Animal Afterlife Belief Poll Supported by Book.

Entertainment Editors

LOS ANGELES--(ENTERTAINMENT WIRE)--July 23, 2001

Author Scott S. Smith says a poll released by ABCNEWS/Beliefnet last Friday showing that 43 percent of Americans believe that "pets go to heaven" (40 percent do not, 17 percent are unsure), should be based on the persuasive evidence he collected for "The Soul of Your Pet: Evidence for the Survival of Animals After Death," published by Holmes Publishing of Seattle ($13.95).

It has been a bestseller at Amazon.com and Barnesandnoble.com since publication in December 1998.

Both believers and skeptics seem unaware that human encounters with the ghosts of deceased animals are commonplace, Smith claims. "It is far more than a matter of personal opinion because these experiences occur in circumstances that make them hard to dismiss as hallucinations," he points out.

For example, "In many cases the individual encountering the animal ghost didn't know that it had died or didn't have any personal connection with the pet."

In other incidents, there were multiple independent witnesses. And sometimes living animals were reported reacting to the appearance of the ghost animal.

"These are hard to explain away as grief-induced wishful thinking, as skeptics try to argue," Smith adds.

Among the 125 reports in the book is that of a respected veterinarian who treated an ill horse and then advised the owners to separate it from the apparently healthy white horse in the same corral. The owners told her that they could see no white horse, but that one of that precise description at the corral had passed away a few months before.

In another case, a woman was with her two cats in her living room when what appeared to be one of her cats which had recently died walked across the floor. The two living cats stared at the ghost intently as it strolled up to and right through the bedroom door. They ran up to the door, stared at it for a moment, and refused to go into the bedroom for months afterwards, she stated.

Smith is available for media interviews and a list of common questions about the subject can be provided on request (he can be contacted directly at 310/659-4180 or [e-mail]).