It's possible he hears something. Did you notice his ears moving at all?

Our cat at the age of nine has noticed the TV for the first time ever. It started a few weeks ago when DH was watching a science program that used rats for an experiment. Scoot jumped down from the chair and sat and watched. The rats ran off the side of the screen and he ran to the side of the entertainment center to find them. Ever since, he has watched TV every night with rapt attention. DH puts an animal program on for him, though he'll watch the news and Downton Abbey too. He wasn't very interested in koalas however.

Maybe she heard something, and was looking in the direction of the sound?

Looks like he does sees something. Quite fixated on whatever it is he sees. We used to have a dog that bark at things not there in the house. Our current senior citizen cat will sometimes do as your cat is doing. People say the animals are seeing things we can't see--perhaps spirits?

Is this Butters? He's all grown up now. I remember when he was a big footed kitten.

I love him. ❤️

You know I think he’s just messing with you. The others were snickering nearby. 😸

No ear movement at all -- just a very, very intense stare - for a very long time! None of the other cats were taking any notice whatsoever of him or potential ghosties in the foyer, so Jilly may be right -- he may have just been messin'!

Yep, this is Butters. He did seem to grow up very quickly, and now he's huge. Well, his head is still pretty small, but his body is long and muscular. He's very puma-like ... and he's also a goober.

Well, considering some of their senses are so much better than ours, I'd tend to believe he does indeed see or hear something.

I had a dog who I used to joke saw "rug bugs." I promise you I had no bugs in my rugs. LOL. But she would stare at the ground, poke at it with her nose, stare at it some more....and there was nothing there.

My dogs stare off into the darkness at night and freak me right the heck out! I hate walking with them at night because I don't know if it's another dog, a cat, a racoon, a fox, Jack the Ripper, or a leaf blowing in the wind. LOL.

... "Jack the Ripper ..." Hahahaha! Right? They need to learn how to effectively communicate these things to us!

It is also absolutely hilarious when cats watch TV, isn't it! Penny sat and watched "Better Call Saul" for quite some time the other night, before she tucked her little head to the side and fell promptly asleep.

There are a lot of changes going on in my house, but our cat does the same thing where she will sit and stair at a particular corner of the kitchen very intently, under an area of temporary counter.

Also as work continues she does look for openings into old places she used to go. She could get up into the ceiling joists in one area for a long time and now when any surface changes (even another layer of spackle) in that area, or something gets moved into that corner she ties to get as close as she can to that spot and see if she can get in the ceiling again.

Ida, maybe he was having deep thoughts. Realizing he could be doing more with his life...

Hahahaha! I'm sure that's it! 🤣🤣🤣

I love how he coordinates with the wall plates in the first photo, lol. Beautiful eyes!

Actually one of the few reasons I am on FB outside a couple specific interest groups, is for the videos of cats.

My Instagram feed shows me two things: cat videos and pretty houses. But mostly cat videos.

Yep: IG feed consists of cat videos, pretty houses, Native American art, and a bit of travel. OK, OK - the occasional recipe. These are a few of my favorite things ...

Mila will act like she hears a noise sometimes at night and stares into the hallway, but Misty will look up and see nothing and go back to sleep. So who knows.

I do recall my dear old friend who lived in Seattle told me one time she and her DH were reading in the LR and all of a sudden their cat stood in the middle of the floor with his hair all out and back arched. They watched him for a minute or two when suddenly there was an earthquake....somehow he knew before they did.

Annie got to it first, but I was going to say that animals can sense earthquakes before humans can.

We had a black lab who wasn't allowed in one room of the house and she was very good at following the rule. One day, hubby and I were standing in that room discussing something when she ran in and went straight under a table. She then refused to come out. About 30 seconds later, there was an earthquake.

Back in December we had a strong quake here. I heard countless stories of people's pets doing odd things right before the quake, some of them were acting weird even the day before the quake.

Not saying your cat felt an earthquake, just that they can sense things we humans can't. Beautiful kitty, by the way.

When we were living in CA, there was one slight earthquake in the middle of the night. Slight as in I totally would have missed it but for DH pointing out that the blinds were vibrating and hitting the sides of the window opening. The cats were freaked out though. They feel it before we do.

I suppose it is possible he sensed something outside that was out of the ordinary, although he couldn't actually see much of the front door at all from where he sat. We have, however, had a good deal if ice this week. Maybe a gust of wind blew something outdoors that crackled or otherwise attracted his rapt attention. I must credit him with a pretty long attention span, given the length of time that he spent in "stare position"! Pretty good ... for a cat!

You guys are so funny!

Ida, was there any catnip involved at any point durint the day?

