The Other You – Unsettling Accounts Of Strange And Menacing Doubles

Tales of doppelgangers go back hundreds of years and are some of the most unnerving and disturbing unexplained encounters on record. What’s more, there are legends from multiple ancient civilizations and cultures around the world from thousands of years ago that also clearly speak of entities that we would recognize as a doppelganger in the modern world.

The word itself – doppelganger – is of Germanic origin and means “double-walker” – quite literally, a body-double. And quite often, appearances of these other versions of oneself were a portent of bad things to come, with many believing them to be a sign of a person’s impending death.

While there are many tales and accounts of doppelganger encounters in the modern world, arguably some of the most intriguing comes to us from previous centuries, not least as they often involved well-known figures who would seemingly have had a lot to lose by making such rash claims, in some extreme circumstances, persecution from the Church.

Perhaps one of the earliest recorded encounters with a doppelganger occurred in Paris in 1612 when he claimed to have seen his wife. However, he knew this had to be impossible as his wife was heavily pregnant and at home. However, Donne would later discover that at the very moment he had seen her in Paris, his wife was giving birth. The baby, however, was stillborn. As we will see as we examine some of the most well-known and intriguing encounters of doppelgangers, they are often seen as a harbinger of tragic events to come. That would certainly be the case here.

However, as we will also see, much like other strange phenomena, there are many crossovers to other bizarre phenomena, such as astral projection, and even alien abduction. Might we one day find that cases of doppelgangers are merely one part of the big paranormal picture that could very explain many of the world’s mysteries to us?

The Doppelganger Who Foretold The Future

Perhaps the best place to start when we look at doppelgangers would be with one of the most famous people seemingly associated with them, the one-time President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln. And while some might say the following account was one of premonition as opposed to an experience with a doppelganger, it is still worth our time examining here.

According to this who knew him, Lincoln was completely honest about his interest in the paranormal. However, one incident that occurred on the night of his first election is unquestionably strange in the extreme.

Lincoln claimed that on the night in question, after being elected president for the first time, he took a moment to rest on his couch. As he did so, however, he happened to catch a glance of himself in the mirror – only there wasn’t a single reflection looking back at him, but two.

According to Lincoln, one of those faces was his own, as he looked right then. The other, though, appeared decidedly older, paler, and even ill-looking. Shocked by what he was seeing, he jumped off the couch and saw the second face disappear – at least temporarily. When he returned to the couch, thinking his mind must have been playing tricks on him, the face reappeared once more.

This time, his wife, Mary, saw the second face also and was immediately terrified. She believed that the doppelganger was a vision of the future. She believed that her husband would be reelected president again in four years’ time (which he duly was) and that this second term would end in tragedy. As history tells us, not only was Lincoln elected for a second term, but he was assassinated at the end of this term on 15^th April 1865 by John Wilkes Booth while attending a show at Ford’s Theatre.

You can check out the short video of these apparent visions below.

The Encounters Of Percy Bysshe Shelley

It is also worthy of our time examining an apparent case of repeated doppelganger encounters that were spoken of by poet, Percy Bysshe Shelley, the husband of Mary Shelley who authored Frankenstein. ^[1] According to Mary and several other close friends, shortly before his death (he drowned in an accident at sea) he began to speak of incidents where he had seen, and interacted with his own doppelganger. What’s more, he would claim that his other self would always ask him the same question, “How long do you expect to be content?”

He had no idea what this meant, but the encounters continued. What’s more, many other people also saw Percy’s doppelganger.

One such friend, Jane Williams, claimed to have seen Percy walk past her window – something he often did. However, the route led to a dead end and when he didn’t walk back past a short time later, Williams went out to investigate. Realizing there was no one, she later learned that Percy was miles away at the time of the sighting.

The video below looks at these encounters in a little more detail.

The Bizarre And Thought-Provoking Encounters Of Emilie Sagee

Without a doubt, one of the most intriguing encounters with doppelgangers is that of Emilie Sagee, a French woman who worked as a schoolteacher in modern-day Latvia. ^[2] According to several reports, one day in 1845 while standing at the chalkboard in front of her students in the classroom, another version of her suddenly appeared for several moments beside her, mimicking her every movement as she wrote on the board (although the doppelganger didn’t hold a piece of chalk and merely made matching motions).

