ANTIQUE BRASS CAT DISH FROM HAUNTED FARM HOUSE

ANTIQUE BRASS CAT DISH FROM HAUNTED FARM HOUSE

From Ebay Ad posted By: Haunts4u on eBay

Actual Ebay Auction Link

Auction states:

I've been investigating for more than 45 years and have worked with numerous police departments and agencies across the United States and abroad. With my children grown, we moved to a smaller home. Due to space limitations, I began selling off some of my extensive collection from my years of investigating. Friends suggested that Ebay would provide a venue for these items. I have an entire storage facility that houses my collection. You can check my feedback since I've only sold articles in this category. I must add that I am not an antique expert and am describing the item as I see it and from the information I was told. When I began to sell on ebay, it was with the hope that I might be able to offer someone interested in the paranormal, the opportunity to purchase an item that has been related to paranormal activity or a site that has had a great deal of paranormal activity. I hope whoever wins my items, appreciates them for the background associated with the item, not for how much they can re-sell the item for in a jewelry, or other market.

The item up for auction is a beautiful antique brass dish that's got the face of a cat on the inside surface of the dish. The ears protrude up, past the outer rim of the dish and curve inward. The jowls and chin of the cat extend past the rim of the dish on the opposite side. The features of the cat are very defined and are formed the way the actual face of a cat would look, with the eyes being recessed and the nose sticking out past the jowls, etc. In other words, the face is three dimensional and not flat. The dish measures 4 5/8 inches in width, by 4 inches from top to bottom, at the widest parts. The edge of the dish curls upward and the piece is 3/8 of an inch in height. The surface of the dish, around the face of the cat, is wavy, to give the appearance of the fluff on the cat's fur. Let me tell you the interesting background on this item.

In 1971, John and his wife Mary, took over the house that John's father had lived in since he was a child and his grandparents lived in for their entire life, as well. Almost immediately, the couple began to experience some puzzling events. The couple heard slamming doors during the night and at first thought the slamming doors were from her children's bedrooms and that one of the children had gotten up during the night. Upon checking, they always found the children fast asleep. Guests that stayed with the family also heard the unexplained sounds. The couple theorized that the sounds emanated from invisible, deceased family members absorbed in living their lives in the home, as they used to. Gradually more unexplained activity took place.

Alarm times set on alarm clocks somehow changed during the night. The television set would be found turned on in the morning when the family came downstairs to start their day. Then the couple began to hear a purring sound from the foot of their bed at night, as if a cat was settling down with them for a good night's sleep. One night at about 1:00 a.m. Mary woke from her sleep when she felt something laying across her feet at the foot of the bed. She sat up and wondered if one of the children had come in and tried to wake her for something so she got up and checked their bedrooms. She found her four year old missing from their bed. She went downstairs and through the kitchen and saw the smiling face of her little boy through the door in a back room where he'd wandered. The door had closed and locked behind him and there was no way he could open the door to come back in. She wondered how that could have happened without the someone doing that and no one else was up. When she went in to get her son, he was giggling and told her the cat woke him up and that he followed him in there to play with him. We were called the following morning.

When we got to the old farm house, we saw that it had been left, pretty much, as it was in the 1800s when her ancestors lived there. The kitchen had been updated, but other than that, the old beams were visible and the age of the structure was apparent. The family left the home after settling us in and we remained there for two days and nights, to conduct our investigation.

I was repeatedly drawn to the back room where the child had wandered, or I felt possibly been coaxed to. I felt that someone had slept in that room and had died in the bed there. It was just off the kitchen and it seemed like a servant might have been assigned to that room close to the kitchen to perform her duties at one time. There was a female spirit linked to the room and the scent of cookies or some type of delicious baked goods, seemed to suddenly fill the air in the room and then dissipate within seconds, even though nothing was cooked in the home in the two days we were there. The female spirit was accompanied by a ghost cat. I was certain of the fact that the cat was there and during our stay, four different people felt what they thought was the presence of a cat brush against their legs and when they looked down, nothing was there. One member of our crew even had light colored animal hair left on the bottom area of his pants where he felt the presence of an animal lean against him. We recorded the sound of purring and I decided to put out a small dish with milk to see what we would draw, if anything. At about 1:00 a.m. on our first night, our cameras picked up movement in that back room. We had a camera focused directly on the bowl of milk. The camera picked up movement in the milk. You could actually see rippling in the milk surface, as if something was touching it or licking it. I decided to go in with powder and brushed a light film on the floor in front of and on the sides of the bowl. The following morning, when the room was checked, we saw paw prints in the powder. Thinking that we must have missed some opening in the room and an animal possibly climbed in from outside the farm house, we went through the room and made certain that every crack and opening was closed. A new dusting of powder was brushed onto the floor again.

The second night revealed more paw prints and this time we had someone present as the prints appeared. The area we covered with powder was extended that night and the prints led from the bowl to a closet. Inside the closet, we found that the wooden planks on the floor were very loose. I was very curious about what was under those planks. We pried them up and saw a trap door that led to a space that must have once been used to store vegetables and canned products during the year. Some of the old canning items remained there and two big vegetable bins. Down in that root cellar, or storage cellar, I found the skeleton of an animal that I believed was something the size of a dog or cat, or possibly racoon. On the floor, under a portion of the remains, I could see that there was something that was black that wasn't part of the animal remains. After retreiving gloves and bagging the remains to be examined to learn what type of animal it was, I picked up the tarnished old item from the floor and learned that it was a heavy dish of some sort. After bringing it upstairs and spending some time cleaning it, we saw this o;d cat dish that's up for auction. I wondered if it had been used to hold milk or possibly some type of food for the animal that was in the cellar, but why would the animal be locked there. I was certain that scratching sounds that were being heard in that room, were from the "ghost cat" that died in the cellar. I was also certain that the cat was kept in that area as a hiding place because the person that stayed in that back room didn't want it known that they had the pet. However, when they died, there went the means for the cat to be released from its hiding place, or fed or cared for. When the owner died, the cat died. They say a cat has nine lives and this one is certainly living another life, crossing from the world of the dead to the world of the living, still trying to seek the attention of the people in the house.

The little cat dish is very beautiful and different than anything I've ever seen. The age of the piece is evident when you see it. I hope that someone that's a cat lover will get this item because I honestly think that the spirit of the cat will know when it's with someone that will provide comfort. They say animals can tell if you like them and I believe that the spirit of the cat needs that. Thank you for looking at this very interesting item.

We learned, several days later, that the remains were determined to be those of a cat.