Animal Ghosts?

It's a popular plot device in fiction, certainly, from the 'rationally' explainable Hound of the Baskervilles to the somewhat New Age movie Ghost Cat.

And people in real life have claimed to have encounters with ghostly animals. Some may have no close connection to the storyteller, such as those who say that they've seen the ghost of England's last bear near Verdley Castle. Others have closer connects, such as those who say they've been visited by a much beloved pet.

This all makes for wonderful storytelling, but to me the veracity is suspect. For one thing, I'm Catholic and Catholic teaching is that animals do not have immortal souls. It is the immortal soul that is a ghost. Of the known creatures with a physical existence only humans have this.

Animals do have a spirit, but it is a temporal spirit that ceases to exist once the animal dies.

That isn't to say that something like an animal ghost couldn't exist, but it would probably be accompanied by human 'ghosts'.

What I'm referring to is emotional imprinting on an area. This is a phenomenon where there are such strong, violent emotions involved that what might be a called a recording of the event is left behind. If animals are involved then it seems reasonable to conclude that the image of the animals would be left as well.

These are not actual ghosts, however. Only images of an event. They can not interact and the sequence does not change.