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William Shatner: You know, I've been around for a while.

Met some interesting people, done some crazy things.

So you just might think that there's not much that

can take me by surprise.

You'd be wrong.

The world is full of stories and science and

things that amaze and confound me every single day,

incredible mysteries that keep me awake at night.

Some I can answer.

Others just defy logic.

Shatner: Do animals have abilities beyond our

comprehension?

In Germany, an octopus correctly predicts

multiple winners in the soccer World Cup.

How?

OLIVER WALENCIAK: We never expected him to predict

everything right.

Shatner: Are sea creatures psychic?

In Scotland, over 50 dogs mysteriously plunge to

their death from the same bridge - leaving

scientists baffled.

DONNA COOPER: His feet just left the ground and

went straight over.

Shatner: Are dogs suicidal, or is a sinister

force at play?

And in Oklahoma, an ordinary house cat makes a

2,200 kilometre journey to find its owner.

RITA KOLANDER: It never entered my mind that he

had come by himself.

William Shatner: Yeah, it's a weird world.

And I love it.

[♪]

William Shatner: You know I'm fascinated by the

animal kingdom - these incredible creatures that

we share the planet with.

But how much do we really know about them?

Well, quite a lot actually.

Take the moose for instance - he's the

largest of the deer family, he has 32 teeth,

and 27 pairs of chromosomes compared with

23 in humans.

Or the dolphin - he sleeps with one eye open, lives

up to 40 years and has a bigger brain than a monkey

- and quite a few of friends of mine in Hollywood...

And then there's the sheep - he's just stupid.

But what about those animals we're not so

familiar with, like this guy...an octopus...well,

we know he has three hearts, no bones and blue blood.

But here's something you might not know...

He's psychic.

Shatner: June 13, 2010.

As Germany gears up for the long-awaited World Cup

soccer championships...

...An aquarium in the town of Oberhausen is preparing

to launch a unique publicity stunt.

The aquarium will use its resident octopus, named

Paul, to try and pick the winners of each match

Germany competes in.

Oliver Walenciak is a curator at Sea Life.

OLIVER WALENCIAK: We started to do the

predictions with Paul just to entertain our visitors

and get some regional press.

Shatner: The idea is simple.

There are two Plexiglas boxes marked with the

opposing team's flags.

Each box contains a live mussel - Paul's favourite treat.

All the octopus has to do is lift the lid

to get at the food inside.

OLIVER WALENCIAK: We put the two boxes into the

tank, and Paul had to decide which mussel he

will eat, and this team will win.

Shatner: World Cup fever runs high in Germany,

where huge sums are bet on the outcome.

But at Sea Life, no one is expecting much from Paul...

who has never shown any particular talent for anything.

OLIVER WALENCIAK: When I saw Paul, It was a very

cute octopus, a nice one but not that different

from any other octopus I already met.

Shatner: On the day of Paul's first prediction,

there is little interest in the story.

OLIVER WALENCIAK: There was very low attention

from the media, and it was just a few photographs

from the regional press.

Shatner: Oliver's not even sure if the octopus -

which has never been trained to perform tricks

- will even take part.

OLIVER WALENCIAK: The game against Australia was just

to see if Paul is working like we want him to work.

Shatner: To Oliver's surprise, not only does

Paul eagerly participate - he correctly predicts the

winning team, Germany.

OLIVER WALENCIAK: He just had a lot of luck.

Shatner: But then something happens which

makes Oliver question everything about sea creatures.

Paul makes another correct prediction... and another.

And with each one, word spreads about the octopus

that seems to know which team will win

- before the match is even played.

OLIVER WALENCIAK: The staff recognized something

special was happening.

Shatner: By the time Germany faces off in a

much-anticipated match against England, Paul has

become a media sensation.

OLIVER WALENCIAK: All the international press wanted

to have interviews.

The Washington Post had an article about Paul.

Shatner: Weirdly, Paul is apparently aware of the

attention he's getting - he even seems to enjoy it.

OLIVER WALENCIAK: When the first reporters came in

front of his tank, he started to play with the reporters.

So, he really recognized it and seemed

that he also had some fun.

Shatner: But nothing prepares Oliver

for what happens next.

