Think You're Alone? The Creepiest Tales of Mimics I've Ever Heard

Alejandra was in the kitchen washing dishes after dinner. Her little sister was playing outside in the garden, but it was getting dark out. Alejandra yelled for Sarah to come back inside, but Sada didn't move. There was a small house and a small garden. She should have heard Alejandra calling for her. Annoyed, Alejandra called out again, Sarah, Sarah, come back inside. Alejandra heard fast footsteps running behind her, But I'm already inside. She turned around and there she was. Sada was behind her. Alejandra snapped her head around, looking outside. Sarda was in the garden. They were both looking at her and the other Sarah looked back. The longer they stared at each other, the more they could tell other Sarah looked identical, but she was pale and looked sick. As the sisters continued to stare other, Sarah slowly smiled at them. Alejandra grabbed her sister's hand and the girls ran through their parents' room. Neither of them slept that night. This actually took place in at the Quisa, Mexico, a little town sixteen miles southeast of Guadalajara, Jalisco. As little Sada became an adult, she ended up in the United States. She became a wife and a mother to three kids, and though she had long left at the Kisa, something seemed to have followed her. Her children often saw Sada walk into their rooms at night, only for her to disappear before their eyes. They would hear her calling their names when she wasn't home. One time, her children were watching TV at home she was at work, and as they sat together in the living room, the front door flew open. It was Sara, only something was off. She looked frazzled. She turned her head in all directions and asked where the other sister was. When one of the kids said in her room, Sadah said okay, and then slammed the door and left. Hours later, she was home and her kids asked her why she was home earlier. After a moment of dead silence, Sada told her kids, I wasn't home earlier. In this episode, I'll tell you about some of the strangest cases of mimics, doppelgangers, things that pretend to be somebody you know. My name is Edwin and here's a horror story. What did Alexandra and Sara see when they were kids, and then Sata's own kids later what was other Sarah. The term doppelganger literally translates to double walker, and it is of German origin. There are other words for it that you might have heard, like fetch, mimics, twin stranger, but whatever word you you, seeing yourself is usually a strange, scary, and confusing event. It's also almost never a good thing when a person sees her dappelgangers, and this belief goes way back. Narcissus, the son of the river god and a nymph, was a talented hunter. He also happened to be extremely handsome. A nim fell in love with Narcissus, but he rejected her. As revenge, Nemesis, the god of vengeance, decided to punish Narcissus. Nemesis led Narcissus to a pull of water, where he was able to see his own reflection. Narcissus fell in love with his reflection, but when he realized that he could never have the image in the pond, it killed himself. Some consider this to be the first account of a doppelganger or a mimic, and although it might not be an exact fit, there is one thing in common between the myth of Narcissus and modern stories of dappolgangers that senor doppelganger is a sign that death is coming. They are believed to be harbingers of death. But the Greek were not the only ones to believe in an identical other. In ancient Egypt, everyone was born with a spirit double, a ka, which lived on after the person died. It's tied to the person and it shares the same emotions, memories, and experiences. After a person passed, the body had to be mummified because a ka still needed a place to live. Food offerings were left in tombs to sustain the k. In Norse mythology, this other, the ka, a mimic or dappolganger, is known as i vardoger. It's an entity that looks just like the person. It has the same voice, the same scent, and demeanor. It is always seen before the person actually arrives at a location, leaving witnesses confused. An evil, dark being that is identical to someone seems to be something that all cultures share. It's an old belief and some of the creepiest horror movies feature these beings, but could there be some truth behind the mythology. It was a slow Sunday morning for the Johnson family. Everyone was still asleep when four year old Michael walked into his parents' room. Rachel, his mom, asked her son how he slept good. He said, except you scared me. She was confused and asked Michael what he meant. He was woken up at some point during the night. He kept hearing his mom calling his name. When he rubbed his eyes and looked, his mom was standing at the door. Then she left without saying anything else. He fell asleep and again he heard her. Michael, it was his mom again. This time he was more awake when he looked it sounded just like his mom than he noticed that she didn't have a face. He hid under his blankets until morning came. Rachel was horrified. She never left her bed the previous night. She wasn't calling Michael at his door, so she set up a ring camera that night and reassured her son that nothing was there. And so night came, and just like the night before, he heard his mom calling Michael, Michael. He never answered this other mom. Instead, he screamed for his real mom, and so Rachel ran to Michael's was nothing in front of his room, nothing she could see, but he was screaming in terror. After he calmed down and fell asleep, Rachel looked at the Ring app she went back to right before Michael started screaming. She didn't see a person in the video, but the ring camera had activated. It did think someone or something was there. Michael told her again that it was her. It sounded like her, but it wasn't really her. It was an entity mimicking