Cats from Outer Space

As happens in the New Year, new ideas move to the forefront of the imagination, but on rare occasions, a call in the night might be something more than almost anyone could imagine.

A wonderful treat for Marco Islanders comes in winter when embracing the cooler weather. The Germans call it “Luften,” which means the airing out of the house. On Marco, Goodland, East Naples, and the Isles of Capri, when the windows are open to the soft, balmy night, it becomes obvious why National Geographic suggests the best place for longevity in North America is Collier County, Florida. The dreamy night air is indeed a delight, with the heavy count of beneficial oxygen ions traveling through the atmosphere…and into the home. But just before the Sandman arrives, an owl asking, “Who?” might whisper a version of history that many might find shocking.

The first clue to solving a mystery will often arrive in a dream. Our story begins as a mirage of shimmering heat waves rises to meet an ancient Saharan sunset, and in the following twilight, a bright star falls but then stops to make a purr-fectly soft landing.

The first domestic cats—as we know them—arrived in early Egypt, but where the small lions and tigers came from is truly a mystery. Suggestions are that cats, as we know them, came from deep in the Sahara Desert. The giant sandbox idea obviously has merit, but how could the small felines—with an out-of-this-world intelligence—arrive out of nowhere from the heart of a wasteland? No one can truly know, but logic might offer that cats came to inspire and teach the most advanced humans at the time into understanding how to build the great pyramids and show humans the fine art of dress, coziness, and fashion.

Images of cats and their feline influence are in almost all hieroglyphics. In most portraits of families in ancient Egypt, from the pharaohs to the slaves, everyone wore eye makeup to make themselves look like cats. The idea that cats suddenly appeared out of an empty desert without food and water is ludicrous.

As the heavy and oxygen-rich night air began to reach even deeper into the slumbering Marco Island home, a particular Marco Beach Boy began to dream of a small troop of alien visitors traveling through outer space and their interstellar conveyance landing on the outskirts of ancient Cairo. The first cats adapted quickly to the atmosphere of a new planet and after a few days, they buried their space suits in the sand and began to seek out the humans they knew were waiting. When the very first cats came out of the Sahara, a plague of rats was overrunning the Egyptian grain facilities and therefore destroying the source of beer. After the new visitors—with the amazing markings around their eyes—began to annihilate the terrible rodent infestation, the Egyptians began to bring the first cats into their homes as cherished heroes…and advisors.

A few of the more gifted historians believe that after the Egyptians decided to change the intended design of the Sphinx and replace the head of a cat with the head of a mere mortal human, the interstellar visitors chose to turn up their tails and walk away. From the exodus from Egypt, the cats taught the Phoenicians how to build better boats so they could travel across the Mediterranean and arrive among the first civilizations in Europe.

Coins from southern Italy showcase cats with city leaders around 500 BC, but the ancient Cats from Outer Space did not arrive in the New World until they taught Columbus the concept of deep sea navigation in 1492.

After a few hundred years of patiently trying to show humans new art forms in almost every venue of science and refined culture, cats became unfortunate victims of association after they began to teach astrophysics to a group of women whom the jealous men were calling witches. Cats became popular again in America when they began to demonstrate daily grooming and the fine art of always smelling like something that was ready to snuggle.

When human female models began to walk down catwalks with one foot in front of the other—just like a cat—modern day fashion and slinky poise began to imitate the ancient alien visitors, who were the Cats from Outer Space.

Charles Fredrick Worth might be the official creator of the modern-day runway and the human credited with teaching his beautiful models to wear cat-like eyeliner and walk heel-to-toe, but he lived with a cherished cat far longer than any of his wives.

As the balmy winter air continued to waif through the Marco Island home, a bright full moon streaming interstellar moonshine somehow brought the particular Marco Beach Boy out of his dream state and into the reality of the hour after midnight. The owl outside the window might have ended the inspired slumber by asking the ultimate question of “who,” but when the Beach Boy suddenly sat up in bed and began to peer through the moonbeams coming through the window, Atticus, who was more of a family member than the family cat, was wide-awake and watching carefully. Even in the magic moonlight, which is always more inspiring than moonshine, everything became perfectly clear; Atticus the ancestor knew exactly what the Beach Boy had been dreaming about. You could tell just by looking at the expression on his face.

This story is dedicated to the wonderful folks at “For the Love of Cats.”