Are Mimics Real? aRe MiMiCs rEaL? | Paranormal Strangedive | Ep #53

Madam Strangeways takes a deep dive into the topic of mimics

Welcome stranger, to Madam Strangeways, where I, Madame Strangeways, usually narrate your true strange stories of the unexplained. You're joining me today, however, for a strange deep dive, AKA Strange dive into the topic of mimics. Are they cryptids? Do they hail from Appalachia? Or are they purely a creation of paranormal tiktokers? Whether you're a skeptic, a believer, or some secret third thing, join me as I share my strange research and even stranger observations along the way. I'll also drag you down a slew of strange rabbit holes, kicking and screaming if needs must. Before we get to the kicking and screaming, however, the strangest of shout outs to my Patreon TJ Hodder of the Tapes of Trepidation podcast, GMAN Music Ted K, Keith and Tori, thank you so much to my feral, fiendish five for supporting the show. Hear your name at the beginning of every episode, get a free sticker and get bonus content like guided sleep meditations and Madame Strange Notes episodes just for joining the patreon today@patreon.com madamstrangeways oh, thank you Thunder. I control the weather if that wasn't clear, which means it's about to rain hellcats and hellhounds out there.

Madame Strangeways shares a terrifying ghost story from last night

So settle in for a strange dive episode all about mimics here with Madame Strangeways. It sounded exactly like my mom, but she wasn't there by absolutely TF not Last night. I was laying in bed minding my business, watching a show when I suddenly got a text from my mother. Getting a text at 12:30am immediately, um, felt strange. Nothing about it made sense. We messaged through imessage so when the notification popped up, I immediately knew something. Something was wrong. The notification didn't look like it belonged to an iPhone. In fact, the message looked split in half lengthwise across the screen. I could only see the top half of the text and the bottom portion was blurred out. Weird. Before I could fully process what I was seeing, the notification disappeared completely. Nothing was in my messages app either. Before it vanished, I was able to make out part of the message. It said my name come out here and ch. That was it. No full sentence, no explanation, no follow up. Just enough words to feel intentional, but not enough to make sense for context. My room is on the landing at the top of the stairs. My mom's room is down the hall from mine, not downstairs. After reading the message, I opened my bedroom door and looked out. There was absolutely nobody there. No lights on, no movement, nothing. I shut my door and went back to Watching my show a few minutes later, I heard loud footsteps coming from downstairs, heavy enough that I noticed them immediately. Then not long after that, I heard someone say, come on. Loudly and very clearly right outside my door. It was my mom's exact voice. I opened my main wooden door. I also have a second screen door. Weirdly enough, through the screen door that remained closed, I saw a shadow about three steps down the stairs. As soon as I saw it, I slammed my door shut and got back into bed, my heart pounding. After that, I could still hear footsteps and what sounded like whispering downstairs, though I couldn't make out any words. About 15 minutes later, with my doors still closed, my rabbit suddenly started thumping loudly. He's free roam. And was across the room from me. He doesn't thump randomly like that, especially not repeatedly. He seemed genuinely scared, which made everything feel so much worse. Now that it's the next day. I of course spoke to my mom and she wasn't up at that time. She didn't text me, and she denied all involvement. I already knew that, but I just wanted to hear her say yes for the sake of my state of mind. I know how this sounds and I'm trying to stay rational, but it genuinely terrified me and I didn't feel safe leaving my room last night. And yes, I'm fully aware I'd be the first one taken out in a scary movie. Absolutely. Um. TF Not. Thank you so much for letting me share your story on the show. I'm gonna call you Abs. Abs. Can I call you Abs? That's what I'm gonna call you. Uh. What a horrifying story. And also the little Bunny. What the heck? That little. That's so cute. I've never. I don't think I've ever read a scary story that has a Bunny in it. And the thumping Bunny knew something was going on. Bunny said, mm, um. Mm m. Not today. Not today, Satan. Bunny was trying to warn you. Bunny's looking out. Good looking out, Bunny.

