Familiar Strangers: Three Disturbing Tales of Real-Life Doppelgangers

The Stranger is Me

It has been said that everyone has a twin that they are unaware of somewhere in the world. If this is true, it would mean that each of us, and our exact double, goes about their everyday life never knowing that the other exists. There are, however, exceptions.

Tales of these mysterious twins, known as doppelgangers, have been around since the 17th century. The word itself, which originated in Germany, means “double walker” and is defined as “an apparition of a living person.”

The general school of thought regarding doppelgangers is that these duplicates aren’t independent entities at all, but rather the essences of unsuspecting individuals that have somehow managed to transcend their physical forms and wander about on their own. Though the odds of meeting one's double are astronomical, it is said that to do so seldom ends well for the vessel.

The following are three rare instances in which people have encountered their doppelgangers. One account involves a case of mistaken identity, while the other encounters lean heavily towards the supernatural.