Talk:Demon Cat

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This article needs to be rewritten to reflect the subject's status as folklore. - LuckyLouie (talk) 23:02, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Is this a real legend, or made up by one author?
What makes this tale notable enough to have an article about it. At the moment, it is sourced to one single book... and we have no way to know whether the tale is an actual piece of Washington folklore or something made up by an imaginative author. To establish notability, I think we need the tale to be discussed in more than one source.

Note... I am not saying that we need some sort of evidence that the "Demon Cat" actually exists. I am saying that we need additional verification that the legend actually exists. We need to establish that this legend is notable enough for us to have an article on it.

I will give it a few weeks... but if additional sources are not given to establish notability, I will prod it for deletion. Blueboar (talk) 17:24, 3 December 2009 (UTC)


 * It is also in the book Phantom Animals by Daniel Cohen, published by Pocket Books, c1991. Admittedly, this is a young adult book, but it shows that the legend has been written about elsewhere. It is only somewhat known by regular people in the D.C. area. There was also an article about the cat and other capitol hauntings in The Washington Post, Oct. 2, 1898 - "Spooks of the Capitol - The Specters That Haunt the Houses of Congress - Demon Cat and Other Ghosts". The article claims that the cat, which at that time had not been seen since 1862 and was still spoken of in "awed whispers" by two of the older capitol police, looks normal at first and then "swells up to the size of an elephant". The New York Times, Oct. 27, 1901 - "The Ghosts of Washington" mentions the cat. Another article from The Washington Post, June 30, 1935 by George O. Gillingham titled - "A Demon Cat and Other Spooks Haunt the Halls of the U.S. Capitol". MultK (talk) 03:08, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

White House and the Capitol complex
As of today, 2015-11-09, the article sez: "According to legend, the cat is seen before presidential elections and tragedies in Washington, D.C., allegedly being spotted by White House security guards the nights before the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Abraham Lincoln." However, that is not possible today nor in the past. The White House and the Capitol complex are not interconnected. Guards from the White House would not be patrolling the Capitol buildings. 24.240.67.157 (talk) 03:23, 10 November 2015 (UTC)


 * It also says the cat was last seen after WWII. An inconsistency with it being seen before Kennedy's assassination. 69.131.110.95 (talk) 18:27, 25 April 2022 (UTC)


 * True, it's a contradiction. The "last seen after WWII" is cited to Catherine Avery (May 28, 1993), "Ghost Story ;There's a supernatural tale at most every corner in town", The Washington Times...which is inaccessible. Also, folklore by its nature is full of impossibilities, contradictions, and inconsistencies. It’s not uncommon for several versions of the same tale to exist. - LuckyLouie (talk) 18:59, 25 April 2022 (UTC)

Ha!
This is probably the best piece of folklore I've read all week. I've heard it before, but I hadn't heard about the backstory! Drunk guy getting licked by a cat... Classic! Sea Captain Cormac 00:38, 6 November 2016 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cormac Nocton (talk • contribs)

Really Enjoyed!
This was one of the better pages I have stumbled across on Wikipedia. Thank you for writing this page! TessBroll (talk) 17:52, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

obsessed tbh
I totally adore the fact this is a real enough myth to have a Wikipedia page. Rock on DemonCat o7 185.81.193.43 (talk) 13:09, 4 March 2024 (UTC)