Auditory, Tactile, and Olfactory ADCs

July 30, 2020 Ed Anderson, PhD

In the last post, we talked about visual After-Death Communications (ADCs). In visual ADCs, people “see Spot run” after Spot is dead. Visual ADCs are the most common form of ADC, but they come in other forms, too. People not only see Spot run – they also hear, feel, and smell him.

I haven’t heard of anyone tasting their dead animal. I’m thinking that’s probably a good thing…

Auditory ADCs

Auditory ADCs often manifest as a distinctive bark, purr, or meow. As animal owners will tell you, you can recognize the sound of your own dog’s bark or cat’s meow – they have their own “voice,” it is distinctive.

Other people hear a characteristic sound associated with the animal – scratching at the door, dog tags clinking, nails clicking on wood flooring, or their tail whapping against the ground. Others hear distinctive groans, whines, sneezes, or snores.

There are also some EVPs involving animals — electronic voice recordings of dog barks or cat meows, when there are no animals in the vicinity.

Tactile ADCs

Tactile ADCs involve feeling the animal – touching their fur, petting them, feeling them press against you, or rub your leg. People will often say they feel their deceased animal jump up on the bed with them, and sometimes they feel the mattress depress or the bed covers move.

People might feel their pet lick them, rub their face, or snuggle against them. In other cases, they might feel the animal do something characteristic, like push their hands in a distinctive way, like they used to do when they wanted attention.

Olfactory ADCs

In olfactory ADCs, the person typically will smell the animal’s characteristic scent. In some cases, they report smelling things associated with the animal, such as their shampoo.

Compared to other types, olfactory ADCs are relatively rare.

How Many?

How many of these ADC reports do we have? Well, here are my counts of those in the published literature:

Auditory ADCs: 55 (9 sources)

Tactile ADCs: 41 (8 sources)

Olfactory ADCs: 6 (1 source)

You can find many other ADCs on the internet — on the ADCRF website, for instance, or at online pet loss forums. As I mentioned earlier, I though, I’m not up for the task of digging through all the enormous amount of material, just to find the scattered reports of animal ADCs. Too much work. I’d estimate there are at least a hundred other reports out there.

The Receiver

Looking at those numbers, you’ll notice that auditory and tactile ADCs are much more common than olfactory ADCs. Olfactory ADCs are pretty rare.

You also may notice that ADC frequencies align with human sensory abilities. That is, humans are primarily visual creatures, and visual ADCs are the most common. Hearing and touch are important but less so than vision, and auditory and tactile ADCs are frequent, but less common than visual ones. Our sense of smell is our “worst” sense, and olfactory ADCs are rare. The frequency of ADC types matches our sensory abilities.

That’s not too surprising – after all, we are the receivers, and receivers pick up information based on their ability to detect it.

Evidential Support

In a lot of these cases (a little over half), the report comes from one person, with no other witnesses or corroborating information. You either take the person at their word, or you dismiss them as mistaken or deluded. I discussed some reasons to grant them credence in the visual ADC section, but I won’t repeat that here. Ultimately, it boils down to whether you believe the person or you don’t.

However, in many cases (over a third), we have additional, corroborating evidence. There are other aspects of the case that lend it additional credibility.

In fact, we have the same types of evidential support for auditory, tactile, and olfactory ADCs as we saw with the visual types:

Multiple witnesses to the ADC
Witnesses with no emotional attachment to the animal
Witnesses who did not know the animal was dead
ADCs that help a person escape danger

In many instances, an animal at the scene also reacts, which is additional corroboration. I’ll share a few stories with you, illustrating each of these types. If you want more examples, just check the sources.

Multiple Witness Reports

It’s easy for a skeptic to write off a single person’s report. Maybe they are imagining things. It’s not so easy when multiple people experience the same thing. Are they all imagining the same thing? That’s not usually how imagination works.

Scott Smith relates an account from Lee Gandee of South Carolina. Lee had a dog named Trixie, who eventually passed away.

A week later, the family was at breakfast when they heard Trixie barking in the dining room and her toenails clicking on the linoleum as she ran to the front door. “Go see who it is at the door so early,” said Lee’s mother, but he reminded her that there was no longer a dog to bark at someone coming to the front door. “Oh, dear Lord,” she replied.
One day, a neighbor dropped by. “I’m glad you got a new dog,” she commented. The family denied it, but the neighbor told them that it was barking when she was knocking on the door. They were forced to tell her what was going on, and tales of their haunted house soon got around the neighborhood.
Scott Smith, The Soul of Your Pet

Didn’t Know They Were Dead

Skeptics state that ADCs are just wish-fulfilling fantasies. They claim that the person’s brain is subconsciously concocting a hallucination, in order to relieve feelings of loss. It’s a trick of the brain, all in the mind, just subjective imagination.

At first glance, that seems like a plausible alternative explanation, even if it is a bit condescending. However, there are several problems with it (see section on visual ADCs for discussion).

One of the big problems is that it can’t explain cases in which the person does not know the animal has died. Why would a person hallucinate something that alleviates grief, when they don’t have any grief to alleviate? The explanation falls apart in these cases.

Here is one example. It begins with a tactile sensation, then moves into an unusual visual experience.

