[Collected on the Internet, 1997]

There is a small rural town, somewhat northeast to the city of Niagara Falls, NY. One evening, a resident of the town called the local volunteer fire department to request assistance in removing their cat from a tree. Since this was a "questionable" call, the fire control dispatcher called the fire chief at home to ask if he wanted to respond. The chief said sure, call out the department, since it was early evening and it shouldn't be a problem for the volunteers to respond.

The fire department responded with a rescue truck which had an extension ladder. The tree, however, was too tall and willowy to support the weight of the extension ladder. Rather than send men back to the fire hall to bring the aerial ladder truck, one of the firefighters suggested an alternate course of action. Two of the firefighters supported the ladder while a third climbed high enough to tie a rope around the tree at about half its height.

The other end of the rope was tied to a trailer hitch on a pickup truck, with the truck slowly driven forward, forcing the tree to bend over. One firefighter was poised to grab the cat as soon as it was within his reach.

The knot securing the rope to the trailer hitch slipped free.

The cat was last seen airborne heading south toward the city of Niagara Falls, and was never seen again.

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[Levey, 1987]

A couple Carole knows found a darling kitten and decided to keep it. A few days later, the animal climbed to the top branch of a birch tree and refused to come down. After several hours of coaxing, with no results, the couple decided to toss a rope across the branch and pull it down to where the kitten was reachable.

Nice plan — except that when the cat was almost within reach, the rope broke suddenly, and the cat was catapulted out of sight.

Days of searching followed — all for naught. A week later, one of the former cat owners ran into a neighbor at the grocery store. The neighbor was stocking up on cat food.

"I didn't know you had a cat," said the former owner.

"You're not going to believe this," replied the neighbor, "but my husband and I were sitting in the back yard about a week ago, having a drink, when suddenly this kitten just dropped out of the sky and landed in Joe's lap."