Other witnesses saw Sagee’s doppelganger in other locations around the school, with one sighting with multiple witnesses seeing her “other version” appear behind her while in the canteen -eating lunch, once more mimicking her actions but without the cutlery).

The strangeness continued for some time, with many reports coming from students and other staff members alike of seeing Sagee in one part of the school while others placed her at a different location at the exact same time.

One incident that stands out more than the others occurred in front of over 40 students. As the students sat in the classroom for their lesson, they had a clear view of the school gardens outside through the large windows, and could clearly see Sagee working in them. At one point during the lesson, the teacher had call to leave the room for several minutes. Only seconds after they left, Sagee suddenly appeared in the room with the students. To their shock, however, they could all still clearly see her outside in the garden, going about her chores and gathering flowers as if nothing out of the ordinary was taking place.

Then, things turned even stranger and more unsettling. Several of the students left their seats and approached this other Sagee. To their shock, when they got close to her, instead of bumping into the woman, they simply passed straight through her as if she wasn’t even there. After several more moments, the doppelganger disappeared into thin air as if she was never there. One girl who had seeming walked through the teacher later claimed that it felt as if a piece of material was being drawn over her.

Some of the students would later speak to their teacher, telling her of seeing her doppelganger and if she remembered anything about it. Perhaps amazingly, she would respond that while she was in the garden she happened to look through the windows and saw the teacher leave the room. At that point, she thought to herself that she would much rather be teaching than collecting flowers in the garden. It would appear that her thoughts became some kind of reality as she evidently appeared in front of the class only moments later.

It appeared for the most part that Sagee was completely unaware of this other version of herself. However, in a bizarre twist, it was noted that the teacher often appeared a little trance-like when the doppelganger was near as if it was somehow draining her of energy. Even stranger, when Sagee spoke of the encounters, she claimed that some of the actions of the doppelganger, while not mimicking her, were acting out the thoughts in her mind.

Regardless of what the truth of the matter was, the sightings continued for several years, causing unintentional fear among, students, staff, and the children’s parents, who soon got to hear about the teacher who was seen in two places at once. Ultimately, with many parents becoming scared to send their children to the school, despite her exemplary record, Sagee was asked to leave the school, which she duly did.

Vice Admiral George Tyron Appears In Front Of His Wife At The Same Time He Died!

Just under half a century later another bizarre doppelganger encounter unfolded. On 22^nd June 1893, Vice Admiral George Tryon was on board the HMS Victoria commanding naval exercises off the coast of Syria in the Mediterranean Sea when he issued rather bizarre orders for the ships to turn toward each other. ^[3] Following this, his ship crashed into the HMS Camperdown which caused his own ship to sink beneath the waters. In total, 357 crew members lost their lives. It is claimed that Tyron’s final words before he went down with his vessel were, “It’s all my fault!”

Rather bizarrely, however, at the same time as Tyron was sinking with his ship sending him on his way to a watery grave, his wife was at home in London entertaining friends while her husband was away at sea. Needless to say, all were surprised to see Tyron walk into the room and walk past them without uttering a word. He had, it was later stated, a solemn, sad look on his face, as if he was greatly troubled. He made his way to the other door in the room and opened it. However, before he could step through it he simply vanished into thin air.

Shortly after, Tyron’s wife was notified of her husband’s death. When she questioned when this naval tragedy had occurred, she realized it was at the same time that she and her guests had seen her husband walk through the room at their home.

Was this a case of a doppelganger? Or might it have been the recently departed spirit of Tyron, returning once more to his home before passing over to whatever awaited him on the other side? We might find that there is a closer connection between doppelganger appearances and the apparent ability to leave one’s body than we might think. We will return to this later.

A Doppelganger In The House Of Commons

Just over a decade later, in 1905, also in the United Kingdom, another extremely similar encounter is on record, one involving a British Member of Parliament that was reported on by several national newspapers. ^[4] Just before Easter, when Sir Gilbert Parker prepared to begin a debate in the Houses of Parliament. However, when he missed his chance to be called he began back to his seat. When he turned around he noticed a fellow MP, Sir Frederick Carne Rasch, who was sitting in a seat he wouldn’t normally occupy. And what’s more, he hadn’t expected to see Rasch as he believed he was at home with a bad case of the flu.