Paul keeps making correct predictions -

as Germany beats England and Ghana and Argentina.

Incredibly, he's predicted five games out of five,

without a single error.

Aquarium staff are stunned.

They can't understand how a creature with a brain

the size of a walnut can beat the best bookies in the world.

OLIVER WALENCIAK: There is no scientific explanation for it.

Shatner: But not everybody is pleased with Paul.

Fans on losing teams blame the octopus for their

defeat and call for him to be cooked and eaten.

OLIVER WALENCIAK: The first death threats he got

were when he picked the German against Argentina.

Shatner: Paul gets in even more hot water when he

dares to predict that his home team Germany

would be beaten by Spain.

But he is right again!

And by the time the finals roll around, media

interest in Paul has reached a fever pitch.

OLIVER WALENCIAK: You can imagine 150 reporters and

live broadcast in front of the tank, and you have

boxes and think, "Oh God, do anything, I don't care

what you do, but do anything please."

Shatner: 700 million people watch the game

between Spain and the Netherlands.

Paul makes his final and most important prediction

- eating the mussel in the box marked Spain.

OLIVER WALENCIAK: This was, I would say, the most

thrilling prediction.

Shatner: Paul is right again.

Even now, Oliver is still mystified

by Paul's achievements.

OLIVER WALENCIAK: There were thousands

of animals doing predictions...

during the 2010 championship, but um, Paul

was the only one having all 8 games right.

William Shatner: Calamari.

Oh, sorry.

This is awesome isn't it?

I mean if an octopus can predict the winners of

soccer games - just imagine what else they can do.

Now this guys name is Jeff. Jeff?

Pick the winning numbers of the lottery.

C'mon Jeff, get the winning numbers of the lottery.

Jeff gets a little shy, okay so one more time:

what numbers are going to win the lottery.

Ok...see you at dinner.

Shatner: How did an octopus make so many

correct predictions?

Is this evidence these creatures

can see into the future?

Dr. Jennifer Mather of the University of Lethbridge

has been studying octopus behaviour for over 30 years.

DR. JENNIFER MATHER: Octopuses are very

intelligent animals.

They're lots of fun because they're trying to

solve every problem you give them.

Shatner: She doesn't think Paul has the ability to

see into the future - let alone predict the outcome

of a human sports event.

DR. JENNIFER MATHER: The octopus doesn't have the

faintest idea what a soccer match is - why

everybody is excited about the World Cup.

Shatner: Dr. Mather thinks the truth is - the animal

is simply figuring out the best way to get dinner.

DR. JENNIFER MATHER: This octopus, I'm sure, was

taken from the wild and it has to learn new ways to

get food and what it's doing is scoping us out

and figuring out how to get the best it

can out of the situation.

Shatner: Even more revealing, Dr. Mather

believes Paul wasn't even looking at the flags.

DR. JENNIFER MATHER: One of the things people don't

realize about octopuses is that they're colorblind.

So, I think the German flag is red and black and

that really didn't matter to the octopus.

Shatner: So if Paul wasn't responding to the flags,

how did he know which box to choose?

Dr. Mather is convinced he was using a sensory

ability unique to octopuses.

Through chemical receptors in his tentacles, Paul

could literally "smell" the mussels inside the

boxes - before he even opened them.

DR. JENNIFER MATHER: Octopuses are very

sensitive to chemical cues.

It would have known that there was a reward

in each of those boxes.

Shatner: That would explain a bizarre quirk of

Paul's predictions...

...That for most of the matches, he chose the box on

the right - which also happened to be the winning team.

DR. JENNIFER MATHER: What happens in captivity is

that the octopus ends up doing what it's getting

rewarded for so, it may go, "Well, yeah I got

rewarded there so I keep going there".

Shatner: But if Paul knew he could get a mussel from

the right-hand box, why did he sometimes choose

the one on the left?

DR. JENNIFER MATHER: It's entirely possible it just

got bored and thought, "Well, I know there's one

on the other side, why don't I go over to the

other side and see what's over there."

They're like us, they're curious.

They're explorers.

Shatner: So, if we believe Dr. Mather, Paul's

predictions were a win-win situation...

at least for his stomach.

