In Hollywood cinema, twins are not given the most enviable role. Most often they appear in horror films - they terrorize those around them and even their own parents. And judging by the stories that have collected in this article, the wary attitude towards these people is not so unfounded.
1. Simultaneous insanity
The twins Ursula and Sabina Erickson from Sweden lived happily, each with their own family, and they never showed any signs of mental illness. And suddenly…
This story took place when the sisters were traveling from Ireland to England. We got on the bus and suddenly, for no apparent reason, began to behave very strangely, even aggressively. In the end, at the request of the outraged passengers, the driver dropped them off, offering to continue on foot. That the sisters did, and they walked right in the middle of the highway, not paying attention to the humming cars.
After a while they got to the place where the BBC group was filming a film about police work and, of course, attracted attention. How events developed after that, you can see with your own eyes:
The odd twins were caught and seemed calm until Ursula pulled onto the highway, right under the wheels of the truck. The police did not even have time to react, as, a second later, Sabina did the same and was hit by a passenger car.
But the story did not end there either. Sabina got up and rushed at the police - the six of them had to calm her down. Ursula was also eager to get up and fight, and she would have done so, if not for a broken leg.
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Then Ursula was taken to the hospital, Sabina - to the police station, where she spent the night.
By morning, Sabina calmed down and seemed already quite sane, so the police decided to let her go. It was a monstrous mistake: after a few hours she attacked a stranger, killed him, then ran to the bridge and threw herself down.
Sabina survived and was sentenced to five years in prison. Why only five years? Because at the time of the crime, she was clearly not herself. But if Sabina was crazy, why did Ursula rush into the road too? None of them had any traces of drugs or alcohol in their blood.
Psychologists believe that one of the sisters could be suffering from some form of temporary insanity, while the other simply "got infected" from the twin. It is known that twins have such a strong bond that the state of one can be transmitted to the other. Subsequently, they were both recognized as sane.
2. Parallel life of separated twins
The fact that twins are so similar does not surprise anyone: they not only have almost the same DNA, but also their upbringing and environment, as a rule, are common. They communicate with the same people, play with the same toys and watch the same cartoons. But when twins grow up in completely different conditions, and still turn out to be the same - this is really amazing.
Take, for example, the story of an Ohio resident named James Edward Lewis. He married a woman named Linda, then divorced her and married a certain Betty, who bore him a son, James Alan.
When Lewis was very young, he was adopted, and already well over 30 he began to look for blood relatives and found his twin brother (whom he had never seen before).
James Edward's brother was named James Arthur Springer and he … was also married to a woman named Linda, with whom he also did not work out. After the divorce, he, like his brother, married a second time and his second wife was also named Betty, and from this marriage a boy was also born, who was also named James Allan.
In 1979, after this story hit the newspapers, psychologist Thomas Bouchard became interested in the James. He decided to conduct a more detailed study in order to find out how similar separated twins can grow up.
He found in the biographies of the James even more in common: both had dogs in childhood, whose name was Toy. At school, both loved mathematics, enjoyed carpentry and hated spelling. Growing up, both went to work in law enforcement: Springer as an assistant sheriff, and Lewis as a security guard. They were tormented by a headache at the same time.
As strange as this story may seem, it is not unique. Twins who grow up in completely different conditions still have a lot in common. Here's another case from the 1930s in Europe:
Twins Oscar Stora and Jack Yufe were separated in infancy. Stor grew up in Germany and joined the Hitler Youth. Yufé grew up in a Jewish family and moved to Israel. One drew a swastika in a notebook, the other wore a kippah. Their biographies were as different as possible.
When the brothers were in their 50s, they met, and it turned out that they have common eating habits, manner of speaking, and very specific habits - for example, both wore rubber bands on their wrists and pressed the flush before going to the toilet.
This does not seem so strange to experts: Store and Yufé are genetically identical, so their reaction to similar everyday phenomena should also be identical (food, rubber bands, toilet). And the fact that one was brought up as a Jew, and the other was a fan of Hitler, turned out to be insignificant (in the genetic sense).
3. One brother does not have time to commit a crime, as the second is already sitting for him
In 1993, the ex-wife of a certain Ronald Anderson called the police and asked to protect her from the persecution of her ex-husband. The fool was detained, taken to the police station, and then a completely inexplicable circumstance was revealed. According to the documents, it turned out that this very citizen had already been arrested for exactly the same crime, and at that very moment is behind bars. The information was rechecked - everything is accurate, no mistake. Sits.
