When you think of cats, you probably picture cuddly companions, not raw material for inventions. Yet, the world of oddball engineering has produced 10 unbelievable things using felines as the base, ranging from a telephone to a covert spy device.
10 Unbelievable Things About Cats
10 A Telephone
In 1929, Princeton scientists Ernest Glen Wever and Charles William Bray built a functioning telephone by tapping directly into a cat’s auditory nerve. They first sedated the animal, opened its skull, and attached one end of a telephone wire to the nerve while the other end ran to a receiver positioned about 15 meters (50 feet) away. Bray then spoke into the cat’s ears, and Wever listened at the far‑end receiver.
The experiment wasn’t about creating a marketable cat‑phone; it was a probe into how sound interacts with the auditory nerve. Researchers had assumed that a voice’s frequency would shift when it hit the nerve, but the cat telephone proved the frequency stayed the same. The duo also learned that the set‑up failed when the wire was connected to any tissue other than the auditory nerve and that cutting off blood flow to the head stopped the transmission entirely. Their findings later helped pave the way for modern cochlear implants used by people with hearing loss.
Although the cat telephone never became a household gadget, the study highlighted the importance of direct neural stimulation, a concept that still underpins many neuro‑prosthetic devices today.
9 A Piano
The infamous “katzenklavier” or cat organ, described by 17th‑century scholar Athanasius Kircher in his 1650 treatise *Musurgia Universalis*, imagined a keyboard instrument where each key triggered a live cat to meow. Kircher’s design called for a series of cats of varying pitch, each confined in a tiny cage at one end of the instrument. Pressing a key would drive a spike into a cat’s tail, causing it to emit a sharp meow at a specific frequency.
Kircher noted that the pain‑induced meows grew louder with repeated strikes, as the felines grew increasingly desperate to escape. While no concrete evidence shows anyone ever built a functioning cat organ, folklore claims that a version was played for King Philip II during a 16th‑century procession in Brussels—predating Kircher’s description. Historian Juan Calvete de Estrella even recorded a tale of a bear operating the instrument from a chariot.
Today the katzenklavier survives as a macabre footnote in music history, illustrating how curiosity and cruelty sometimes intersected in early scientific and artistic experiments.
8 A Drone
When Bart Jansen’s cat Orville was tragically struck by a car in 2012, the grieving owner sought an unconventional tribute. Partnering with engineer Arjen Beltman, Jansen transformed the deceased feline into a remote‑controlled quadcopter he dubbed the “Orvillecopter.” The prototype retained the cat’s skin as a lightweight outer shell, while standard drone components handled lift and navigation.
The project was born from the coincidence that the cat shared a name with Orville Wright, one of aviation’s pioneers. Jansen and Beltman later experimented with other animal‑based drones, including a rat‑sized quadcopter and an ostrich‑sized flyer. Their most outlandish venture involved attaching a jet engine to a dead shark and crafting a badger‑shaped submarine. Currently, they aim to build a man‑sized “cow‑copter,” a multi‑passenger craft built around a bovine chassis.
While the Orvillecopter never entered mass production, it sparked conversations about the lengths people will go to memorialize beloved pets, blending grief, engineering, and a dash of the bizarre.
7 A Purse
In 2016, New Zealand taxidermist Claire Third grabbed headlines after she fashioned a handbag from a road‑kill cat and put it up for auction. The tote incorporated the animal’s entire head and skin, creating a macabre fashion statement that fetched a starting bid of NZ$1,400.
The cat had been found flattened by a passing vehicle, prompting Third to retrieve the carcass, clean it, and stitch it into a sleek purse. Public reaction was split: some praised the craftsmanship, while others condemned the exploitation of a dead pet for profit. Social media buzz included jokes like, “Who let the cat out the bag, or is it inside out?” and calls for the artist to leave the animal alone.
After the initial price proved too steep, Third lowered the asking price to a symbolic NZ$1, ultimately selling the piece for NZ$545—a modest sum compared to the original figure, yet enough to spark a lasting debate about ethics in taxidermy art.
6 Food
While many Westerners balk at the notion of eating cats, in Vietnam the animal is treated as a culinary delicacy, affectionately dubbed “little tigers.” Street‑side eateries serve the meat alongside cold beer, and the dishes are often prepared under grim conditions: cats are drowned, their skin stripped and burned to remove fur, then chopped into bite‑size pieces for frying.