Regardless he greeted Rasch as he took his own seat. His fellow MP, however, didn’t acknowledge the greeting and simply stared blankly ahead. Parker later told reporters that his friend’s face was “remarkably pallid” and his expression “steely” and “stony”, even going as far as to say there he appeared “grim” and “resentful”.

Parker turned around for a moment before turning back to Rasch once more. However, to his amazement, he was now no longer there. In fact, he didn’t appear to be in the room at all. When Parker left the debate he went in search of Rasch but he was nowhere to be seen. He did, however, find other parliament members who had seen him briefly that morning, with one stating to have briefly spoken with him.

Ultimately, concerned he might be gravely unwell, Parker went to Rasch’s home. Once there, he was informed that he had not left his bed all day as he had been far too ill. He was, however, “not surprised” that people had witnessed him that afternoon. He claimed that he had desperately wanted to take part in the debate and that it was likely as he lay in his bed asleep, his spirit had “snuck out” to take a look at what was taking place.

Essentially, whether he was being serious or flippant, Rasch is describing astral projection.

Whether that was the case or not, and despite his family’s concerns that the encounter was a prediction of Rasch’s death, he made a full recovery and returned to work as normal.

Interaction With Your Other Self?

Undoubtedly one of the strangest and thought-provoking cases of doppelgangers is that of the French writer, Guy de Maupassant. ^[5] What makes de Maupassant’s claims stand out is that he appeared to have had experiences with his doppelganger during the last few years of his life as he was dying of syphilis, an encounter where this other version of himself seemingly dictated one of the final stories he wrote.

According to what he told at the end of his life, this other version of himself would visit him every night (although he would describe it as a demon rather than a doppelganger). Not only would this entity – which obviously looked exactly like him – drink the water off his night table and generally help himself to anything else it pleased in his room, he began dictating a story to him that he was told he should publish.

The story in question would eventually become The Horla and its subject matter interesting given the claims of how and why it was written. The story tells of a man who is slowly driven insane by a demonic spirit who appears to him at night and drains his energy and life force, seemingly using him as a host.

Perhaps given that one of the symptoms and consequences of syphilis is insanity, it might be easy to explain this apparent interaction with a doppelganger was exactly that. The case, however, remains one of the most intriguing and thought-provoking doppelganger incidents on record. It is also interesting to note the subject matter of the story in question. Many researchers into such things as possession and even encounters with alleged reptilian entities state these mysterious creatures do indeed use a person’s energy to give themselves strength. What’s more, many reptilian researchers state that these entities can appear in whatever form they desire.

Incidentally, de Maupassant spent the last year of his life in an insane asylum, and died in 1893, six years after publishing the story that his doppelganger seemingly dictated to him. Perhaps also of interest, his mental health appeared to deteriorate rapidly following its publication.

A Vision Of The Future!

Another writer who had apparent encounters with doppelgangers was German, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. ^[6] According to the story, von Goethe was riding along a footpath one day, very much feeling low in terms of his mood. Then, a short distance ahead, he could see a mysterious gentleman approaching him.

Perhaps bizarrely, despite the distance between him and the stranger, von Goethe claims to have seen him clearly in his “mind’s eye” – and what’s more, this person, although he was wearing the wrong clothes, it was clearly himself. After several moments, during which time von Goethe claimed a feeling of serenity overcame him, the other version of himself simply disappeared. Despite the bizarre nature of the incident, the writer put it to the back of his mind – that was until eight years later when he found himself on the very same path once more.

As he made his way down the footpath he noticed the clothes he was wearing. At that point, the memories of seeing his other self came flooding back. He realized he was wearing the same clothes that his other self had been wearing eight years before. This might make us think that rather than seeing a doppelganger of himself – at least how a doppelganger is typically understood – he rather saw a vision of his future self.

What is also interesting is that this is not the only time von Goethe witnessed a doppelganger. According to the tale, the writer was walking down the street when he saw a friend of his on the other side of the road. What made von Goethe pay attention to him was the fact that he was wearing his dressing gown.

When von Goethe arrived home, still a little perplexed as to what he had seen, he was more than a little surprised to find the same friend sitting in his chair, wearing the same dressing gown he had seemingly been wearing on the street only moments ago. According to his friend, he had become caught in a rain shower and had come to his house in order to dry off, borrowing his dressing gown while his clothes dried.