But that still doesn't explain his astonishing success.

What is Paul's secret to beating the odds?

RADU CRAIU: I sort of knew there was some hidden

mechanism in there.

Shatner: An octopus predicts the outcome of

World Cup soccer matches.

Is it psychic - or just playing along to get a meal?

Dr. Radu Craiu is a professor of statistics at

the University of Toronto - and a keen soccer fan.

RADU CRAIU: So when I first heard about Paul the

Octopus, I was not floored.

I sort of knew there was some hidden mechanism in there.

Shatner: Dr. Craiu claims that he has unlocked the

secret of Paul's success.

It all comes down to probability - the

mathematical calculation of whether or not

something is likely to happen.

RADU CRAIU: To pick the winner of a match

correctly it's the same as flipping a coin and

calling it ahead of time.

So its 50% chance of calling it right.

Shatner: But Paul correctly predicted 8 matches in a row.

The odds must be huge.

Mustn't they?

To find out Dr. Craiu uses a "probability tree" to

represent each of the choices Paul made.

He comes up with a surprising result.

RADU CRAIU: The chance for this octopus to actually

predict all 8 games is about 1 in 256.

Pretty small odds if we think this was done at random.

Shatner: So were Paul's accomplishments less

impressive than they seemed?

Perhaps - and there's another crucial element in play.

Dr. Craiu says Paul wasn't the only animal predicting

the World Cup - in fact there were hundreds of

creatures all over the world trying to do the same thing.

RADU CRAIU: We often hear about animal oracles, but

we also have to understand that there are many others

who have tried to be animal oracles and failed.

Shatner: With so many animals trying to pick

winners, believes Dr. Craiu, one of them is

bound to get it right.

RADU CRAIU: Its simply because it has to happen,

by luck, by chance, it has to happen once.

In a blue moon, but it can happen.

Shatner: The bottom line for Dr. Craiu?

RADU CRAIU: If we're gonna remember Paul for

anything, we should remember him for being

a very lucky octopus.

Shatner: So was it all just a fluke?

Or could there be another explanation?

Author and animal rescuer Steve Kotler has been

writing about the cognitive power of animals

for nearly two decades.

STEVEN KOTLER: I'm surrounded by thirty

animals almost every day and the one thing that I

know for sure is that we don't know anything about animals.

Shatner: He doesn't rule out the possibility that

Paul the Octopus was - an oracle.

STEVEN KOTLER: I think we have to keep an open mind

about the possibilities of Paul the octopus like we

have to keep in mind, an open mind about the

capabilities of all animals.

Every time we've said there's an ability that

animals don't have-they don't have tool use, they

don't have language, they can't grieve, they don't love.

All these things are things we used to believe

animals couldn't do at all and we now know are

absolutely fact.

Shatner: Kotler points to recent discoveries that

have shed new light on the animal kingdom.

STEVEN KOTLER: A really great example of an

ability animals have that we don't have and we can't

even begin to fathom comes from elephants.

Shatner: In the early 1980s, researchers

discovered elephants are capable of emitting

ultra-low frequency calls.

STEVEN KOTLER: Their stomachs make sub-sonic,

low-frequency sounds.

These sounds travel for hundreds of miles and

elephants can communicate this way.

They seem to hear these sounds with sensors in their feet.

Kotler suspects something similar was at work at the

aquarium - with Paul actually reading the minds

of the people around him.

STEVEN KOTLER: I think there were a lot of people

in that room who wanted him to select the mussel

with the German flag on it.

And I think he was picking up on that vibe and

reading something.

Shatner: Could it be that Paul can not only see into

the future - but he's telepathic as well?

STEVEN KOTLER: We have no possible way of

understanding the octopi universe.

We don't have eight arms, we don't live under the

sea, we don't squirt ink.

We have no idea what it's like to do those things

and that leads to all kind of wonderous

possibilities.

Shatner: Did Paul use precognition to pick

World Cup winners?

Did he just get lucky?

Or was he just looking for food like any old octopus?

Whatever the truth, this story is - Weird or What?

William Shatner: Ever wonder what your pet is thinking?

Well, we all know don't we?

