THE TERRIFYING TALES OF: Mimics - The Uncanny Among Us
Have you ever heard someone you love call your name… only to realize they couldn’t have? Or seen a familiar figure standing in the room… when you knew they weren’t home? That’s the terror of mimics — entities that steal voices, faces, and movements to pass as the people we trust most.
In this episode, I uncover chilling reports and folklore of the uncanny. Voices luring people into the woods. Loved ones seen in two places at once. Figures that breathe and speak like us — until they vanish. These aren’t just stories; they’re encounters that strike at something universal: the fear that what feels familiar is suddenly wrong.
We’ll explore the different forms of mimicry — from doppelgängers said to foreshadow death, to Appalachian fleshgaits that stalk the living with stolen voices. And we’ll confront the uncanny valley itself — that unsettling space where something looks human… but isn’t, and where the thing wearing your loved one’s face might not have human intentions at all.
Because if it wasn’t really them — then who, or what, was it?
Episode Source Material
Articles
Ancient Origins. “Doppelgangers and Curious Myths and Stories of Spirit Doubles.” Ancient Origins, April 1, 2020. https://www.ancient-origins.net/myths-legends/doppelgangers-and-mythology-spirit-doubles-001825.
Atlas Obscura. “Tracing the Development of the Doppelgänger.” Atlas Obscura, November 6, 2017. https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/history-doppelganger.
Danišová, Nikola. “The Archetypal Motif of a Doppelgänger in the Cultural and Religious Tradition: Spirit and Soul, Dream and Shadow Alter-Ego.” Forum for World Literature Studies 15, no. 3 (September 2023): 402–415. Accessed September 20, 2025. https://www.fwls.org/uploads/soft/231020/1-231020104316.pdf.
Freud, Sigmund. “The Uncanny.” 1919. In The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Vol. 17, translated by James Strachey. London: Hogarth Press, 1955. https://web.mit.edu/allanmc/www/freud1.pdf.
Books
Begay, George, and James Kale McNeley. Holy Wind in Navajo Philosophy. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1981.
Chambers, Robert. Popular Rhymes of Scotland. Edinburgh: W. Hunter, 1826. https://archive.org/details/popularrhymesof00chamiala
Mooney, James. Myths of the Cherokee. Bureau of American Ethnology, 19th Annual Report. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 1900. https://archive.org/details/mythsofcherokee00moon
Owen, Robert Dale. Footfalls on the Boundary of Another World. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, 1860. https://archive.org/details/footfallsonboun00owen
Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft. The Life of Percy Bysshe Shelley. London: Edward Moxon, 1859. https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.210735
Weatherly, David. Strange Intruders. Granite Publishing, 2013. https://www.amazon.com/Strange-Intruders-David-Weatherly/dp/0984694915
Yeats, W. B. Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry. London: Walter Scott, 1888. https://archive.org/details/fairyfolk-tales
Documentaries & Videos
“WHAT is the FLESHGAIT?” YouTube video, uploaded by MrCreepyPasta, 2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soa8wSd4ig4
Podcasts
Astonishing Legends. “Doppelgängers.” Episodes 86–88, 2017. https://www.astonishinglegends.com/al-podcasts/2017/7/13/ep-86-doppelgngers-part-1
Lore. “Episode 20: The Doppelgänger.” 2015. https://www.lorepodcast.com/episodes/20
The Confessionals. “Fleshgaits and Other Entities.” Episode 240, 2020. https://www.theconfessionalspodcast.com/theconfessionals/episode-240
Websites
“Raven Mocker.” North Carolina Ghosts. Accessed September 2025. https://www.northcarolinaghosts.com/raven-mocker
“Skinwalkers.” Legends of America. Accessed September 2025. https://www.legendsofamerica.com/skinwalkers
