Rocket Cat Wasn’t A 16th Century Cat Meme, It Was A Real Weapon

When the rocket cat was first spotted among 16th century documents perhaps someone suspected it was a prank. After all, rockets are a modern invention, right? But it turns out the rocket cat isn’t a hoax, it was a real weapon advocated in Europe.

Written in 1584, Das Feuer Buch (aka The Fire Book) was a 235 page treatise on all things warfare written by Franz Helm of Cologne. The book was written at time when gunpowder was just starting to change the face of the battlefield.

Besides the rocket cat, the illustration also included a rocket bird that would be sent flying into a defended castle (no, the castle wasn’t manned by pigs, although I’m sure the birds were plenty angry at the abuse.) But the book also included many other devices, including hand grenades and barrel bombs used to “set fire to a castle or city which you can’t get at otherwise.”

But are the animals actually wearing rockets? Penn researcher Mitch Fraas really didn’t know what to make of the rocket cat photo at first. He noted that “clearly looks like there’s some sort of jet of fire coming out of a device strapped to these animals.” Remember, the Chinese invented fireworks so such an invention is not entirely out of the question.

But when Fraas translated the section about the rocket cat it turns the flaming kitty was intended to stay on the ground:

“Create a small sack like a fire-arrow. If you would like to get at a town or castle, seek to obtain a cat from that place. And bind the sack to the back of the cat, ignite it, let it glow well and thereafter let the cat go, so it runs to the nearest castle or town, and out of fear it thinks to hide itself where it ends up in barn hay or straw it will be ignited.”

Although Fraas couldn’t find any evidence of anyone ever using the rocket cat, he thinks such a plan would probably have backfired:

“Sort of a harebrained scheme. It seems like a really terrible idea, and very unlikely the animals would run back to where they came from. More likely they’d set your own camp on fire.”

What do you think about rocket cat? Maybe PETA should invent a time machine to go back and give Franz Helm a piece of their mind…