You might have heard the folklore that everyone has seven people on the planet that look just like them – called doppelgangers.
But according to a study by Teghan Lucas from the University of Adelaide, in a population of 7.4 billion, there’s only a one in 135 chance that there’s a single pair of perfectly exact doppelgangers.
Despite this, people report finding their lookalikes almost daily.
Santana Gutierrez was out shopping when she was stopped in her tracks by another girl who looked just like her.
The pair started chatting and took a photo together.
Later, Santana posted the photo on Twitter with the caption: “I found my literal doppelganger just now wtf.”
The picture soon gained traction when her followers realised that the girls have even more lookalikes, posting pictures of their friends with a similar appearance.
By the end of the thread, Santana had found a whopping seven other doppelgangers!
“They’re really just all alien clones and they don’t know,” joked one follower.
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Santana’s doppleganger, Sam.
Another of Santana’s doppelgangers, Ally H.
And another one! Ally W could be Santana’s twin!
Another lookalike, who would’ve thought?!
Amber Eckart from Perth, WA, made an account on Twinstrangers.com out of curiosity.
She was surprised to find the website had already found her match in a woman named Maddy Renslow from Washington in the USA.
“They sent me a photo of Maddy to ask if I thought we were similar.
The top half of her face started loading and I actually thought it was a picture of me. Then the rest loaded and I was like, ‘Wow, that’s insane!,’ Amber said.
The pair met up in LA and spent the week sightseeing.
They were amazed to find that not only did they look alike, they were similar in other ways.
Their laugh was indistinguishable and they had matching mannerisms.
During the trip, ABC News US gave the pair a DNA test to see if they shared any distant connection.
The test revealed Amber and Maddy were 100 per cent unrelated but have similar European roots.
After Neil Richardson retired as a vicar, he and his wife, Marion, moved to the small UK town of Braintree, for a fresh start.
There, Neil was surprised to find locals waving at him.
He was perplexed. When he explained who he really was, the townsfolk thought he was pulling a prank.
It quickly became clear he had a lookalike in Braintree.
Although he knew about John Jemison, the two didn’t meet until a year later when they went on the same day trip and discovered that not only did they look alike, they also had a lot in common!
Both studied religious education at the same college, and proposed to their wives within two weeks of meeting them.
John and Neil also have sons who play the didgeridoo.
Now, the strikingly similar pair are good mates.
Neil Douglas was boarding a plane on his way to a wedding in Ireland when he noticed a man was accidentally in his seat.
He kindly asked him to move, but when the man turned around, he was taken aback by how remarkably similar they looked.
“The whole plane looked at us and laughed. And that’s when I took the selfie,” said Neil, who later posted the photo on Twitter, causing worldwide attention.
After landing in Ireland, Neil discovered that his mirror-image man, Robert Stirling, was also staying at the same hotel.
The pair took it as a sign and decided to go out for a few beers. They had a great time together, but were a bit dusty the next day!
In March 2015, Niamh Geaney and two mates set up an online challenge, Twin Strangers, to find out whether there were any strangers around the globe who looked remarkably similar to them.
They received messages from all over the world, but none were as spot-on as Niamh’s doppelganger, Karen Branigan, who lived only an hour’s drive away.
When they met face-to-face, which was filmed and went viral on YouTube, they were shocked. It was like a reflection.
“She probably looks closer [to me] than some of my sisters,” Niamh says.
Weeks later, Niamh came across two more doppelgangers – Luisa Guizzardi from Italy and Irene Adams from Ireland.
She’s now set up twinstrangers.com to help others do the same.
Just uncanny!
Photographer Francois Brunelle is the creator of a project called I’m Not a Look-Alike!
For him, doppelgangers can be as different as they are similar.
“[It’s] when you see someone and you think it’s the other person. [But] when you see them side by side, sometimes you feel that they are not the same at all,” he explains.
Francois travels the world looking for doppelgangers to photograph. Despite the subjects being strangers, the photos are strangely intimate.
“If you meet someone that looks like you, you have an instant bond because you share something,” he explains.