Doppelgangers Witnessed By Royalty

Although we should perhaps treat them with a pinch of salt, there are several royal figures who it was claimed had encounters with doppelgangers. Queen Elizabeth I, for example, claimed to have seen herself laying on her bed. What made the sighting even more unnerving was that she claimed she looked like a corpse.

Needless to say, the sighting concerned the Queen as well as those around her. Many people believed – and still do – that such a sighting is a prediction or premonition of a person’s death (we might recall the experience of Abraham Lincoln we examined earlier). What is interesting is that Queen Elizabeth I did pass away a short time after the encounter. Whether she had foreseen her own death or whether the sighting became self-fulfilling due to her concern of what it meant remains open to debate.

Around 200 years later at the end of the eighteenth century in Russia, Catherine the Great seemingly had her own encounter with a doppelganger. According to most versions of the account, the Russian Empress was at home one night laying in bed when several of her servants burst into the room claiming to have seen her only moments ago in the throne room. Catherine got off the bed and made her way to the throne room, eager to see who this apparent intruder was. When she arrived, she was more than shocked to see herself sitting on the throne.

The account states that Catherine immediately summoned her guards and ordered them to shoot at this apparent imposter. It isn’t clear what happened next, whether this other version of Catherine was wounded or whether she simply disappeared. However, several months after the incident, Catherine passed away. Might there have been a connection to the strange events in the throne room, and might the encounter have been similar in nature to those of Queen Elizabeth I and Abraham Lincoln?

The next doppelganger case will force us to examine whether there might be yet another dynamic to such encounters.

Doppelganger Or A Case Of Transportation?

One of the most thought-provoking cases of a potential doppelganger incident is that of Maria de Jesus de Agreda, not least as it just might be that it was, in fact, a case of transportation or even of alien abduction. ^[7] According to most accounts, at some time around 1620, Maria de Jesus de Agreda in Spain told her superiors that she had been “flown in a craft to a savage land” and had converted one of the local tribes – the Jumano – to Christianity.

Even more amazing, was her description of her journey home, which she claimed she had “seen the Earth” and it was a “spinning sphere” below her. We should recall that nobody had seen the planet from the outside at that point in history, and her description is remarkably similar to how a person would see the Earth if they did indeed travel into space.

As we might imagine, her claims were considered heresy, and all of her notes and diaries were seized by the nuns and burned. They demanded that she retract her claims, something that she refused to do.

However, two years later the story took an intriguing twist when Father Alonzo de Benavides arrived in New Mexico on a missionary mission to the New World. Intriguingly, he would come across a tribe of people who called themselves the Jumano. Of more astonishment to him, these people were seemingly practicing Catholic Christianity, complete with crosses, rosaries, and the celebration of mass.

When he asked them how they had learned of such things, they responded that they had been visited by a “lady in blue” who brought with her “divine articles” and told them what they meant. Needless to say, not only was Alonzo shocked, he was a little annoyed that he had been sent to “do a job that had already been done”. However, the mystery lady in blue remained a mystery for several years until Alonzo arrived back in Spain in 1630.

He eventually heard “wild ravings” of Maria de Jesus de Agreda and how she had taught Christianity to tribal people in a “savage land”. He suspected this was the lady in blue and he immediately visited her, still incarcerated at the convent. Although she claimed she didn’t know how she had left the convent – if she even had – she also knew that she had converted the people, and had indeed left them several religious artifacts.

In fact, one of these artifacts had been given to Alonzo by the tribe before he left – a chalice. When he produced this in front of Mary and the other nuns, they were shocked to discover that it was a chalice that had gone missing almost a decade ago when Mary had first begun telling her seemingly crazy claims.

Ultimately, the charges of heresy were dropped and she was released, now somewhat of a celebrity of her times and considered to be of “divine origin”.

Was this a case of a doppelganger arriving in a faraway land? Or was Mary physically taken there by unknown entities, and if so, why? Perhaps the answer resides somewhere in between the two – that, however, is a discussion for another time.

The short video below looks at this fascinating encounter a little further.

Modern-Day Doppelganger Encounters

While we have studied doppelganger cases from history that are, at least in their field of interest, relatively well-known, there are many examples to found on the Internet from our contemporary era. ^[8] And while we don’t have time to examine all such accounts, we can briefly look at some of the best.