- Or we think we do.

We talk to them and they respond. Watch.

Fluffy - want to eat some cookies?

Wanna go for a walk? Fluffy-wuffy, love Bill?

Do you love Bill? See?

He thinks about food, walkies and he's thinking

about how much he loves me.

That's all that takes to make him happy.

But not every dog is like Fluffy.

Others have secrets - secrets and thoughts so

deep and dark - they're worth dying for.

Did you say something?

Shatner: March 2005.

Dumbarton, Scotland.

Shatner: Donna Cooper is on an outing with her

daughter and the family dog, Ben.

Shatner: They're exploring a 19th century country

estate on the outskirts of town.

DONNA COOPER: We'd been out for about 2 hours and

then we were just finishing the walk when we

came up the stairs and came to the bridge.

Shatner: Donna doesn't want Emma wandering off -

especially near the bridge.

But, busy with her daughter, Donna takes her

eyes off the dog.

DONNA COOPER: I'm always aware of bridges, but

generally you just say to a dog come or heel and

they're generally right at your heel and don't go anywhere.

Shatner: Suddenly, Ben rushes onto the bridge

before Donna can react.

Donna is stunned by what happens next.

DONNA COOPER: His feet just left the ground and

he went straight over.

His feet didn't even touch the bridge, he was just up and over.

There was no chance of anybody being able to

catch him or stop him or it just happened so quickly.

Shatner: Donna goes down into the 50-foot gorge to

retrieve the badly injured animal.

DONNA COOPER: He'd landed at the very bottom of the bridge.

He'd broken his jaw, his legs, his ribs, his back.

So unfortunately there was nothing else

we could do for him.

Shatner: She still doesn't understand why the dog jumped.

DONNA COOPER: He wasn't a working dog or anything.

But he was very intelligent and we had him

properly trained.

DONNA COOPER: He was a very happy dog.

I clearly don't understand why he done it.

Shatner: What makes Ben's death even more puzzling

is the fact that it wasn't the first.

Since the 1950's, over 50 dogs have leapt to their

deaths from the Overtoun Bridge.

Owners, vets and scientists are baffled by

these incidents.

DONNA COOPER: I think everybody has a theories,

everybody has their stories and ideas.

It is strange that many other dogs have done it as well.

William Shatner: My goodness, this is awful.

Dogs taking their own lives?

Doggy depression? Hound hari-kari?

What is going on here?

I mean they didn't even leave a suicide note.

Seriously, this has got to stop.

We have to help - but how?

There's only one way - we have to get to the bottom

of this and find out where these deeply troubled

minds went wrong.

Tell me about your puppyhood.

But therapy is good for you.

Shatner: Why did Ben die?

Do canines possess complex emotions - that make them

want to end it all?

STANLEY COREN: Various things can cause

a dog to be depressed.

Shatner: A series of dogs mysteriously die on a

bridge in a Scottish village.

Did they deliberately kill themselves?

Psychologist Dr. Stanley Coren has been studying

human-animal relationships for over four decades.

STANLEY COREN: I don't think a dog is capable of

deciding to commit suicide.

He might kill himself through accident, but not

through deliberate planning.

Shatner: According to Dr. Coren, suicide goes

against every canine instinct.

STANLEY COREN: The most powerful drive that they

have is toward life.

An animal caught in a trap will chew his own foot off

to continue to live.

Shatner: Dr. Coren believes an adult dog has

a mental age equivalent to a two-year old human child.

STANLEY COREN: They have, happiness, they have joy,

they have sadness, they have fear, they have

anger, they have surprise, that sort of thing.

They don't have the complex learned emotions:

guilt, shame, embarrassment, those sorts

of things.

Shatner: But scientific studies have shown that

dogs can experience a form of depression.

STANLEY COREN: Various things can cause a dog to

be depressed.

Things like being socially isolated.

They're very social animals.

Things like loss, like the loss of a well-loved owner.

Any of those things can cause a dog to be depressed.

Shatner: But could canine depression lead to suicide?

STANLEY COREN: The only reason why suicide might

be considered to be a reasonable option is if

you have the feeling that "My current condition is

awful and it's unlikely to change in the future.

