DOPPELGÄNGERS: When Your Double Comes Calling

When your mirror image steps out of the glass and walks beside you, death often follows. From Abraham Lincoln to Catherine the Great, those who’ve encountered their own doppelgänger rarely lived to tell about it for long.

Imagine this: You’re alone in your bedroom when you suddenly feel a presence. You turn… and there’s your exact double, glaring back at you with your own eyes. Not a reflection, not a twin — but something… other. The Germans have a name for this terrifying phenomenon: doppelgänger — literally, a “double-walker.” These enigmatic twins have slipped through history behind the curtain of our reality, subverting perception and undermining our understanding of self. Even more chilling, these apparitions often arrive as harbingers of doom — death usually follows those unfortunate enough to see their other self. What does it feel like to be haunted by the specter of… yourself?

In 1860, as a divided nation was about to rest its future on his shoulders, Abraham Lincoln encountered something that would rattle even the steadiest mind. The future president’s experience was meticulously documented by his own biographer, Noah Brooks. Lincoln reported seeing a phantom in his mirror — not once, but twice in one night, returning even after he’d told his wife about the first sighting. The ghost bore his features with one terrifying difference: half of the face was ghostly pale, as if the gray fingers of death had already claimed it. Mary Todd Lincoln, always sensitive to omens, interpreted the vision with chilling precision. The pallid half, she declared, meant that although Lincoln would win re-election to the presidency, he would not live to complete his term. Four years later, an assassin’s bullet proved her prophecy correct.

Yet long before Lincoln’s encounter, another ruler faced her spirit twin. Queen Elizabeth I, England’s Virgin Queen, was in the twilight of her long reign when, according to one of her ladies-in-waiting, she faced a nightmare made flesh. The Queen reportedly saw herself — not as the glorious monarch that she was, but as a corpse-like double. This dreadful apparition came surrounded by frightful visions of hellfire, as if every corner of the afterlife were reaching out to claim her. Not long after, the sovereign who had ruled England for almost half a century died — under mysterious circumstances. Had her doppelgänger arrived to escort her to the other side?

In the late 18th century, Russia’s most powerful empress, Catherine the Great, confronted an unwelcome visitor of her own. As Catherine spent the day in her bed, servants throughout the palace witnessed something impossible: Catherine’s doppelgänger was spotted elsewhere in the palace — and with astonishing audacity, it even seated itself upon Catherine’s throne. The Empress, who never tolerated challenges to her authority, ordered her guards to shoot the otherworldly usurper. What happened next remains shrouded in mystery, but we do know that Catherine herself died shortly afterward, adding to the roster of figures for whom doubles herald impending death. Perhaps her spectral twin wasn’t trying to steal her throne… but inherit it.

The French writer Guy de Maupassant didn’t just glimpse his double — he developed a relationship with it. In a disturbing twist, in the late 1880s, his doppelgänger reportedly dictated a story to him, which became one of the last works he ever published. The tale concerns an impossibly profound, frightening hallucination of a parasitic, consuming being that drives its host to madness — an eerie parallel to Maupassant’s own fate. Untreated syphilis had ravaged his body and mind, blurring the line between reality and hallucination. His double became more present, more insistent. Maupassant died in an asylum, his brilliant mind destroyed. Was his doppelgänger merely an illusion born of his illness… or something far more malevolent that preyed upon his unraveling sanity?

The literary giant of Germany, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, experienced something even more uncanny than most doppelgänger encounters. One day in the early 19th century, while riding along a footpath, Goethe encountered his double — himself, riding a horse in clothes he’d never worn. Eight years later, when he found himself on that very same road, a jolt of bone-chilling clarity struck him: he was dressed exactly in the same outfit the double had worn that day. What he had seen was not just a double — but a glimpse through time itself — a vision of his future self.

The brilliant poet Percy Shelley, husband of Frankenstein creator Mary Shelley, would encounter his double during times of illness. One meeting was particularly haunting. While standing on a terrace, Shelley’s doppelgänger approached and asked a disturbing question: “How long do you mean to be content?” The poet received no answer. Shelley drowned under mysterious circumstances in a sailing accident in 1822. Had his double been warning him of borrowed time? Or perhaps, inviting Shelley to join him in the great unknown?

Not all doppelgänger stories involve famous historical figures. Perhaps the best-documented case concerns Emilie Sagee, a schoolteacher in mid-19th-century France who became known for a remarkable phenomenon: her double manifested regularly, though never to Sagee herself — only to those around her. Students and other teachers watched in horror as the haunting double mimicked Sagee’s every move throughout the day. A few brave students attempted to touch the apparition, describing its form as composed of a gauzy, transparent material that seemed suspended between worlds. Sagee eventually lost her job after the school community reacted with fear. Unlike the other stories we’ve explored tonight, Sagee’s ultimate fate remains mysterious. Did her doppelgänger finally claim her, as happened to so many others? Or did she continue to live with her shadow self — always accompanied by someone whose presence moved through the world in plain sight while she remained hidden in the light?