CuriositiesJAN 12, 2017

50 Strangers That Met Their Real-Life Doppelgangers

Julija Nėjė and Justė Kairytė - Barkauskienė

488

Throughout history, meeting a doppelganger usually meant bad luck and was considered as an evil omen by many folklore tales. Meeting a doppelganger in real life was seen as meeting with a malevolent twin or even a paranormal entity.

The science behind these twin strangers is also quite grim as heautoscopy or hallucinations of seeing your own body in the distance might be signs of schizophrenia and epilepsy, which explains why it was seen as a harbinger of bad luck in the olden days. Thankfully, today, we use the term doppelganger in a more general and neutral way to describe a person who looks or acts the same way as we do.

Bored Panda collected a list of people who experienced this bizarre look-alike phenomenon, and it genuinely looks like a glitch in the Matrix. Just think about it. You inherit the looks of your ancestors, and someone happens to look exactly like you, and you happen to meet him accidentally. What are the odds? And though it is quite an eerie experience, the chance for a fun picture is just too good.

If you have met your doppelganger in real life, we'd like to hear your story!

#1 My Doppelganger Was Seated Next To Me On A Plane, Then We Accidentally Checked Into The Same Hotel And Went For A Beer

Lee Beattie

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420points

#2 I Found My Literal Doppelgänger Just Now Wtf

santana

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355points

#3 I Ran Into My Doppelganger At My Cousin's Wedding And She's My Cousin's Husband's Sister, No Other Relation

artistNOThipster

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315points

Are Doppelgangers Real?

The word “doppelganger” comes from the German language and literally means “double-goer” or “double-walker,” meaning a person who’s your visual copy. Unlike having an actual twin sibling, the doppelganger twins DNA will never match as they are supposed to be a carbon copy of you sans the shared genes. Spooky, right?

And although doppelgangers are very real in mythology and in popular culture (think “Twin Peaks” or “Us”), chances to meet one in real life are very, very slim. We’ll discuss just how slim they are in the next section.

#4 My Friend Met His Doppelganger Last Night

sleuthblues

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310points

#5 When Retired Priest Neil Richardson Moved To Essex He Found People Kept Coming Up To Him To Say "Hello John" - Because His Double Already Lived There

When Retired Priest Neil Richardson Moved To Essex He Found People Kept Coming Up To Him To Say "Hello John" - Because His Double Already Lived There

Cascade News

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288points

#6 My Own Doppelganger That I Ran Into At A Music Festival, Plus A Face-Swap Of The Photo

Slinzgod

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266points

Is it Possible to Have a Doppelganger in Real Life?

In a nutshell, yes, it is possible to have a doppelganger in real life, but there’s one huge caveat—the chances of having a real-life doppelganger that matches the measurements of your facial features exactly is about one in a trillion. So, if you’re worried about identity theft or if the thought of doppelganger scary stories keeps you up at night, you can rest assured that meeting one in real life is nearly impossible.

This leads us to another question—does everyone have a doppelganger? While we’re not aces in math or statistics, the odds are against this. You may certainly find someone who looks similar to you in your lifetime, but to say that every one of us has an exact match or a real-life doppelganger wandering around is a far shot.

#7 My Friend Found Her Doppelganger At A Party

jdc311

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257points

#8 My Friend Also Found His Doppelgänger At A Party

young_mula

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236points

#9 Doppelgangers. Truly Freaky

mr. baehr

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212points

Are Doppelgangers Evil?

If we’re talking about real-life doppelgangers, one can never know with them! There are all kinds of people, and doppelgangers in real life can be both as good as you or as bad as your upstairs neighbor who seemingly wears wooden clogs and dances Kozachok in ungodly hours of the night.

If we’re talking about mythological doppelgangers, they almost certainly are all evil. Some mythologies name doppelgangers as harbingers of bad luck; most say they’re your evil twins, and the portrayal in popular culture almost always doubles them with the battle of good and evil.

So now that we know what a doppelganger is and the truth behind doppelganger's meaning, it’s up to you to decide whether to believe in their existence. Whether you think of them as evil entities or pure gene lottery, one thing is sure—they’re downright entertaining. Scroll down our list of real-life lookalikes and decide for yourself are doppelgangers real.