The Cat Piano

The Cat Piano is a video narrated by Nick Cave in which a city of singing cats is preyed upon by a shadowy figure intent on performing a twisted feline symphony.

You'll be relieved to know that the Katzenklavier or cat piano experiment probably never took place. But it was supposedly invented by German polymath and Jesuit scholar Athanasius Kircher (1602–1680), a serious scholar and a man of science. Maybe the Katzenklavier was intended as a sick joke that others took seriously.
More: Open Culture