her. And it said that when you hear a mimic, an entity pretending to be something else, you should never answer it. And it seems like Michael did the right thing if he answered the mimic you're telling it. Yes, I can hear you, and that makes it stronger. Jessica was home after school and was doing the same things she always did, eat chips and watch YouTube in her room. She was the only one home until six thirty when her mom got back from work, but around four thirty she heard knocking at the door. She sat up already scared no one else was home. The knocking continued and she heard honey, jess you there, Hello, Honey, are you in there? Are you inside? Her heart was racing. It sounded like her mom, but it didn't speak like her mom. Her mom never used the words honey or jess. And then the knocking started again, and then she heard are you inside? Are you okay? Answer me? Jess She yelled, leave, You're not my mom. Go. There was silence. It only lasted a few seconds. The mimic knocked and started to say, jess answer. The word answer was followed by a growl. Jessica called her neighbors and told them something was out there, pretending to be her mom, and so they ran over, but nothing was there. Jessica left with them and waited for her mom at their house. Those are our instances of someone hearing an entity mimic a loved one, but there are also encounters were a person sees themselves, and honestly, I'm not sure which one is worse. I'll tell you about those encounters up next. If you're looking for stories of mimics, stopp ogangers, identical others, then you probably came across this name. We've mentioned it in our previous Doppelganger's episode, Emily Saja. It is considered to be a real encounter that proves the existence of such entities. The pension at von Nuivelk was Emily's sad Jay's nineteenth place of employment. She had been a teacher since she was sixteen, and she was by all accounts, smart, attractive, and well liked. She was blonde, blue eyed, and with chestnut hair, and in good health. She was known for her patients with her students and for her excitable personality. But for some strange reason, she could never keep her position for a normal amount of time. It could have been the weird things that happened around her. Emily arrived at the prestigious school for girls just after her thirty second birthday. She taught a class of seventeen girls, but there were forty two total students who lived there. Just a few weeks after she first arrived, stories began to spread. Whenever one girl asked for teacher Emily, a student would say, oh, I saw her in this room, but another would answer that can't be. I just saw her at the stairwell just moments ago. At first, this was all explained with the same thing that maybe the girls just weren't paying attention. But the stories were increasing in numbers. It couldn't be denied. Something was happening, and it only got worse. As Emily was teaching her class of seventeen students, she was facing the chalkboard. She was writing, and suddenly every girl in her class saw two teacher Emily's standing side by side the other. Emily pretended to write as a real Emily wrote with chalk on the board. The double copied her every move and everyone saiged everyone but Emily herself. But these sightings only worsened. On another occasion, the students were invited to attend an event at the neighborhood. Emily said Jay was helping a student fix her dress, so she stood behind the girl tying the back of it. The girl looked over to a mirror that was next to them, and suddenly she saw two Emily's. Seeing the double mimic her teachers every move impacted the girl so much that she fainted at the sight. But it didn't stop there. There were times the mimic was seen standing behind Emily's chair during lunch. It pretended to eat, moving when Emily moved, but the double didn't always copy whatever Emily was doing. Other times, as Emily stood up off her chair and left the class, the mimic would appear in her seat. On another night, Emily was bedridden sick with the flu. She laid sick in her bed and the student was reading to her. Suddenly, Emily became super pale, and the student asked her if she was okay. Emily didn't answer, and the girl looked up from her book. She saw Emily walking up and down the hallway. The girl didn't faint this time, she just set the book down and walked out. Emily was no longer in the hallway and instead asleep in her bed. When the girl got downstairs and told her classmates what she had seen, she was very pale and nervous. But one of the strangest accounts happened not long after that. All of the forty two girls were on the first floor of the school. It was where they practiced their embroidery. There were four large windows, so large that they appeared more like glass doors and windows, and behind the glass there was a garden. All of the tables in the room faced the windows, and they could see toward it. The girls sat at their tables and they could see teacher Emily to the garden outside. A different teacher was supervising their lesson, and after some time, this teacher stepped out for a moment. Her chair remained empty, but not for long. Teacher Emily walked into the room and took the other teacher's place. None of the girls thought anything of it until one of them pointed out the following teacher, Emily was still out in the garden. They all looked outside and then back at the chair. She looked exactly the same, only more tired. She seemed so real. A few brave students walked over to the other Emily. Two of the girls try to touch her, but were met with a strained resistance. A third girl walked over and found that as she reached out to touch this double, her hand went through her. The double didn't seem to realize any of this was happening. It just continued to sit there. After some time, other Emily said jay appeared. The girls looked outside and