Doppelgangers On The Loose!

The question is: is the following story, from Ann Woodward, about a doppelganger, a ghost or is it just one big coincidence?

One of the partners in our firm died of cancer four years ago. She was dearly loved and sorely missed.

About six months ago I was in a department store and walking towards me was a lady who was the absolute double of her. In fact, so much so that it stopped me in my tracks, and made me take a deep breath.

I just wanted to run up to her and hug her.

When I related this to my work colleague the next day, she told me that it had been the late partner's birthday that day.

Coincidence or what?

~ Ann Woodward

The photo at the top of the post is Guy de Maupassant who claimed that towards the end of his life he often saw his own doppelganger and started to interact with 'him'. So much so, it is said the doppelganger dictated a short story to him, which was then published.

I have also written previously of how I was mistaken for someone else a couple of times while travelling see The Advantage Of Being Mistaken For Someone Else.

Other Random Posts:
Abraham Lincoln Describes His Own Doppelganger
The Meaning Of White Feathers As Messages From The Dead
The Immigration Coincidence Story

The Doppelganger In The Mall

A story from Erica via Google+. Probably more of a doppelgänger than a coincidence but, there again, they are related.

I was walking round the mall and I noticed a man staring at me. I carried on walking in and out of shops and realised he was following me. I thought it was just a coincidence and carried on, making sure I ignored him.

Finally the man approached me and I felt very uneasy. He complained to me that I had become very snobbish, giving me the impression that he thought we knew each other. I started to worry when he then carried on talking quite casually.

I had definitely never seen the man before. Without a by-your-leave I decided to rush off in the opposite direction leaving him rooted to the spot.

I can only presume I have a look-a-like and this was a coincidence.

~Erica

Other Random Posts:
Identical Cars Coincidence
Freemasons: The Solemn Obligation Of A Master Mason
The Currents Of Thought Within The Universal Mind

The Doppelgangers Who Perhaps Should Have Been Born As Twins

Doppelgangers Michelle and Tami

How would you feel if you actually met your doppelganger? Two people who can answer this are Michelle Robinson and Tami Carey.

Michelle met her doppelganger, Tami, when she started a new job in 2002. It took the two women a couple of weeks to fully accepted their likenesses but now they have a special relationship.

The two of them have so many likenesses as Tami Carey told the Daily Mail:

"We grew up minutes from one another in Southend-on-Sea, and my current home is five doors up from the house Michelle was born in. We both married and had children in our early 20s before getting divorced and becoming single mums.

"We both went on to find love again in our early 30s and we both have four children of similar ages.

"I suppose many people could say it was just a coincidence, but I always had a feeling there was more to it.

"If I'm honest, the whole thing freaked me out. It was uncanny to have randomly met this woman who had lived a practically identical life to me, but it made me feel very close to her. It felt like it was meant to me."

Michelle agrees with Tami about this:

"I felt I had known her all my life. There was this feeling of deja vu, a sense of overwhelming familiarity that I'd never experienced before with anyone. I have a half sister ... but feel much closer to Tami than her, it feels like I have two sisters."

As well as looking like twins the women have very similar tastes:

"Just last weekend we met for dinner wearing identical tops from the same shop, we'd bought separately that day. Last month we met up for dinner in coral tops and jeans. We wore the same dress to a party accidentally.

"As for our hair, it's not a conscious decision to have the same style. It's just the way we both wear it."

Sometimes it seems, even their partners can't tell them apart as Michelle explained:

"My fiancé Nick used to teach at the same school where Tami and I still work and even he would get it wrong sometimes. He'd wander into the staffroom, glance at Tami and ask, 'What's for dinner tonight?' She'd reply, 'No idea, why don't you ask Michelle?' Even our children get us mixed up."

In the case of Michelle and Tami it does make you wonder if they should perhaps have been born as twins but something prevented this from happening - so instead they were destined to meet up later in life.

Stories of doppelgangers go back through history. The word from the German translates as 'double walker'. In Ancient Egyptian mythology, a ka was a tangible 'spirit double' having the same memories and feelings as the person to whom the counterpart belongs.

Other Doppleganger Posts:
A Double Or A Doppelganger Coincidence
Abraham Lincoln Describes His Own Doppelganger
The Advantage Of Being Mistaken For Someone Else

Famous Coincidences: King Umberto I

This is one of those historical, classic coincidences, that's been around for a while, but I haven't posted it here previously. I have to be honest and say that I haven't been able to verify if it's all true but, if it is, then it's a definite 'wow'. Anyway, here's my version of the story.