One Friday night, as Susan Baker (Maryland) was up late watching a movie on TV, as she would often do with her German Shepard, Boo, she reached down to pat her, running her fingers through the hair on his neck. “Then I realized that she was at the vet’s, since she had been in much pain lately. I looked down and there was Boo, looking at me with her soft and loving eyes.
A whistle sounded from the other room, and Susan and Boo looked up to see a man in blue, bent over in playful invitation to the dog. “Boo sprang up and trotted through the doorway, pausing to look back at me and give a wag.” The man hugged her, and they faded away.
“The next day, the vet called to tell me Boo had died in the night.”
Scott Smith, The Soul of Your Pet

There are a number of other cases like this. Please see the sources cited, if you’d like to read others.

No Emotional Attachment

The skeptical explanation just mentioned also falls apart when the person having the ADC has no emotional attachment to the animal. If ADCs are just imaginative fantasies designed to alleviate grief, why would someone with no emotional attachment to the animal (and therefore, no grief to alleviate) have one?

Here is one of those stories, from Kim Sheridan. This man reports auditory and tactile ADCs from a number of deceased pets. There are multiple witnesses to these events, including visitors who have no emotional attachment to the animals – in fact no knowledge of their existence.

Often when we open the side door, we hear a trill just as Woody [a cat] made, to tell us he was on his way. Occasionally, I hear a purring when in my workshop, like Max [cat] would purr after jumping on to my bench. Merlin [dog] still rattles doors as he did if he was not in the kitchen when the lady of the house was baking. The top of the stairs was Crystal’s [dog] domain, and she would circle before dropping to the floor with a thump. This is the most often-heard sound of our friend’s presence.
Visitors have heard some of these noises, but do they really believe our explanations?
Sophie [dog] would not let anyone other than the immediate family sit next to the good lady [his wife]. Sophie would always force her bottom between them. Even now, if someone sits by my wife on the settee, they can feel a pressure on their leg on the same side as my wife is sitting. Now, this includes people who are unaware of Sophie’s existence. It occurred so regularly that we had to make a conscious effort to avoid the situation and the subsequent explanation.
Kim Sheridan, Animals and the Afterlife

See sources for additional cases like these.

You can’t write them off as wish-fulfilling fantasies designed to alleviate grief. Some of the people experiencing them did not have any emotional attachment to the animal. In some cases, they did not even know the animal existed. They have no grief to supposedly alleviate.

“Rescue” ADCs

I am calling these “rescue” ADCs because the event seems to rescue the person from danger. These reports are uncommon – I counted only a few auditory types — but when they occur, they are pretty striking. This one comes from Bill Schul. It includes multiple witnesses.

Raymond Peters and his wife Suzanne had gone to bed after a long day.

About four hours later, they were both awakened by a dog barking. Raymond recalls that, still half-asleep, he called out to his Scottie, Mac, to hush, and he remembers his wife saying, “What in the world is the matter with him?” But Mac was not to be ignored. Raymond explained that there wasn’t any way they could fall back asleep, for the next instant, Mac was frantically barking almost in his ear.
Raymond sat up saying, “Damn it, Mac,” thinking the dog wanted to go outside to urinate. But then he smelled smoke. Instantly wide awake, he leaped out of bed. Their bedroom door was closed, and when they opened it, choking smoke had already filled the hallway. They could feel the heat of the fire.

They managed to rescue their children and escape the burning house. Minutes later, it was engulfed in flames.

The fire department had been called by a neighbor who had been awakened by the barking dog. The sound had been so close, he said, that he first thought the dog was inside his own home. He then looked out the window for the dog and saw the flames.
Only when the neighbor said to them, “My God, you would never have made it, if it hadn’t been for your dog. I didn’t know that you had gotten another dog after Mac died. Where is he, Ray? Did he get out of the house?”
The Peterses looked at each other, speechless for several moments. Raymond is not sure what he said at this point, but he recalls that it felt as though his heart had stopped, and he was dizzy. He heard Suzanna say, “Raymond… oh Raymond,” as though frightened, and then himself saying, “It was Mac. I know Mac’s bark. We’ve never had any other dog.”
No need to look for the Scottie, for he had made his exit three months previously.
Bill Schul, Animal Immortality

What is remarkable about “rescue” ADCs like this (see Schul’s book for several others) is the timing. They happen in a way that coincides with danger, and it helps the person avoid that danger. It is very hard to escape the conclusion that the animal is stepping in from the other side to help his/her previous owner avoid danger. The “C” in “ADC” stands out clearly here. These are urgent messages — in this instance, “Get your ass out of bed; you are in danger.”

You simply cannot explain that as a wish-fulfilling fantasy, or some kind of hallucination the brain has cooked up to make itself feel better.

The Skeptic’s Last Stand

When a hardened skeptic is faced with cases like this, they often claim that person is lying — they are making the whole thing up. I call this the Skeptic’s Last Stand, because it is a sign they have run out of ideas and arguments.

“They’re lying!” is not an argument. It is a slur. It is a personal attack on the person reporting. When someone resorts to personal attacks, they have lost the argument, because they have run out of ideas. They have reached the Skeptic’s Last Stand. Rather than admit they might be wrong, they resort to personal attacks.

Ok, that concludes our brief tour through the literature on auditory, tactile, and olfactory ADCs. I think these accounts, especially when seen as a whole and combined with the visual ADCs, give persuasive evidence of animal afterlife.

And if I ever come across a story of a gustatory ADC — someone tasting their dead pet — I’ll let you know!

Evidence of Animal Afterlife