Oscar, a therapy cat who could predict deaths

Animals are not only known to provide comfort to people, but also have an uncanny ability to predict some things and understand the world around them better than humans even. This is the story of Oscar, one such cat, who could predict deaths of people living in a nursing home, News18 reported.

Oscar was taken in by a nursing home in the US in 2005 when he was only six months old and was raised as a therapy cat. He was not just any cat, though; the workers noticed that he had a peculiar quality. Oscar possessed the ability to foresee the deaths of the patients who lived in the nursing home.

At first, the doctors failed to notice such a thing about Oscar. Oscar liked to be by himself most of the time, and it was kind of rare for him to crawl into a resident’s bed and snuggle beside them. The strange thing is that, in most cases, the resident Oscar would cuddle with would pass away within a few hours. The staff at first did not think much of it, but after this occurred 20 times, they began to believe that Oscar had a sixth sense for when someone was about to die.

“Oscar was initially sort of a very scared cat. 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 and it wasn’t really until somebody was near death that Oscar would sort of come out front and center,” said Dr David Dosa, a health researcher at Brown University, while speaking to Crossroads Hospice.

Several researchers, after some speculation said that Oscar could smell biochemicals, which are released by dying cells. Thus, he chose to comfort those dying residents.  

An X post stated, “On one occasion, the staff was convinced that a resident was about to pass away, but Oscar refused to sit with them. Instead, he chose another resident who looked healthier, and that person passed away first."

Oscar correctly predicted more than 100 deaths during the course of his life. He passed away in 2022. Oscar is referred to as the Angel of Death by some and simply an angel by others.