As royalty sometimes does, King Umberto I of Italy, back in 1900, travelled to Monza and, as he was away from his palace, decided to have an evening meal in a smallish restaurant. The date was July 28th.

He was accompanied by his aide-de-camp and there was much excitement in the restaurant. The owner came out to take the King's order personally. This shocked the King, not because the owner was taking his order but because the two of them were like peas in a pod - identical! Same facial looks, build and so on and the King found out there was more - lots more.

The King and the restaurant owner both had the same name, Umberto, and they were both born on March 14, 1844 and in the same town. But it didn't end there.

Their wives were called Margherita and both couples were married on the same day and had a son called Vittorio. The photo shows King Umberto and Queen Margherita.

The coincidences kept on coming: King Umberto was crowned on the same day the restaurant was opened by Umberto the owner. They served in the Italian military and were both promoted on the same day to different ranks.

As we can imagine, the King was knocked out by this doppelganger, so much so that he decided that the following day the owner should visit the royal palace.

The next day arrived, as they often do, and it was the 29th of June 1900. Umberto, the restaurant owner, couldn't however take up his invitation. He had been killed in a shooting accident.

The King was deeply shocked. The very same day an assassin aimed his gun and shot the King through the heart. The final coincidence was, therefore, that they were both killed on the same day.

A lot of coincidences, but things like this really do happen - despite what the cynics may say.

Further Reading:
Famous Coincidences: Abraham Lincoln
Famous Coincidences: Mark Twain
Famous Coincidences: Michael Jackson

General Montgomery's Double In WW2

Doubles always interest me and they often go to show why we can't always believe what we see.

Take the famous deception caused in the Second World War by Monty's Double. Monty being General Montgomery (photo top right) the British soldier who was the commander-in-chief of all ground forces for the Normandy landings in 1944.

Security chiefs hatched a plan to delude the German forces that Montgomery was going to lead an invasion from southern France, rather than from Normandy. They decided to do this by using a double.

Lieutenant Clifton James (photo right), by some strange coincidence, just happened to be the spitting image of Monty. James was seconded into action and his first job was to study the general's voice, gestures and mannerisms including the way he saluted and pinched his cheek while thinking.

By another coincidence James was previously an actor, so he had an advantage in trying to become Montgomery's lookalike. The only thing that bothered him was trying to fully capture the general's personality. He later wrote in his book I was Monty's Double, "He was so unique and overpowering that I despaired ever being him. It was one thing to ape the outside of a man, but quite another to acquire something of his fire and forcefulness."

Lieutenant Clifton James needn't have worried as he perfected everything and flew to Gibraltar as General Montgomery. Here he was greeted by the British Governor and by 'coincidence' also to several of Hitler's known secret agents.

He did a repeat performance in Algiers where he met - and was cheered by - British troops. News of Monty's whereabouts and plans travelled fast and were passed back to the German High Command via their 'secret' agents. The Germans had been taken in by a believable double.

The rest, as they say, is history.

Further Reading:
The Advantage Of Being Mistaken For Someone Else
Abraham Lincoln Describes His Own Doppelganger
A Double Or Doppelganger Coincidence

Can We Be In Two Places At Once?

I've mentioned doppelgangers previously but people also talk about phantasms or bilocation and these often sound very similar.

Let's look at dictionary definitions -

Phantasms: Something seen but having no physical reality; a phantom or apparition

Doppelganger: A ghostly double of a living person, especially one that haunts its fleshly counterpart.

Bilocation: Existence or the ability to exist simultaneously in two places.

Phantasms are recorded throughout history. Goethe, for example, mentions this in his autobiography and gives instances where he experienced this himself.

Goethe was riding alone after saying goodbye to his girlfriend, okay he actually called her a sweetheart as was done in those days. Anyway, there he was, on the road in Alsace when he saw 'with eyes of the spirit' his own apparition coming towards him wearing a gold and grey suit - very trendy at the time.

Eight years later he was on his way to visit the same girl, obviously a steady sweetheart. He passed a certain spot on the same road and realised he was wearing a gold and grey suit.

His conclusion was that eight years previously he had seen his future self. He defined the sighting as a mental image rather than anything real. So was this a doppelganger, phantasm or an instance of bilocation. I'd plump for phantasm - maybe a precognitive phantasm.

Another strange case from the past was that of Emilee Sagee who was born in Dijon, France. She actually got the push from a job virtually every year for being in two places at once.

In one instance, while a teacher at Neuwelcke, she was writing on the blackboard and her pupils were amazed to see that there were two Emilee Sagee's standing next to each other.

