A number of doppelgangers from across the globe who aren’t related to each other in any way have come together.
Niamh Geaney, from Dublin, set herself a challenge to find her doppelganger who could be living anywhere in the world.
But when Niamh took her search online, she managed to find three lookalikes – one woman from Italy and two women from her own home town.
‘When I met Karen my first doppelganger – the first two hours we didn’t really say much to each other. We were just looking at each other silently,’ Niamh told Sunday Night.
‘It’s really cool but it’s weird.
‘You meet these people who look almost completely like you, but yet behind that you have different personality traits, different confidence levels even though you look the exact same’.
Shannon Lonergan (pictured), from Ireland, found her doppelganger Sara Nordstroem, from Sweden – but says their personalities couldn’t be more different
After meeting Karen, Niamh flew to Italy to meet her second doppelganger, Louisa.
‘It’s a very strange experience to find yourself in meeting someone that looks like you,’ Niamh said.
Then three months later, Niamh met Irene.
‘You think you’re special and unique and there’s no one in the world that’s like you, and then you meet someone who looks identical to you and you realise you’re not as unique as you thought you were,’ she said.
But Niamh isn’t the only person to miraculously find her doppelganger.
Not only are John Jemison and Neil Richardson a dead ringer for each other, but the two men even live just around the corner from each other in Essex, in the United Kingdom.
Sara (left) and Shannon (right) have a 90 per cent similarity score, despite being genetic strangers
Neil said that after moving to the small town of Braintree with his wife Marion a few years ago, he began to notice that locals were giving him strange looks.
‘I moved to Braintree and I knew absolutely nobody in the town, so I was very surprised to find people wailing at me,’ he said.
‘People kept coming up to me saying ”hello John!” or ”hi John, how are you today?”
‘We went to a cafe and a bloke came up to me from another table and said ”my wife says your’e John Jemison” and I said ”he must be a good looking chap”,’ Neil joked.
Neil even had a hard time convincing locals that he wasn’t in fact John.
‘Then the manager of the cafe came up from out the back and said “hello John, how are you?”,’ Neil said.
‘I said ”no I’m not John, I’m Neil’!”
Neil then showed the cafe owner his credit card to prove he wasn’t actually John -whom he still hadn’t met.
But it wasn’t until a year later that the men finally met by complete chance when they both attended a local history tour day trip.
Niamh (left) searched online and managed to find three doppelgangers – one woman from Italy and two women from her own home town. Pictured: Karen (right) from Dublin
‘As I got on the coach I was approached by a met that I’ve not met before and said ”excuse me but I’m guessing you’re John Jemison”,’ Neil said.
But their uncanny appearance isn’t the only things the two men – who are now close friends – have in common.
Both John and Neil have a love for poetry, both trained to be teachers at the same college and both started teaching religious education.
The similarities don’t end there. John and Neil both proposed to their wives just two weeks after meeting them, and have now been married for 50 years.
In fact both their sons even play the didgeridoo.
‘It’s an accident of fate,’ Neil said.
Shannon Lonergan, from Ireland, and Sara Nordstroem, from Sweden, also look remarkably similar, but are in no way related.
‘It’s like a stranger but you know them. You can trust them because they look like you. There was no awkwardness ever,’ Shannon said.
Despite their uncanny resemblance, their personalities couldn’t be more different.
‘(Shannon) is a lot more outgoing and social,’ Sara said.
‘I think it’s a Swedish thing… I’m quite social, and Sara is very quiet,’ Shannon said.
Curious as to how two people with no relation to each other can look so alike, the women decided to take part in a study by Tim Spector, a genetics professor from Kings College in London.
Not only are John Jemison (right) and Neil Richardson (left) a dead ringer for each other, but the two men even live just around the corner from each other in Braintree, Essex, in the UK
Professor Spector started studying the phenomenon of doppelgangers after seeing a viral photo of two identical looking men who happened to sit next to each other on a plane.
He uses advanced facial mapping systems and 3D imaging that can measure every contour of someone’s face.
Professor Spector was able to determine the women have a 90 per cent similarity score, despite being genetic strangers.
He also tested John and Neil, which revealed their uncanny looks might actually be down to a shared distant ancestor that neither of them knew they had.
The pair has 81 per cent similarity – which is close to the score of identical twins.
Despite John and Neil sharing an extraordinary amount of mannerisms and body language, Professor Spector said at this stage there is no way to put that to the test.
Niamh and Irene’s DNA was also put to the test, but results revealed the pair weren’t related even up to 20,000 years ago.
Tim Spector, a genetics professor from Kings College in London, uses advanced facial mapping systems and 3D imaging that can measure every contour of someone’s face