The Demon Cat, sometimes known as DC, is a legendary feline apparition that supposedly haunts the government buildings and underground tunnels of Washington, D.C. The legend likely has a basis in fact, deriving from the early nineteenth century when, to control a rat infestation plaguing the capital, cats were released in the tunnels connecting various governmental buildings. Origin stories suggest that a black cat was the last to remain from this introduction, or that the creature is the ghost of a cat entombed in the crypt below the U.S. Capitol Building’s rotunda. Most of the sightings have centered on the underground tunnels leading in or out of the Capitol building, and have been focused around national tragedies or changes in presidential administrations.
According to White House lore, the Demon Cat was spotted in the tunnels beneath that building on the evenings prior to the assassinations of Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy (although not before the assassinations of the less well-known James Garfield and William McKinley), as well as the crash of the stock market preceding the Great Depression, the death of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and both 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina. In most accounts, the cat is described in its natural state as black, average-sized, and with piercing yellow eyes, but when confronted can grow to enormous proportions, up to ten feet long, with its eyes either staying yellow or taking on a deep, demonic red.
After transforming into this larger, more threatening apparition, the Demon Cat is often reported as either hissing demonically or leaping at the witness. According to Florian Thayn, who in the 1970s and 1980s served as an archivist for the Capitol architect: “The demon cat would usually meet someone alone in a dark corridor. It had large yellow eyes that seemed to hypnotize, and it would snarl. It would seem to grow larger and larger until it would make a final lunge toward its victim and then either explode or disappear over the victim’s head” (Davidson 1990). There haven’t been many sightings in the twentieth century, and none with any level of specificity since the 1940s. Most of the sightings have been by janitors and lone security guards patroling the underground tunnels. Reports from 1862 and 1898 have security guards futilely discharging firearms at the Demon Cat, and at least one guard was reported to suffer a heart attack after sighting the cat.
Many of the earlier nineteenth-century sightings have been attributed to security guards who benefited from the patronage of their congressional relatives, but who did not take their jobs very seriously. According to Steve Livengood, member of the U.S. Capitol Historical Society, one of the sightings occurred when a drunken guard was aroused from deep sleep by a cat licking his face. Believing himself to be standing up at the time, the guard assumed that the cat was larger than it actually was. Livengood hypothesizes that the story’s success hinged upon the fact that “the other guards found out that they could get a day off if they saw the demon cat” (Jordan 2009). In some of the tales, the cat first appears as a kitten before growing larger and larger.
Some stories are not at all threatening in nature, such as when the cat in its more normal-sized form left its footprints in the wet concrete of the rotunda floor during one of the many Capitol renovations. Other sightings are fleeting, with the cat spotted out of the corner of an eye before subsequently disappearing without a trace. According to legend, the Demon Cat is underreported because those who have reported seeing it have been subject to losing their security clearance.
The Demon Cat is one of numerous ghost stories involving the U.S. Capitol Building and White House, and among them one of the better-known tales along with those about the ghosts of Presidents John Quincy Adams and Abraham Lincoln, as well as Congressman Wilbur Mills. One legend of Capitol lore involves the statues in the rotunda coming to life and dancing after the last workers leave for the day. President Harry S. Truman was allegedly a believer in some of these stories, and during the Halloween season one can take “ghost tours” of the nation’s capital. Despite the prevalence of these ghost narratives, however, the Demon Cat has been enshrined in local lore as one of the more enduring examples of supernatural legend.
Andrew Howe
See also Ball-Tailed Cat; Cactus Cat; Tailypo; Wampus Cat
Further Reading
Apkarian-Russell, Pamela. 2006. Washington’s Haunted Past: Capital Ghosts of America. Charleston, SC: History Press.
Davidson, Lee 1990. “The Hill Is Alive with the Sound of Ghost Stories about Capitol.” Deseret News website. October 30. http://www.deseretnews.com/article/129703/THE-HILL-IS-ALIVE-WITH-THE-SOUND-OF-GHOST-STORIES-ABOUT-CAPITOL.html?pg=all. Accessed July 3, 2015.
Jordan, Elizabeth. 2009. “Ghosts Wander the Hill.” Roll Call website. July 13. http://www.rollcall.com/issues/55_5/-36682-1.html. Accessed July 3, 2015.
Rainbolt, Dusty. 2007. Ghost Cats: Human Encounters with Feline Spirits. Guilford, CT: Globe Pequot.
Thomsen, Brian M. 2008. Oval Office Occult: True Stories of White House Weirdness. Kansas City: Andrews McMeel.