And the only way I can control this is by ending

this existence."

Dogs don't think that way.

Shatner: So if dogs can't commit suicide, why did

Ben jump off the bridge?

Could there be some other explanation?

Shatner: Psychic investigator Archibald Lawrie

has a monstrous theory about

the Scottish dog suicides.

He's convinced Overtoun Bridge is the scene of a

heinous crime, with origins in the distant past.

He thinks the clues to the mystery are still there.

ARCHIBALD LAWRIE: Psychic memories, all memories,

are locked onto the place of the Earth's surface

that they were generated.

Shatner: Lawrie and his partner Francis Ryan

believe dark, supernatural forces

may be behind the deaths.

For the first time, they will try to communicate

with the ghosts of Overtoun Bridge and find

out what happened.

ARCHIBALD LAWRIE: I said, Francis lets see if we can

pick up anything because nobody else is coming out

with any decent ideas at all.

Shatner: On the bridge, Frances goes into

a psychic trance...

FRANCIS RYAN: I feel a mist starting to come forward.

It's coming in a haze at the moment, I'm not

getting a full figure, I feel a haze - it's like

feeling energy coming in.

Shatner: Almost immediately, she has a

chilling vision.

ARCHIBALD LAWRIE: She said, "I'm seeing a big, black horse..."

FRANCIS RYAN: I feel he's coming forward in a different way.

ARCHIBALD LAWRIE: On the horse, there is a rider.

He's a young man.

Shatner: Frances sees a young man, named Edward,

who lived in Overtoun Estate over a century ago.

But on this day, he was on a foxhunt that took him

across Overtoun Bridge.

FRANCES RYAN: Very strong-willed, very powerful.

ARCHIBALD LAWRIE: Edward is blowing his hunting

horn and the dogs are hearing that and

following it, as dogs do.

Shatner: But there's something special about

the horn - the pitch is so high only dogs can hear it.

ARCHIBALD LAWRIE: And it's giving out a sound which

we can't hear, we humans can't hear, because it's

designed to make a sound for dogs to get dogs to

follow the hunt.

Shatner: Suddenly, one of the dogs goes berserk and

attacks the young man's horse, causing it to rear up in panic.

FRANCES RYAN: He's giving the feeling of tumbling

and falling, tumbling and falling.

Shatner: Edward is thrown - and killed in the fall.

ARCHIBALD LAWRIE: He slides back down the horse

breaking his back on the corner of that bridge.

ARCHIBALD LAWRIE: So cruelly so quickly cut

down in his prime because of action of a dog.

FRANCES RYAN: He hates the dogs.

Shatner: Lawrie's séance on Overtoun Bridge has led

him to a startling conclusion.

ARCHIBALD LAWRIE: Edward and his horse are still there.

Shatner: Lawrie believes Edward's ghost is not only

alive and well, he's still blowing into the hunting

horn that only dogs can hear.

But now he's using it for a diabolical purpose - to

lure dogs off the bridge.

ARCHIBALD LAWRIE: Are these dogs somehow hearing

this blowing of this thing to follow him

and leap to their deaths.

Shatner: Is a vengeful ghost causing dogs to jump

off a Scottish bridge?

Shatner: Animal psychologist Dr. David Sands

agrees something is luring dogs off Overtoun

Bridge - but it's not supernatural.

DAVID SANDS: It's not suicide.

It's death by misadventure.

Shatner: He's convinced the animals are being led

- not by a ghostly horn, but by one of the most

powerful sensory organs in nature: their noses.

DAVID SANDS: With a sense of smell perhaps hundreds

or thousands times more powerful than ours once a

dog picks up a trail its gonna be motivated to, to

follow it and find out where its leading to.

Shatner: What smell could possibly cause a dog to

jump off a 50-foot bridge?

Dr. Sands is certain there is only one.

An odor so powerful and overwhelming, canines

simply can't resist it.

The mink - a creature dogs instinctively hunt.

DAVID SANDS: The mink has an anal gland that

produces a, a sort of scent that is so strong

you probably smell it from about half a mile away.

Shatner: It's an interesting theory -

minks were farmed here until the 1960's.