saw as Emily continued to garden. All forty two girls saw this. Someone asked Emily what she thought about all of this, and she was at a loss for words. She had never seen this double, but it was ruining her life. She had no control over it, but this was the reason that she could never stay at one job for too long. This continued until Emily left the school. She was there for almost two years, but the longer it went on, the more the story spread. Parents got wind of what was happening at the school. The girls and their parents were growing scared, and by then everyone had seen it. More and more girls refused to return to the school, and when Emily's time at the school was odd there were only twelve girls enrolled, the administration had no choice but to let her go. They had a school to save, and Emily was pretty sad. Now this was going to be the nineteenth school she was fired from. So she went back home to France and stayed with her sister in law. But even there, her nephews and nieces would see it too. They always told the tales of two aunt Emily's. Emily then left for Russia and accounts of her life were lost. Now this was probably the most widely shared encounter with a doppelganger. It can be traced to one source, a book called Footfalls of the Boundary of the World written by Robert Dale Owen. He heard the story from a woman named Julie Vaughan Goldenstube, and she was a daughter of Baron von Goldenstube, who attended the school in eighteen forty five. The girl who saw the other Emily twice. But the story of Emily he is not the only mimic or doppelganger's story. There have been many. Very early in this podcast, I talk about her story with far less detail, and like I mentioned, she's not the only one. President Abraham Lincoln was said to have seen his doppelganger more than once. On the night of his election, as he looked into the mirror, Abraham Lincoln saw two reflections staring back at him. The second phase was pale and visibly sick. In just a few months after this, he was assassinated by John Wilkes. Booth was his doppelganger, an omen foreshadowing his death. His wife believed it was Percy Shelley, the husband of Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein. He was said to have seen his doppelganger a few times in his life, the last one right before he died. He would often see himself walking the halls of his house, and friends and family would see it too. They found themselves afraid and confused, Percy was the one who saw it most. It haunted him, especially when he was sick. Sometimes it even spoke to him. Just a few days before Percy drowned at sea, he saw it again, and it said to him, how long do you expect to be content? Both Catherine the Great and Queen Elizabeth the First claimed to have seen their doubles. Catherine the Great even saw her doppelginger sitting on her throne. Scared, she ordered her guards to shoot at it, and when they stopped firing, there was nothing there. Catherine the Great died shortly after this encounter. Queen Elizabeth met a similar fate. She walked into her bedroom and saw herself in bed, only this other her was extremely sick. Not long after she was dead. It's thought now that she died of blood poisoning, though we will never know, we do know that it was not a peaceful death, though, and at the time of her passing she had lost most over hair and teeth. She refused to be bathed. Then she looked terrible, extremely sick, maybe identical to the doppelganger she had seen in her bedroom. These are all old encounters, and as I came across them, I wondered, what about newer stories, stories outside of places like TikTok and read it and then I found this one. In twenty eleven, a twenty one year old man was supposed to go to work. Instead, he called out and started drinking. At some point he passed out on his bed. He had a lot to drink, and when he stood up he was dizzy. He turned around and saw himself still in bed, and so he yelled at his other self. He screamed, get up, get up, go to work, and stop drinking. He shook his other self, he even jumped onto it. The other hymn in bed didn't move, and then suddenly he was in bed, looking at himself, yelling and jumping. He could not stand seeing his double right in front of him, so he got out of bed, went to his window, and jumped out on the third floor. The young man survived. He went to the hospital and was treated. It turns out he had a tumor in his left temporal lobe. The tumor was causing hallucinations. These hallucinations are called autoscopic phenomena, which really means the feeling of presence of someone next to you, but the feeling can get worse you can get until the point where you're actually seeing you're double. While this young man had an actual hallucination that could be explained through medicine, his reaction was terror, pure terror. There's just something about seeing our doubles that causes primal fear. These are things that shouldn't be there, that should not exist. Could it be the uncanny valley we feel when seeing or hearing a mimic? Uncanny valley is the eerie sensation a person feels when they encounter a robot or a computer generated character that has human like characteristics. Is it that when someone sees or hears a mimic they can tell there's something just not human about them, the mimic, the other being, the doppelganger. There's always something off about them, something so obviously not human. So next time you hear someone calling your name and you think you know who they are, ask yourself, how can you be sure? Do you know of any haunted places or stories you'd like us to look into. Head on over to horror story dot com to tell me about it. Remember that ad free episodes are available on scaryplus dot com and you can try it out for free if you're following the show. I will talk to you next week. Thank you very much for listening. It scary. Everyone's see you soon.