American Society for Psychical Research

36.09 - MU Podcast - The Strange World of Genius Animals

Mysterious UniverseSep 4, 2026

Mysterious Universe explores the strange history of so-called genius animals, drawing on Vincent and Margaret Gaddis's 1970 book The Strange World of Animals and Pets. The hosts recount dogs and horses said to do advanced math, spell out sentences, read minds, predict the future, and even help locate missing children. They weigh the idea that these animals were not reasoning but tapping into a telepathic 'mind at large,' comparing them to savant calculators and the nonverbal children in The Telepathy Tapes.