In June 1972, a woman was found wandering the halls of Cedar Sinai hospital in nothing but a hospital gown. She was covered in blood. In her mouth was a dead cat, pinched between her teeth.
She made no sound. She displayed no reaction when nurses approached her. Her expression was fixed — eyes wide, lips slightly parted, utterly blank. Not afraid. Not calm. Simply empty.
The attending physician, Dr. Joseph Vanderloo, noted in his report that the woman's eyes did not track movement. They were fixed on a point approximately two feet in front of her face, regardless of where she moved. She did not blink. Her vital signs were impossible — body temperature of 84°F, heart rate of 11 BPM, and yet she walked without assistance and did not appear to be in distress.
When approached by a nurse who attempted to take the cat from her mouth, the woman turned — not walked, but rotated, as if on a pivot — and fixed her gaze on the nurse. The nurse later said: "She looked at me the way a person looks at a piece of furniture."
The nurse attempted to pry the cat free. The woman bit down. The cracking sound was audible at the nurses' station.
She was sedated and restrained. The cat was removed. It had been dead for several days.
Over the next four hours, two staff members who entered her room alone refused to speak about what had occurred inside. One resigned the following morning. The other was transferred to a different department and never returned to hospital work.
At 3:17 AM, a nurse conducting rounds found the room empty. The restraints were intact and had not been undone — they simply hung in their original positions, as though the woman had stepped through them. The window was sealed. The door had not been opened.
Dr. Vanderloo's report was filed but subsequently lost during a records transition in 1979.
Three years later, a woman matching the exact description was admitted to a hospital in Portland, Oregon. No name. No history. Covered in blood. An animal in her teeth.
She was gone by morning.
The Portland nurse who filed the intake form wrote one note in the margin of the report, which has since been scanned and is preserved in the digital archive:
"She smiled at me when I left the room. I don't think she had a smile before. I don't think she was practicing."