Cats staring at Nothing in the Early Hours Terrify Owner: 'Pack Your Bags'

Awake in the early hours of the night, one woman was shocked by the behavior of her two feline friends. In a 24-second clip, Max Buckley, who lives in Bristol, U.K., captured the moment her two black and white cats, Kicia and Fang, stood alert on their hind legs, fixing their gaze on a spot across the room. "I'd say they were staring for like 5 minutes," Buckley told Newsweek. "My reaction was just laughing because I was so nervous and scared." Both cats seemed fixated on the same spot, but when the owner couldn't see anything she was left questioning what they were doing.

Buckley shared the slightly terrifying footage on her TikTok page where it has now been viewed 3.4 million times. In the caption she said: "Can someone explain wtf just happened (they were staring right at my door btw)," before adding the hashtags #creepy and #spooky. The strange video prompted thousands of comments from viewers on the video-sharing app—and they all had their own theories. "I'm fully convinced animals can see spirits," said one viewer. Another agreed: "You can't tell me cats can't see ghosts." While many others attributed the cat behavior to seeing a jinn. "Cats see jinns so if they stare at stuff and act weird that means there jinns or spirits," said one commenter. According to Islamic belief, jinn are invisible creatures that inhabit the Earth, capable of supernatural powers and assuming various forms. "Time to pack your bags," asserted one terrified TikToker. In reality, there are plenty of reasons for the cats' sudden attention. Cats have different visual and auditory capabilities than humans, and are able to see small movements, insects and ultraviolet light that we cannot. They also have heightened hearing and are able to detect sounds inaudible to the human ear. When cats stare at something seemingly invisible, the most likely explanation is that they are hunting or tracking prey that humans cannot see. Cats have powerful eyesight with photoreceptors that are completely different to humans. Their eyes have more rods than humans, responsible for night, peripheral vision and motion sensing. As people continue to share their theories and ideas about what the cats may have been up to in the dead of night, Buckley was amazed by the viral attention: "I think that it's weird that it's going viral now when I posted it over a month ago, but I'm not mad," she laughed. Do you have funny and adorable videos or pictures of your pet you want to share? Send them to life@newsweek.com with some details about your best friend, and they could appear in our Pet of the Week lineup.