Hello! And welcome to this week's research notes for the case of Doppelgängers!
Thank you again, Devon, for this episode suggestion!
AND I would like to clear up before we even begin: this has nothing to do with the Burger King. I had to explain to Rory after this week's show, that the Burger King was in all likelihood not a historical figure, and certainly was not married to 18th century ruler Catherine II Of Russia. Christ.
Lastly: I've been getting a lot of messages from people telling me I need to brush my teeth. You know who also didn't brush his teeth? Mao. That's right, and he actually ran China for a pretty long time. And you know what he told his doctor when he asked him to start brushing? "Does a tiger brush his teeth?" (true story, by the way).
Notice the way he didn't smile with his teeth? He didn't have great teeth.
Ahem. Let's talk about the actual cases of Doppelgängers on this week's episode.
Here's Catherine the Great.
And you'll notice her Wikipedia does not mention the doppelgänger incident. It does however mention her sleep deprivation before death, and subsequent stroke that killed her. The incident we talked about on the pod is definitely popular legend, which is why they didn't include it. But it certainly sounds like it could have been hallucination!
Additionally we talked about Abraham Lincoln seeing his double! Again, not to be confused with robot Abe, the most racist bot sent back through time that malfunctioned and accidentally abolished slavery. That's a story for a different episode!
That's right, honest Abe saw his own doppelgänger. Additionally, this is also probably the most high profile person who saw their double who also wrote about it and confirmed it to others! On this site you can read how Lincoln described it to those around him.
Although it also does talk about how tired he was... coincidence?
Here's a fun article by Vice on doppelburgers I mean Doppelgängers.
And if you want a good run-down on the brief history of Doppelgängers, this page by Atlas Obscura does a good job!
They talk about where the word came from, and some of the parallels in other cultures... which I didn't talk about on the podcast really!
Like in Ancient Egyptian mythology!
The Ka was a counterpart to the self, as was your shadow. All different parts of you making up you!
And in British and Irish folklore: Fetch referred essentially to a Doppelgänger that was a bad omen. Sometimes seen by sailors and such.
Not to mention Changelings which were children that were swapped at birth with similar but ultimately paranormal creatures! But they are another story for another podcast, as you can see from this disturbing image.
In terms of the scientific evidence I provided on the episode, you can read that here -
Nature Journal https://www.nature.com/news/2006/060918/full/news060918-4.html
You probably heard on the episode that I made a tough choice and had to kill clone-Rory but thankfully I made the difficult but correct choice. That being said Rory has not blinked since last episode, and I seem to remember he used to blink. Anyway, here's the machine I used to clone him!
Now you'll remember on this episode we also did a hands-on search for Rory's own double! We used popular North Korean crypto mining scam website http://twinstrangers.com to upload just about all of Rory's personal information, bank details, passwords, no urine samples and they got back to us with an 81% match.
Here's the image we fed Twin Strangers.
Granted this photo is a little old, Rory has been aged by years of paranormal research since this photo in 1986, but it's just to try it out! So! Drum roll please!
What do you guys think? Is 81% fair? Is this quick search any proof that Rory has a bonafide Doppelgänger out there in the world right now? If you try the site yourself let us know how it goes!
I'm gonna wrap this up cos I'm hungry as hell. I could demolish a Doppel Burger with extra gangers.
Am I seeing doppel?! 4 gangers?!
Hope you've enjoyed this week's episode, if you want to know anything else just let us know in the comments below! Otherwise... we will see you next week for another paranormal tale!
K&R