We've been frightened, enchanted, and confused by bats for centuries. Unique in the animal kingdom, the story of bats has been complicated throughout history, and human interaction with them has been part of the complications. Once thought to have extra-sensory abilities, scientists later attributed the bat's remarkable ability to fly accurately through darkness (without bumping into objects, even when blinded or eyeless) to an extraordinary sense of touch.
We now know that the reason bats are so adept at flying through darkness is their incredible sense of hearing, paired with a unique system of sending and receiving sound signals called "biosonar." Many bats, while flying in pitch dark, emit a low-level sound wave that functions almost like "acoustic" vision: the waves bounce off objects in the vicinity, and the bats listen for audible feedback from the objects around them in order to determine the "shape" of their surroundings. This accounts for their accuracy in spacial understanding, despite their lack-luster vision capabilities.