The doctor thinks their wild relatives are still

around - and dogs know it.

DAVID SANDS: Minks are territorial, they leave scents.

Dominant males leaving their scent for other

animals to pick up.

But if dogs want to chase mink, why are they leaping

off the bridge instead of running around the side?

Dr. Sands visited Overtoun Bridge to find out.

DAVID SANDS: Once I got to the bridge...

I sort of got down on my hand and knees and thought

about it from the dog's point of view.

Shatner: He quickly discovered the answer.

Dogs can't see over the wall.

They have no way of knowing they're on a bridge.

DAVID SANDS: Because of the height of the stone

wall on the bridge, they're seeing a wall,

they are not seeing a fifty-foot drop on the other side.

Shatner: It's a convincing explanation - canine

curiosity and a powerful hunting instinct literally

drives dogs over the edge.

DAVID SANDS: A recipe of cues and signals and

scents that have caused the dog to behave quite

naturally but for the end result to be disastrous.

Shatner: Did the hounds of Dumbarton jump to their

deaths because of the scent of wild mink?

Were they lured off the bridge by a ghostly dog-hater?

Or were they so depressed they couldn't go on living?

Weird or what?

Shatner: A house cat journeys 2,200 kilometres

through five states to track down its owner.

RITA KOLANDER: Just some way he knew,

he knew where we were...

William Shatner: You know it's wonderful these days

- you can travel with your pet - take them wherever

you go, on planes, ships, they're totally portable.

But not all pets get to travel, sometimes their

owners have to leave them behind - and that's when

heartbreak can occur.

Luckily, we don't have that problem - do we, honey?

You ready? We're gonna go.

[dog barks]

Shatner: June, 1951.

Anderson, California.

The Woods family is getting ready to move to

Oklahoma, a grueling 2,200 kilometre car trip to the east.

Rita Kolander is their daughter.

She is eight years old at the time.

RITA KOLANDER: All of my father's family and all of

my mother's family lived in the same county in

Oklahoma, and I think that we moved because they

missed their families.

Shatner: But as they finish packing for their

move, there's a problem: Rita's beloved cat, Sugar.

RITA KOLANDER: Sugar and I loved each other.

We played together constantly.

He would follow me everywhere I went.

Shatner: However, Sugar is terrified of cars.

RITA KOLANDER: Sugar just got wild in the car

and would not stay.

Shatner: Rita's father finally decides they have

to leave Sugar behind.

RITA KOLANDER: I was heartbroken.

We left the cat with a neighbour family, the Spanns.

RITA KOLANDER: I remember seeing Susan, my friend,

standing in our yard holding Sugar, when we

drove out the driveway.

And that was an empty feeling.

Shatner: The family moves to a dairy farm in

Oklahoma, with a host of feral barn cats.

As time passes, Rita finds things to take

her mind off of Sugar.

RITA KOLANDER: I got a pony, and we got a dairy

and it had cattle and things that

I wasn't familiar with.

I think that helped me get over the loss of Sugar.

Shatner: August, 1952.

14 months after leaving California, Rita and her

mother Ellen are working in the barn when something

unexpected happens.

RITA KOLANDER: We were feeding the cows in the

barn while my daddy milked, and this cat,

it startled her.

RITA KOLANDER: He just purred.

It was so obvious that he was a different cat than

any we had there on the farm.

The others were wild.

We didn't have any other friendly cats.

Shatner: And the friendliness of the cat

isn't the only thing.

Ellen notices the emaciated animal bears an

uncanny resemblance to Sugar, the pet they left behind.

RITA KOLANDER: I was so excited because I thought

by some miracle, somebody had brought Sugar, or we'd

gotten him there some way.

Shatner: But Ellen pours cold water on Rita's excitement.

RITA KOLANDER: My parents were very quick to say.

It can't be Sugar, but it's a lot like him.

Looks a lot like him.

Shatner: Two months later, Ellen receives a letter

from their neighbors in California.

It's mostly gossip about their old neighborhood.

But it also contains a bombshell: Her precious

cat, Sugar - is missing.

RITA KOLANDER: It said, "Sugar disappeared two

weeks after you moved, and we have never found him,

never found a trace of him."

