Chacham's Journal: News: Winged Cat "From Hell" Put to Death in Central Russia

Winged Cat "From Hell" Put to Death in Central Russia

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.

Where the cat came from and why it appeared in the village of Bukreyevk nobody knows. Nadezhda Medvedeva, whose home is located on the edge of the village, said she initially heard a soft meowing.

"We poured some milk into a bowl," Medvedeva recounted. "A tom cat came out -- ginger, huge, twice as big as normal. He drank greedily and started meowing again...asking for more. We started feeding him. After a couple of days my daughter came running in all scared and whispered: 'Mom, come and look at the cat! He's got wings!'"

Nadezhda Medvedeva went out and saw how the cat slowly moved its wings exactly as a chicken would. The woman immediately came to the conclusion that the cat was sinister, "just like a sort of devil".

The daughter, having already named the cat Vaska, claimed he was affectionate and had obviously been a pet.

The rumor of the winged cat soon reached Kursk, but by the time a correspondent got wind of it the cat had already been killed by a local drunk, who drowned the unique feline. A sack with the animal's body was recovered later from a pond near the Medvedev's home. Despite the fact decomposition had already set in, the correspondent form the local Komsomol newspaper confirmed the cat did actually have wings.

UPDATE: daniil posted this already, from another source.

Speechless

[xYoni69x]

Religious idiots.

Re:Speechless

[Chacham]

If it wasn't religion, it would have been something else.

This is being scared of the unknown. And, in fact, religion prepares people for that many times. So, it goes both ways.

Re:Speechless

[daniil]

What if this cat had been found in a more secular country? Or, say, in the Bible Belt in the US (or some other similar place)? Would the people involved have behaved differently?

What's the difference between "science says it's an abomination" and "my religion says it's an abomination?"

Etc.

PS. I call dupe [slashdot.org] :H

Wha Hoppen??

[Trolling4Dollars]

PLEASE tell me that there is an equivalent to April Fool's day in Russia that happens to fall in August. Or that the Friday the 13th superstition is what inspired this story and the fakery involved. If it's real, I think we have some serious problems in our future. Far more serious than any of the ones we've got now.

Re:Wha Hoppen??

[Chacham]

I wish, but i don't think so.

If it's real, I think we have some serious problems in our future.

Nah. It just means people do not like that which they do not understand, or are otherwise unfamiliar with.

Re:Wha Hoppen??

[Trolling4Dollars]

But, but, but... can you imagine what would happen if we had a bunch of furry flying bags of piss circling the earth??? Oh the HORROR!!!!

Wow

[mfh]

That's pretty superstitious of them to kill a cat because it carries radiated genes.

Re:Wow

[Chacham]

Superstitious, or just scared?

People are scared of that which they are not familiar with. Associating it with a superstition was simply easy. If it wasn't that, it may have been from outer space.

Superstition is really when it takes the normal, and makes it abnormal. Start with abnormal, and it really isn't superstition.

True

[mfh]

Yeah you're totally accurate. I think that superstitious nature does lead to negative reactions to abnormalities, however. "Messengers from Satan" is a way of scaring people into doing whatever you want. The people who spot the messenger then turn it around and claim they should be honoured themselves for being pious and correctly identifying this monster, so they take a bigger cut of the collection plate and put it in their pocket, up their nose, in their bellies or wherever else you can imagine.

Re:True

[Chacham]

Well, it does get bad.

We all know how FUD helps Billy boy make his money. :)

Dubious, at best

[insanecarbonbasedlif]

I really doubt this story - here's [messybeast.com] a page about "winged cats", and about halfway down is the picture from the moscow article, crediting it as the "Manchester Winged Cat (1960s)", so either the Moscow story is a fake, or it's all fake (Likely, judging from the lack of scientific investigation and reporting). And why can't they get a good, decent quality photograph?

Re:Dubious, at best

[Chacham]

Wow.

Thanx for the report!