The ”Other Me” Watching Me From The Mirror

Perhaps one of the most unsettling was submitted by a Reddit user (quitevoice4846) who claimed that she often saw herself out of the corner of her eye. She would state that when she left her bedroom in the night in order to visit the bathroom, she could see herself standing in the mirror, motionless, looking back at her, as if “the other me is watching me leave”. Despite the terror she felt during these encounters, she kept them to herself and didn’t speak of them to her husband.

One afternoon, however, after taking a nap on her bed, she spoke with her husband who had been watching television in a chair nearby. He told her, much to her shock, that he had witnessed her, from the corner of his eye, “sit up and crawl backward to the edge of the bed, and stand up in front of the bedroom door”. He called out to her to see if she was OK. However, when she didn’t answer he turned in the chair to fully face her. To his surprise, there was no one standing there and she was laying in the bed as she had been before.

At this point, she informed him of the girl in the mirror. Both agreed that something strange was taking place. They would agree that they shouldn’t even speak about it, as doing so would likely give this other person more energy and strength. It is certainly an interesting conclusion (and one that others have arrived at also), and the encounters is without a doubt one of the most disturbing of recent times.

The “Second Dad” Doppelganger

A similar encounter was uploaded by another user using the name Geobite. They claimed that one Sunday morning, the witness was watching television with their brother when a knock came at the door of the apartment where they lived. The witness got up from the sofa and made their way to the window which looked out at the door and so consequently told them who was calling. When he saw his father, he immediately made his way to the door in order to answer it.

However, before he could do so his mother came rushing straight toward him, screaming to not open the door as he didn’t know who it was. He informed her that it was their father, which caused his mother to hurry to the peephole and look through, a look of horror appearing on her face.

She told the witness to go to his bedroom with his brother. Then, his mother went to wake his father, who had been in bed the whole time. When he saw the person outside, he too became a little panic-stricken. He went to the door and called through the locked door, asking who was there.

No answer came, to which their father offered he would call the police. Through the window, the witness and his brother could clearly see the man – who did indeed look exactly like their father – simply standing motionless in front of the door. By the time their father returned to the door with a metal bat and opened it, the figure simply disappeared.

The “Thing” Pretending To Be A Mother

Without a doubt, one of the strangest and most unsettling modern-day doppelganger encounters came from Reddit user g4yf13r1, who claimed that one day when they were nine years old and were at home from school as they were sick, were watching television in the family living room. Suddenly, without saying a word, the witness’s mother simply leaned into the room and stared at her. She did so for several moments, remaining silent and unnerving the witness, to say the least.

Although the witness couldn’t explain why, they just knew that this “thing”, while looking completely identical to her, was not their mother, and was merely “pretending” to be so. They further recalled that it appeared as though it had “never felt a single emotion in its life”.

Then, things turned even stranger and even more disturbing.

The witness recalled that the entity began “beckoning” to them, urging her to follow her. The witness remained where they were and instead began to talk to her, to see what response she would get. The “other mother”, though, simply ignored what her daughter was saying, and continued beckoning her.

At this point, the witness got up from where they were sitting and ran out of the room as fast as they could. They ran into the yard, calling out for help. A moment later, the witness’s real mother came rushing over from where she had been working in the yard to see what the matter was. Perhaps not surprisingly, she dismissed her daughter’s claims as a strange dream that she hadn’t fully awoken from. However, the witness was not quite so sure.

Stranger Events At The Fast-Food Restaurant

One further Reddit user – ShutterSpook – claimed to have had two encounters with doppelgangers, both of which occurred at a fast-food restaurant where the witness worked. They claimed that during one of their shifts, they and another staff member were asked to attend to and clean the restroom.

However, before they could do so, the manager, who had asked them to clean the restroom, walked past them and into the restroom and locked the door. The two employees waited outside until their manager came out of the room, which she did after several minutes. She walked straight past the pair and around the corner. The witness chased after her in order to ask a question, however, she seemingly vanished into thin air. When they discovered the manager in her office and told of the strange encounter, she insisted she had been in her office the entire time and had not left.

On another occasion, the same witness was in the preparation area of the building with the same manager when one of the members of staff who was serving on the front counter suddenly entered the room. She walked past the pair without acknowledging them and went into the walk-in cooler.