We're doing a strange deep dive on mimics on this podcast

Now, if you are listening to this, you. Yes, you. You. If you're listening to this and you've spent any amount of time on TikTok, you will have heard of mimics. Actually, if you've spent any amount of time on TikTok, or Reddit for that matter, consuming, um, spooky content, you might say you have probably heard of mimics. I've even kind of brought them up before in previous episodes. Generally, I say, well, that doesn't really sound like a mimic. A is something that you know. And then as I'm Talking about it. As I'm giving you this information, I realize, you know, I don't really know what a mimic is either. And I would Google mimics. And I was like, I'm not convinced of what this is. Like, what do you mean? I've done a lot of research. Like, a lot of research, and not just for the podcast. I am a chronic researcher, and I've done a lot of reading on the Internet, and I. When I was looking up anything about mimics, there was just something not right about it. And not like in a, uh. There was something just so wrong about this thing that's really scary. You know, something like, not right about it. I don't mean it in that way. It just felt like m. Like something's going on here, and I don't think I'm getting the full story. And so I said on a previous episode that I was gonna have to do a deep dive on mimics. And guess what? Here we are, we're doing a strange dive. We call them strange div. Cause it's not just strange. Wait. Because it's not just deep, it's strange. It's both. But you can't say a deep strange or strange deep. It doesn't work. So I guess a strange deep dive is what we're going on to today for mimics.

A mimic is a supernatural entity that mimics voices of trusted people

They're so hot right now. But what is a mimic, actually? So I had never heard of them until a few years ago, like, at all. But I get why they're so popular. I mean, they're terrifying. First of all, they're all over TikTok and YouTube. Though, strangely, not so much in Creepypastas, which I found a little strange. But more specifically, just like Abs experienced, a mimic is some kind of possibly invisible question mark. Possibly non invisible question mark. Supernatural creature or entity that mimics the voices of someone you trust, ostensibly under the guise of luring you to your death. Usually in Appalachia for some reason, but not always. Sometimes you'll be alone, but sometimes the person or pet that you hear at the door will be right beside you. But what if you believed that voice? What if Abs had opened the door with mimics lurking around? You can't even trust your senses, let alone your loved ones. It's isolating. It's terrifying. And it seems to have been completely made up by a stranger on the Internet sometime in the early 2000. 20s. Uh, 2000 and 20s. How do you say that? Anyway, not that long ago, like Slenderman and the Rake and not deer and my social life, the mimic Would be nothing without Al Gore's Internet. So I am here to drag you down a slew of deep, strange dive rabbit holes and reveal the true origins of mimics, Or Appalachian mimics as we know them. Now, first, I will tell you all about the things that I think have inspired and molded the concept of modern mimics. From the supernatural to tabletop gaming to ancient Greece to roblox. Okay. And then I'll take you along the timeline leading to the mimic's sudden explosion in popularity so that you can see for yourself that the mimic really was just created on and by and for the Internet.

Countless cultures have a spiritual or even physical double

So here we go. What are mimics? Mimics kind of, um, mimic several other folkloric and supernatural phenomena. Uh, phenomena. Um, doppelgangers, Navajo skinwalkers. Put a pin in that. Hold the crocodile. The South Korean jong song bomb changelings in half a dozen European cultures. Or as we've talked about before on the show, the El Salvadorian latunda. Countless cultures have a version of a spiritual or even physical double, Something who either sounds exactly like or looks exactly like a real human being, or both. Maybe they even look like someone you love, but it isn't really them, which, honestly, is a very terrifying concept. I understand why this exists, Ah. Amongst so many different cultures. But it also begs the question, why is this so common amongst so many cultures? Hmm. Um, interesting.

Skinwalkers are influential and very important to Navajo culture

But back to the skinwalker pen. I don't love talking about skinwalkers, and typically you will not hear me talk about them on the show. I do not feature stories that are about skin walkers specifically, because did I put the emphasis. The emphasis on the wrong salafil in that one? Anyway, I don't like to talk about skinwalkers because the Navajo don't love outsiders talking about skinwalkers. But in my research to track down the origin of the now popular concept of mimics, Skinwalkers, unfortunately, are very influential and very important to the story. So I am discussing them only as part of the spooky zeitgeist that they have unfortunately been dragged into. So something I did wonder was, did people collectively decide that they needed a way to be respectful to Navajo beliefs While also still getting to talk about this really spooky, scary concept of a person that's capable of shape shifting, which is what a skinwalker is, because that is part of the skinwalkers whole thing. It's turning into animals, turning from one thing into another and looking exactly like that other thing, which is, you know, kind of the mimics whole thing. So did we all just kind of decide to rebrand skinwalkers, you might say, whitewash them, and then make some tweaks. And melding the concept with the skinwalkers and the doppelgangers, maybe as a way to not get scolded for discussing Navajo business. But also keep in mind that especially on TikTok, people are also wrongly combining skinwalker and Appalachian culture when the Navajo territory is largely in Arizona or Arizonia, uh, and also New Mexico, So a, uh, very far cry from the Appalachian Mountains.

