MISTER MYSTERY RESPONDS

No. Some evil people have tried bilocating to provide themselves with a good alibi, but were always failed attempts. In his memoirs, Oscar Winnipeg, the famous park bench robber, says that, tired of being singled out every time a public bench was missing, wanted to bilocate himself to get a good permanent alibi, but all he ended up with was a stick in the eye and a bulky doctor bill. Not everyone is good for bilocating. You have to be in good physical shape and be agile enough to run away from yourself before you know it. In addition, being in two places at the same time doubles current expenses, which makes it unprofitable. For this reason most cases of bilocation have saints as protagonists. Perhaps the most famous case is that of a Castilian nun who in the mid-16th century evangelized a part of America from her convent cell in Castile. Which is a feat comparable only to that of the Jesuit Martin de Portola, whose double rebelled against him in the Philippines and he had to go seek h...

The publisher Manfred Hanssen from Jena went to visit Friedrich Schlegel at his home in Weimar, where the writer lived in the company of his wife Dorothea. Mr. Hanssen was in a hurry to publish his star writer’s last novel. At the sound of the chime of the door, Schlegel hurried to dry his hands and leave the dishes he was washing in a basin. As he rushed to open, he tore off his apron and tossed it into a corner. -Mr. Hanssen, what a joy to see you! And at the same time, what a nasty surprise! So what brings you around here? -Your latest novel, Schlegel. I can‘t wait anymore, I need it now. -Excuse me a moment. Schlegel hurries into the house and shouts: -Dorothea, darling, finish quickly what you're doing! My publisher is here in person! Hurry and come to say hello. -Poor wives, they are always so busy. As the English say: they are “The Angels in the House”… Well, as I was just telling, my creditors press me and, as you well know, you are the main asset of my publishing hou...

The issue of bilocation (the supernatural presence of a person in two places at the same time) drove the “Society for Psychical Research” nuts. For example, in Edinburgh there was one George Nottage who, without ever leaving that city, served as mayor of London for two terms. Sir Sidgwick was skeptical and thought it was a case of twins. William Barret advocated another rational explanation: according to him, it was a single individual who constantly came and went from one city to another. Myers, on the other hand, considered it a genuine case of bilocation, albeit not entirely perfect since, unlike the George Nottage of London, the one in Edinburgh used to wear a Tyrolean hat. This case generated a lot of controversy among the general public since the citizens of Edinburgh ended up electing their Nottage as mayor of the city coinciding with the London Nottage mandate. In a convention of British mayors, somehow the two Nottages managed to avoid each other, so nobody ever got to see the...