Shatner: Rita and her mother are stunned.

They begin to consider the impossible.

If Sugar is no longer in California, could the new

barn cat be Rita's beloved pet?

RITA KOLANDER: I really did not stop to think

through what it took for that cat to cross the

desert, the mountains, and the perils that he must

have come through.

I was too much interested in the fact that I had my cat back.

Shatner: Did Sugar make a fantastic journey?

In addition to deserts and mountains, he would have

had to cross rivers, forests , salt flats -

over 2,200 kilometres and five different states.

Not to mention encounters with deadly predators like

rattlesnakes, coyotes and eagles... How?

RITA KOLANDER: He had to be a pretty good little

hunter, and he had to be a pretty smart little cat in

order to make that trip, to know and to understand

where he was going.

Just some way he knew where we were.

Shatner: Had Sugar returned?

Rita's mother decides to settle the matter once and

for all - a test only the real Sugar would pass.

RITA KOLANDER: When Sugar was a kitten, there was a

little bone that stuck out on the left hip.

When you would pet it, you would find you could feel

that bone and it's very unusual.

Not something you'd find in normal cats.

Shatner: If the farm cat has this distinctive

deformity, it could prove its Sugar.

RITA KOLANDER: She felt the bone, and there it

was, the deformity.

So we knew at that point that had to be Sugar.

How likely would you be to find a cat of the same

colour, and the same size, to have the same deformity?

Shatner: The Woods family is dumbfounded.

How did Sugar find them?

RITA KOLANDER: I don't have a clue in the world

how a cat would make that journey.

How to follow someone to a place they've never been.

That's, that's a mystery to me.

Shatner: How did a housecat cross five states

to a place it had never been before?

Do animal's possess navigational skills we are

yet to comprehend?

VERN BINGMAN: We certainly know that animals have

sensory abilities that we don't have.

Shatner: A house cat named Sugar travels 2,200

kilometres to track down his owner.

How could a domestic pet find its way over

such vast distances?

Behavioral neurobiologist Dr. Vern Bingman thinks

the answer lies in something science has just

begun to understand.

VERN BINGMAN: We certainly know that animals have

sensory abilities that we don't have.

So birds can detect the earth's magnetic field, we can't.

Sharks can detect electric fields, we can't.

Bats hear high frequency sounds, we can't.

Shatner: Another is the ability to navigate.

Dr. Bingman believes it's a skill domestic cats

inherited from their wild cousins.

VERN BINGMAN: If you look at lions in the African

Savannah, and even tigers in some Indian jungle,

they have very large home ranges and

they navigate quite well.

Domestic cats are capable of carrying out these

kinds of navigational computations to a place

they've never been to before.

Shatner: Dr. Bingman thinks Sugar was also

using a phenomena found in her favourite snack - birds.

VERN BINGMAN: Birds in general can take advantage

of the stars, the earth's magnetic field, the sun,

to kind of establish compass bearings, to

discriminate what we would call north, south, east and west.

Shatner: Not only do birds possess an internal

compass, they have something else that's

extraordinary.

A GPS nose that lets them smell their

way to their destination.

VERN BINGMAN: Homing pigeons can use

atmospheric odors to navigate over hundreds of kilometers.

Shatner: Dr. Bingman believes Sugar could have

used those same scent cues to navigate over vast distances.

VERN BINGMAN: Somehow the animal, from thousands of

kilometers away, is able to detect the smell and

follow a gradient, based on that smell, to the home.

Shatner: Did Sugar detect her owners' smell from

over 2,000 kilometres away?

Dr. Bingman isn't surprised.

He's convinced there's still much to learn about

animals' innate talents.

VERN BINGMAN: In the last ten or fifteen years,

we've seen an enormous growth among scientists

legitimately looking at the remarkable cognitive

abilities of animals.

I've studied animal behavior for long enough

to recognize that nothing is impossible.

Shatner: Do animals have super senses?

Are the best tracker dogs - actually cats?

Or is this amazing story just an incredible coincidence?

Professor of applied cognition Dr. Graham Pike

doesn't believe cats have super sniffers.

He thinks there's a much simpler explanation.