On another occasion Emilee was in the garden and, as it was such a sunny day, her students asked if they could have the lessons outside. So off she went to get the headmistress's approval while the girls returned to their classroom.

Suddenly the figure of Emily was seen sitting in the teacher's chair. Two of the children tried to touch her and one claimed to have walked right through her. They said that she felt like soft muslin.

Needless to say, this unsettled the pupils and once again Ms. Sagee was out of a job.

Phantasm, doppelganger or bilocation? Whatever, it shows that sometimes we may be able to wander off somewhere else, or even into the future, while remaining where we are. It's daydreaming taken to another level or maybe the astral body is just doing it's own thing.

In Emilee Sagee's case these phantasms or doppelgangers happened while she was tired or absent minded and not when she was in robust health and absorbed with her duties.

Over 80 years ago, scientists discovered that it is possible to be in two locations at the same time — at least for an atom or a subatomic particle, such as an electron. So why not us?

Further Reading:
Abraham Lincoln Describes His Own Doppelganger
Double Or Doppelganger Coincidence

Abraham Lincoln Describes His Own Doppelganger

Yesterday I wrote about seeing a doppelganger. I've also written several posts previously about Abraham Lincoln.

Today I'm following both of these themes with the story of how Abraham Lincoln saw a doppelganger of himself. I came across this on Wikipedia and it is a quote from the book Washington in Lincoln's Time by Noah Brooks*.

Noah Brooks claims that he heard this directly from Lincoln in 1864. The following is the quote from Brooks which is supposedly in Abraham Lincoln's own words.

"It was just after my election in 1860, when the news had been coming in thick and fast all day and there had been a great "hurrah, boys," so that I was well tired out, and went home to rest, throwing myself down on a lounge in my chamber.

Opposite where I lay was a bureau with a swinging glass upon it (and here he got up and placed furniture to illustrate the position), and looking in that glass I saw myself reflected nearly at full length; but my face, I noticed had two separate and distinct images, the tip of the nose of one being about three inches from the tip of the other.

I was a little bothered, perhaps startled, and got up and looked in the glass, but the illusion vanished. On lying down again, I saw it a second time, plainer, if possible, than before; and then I noticed that one of the faces was a little paler — say five shades — than the other.

I got up, and the thing melted away, and I went off, and in the excitement of the hour forgot all about it — nearly, but not quite, for the thing would once in a while come up, and give me a little pang as if something uncomfortable had happened.

When I went home again that night I told my wife about it, and a few days afterward I made the experiment again, when (with a laugh), sure enough, the thing came back again; but I never succeeded in bringing the ghost back after that, though I once tried very industriously to show it to my wife, who was somewhat worried about it. She thought it was a 'sign' that I was to be elected to a second term of office, and that the paleness of one of the faces was an omen that I should not see life through the last term.

*Noah Brooks was a California journalist who arrived in Washington in 1862. He first met Lincoln in Illinois five years earlier, and they apparently renewed their friendship during the war years. Brooks, who claimed a close intimate relationship with Lincoln, first published these recollections of Lincoln in 1895.

Further Reading:
Famous Coincidences: Abraham Lincoln
Famous Precognitive Dreams: Abraham Lincoln
The Ghost Of Abraham Lincoln Walks The White House

Some people believe that seeing one's own doppelganger is an omen of death

A Double Or A Doppelganger Coincidence

I forgot to mention one strange experience while on my holiday to the Canary Islands. I saw a double of my best friend who died a couple of years back - a doppelgänger I suppose.

My wife and I were in our hotel about to have our evening meal when in walked the double of my friend - someone I had known for over 30 years.

My wife and I looked at each other and both said, "Doesn't he look like Colin."

To be honest it felt very unsettling when this man sat down on his own quite near our table. In a way I wanted to find an excuse to talk to him but then I felt I shouldn't. I couldn't, however, stop looking at him.

When the waiter came over to the man it was if I was dreaming. Colin had a habit of putting two fingers of his right hand in his top pocket when he was slightly nervy. This is exactly what this duplicate did as he placed his order for a drink.

After a few days the double went away. I almost felt relieved. Then, as we were at Tenerife airport to fly back to England, there he was waiting for the same flight as us. This particular flight was heading for Bristol where Colin was born - an airport we don't normally return to when returning home.

Very strange.

As I understand it seeing a doppelgänger is okay as long as it isn't of our self. If this should occur it is supposedly bad luck or even an omen of death.

Further Reading:
The Advantage Of Being Mistaken For Someone Else