Despite a governmental ban aimed at curbing the trade—citing concerns that killing cats could trigger a rat population explosion—demand remains high. The shortage of locally sourced cats has driven smugglers to steal them from the streets or import them from neighboring Thailand and Laos. The practice only took hold after a series of wars and famines in the 20th century forced Vietnamese communities to turn to alternative protein sources, including cats, dogs, and rats.
Today, the “little tiger” remains a controversial staple, illustrating how cultural, economic, and historical forces shape food traditions, even when they clash with global animal‑welfare norms.
5 A Spy Gadget
During the Cold War, the CIA launched “Operation Acoustic Kitty,” an ambitious attempt to turn a feline into a covert listening device. The plan involved surgically implanting a microphone into the cat’s ear, a tiny radio transmitter at the base of its skull, and a concealed antenna beneath its fur.
Field tests proved disastrous. When agents released the cat in a park to eavesdrop on two unsuspecting men, the animal ignored the targets and instead strutted into the middle of a busy street, where a taxi ran it over. The CIA later admitted that cats were poor candidates for espionage, citing their unpredictable behavior and lack of trainability.
Although the project was shelved, the tale of Acoustic Kitty endures as a cautionary example of how high‑tech ambitions can collide with the stubborn realities of nature.
4 Defensive Weapons
In 525 BC, during the Battle of Pelusium, the Persian Empire wielded cats as a psychological weapon against Egypt. Knowing that Egyptians revered felines—especially the goddess Bastet—they flooded the battlefield with live cats, confident the Egyptians would refuse to fire upon them.
Egyptian archers hesitated, fearing they would offend the sacred animals, which hampered their ability to repel the Persian advance. Some accounts suggest the Persians painted cat‑head symbols on their shields rather than using live cats, but the consensus remains that the feline‑centric strategy contributed to a crushing Persian victory. Historian Herodotus even reported stumbling upon the remains of fallen Egyptian soldiers decades later, underscoring the battle’s lasting devastation.
The episode highlights how cultural reverence can be weaponized, turning beloved creatures into unwitting tools of war.
3 Offensive Weapons
In 1584, a German manuscript titled *Feuer Buech* described a fiery siege weapon that combined burning pigeons with cats. The text suggested that attackers would seize stray cats near a fortress, strap explosive‑filled bags to their backs, ignite the charges, and release them. The cats, driven by instinct, would flee back toward the walls, setting fire to anything they touched.
Although no military archives confirm the actual deployment of such “rocket cats,” the idea resurfaced in later centuries. Some historians claim that the Mongols used similar tactics as early as the 3rd century BC, setting cats ablaze to sow chaos within enemy fortifications.
Even without concrete evidence, the concept illustrates the dark creativity of medieval warfare, where any means—no matter how cruel—were considered for gaining an advantage.
2 Black Diamonds
Grief can inspire extraordinary memorials, and one such tribute turned a beloved cat named Sooty into a black diamond. In 2008, Sue Rogers commissioned LifeGem to transform the feline’s cremated remains into a one‑third‑carat gem—the first black diamond ever produced from animal ashes.
The process began with extracting two grams of carbon from Sooty’s ashes. LifeGem then subjected the carbon to extreme heat and pressure for two weeks, forming a pristine white diamond. To achieve the striking black hue, the stone underwent an additional electron‑irradiation treatment for a single day, turning the gem a deep, glossy black.
While white diamonds fashioned from pet ashes have become more common, Sooty’s black diamond remains a rare testament to both advanced gem‑making technology and the lengths people will go to keep a piece of their companions forever.
1 Drug Mules
In a bizarre twist on drug‑smuggling tactics, criminals in Brazil and Russia have attempted to use cats as unwilling couriers. In 2015, Brazilian authorities intercepted a cat outside the Presidio Regional Romero Nobrega prison in Patos, discovering that smugglers had strapped mobile phones, chargers, and SIM cards to the animal using gauze, plaster, and masking tape, then covered it with fake fur.
The plot unraveled when prison staff noticed the plaster residue on the cat’s body. Following the bust, officials announced they would inspect every feline entering or leaving the facility. A separate 2018 incident in Russia saw a cat caught attempting to smuggle hashish and amphetamines into a prison. The animal had lived inside the penitentiary until an inmate, after release, brought it home and later tried to use it for contraband transport.
These oddball cases underscore how desperate criminals can become, turning even innocent household pets into covert drug‑mules, albeit with limited success.