While the police were speculating about parallel worlds and a time machine, Ronald's friend appeared and clarified the situation: the detainee had a twin brother named Donald, who, oddly enough, used to be in prison for his brother's crimes.
In total, Donald voluntarily served four terms for Ronald, simply because he loved his brother and believed that he could not stand in prison.
It all started back in the 70s, when Ronald signed a contract and went to serve in the army. After several months of training as a helicopter mechanic, literally at the last minute before being sent to Korea, he decided that military life was not for him. Donald somehow independently mastered all the helicopter wisdom and went to serve in his brother's place.
No one noticed the substitution (in Korea, Donald rose to the rank of commander), but this did not end there. As soon as Ronald got into some kind of story, Donald immediately replaced his brother and disentangled his brother's porridge.
Donald (who had his own problems with the law) considered his brother too "delicate" and "refined", unable to endure the harsh prison life …
When Ronald was sentenced to six months in prison, Donald, as usual, took the place of his brother. It never occurred to anyone to compare fingerprints, because at that time the police did not know about the existence of a twin brother. And who would have thought that there would be a volunteer for such a task?
Unfortunately for both brothers, five days after Donald was once again imprisoned for "great brotherly love", Ronald was arrested for attempted murder, beatings and robbery. After the trial, he received 14 years for this - plus the six months that Donald hung on himself.
At first, the investigators were inclined to believe that the twins planned everything in such a way as to provide Ronald with an alibi and give him the opportunity to kill his wife with impunity, but in the end they admitted that there was no insidious calculation there - only crazy, thoughtless brotherly love.
4. Twin brothers marry twin sisters, and they also have twins
Twins love to do everything together, but still there is a limit that cannot be crossed - for example, when it comes to married life. However, for twin brothers Craig and Mark Sanders, there were no limits at all.
They got engaged on the same day, got married and settled in adjoining houses with their twin sisters. Twins were soon born to one of the couples.
Mark was the first to meet blondes Diana and Darlene Nettemayer at the annual Ohio Twins Festival. Mark invited the girls to the bar and ran to the hotel for his brother. The brothers fell in love, the candy-bouquet period began. Four of us went on dates.
Once, during such a double date, the twins entered the casino and quickly won several thousand dollars - just for the wedding. There, in the casino, Craig and Mark made offers to their lovers. Diana and Darelin agreed, but since they had never parted before, they made a condition that they should live in adjacent houses without any fences.
First, Diana and Craig got offspring - they had twin boys. Then Darelin and Mark had two girls (this time non-twins).
Now the whole family is the constant stars of all twin festivals.
5. "Silence of the twins"
Twins Jennifer and June Gibbons became famous in the 1980s when they were 18 years old. They committed a crime, were declared insane, and then ended up in the most guarded psychiatric clinic in England, where the most dangerous violent patients are kept.
When Jennifer and June were young, they were called "silent twins" because they refused to talk to anyone but each other, and even spoke to each other in their own secret language, which no one except them understood.
The girls' parents were originally from Barbados, but they themselves were born and raised in Wales.
At school, Jennifer and June did not want to write or read, but at home everything was different - they greedily “swallowed” book after book and filled dozens of notebooks with their essays.
Like all children, the girls loved to play, but their games were very peculiar. Instead of fiddling with dolls, they devised eerie rituals. For example, they decided which of them would wake up first in the morning or who would take the first breath. The second in no way had the right to violate the contract.
Their relationship was pretty complicated. On the one hand - the best friends, on the other - from time to time made attempts to kill each other. Jennifer tried to strangle June with the cord from the radio, and June almost threw Jennifer off the bridge.
It only got worse with age.
In the end, they committed theft and started a fire. By this time, the parents had already admitted that they could not cope and that the girls needed the help of specialists.
June and Jennifer spent the next 14 years in a mental hospital. Towards the end of this period, the twins had a friend - journalist Marjorie Villas, who wrote a book about them.
Once, the twins told Marjorie that only one of them would leave the clinic alive. "I'm going to die," Jennifer said, "that's what we decided." The twins realized that they could never live a normal life until the two of them and Jennifer agreed to leave.
And what do you think - shortly thereafter, while moving to a less guarded hospital, Jennifer died suddenly. An autopsy revealed a rare heart disease, the cause of which was never fully explained.
As the twins predicted, after her sister's death, June ceased to be “strange”, left the clinic and now leads a quiet, unremarkable life with her family. Which, perhaps, makes this story even more creepy.