Cloning vs. Bilocation
Why are there so many people who look like me?
Have you ever discovered that you have a doppëlganger?
Your identical twin, who you happen to have never met and had been blissfully unaware of until one of your friends sends you a picture.
You’ve probably heard this word before — a doppëlganger is “an apparition or double of a living person” — and they appear in the wild more often than you’d expect.
For example, my friend Rachel Andersen recently discovered she has a twin when someone discovered what appears to be her on a bag of cat food.
Seriously, does this not look like the same person? It’s not.
It’s crazy, though, because this photo looks exactly like her.
Several of the comments on her post were friends saying, “I thought this was you!” For a second, I thought so, too.
Even though I read the text before looking at the picture, my brain needed a moment before it could resolve the fact that this isn’t actually her.
It started when I was a teenager
When I was 16 years old, I was minding my own business walking through the mall when some dude I’d never seen stopped me to say hello.
(This was the 90s, we spent a lot of time hanging out at the mall because unlike kids these days, we had drivers’ licenses and nothing much to do other than go wander around the mall.)
He addressed me as though I knew who he was, and in response to my confusion he said, “You’re Julia, you work at JC Penney.”
“No, I’m Jessica. I don’t work anywhere in this mall.”
(Side note, I happened to work at Sears in a different mall across town.)
This dude then proceeded to argue with me that I am in fact Julia and I definitely work at JC Penney. He wouldn’t take no for an answer, so I eventually just kind of backed away slowly and stopped trying to convince him of the fact that I’m not this person.
It was weird.
That was the first time — it was far from the last
Having someone you’ve never met argue with you, in public, that you’re not who you believe you are is strange. It was such a weird encounter that it stuck with me, which might be why I’ve noticed how often it’s happened to me since that first time.
Every few months or so, one of the following scenarios will happen:
- A stranger will come up and start talking to me, suddenly realize that I’m not the person they thought I was, and then they’ll awkwardly slink away because they’re always embarrassed.
- Someone (also a stranger) will come up to tell me, “OMG you look just like [insert relationship: friend, niece, coworker].” In some cases, they’ll ask to take a picture of me, so they can share it with [insert person]. A few times they’ve had a picture of their [person], but most people simply tell me I look exactly like [so and so].
- One of my friends will text asking if I’m in [location]. I’ve been spotted in Chicago, crossing the street, and, notably, hiking a volcano in Hawaii. On exactly 0 of these occasions was I in the places they swore they saw me.
- Someone will ask, “Do I know you from somewhere? I swear we’ve met before.” Occasionally, we manage to determine where we may have crossed paths. Other times, there’s a 0.00–0.003% chance I’m actually the person they met and they’re thinking of yet another doppëlganger.
Usually, these encounters amuse me. I always try to reassure the embarrassed people who walk up and launch into some follow-up of a previous conversation by saying, “Don’t worry, this happens to me a lot.”
Sometimes it can get annoying (especially the photo requests). Other times I’ve used it as a strategic advantage.
For example, there was allegedly someone who looked like me that worked at House of Blues New Orleans. So… at least once I marched confidently into areas I was totally not authorized to be.
Between my level of confidence and the fact I looked like someone who worked there, I was able to bypass certain barriers. No questions asked.
(I can’t remember why I did this, I just remember doing it. Possibly just because I could… This would not surprise me.)
My first theory about this phenomenon (it’s mostly a joke)
Because this has been happening for 20 years, I developed a “theory” that future me must have created an army of clones (of myself, obviously) and sent them back in time to…do…I don’t know. Something.
Whatever my bidding is at the hypothetical future point that I decide it’s necessary to create and release the clones, I guess?
Time-traveling clones involve a lot of effort and technological advancement, so it’s really just a story I made up to explain a weird thing that’s been happening most of my life.
Since I can’t think of a reason I’d go to the effort to make a bunch of clones (maybe I get bored in the future?) I’m pretty sure this isn’t what is happening.
My emerging theory: Bilocation (which I don’t quite understand yet)
This bears repeating: I’m diving into unknown territory here.
Bilocation is a phenomenon I’m aware of, but I don’t understand precisely what it is or how it works (yet).
The term has been around for a long time, as it turns out. This is not a new “alleged” phenomenon. Which is interesting.
Don’t you love the moralizing in Wikipedia about things like this?
Big Science can’t prove it, so obviously it can’t be true. Just like germs were a ridiculous idea before we invented the microscope.
But I digress.
The term has been used with increased frequency in the last century or so:
Side note: I’m curious how many words have a similar growth trend. We create vast quantities of written information every single second, so I’m curious if the usage data here is based on sheer volume. Or…?
Anyway. Even though Google and Wikipedia make it very clear that the idea of bilocation is some woo-woo nonsense, I wonder. Might this be partly to blame for the whole “Jess has a million clones” phenomenon?
According to the website Occult World, which has a fantastic header image (love the steampunk vibe) and is probably a semi-reliable resource (at least for my current purposes) bilocation can happen intentionally or spontaneously.
This could explain why I’m not aware that it’s happening?
Well, I guess I am aware it’s happening when a friend texts to let me know I’m hiking in Hawaii while sitting at home in Michigan. But it’s not like I summoned my psychic powers consciously to go do that.
If I could, I probably would.
I need to do more digging to figure out if this is, in fact, something I can do.
In the meantime, here’s a less interesting and possibly more likely explanation:
“The gene pool is only so big.”
Someone once pointed this out when I mentioned that I often think I see people I know while I’m traveling.
Does this ever happen to you? There’s an instant of recognition, but then I think about it for a second and realize it’s unlikely to run into [person who lives in New Orleans] in, say, Tokyo.
Either way, I find the whole thing odd and I hope this wasn’t too boring to read.
Clones vs. bilocation was on my mind, so I wrote some words about it.
If this is interesting or you have any questions, please share them in a reply! I would be more than happy to do more research into bilocation if this is something anyone would actually like to read about.
It’s probably just me, though.
(Seriously, if one person is interested, I will write you a dissertation. What do you want to know? Just ask!)