Thinking she was just going to cool off for a moment, the pair ignored her and went back to what they were doing. However, when she hadn’t returned after several minutes, the manager asked the witness to go and check on her. To his astonishment, when he walked into the cooler, there was nobody inside. And given that there was no other way out, both he and his manager were at a loss as to what they had seen.

As they were contemplating the incident, the girl in question walked into the prep area, this time saying hello to them before heading into the cooler. At this point, the manager admitted they were rethinking the witness’s previous claims.

What is perhaps interesting about this particular sighting is that it would appear that the location is the crucial factor as much as the person themselves. Perhaps this suggests a connection to portals or interdimensional gateways.

Superstitions Associated With Doppelgangers

Perhaps not surprisingly, and as we have touched on as have gone through these most mysterious cases, there are many superstitions surrounding doppelgangers. ^[9] For example, we have already mentioned several times that many people believed to see your doppelganger was a sign of you imminent death. And, as we have seen, at least in some cases, this turned out to be very accurate. It is also said to if someone else sees your doppelganger, it could be a sign that you are about to become gravely ill, although not necessarily fatally so.

There are other myths and legends that revolve around your doppelganger being, quite literally, an “evil twin”, who will attempt to influence your thoughts and actions through lies and mental manipulation. What’s more, belief in this type of doppelganger goes back thousands of years. A similar train of thought is that a doppelganger is a version of yourself that has lived in the past. And once more, these legends stretch back to antiquity, and, at least in some cases, appear to be describing something very similar to déjà vu, only in reverse – essentially, people often claim to have seen a person arrive at a location several moments before they actually do, suggesting they had experienced their doppelganger.

There are also other superstitions concerning doppelgangers that go back to antiquity. For example, according to ancient Egyptian legends, this “spiritual double” is known as “ka” and usually resides within the living person’s body. However, when a person dies, should their body decay, this ka will die also as it has no host. This, incidentally, is why mummification was so important in ancient Egypt as it stopped the body from decaying and so ultimately, gave the ka a body with which it could still exist.

Of course, to some, perhaps particularly in the legends of the Native Americans, this other version – the doppelganger – was an “evil twin” and was ultimately a person’s double from the underworld – and not an entity to be trusted. It is also the belief of some Native American tribes that whatever the person is doing in the upper world, their twin will be doing the opposite in the underworld.

Other cultures point to portraits and even photography, claiming that to capture a person in such a way is to attract a soul to such imagery, and quite possibly produce the energy required to manifest a doppelganger. While this might sound strange to some, there are many accounts of alleged “haunted paintings”. Perhaps we might consider the feeling we sometimes get when looking at portrait paintings of the “eyes watching you around the room”.

Perhaps one of the most intriguing suspicions around doppelgangers (although it is much more a theory) is that they are proof of alternative universes – essentially, another you from another dimension.

A Genuine Mystery That Requires Serious Study

It is perhaps clear, then, that there is much more to accounts of doppelgangers and what they might be than a hallucination or a trick of the mind. And it would appear, at least in part, that explanations for doppelganger incidents will reside as much in science as it will the study of the paranormal (although you might argue that they are the same thing).

For example, might we discover, as mainstream scientists are already hinting at and increasingly louder, that other dimensions do exist? And even more amazing, is that these dimensions sometimes, if only very briefly, cross over into each other, perhaps resulting in doppelganger encounters. If such theories and suggestions were proven to be true, then not only to alternative universes exist, but alternative versions of ourselves.

Or could there be some kind of connection between doppelganger activity and the ability of a person to leave one’s body – essentially, might such notions as astral projection be closer to cases of doppelgangers than we might think?

We might recall how Emilie Sagee claimed that she often felt drained and trance-like when her doppelganger was seemingly visible and that it often appeared to physically act out the thoughts in her mind. With this in mind might we consider that doppelgangers are some kind of astral projection that seems to occur while the subject is awake, something that they have no control over? Indeed, might we ask if doppelgangers are a person’s soul?

Indeed, while on the surface accounts of doppelgangers appear intriguing but largely not important, further study of such incidents could very well prove crucial to only understanding the reality of our own universe, but of many other ones also.

Check out the video below. It looks at cases of doppelgangers in a little more detail.