It could be sound... eveh if his ears did not move.

Also cats can have episodic memories. So, he could have been having a memory and just focusing and gettlng lost in it.

I found these via Google btw.

Your cat is so handsome!

They are so funny aren't they? I love seeing Butters again - long time no see.

I just happened across this and it made me laugh!

NOC 1 and 2 left us a heart out of their food this morning (then came in the house and curled up in our bed all this cold and icy day).

I let them in after their breakfast and saw this on the patio. ❤️

Sometimes when Pretty is sitting on my lap at night while I watch TV, she'll suddenly turn her head and stare out the window. The blind is up, but it's really dark so I don't know if she's really seeing something or someONE standing out there or not. It's a fairly busy country road now days, so I don't think a person could be standing in the yard without headlights shining on them as cars go by. Altho I know voyeurs can be pretty smart about concealing themselves. Yikes, now I'm scaring myself. : )

The heart "thank-you" is sweet.

The difference between cats and dogs is that humans trained and domesticated dogs to serve and be companions while cats voluntarily domesticated themselves because there were plentiful food sources around humans-- but they didn't really need to humans for anything else. So dogs have been domesticated Listen, but cats have not.

When you mentioned ice, something occurred to me. Ice building up on trees and shrubs can cause their branches to snap under the weight. If you don't have any trees right up close to your house that are affected, it's still possible that there are trees farther away that were losing branches that she could hear, but our inferior hearing wouldn't register the sounds. Or sometimes when it starts to warm up, ice will slip off in chunks, making noise when it crashes to the ground. Maybe?

Pal, cats have been domesticated to some extent... Misty will follow me around outside like a puppy dog and the whole time, she is calling to me as if to make sure I'm there or that I know she's there. Calling out like that is not something cats do with each other...rather they tend to communicate with each other through scents. But they do use their meows to communicate with humans.

I know they are domesticated, and actually my cat is a lot like a dog. But she communicates a lot and there are a number of different sounds she uses and they seem to mean mean different things. And she will keep going if I answer her back.

But they are domesticated in different ways, and by different routes which is probably why cats do not listen like dogs do, usually.

It could be because dogs are pack animals and look to follow a leader whereas cats are largely independent....

I suspect it's too simplistic, but I always smile when I hear the silly saying that, "Dogs have owners, Cats have staff."

Nate Bargartze Fat Cat

I hope that link, to a comedy routine about a fat cat, works. (It worked for me but I never trust this site.)

Well, if I am home and the cat uses the litter box, she will not rest until it is cleaned. As in immediately. When she hears you start to clean it, she appears in the doorway, watches you do it, and when it is completely done and the floor around it is swept, turns around and walks off.

We joke that our last cat haunts the house. We brought the new cats home from the rescue, threw a few puffy pink pom pom balls....they had no idea what to do with them. We awakened the next morning to ALL 60 pom pom balls strewn around the house. Both cats were batting them around. Carrying them in their mouth. Having a great time. We say our last cat....the balls were HIS toys...taught the kittens to play. ❤️ Maybe not....but they figured it out.

Love Butters!

Love the "fat cat" comedy routine! Nate Bargatze cracks me up.

Last night Butters fixed me with that hard stare and looked at me intently for some time. Not nearly as long as he gazed at the foyer, but long enough to make me wonder what in the world he was doing! His big eyes in the relatively small head are almost hypnotic. Funny boi!

My barn kitty comes when she's called. We feed her at night, but if she wanders off afterwards while we're stalling the horses during the warm months, we'll call and back she comes for a cuddle before we leave the barn. (During the winter she stays put either supervising or tucked into her heated tack room.) Yesterday she wandered off while I was down putzing with the horses in the afternoon and she came back as soon as I called. Love my chonky kitty.

Our daughter sent us this today. We have so much fun with her cat stories. Here are her George and Giovanni.

Love those white cats.  Used to have one.  I think they are aware of the other side.  I ve had visits from my previous deceased cats.  They are great animals.

We have a stone retaining wall along our patio. One evening last fall my dog stood for literally hours staring at the wall. The next day she immediately went back to it. We never knew what she saw in there, but she stared at it like it was her job for several days.

A stone wall, I would suspect rodents. I have mice in my retaining walls and it drives my dogs nuts.

Skipped down to comment...

Someone may have mentioned this already, but I understand that cats' eyesight isn't very keen, but they are very sensitive to movement. Might there have been a shadow moving or something like a reflection or shaft of light?

And yes, they also can hear things we can't, so perhaps there was something making a tiny sound you couldn't hear.

I just watched the video with Nate. I was laughing so hard I was crying! That made my morning!

Amy