20-year-old Nano, from Oslo, Norway, claims that that she isn’t human at all, but a cat born in the wrong species. Her ‘feline tendencies’ include a superior sense of hearing and sight, a hatred of water, and the ability to communicate in ‘meows’. She even tries to hunt mice in the dark!

Her story was first revealed in a video report published by the Norwegian YouTube channel NRK P3 Verdens Rikeste Land. In the interview, Nano is seen wearing a pair of pointed ears and an artificial tail as she talks about her condition. She explains that she has been displaying cat-like behavior since childhood, but only realised it when she was a teenager. 

“I realised I was a cat when I was 16, when doctors and psychologists found out what was “the thing” with me,” the translation on the video reads. “Under my birth, there was a genetic defect. It’s also obvious that I’m a cat when I start purring and meowing. And walking around on four legs and stuff like that.”

Throughout the video, Nano repeatedly demonstrates her uncanny likeness to cats. She is seen crawling on fours, all the way up to a window, looking out longingly as she paws at the walls. She then puts on a pair of giant pink cat paws and rubs her face with them as though she’s grooming herself. One part of the interview takes place at Oslo’s central station, where she suddenly steps back and lets out a hiss. “There is a dog over there,” she explains. “Sometime I hiss when meeting dogs in the street. It’s because of their behavior and my instinct automatically reacts by hissing.”

“I hate water,” she adds. “Water is like you get the instinct to wash yourself in the face and stuff.” But she does like to take naps in sinks, just like cats.

It’s hard to tell whether Nano is naturally displaying these tendencies or faking them. There’s no proof that she’s telling the truth about her heightened sense of vision or hearing, but she’s convinced she has these ‘advantages’ that no one else does, and that she’s even got night vision.

“You can hear a lot better than regular people, and you can see much more,” she says. “You focus on things that normal people can’t. I can see better in the dark than in daylight. That’s no problem. I have been running a lot after animals that can be seen in the shadows.” But she does admit that she’s never quite managed to actually catch a mouse.

Not many people would be able to understand Nano’s obsession with cat behavior, but she does have one friend who’s extremely supportive of her condition. Her best friend, Svien, apparently has ‘personalities’ of his own, one of which happens to be a cat. Nano explains that Svien is different from her: “He is human, but has someone in his head that is a cat. And I am born as a cat.” But the duo have become great friends and even communicate through meowing.

“Suddenly I start meowing or she does,” said Svien, who was also featured in the video. “And then we understand each other and communicate by cat language.” Nano demonstrates this by uttering three quick ‘meows’ in succession, and Svien correctly interprets this as “Come on let’s go.”

Towards the end of the interview, Nano says that life as a cat has been exhausting, but worth it because she gets to live with cat instincts. In fact, she isn’t sure if she’s ever going to stop behaving like a cat. “My psychologist told me I can grow out of it, but I doubt it,” she says. “I think I will be cat all my life.”  

Photos: NRK P3 Verdens Rikeste Land