GRAHAM PIKE: It's not a particularly cat like

behavior to travel such a long distance to somewhere

it's never been before.

Shatner: He believes the cat that showed up in

Oklahoma wasn't Sugar.

It's all just a case of mistaken identity.

GRAHAM PIKE: As a cat lover, I'd love to believe

this story is true.

Everything I know about how human memory works,

suggests to me that this wasn't the same cat.

Shatner: Dr. Pike has studied cases of mistaken

identity for almost two decades.

He believes memory is unreliable and easily

influenced by suggestion.

GRAHAM PIKE: Human memory isn't as accurate

as we'd like to think.

Expectations have a very powerful effect on memory.

If you expect something to happen then you tend to

remember it happening.

Its just the way memory works.

Shatner: But the cat in Oklahoma had the same bone

deformity as Sugar.

How could that be?

Dr. Pike believes Rita's mother got it wrong and

misremembered the shape of Sugar's bone defect.

GRAHAM PIKE: Hip bone deformity occurs in many cats.

There are many cats that have that.

It wasn't that Sugar the Cat had this hip bone

deformity no other cat did.

Shatner: Dr. Pike is convinced there was

another, even more powerful factor

influencing Rita's mother: she wanted the cat to be Sugar.

GRAHAM PIKE: If somebody really wants to believe

something is true, its actually not that

difficult to convince yourself it is true.

What's far more likely,um, is that the people once

they'd moved saw a cat that was similar to the

one they'd left behind and became convinced that it

was their cat and in fact their memories

helped them with that.

The bottom line, says Dr. Pike, is that the

family wanted a cat they could love like Sugar.

GRAHAM PIKE: If you really want to believe that the

cat you see in front of you is your own cat, that

you feel guilty for leaving your cat behind,

that you really want a new cat to love then certainly

you can convince yourself that this is the cat.

Shatner: So was the Oklahoma Sugar an imposter?

Then how do we account for the dozens of other cases

just like Sugar's?

MYRNA MILANI: Cats live in a world that

we consider paranormal.

Shatner: A house cat makes an epic cross-country

journey to find its owners.

How did he do it?

Veterinarian Myrna Milani is an animal psychologist.

MYRNA MILANI: My personal feeling is that the human

animal bond is deeply, deeply entrenched

probably right up there with gravity in terms of

its influence.

Shatner: Dr. Milani believes the mystery can

only be understood by using the weirdest branch

of science known to man: quantum physics.

She's convinced the bond between Rita and her cat

is like the mysterious force that enables some of

the smallest particles in the universe to somehow

align their spin...

even when separated by millions of kilometres.

MYRNA MILANI: Einstein referred to that as spooky

action at a distance.

Because this doesn't fit in in physics.

It can't happen but it does.

And I think that's the kind of thing that we're

dealing with.

William Shatner: Woah woah woah.

Now wait just a minute.

I've been doing this show now for a long time now

and it seems every unexplainable mystery can

be explained by - quantum physics - and frankly no

matter how many times they tell me -

I still don't get it.

Spooky action? What the heck is that?

Joined together by electrons?

Can't they just lay it out in simple terms for me? Oh.

Shatner: Dr. Milani thinks this form of subatomic

communication lies at the heart of Sugar's journey.

MYRNA MILANI: Sugar made it uh, to her new home, to

her owners because she had a strong,

clear bond with those people.

It was a clear signal. Think of a radio signal...

somehow the cat picks up on that and follows them.

Shatner: Do cats navigate using super senses?

Are they invisibly linked to their owners for eternity?

Or did Sugar simply fool - everyone?

Weird or What?

Shatner: So there we have it, stories of

extraordinary animal powers from around the world.

In Germany, an octopus predicts the winners of

World Cup soccer.

Can a sea creature tell the future?

In Scotland, dogs inexplicably throw

themselves off a bridge.

Do canines commit suicide?

And in Oklahoma, a cat travels thousands of

kilometres to track down his owners.

Are felines guided by super senses?

Are these stories proof that animals have

extraordinary powers?

Can we dismiss their incredible exploits?

You decide.

William Shatner: Join me next time for more stories

that will undoubtedly be weird or what?