He would keep to himself. Often times you’d find him in the supply closet or under a bed somewhere," he said.
However, over time it became apparent there was one scenario when Oscar would 'come out front and center': when someone was nearing the end of their life.
It's unclear how he did it, but Oscar was apparently able to sense when patients were close to death and came to comfort them about two to four hours before they took their last breaths.
"We would eventually find out after he did this several times that the people he was staying with were usually the next ones to go," Dosa said.
At first there were just one or two apparent 'predictions', but then we went on to hit '20 or 30 deaths in a row', Dosa said.
By the time of his own death in 2022, Oscar was said to have accurately predicted more than 100 deaths.
When it comes to the question of how Oscar made his predictions, Dosa said: “I think that ultimately your guess is as good as mine."
He added: “It [could be] likely that he’s responding to some smell when cells start to break down.”
When Oscar died, Dosa paid tribute to him on Facebook in a post which said that in spite of his fame, the feline was really 'just an ordinary cat who was beloved by the staff at Steere House for doing what cats do'.
"Hanging around, getting in the way, and providing companionship to those he lived with on a day-to-day basis."