The German concept of doppelgangers are really more that they're bad omens

But then we get to doppelgangers. Right? So what are doppelgangers? Are those not spooky enough already? Apparently not. The German concept of doppelgangers are really more that they're just bad omens, really. Like they're not haunting you or hunting you, which is actually kind of weird that those two words are just one letter off. Haunting and hunting. Anyway, they're not doing either of those things. And doppelgangers lately, as a term, seem to kind of be more commonly used to describe someone who just looks a lot like someone else, which kind of takes the spookiness out of it. So the concept is spooky, but now it's just not. It's just. It doesn't hit the same anymore.

The crocodile dates back to ancient Greece

Then there's the crocotta. Have you ever heard of this creature? Because I had not heard of it. Well, um, maybe I had, but I didn't remember doing a deep dive into it, so this was really fascinating. So it dates back to ancient Greece. Pliny, Is it Pliny. I always said Pliny. I've never said this out loud. I've only heard Pliny the Elder. We're going with it. Pliny the Elder, in his work Natural history between 77 and 79 CE or AD describes the crocodile as a hybrid between a hyena and a lion. This is Wikipedia. When crossed with this race of animals, Hyena, the Ethiopian lioness, gives birth to the crocodile that mimics the voice of men and cattle in a similar way. So, see, it's mimicking the voice of. Of a human. It has an unbroken ridge of bone in each jaw, forming a continuous tooth without any gum. I'm having a hard time picturing that. But that's not the important part of. That's not the important part of the crocodile. Here's another Greek author, Tus, who wrote, in Ethiopia, there is an animal called Crocodus. It is said to imitate the human voice, to call men by name at night, and to devour those who approach. Is as brave as a lion, as swift As a horse and as strong as a bull, it cannot be overcome by any weapon of steel, which is really cool. But also, you can see how it's kind of mimic, like, right, it's mimicking humans.

Bestiaries of the Middle Ages confounded various accounts of the crocoda

So before we leave the crocutta, though, here is something Crocoda. So before we leave the crocodile, though, here's something for you to nibble on as we go. Put a pin in this for later. Later. Bestiaries of the Middle Ages confounded these various accounts. The various accounts of the crocoda so that one finds the largely mythical creature given differing names and differing characteristics, real and imaginary. Among the characteristics not found in the ancient sources was the idea that the eyes of a crocotta were striped gems that could give the possessor ocular powers when placed under the tongue, which is just a really weird thing to make up. But you could say it's kind of like a game of telephone or operator or, I don't know, whatever the youth call the game nowadays. But you can't convince me that someone didn't just make up the striped gems for eyes thing for fun. They 100% just made it up. It's not like you heard them wrong and you know, like, what did you say? Did you. I think I just heard. I think I just heard them say the crocotta has striped gems for eyes and if you put them under your tongue, you get ocular powers. I don't know. No one accidentally heard that. That was not a game of operator. Do you see what I mean? So someone made that up, which is why I will be referring to this sort of thing as fanficification. Fanficification. Has someone coined this term before? I don't know, I didn't Google it. But I'm gonna go with it. This fanficification will come up in a future. Strange Dive Episode one about rooms that are. Back in. In the. Back, back, back in the. You see what I'm saying? If you know, you know.

Pop culture media also seems to have influenced the creation of modern mimics

Anyway, back to mimics. Aside from all the mimic adjacent folklore out there, lots of pop culture media also seems to be highly influential to the creation and popularity of what the Internet understands the modern mimic to be. Firstly, and this is the earliest one, Dungeons and Dragons. Yeah, like D and D. There's a monster that has existed in D and D since 1974, but it first showed up in the, in the, in the rule books in 1977, so don't come for me. Anyway, it's called a mimic. Yep. M M, I, M, I, C. Just like the mimics we're talking about, but it can only pretend to be things that are made of stone or wood and they don't mimic voices. The entire point of the Mimic monster is to instill paranoia in the players who can never be sure if a chest of treasure is really a chest or, or if it's a mimic that's going to slaughter them. Then there's the classic sci fi movie, the thing from 1982. And sorry for the 40 something year old spoilers, but the premise is not that far removed from Mimics. Then there's the 2018 video game among Us, where there's imposters in the group hunting the rest of the players and you don't know who is who, you don't know who you can trust. And also, I assume that that game also introduced the term sus into normal everyday lingo. So we know that it's been highly influential. Then there's the video game franchise dark souls in 2011, 2014 and 2016, which has basically a version of the D and D mimic, which while not the same as the popular mimics that we're talking about in this episode, has still solidified the term mimic, especially among those most likely to be on the Internet. I feel like if you're playing any of the Dark Souls games or you're playing D and D, you are also highly active on the Internet in these spaces. Just. Just an assumption, just a hunch.

If you're a parent and your kid is playing Roblox

Anyway, moving on. 2021, there's a 2021 game called Roblox, Roblox, which, listen, it's. There's a game inside of the game. Give me a minute. Called the Mimic that you can play in Roblox. I really, I also did not understand, I didn't understand what Roblox was prior to this research. Apparently there's like games inside of Roblox and one of those games that's inside Roblox is called the Mimic, even though it actually doesn't have anything to do with the Mimic that we're talking about. Anyway. Also, if you're a parent and your kid is playing Roblox, just be aware that they might be chatting with someone who is an adult who is trying to groom your child by pretending to be a child as well. Which considering what we're talking about, you know, mimicry and this adult is mimicking a child to try to talk to your child. Isn't that a little bit ironic? Don't you think? A little too ironic, Yeah, I really do think. No, but seriously, it's not, it's not A laughing matter. Seriously, check on your kids if they're playing roblox.

I searched Google, YouTube, TikTok and Reddit for Appalachian mimics

Anyway. Also 2023 expansion pack or something for the extremely popular horror game franchise Five Nights at Freddy's, which I think people shortened to fnaf. What are they saying? Fifnaf, fnaf, fnaf, fnaf. It doesn't matter. In this version of Five Nights at Freddy's, the antagonist is a shape shifting animatronic robot called the Mimic. And what does it do? It mimics people. It shapeshifts. Mm mhm. And by the way, there's also mimics like, you know, D and D or Dark Souls mimics in the video games Terraria and Minecraft at a minimum, probably in a lot more games than that. But as you can see, the strange scene has been set. The strange road is paved with mimic intention. The mimic road. You see what I'm saying now to take you down the rabbit hole, I went down a deep one trying to pinpoint when the term mimics and Appalachian mimics began to first actually show up on Google, YouTube, TikTok and Reddit. So again, keep in mind, overwhelmingly mimics are associated with the Appalachian mountains and forests for reasons I cannot quite pinpoint, but we will get into. But also, the problem with trying to track down the first use of the term mimic in a paranormal sense is that of course, mimic is just a word. It's just a word that already existed in the English language. So putting Appalachian with it really did help me narrow things down a little bit on my search. Most of the results from Mimic result in the D and D monster, or octopus, cuttlefish, ravens, crows, parrots, chameleons, and copycat recipes up until shockingly recently. Another problem that I encountered with this research is that Google search, which I've said multiple times before in previous episodes, is absolute trash now. So when I go in and limit a search to say, I don't know the years of 2005 and 2019, it shows me a TikTok video made in 2019 and YouTube videos made in 2019 that mention mimics in the titles of the videos, I go, oh great, that's perfect. That's great. I love it. This is evidence. I'm gonna put it in my document wrong. I cannot trust these results. Cause when you actually click in there, it's like, 2022, 2024. Why are you telling me that this was posted in 2019? It wasn't. So there was a lot of that. So I had to verify every single thing that I found to see when it was actually posted. Like for instance, at first it showed me that the spooky makeup influencer slash creator on TikTok, Loi Lane, posted about Appalachian mimics in 2019, but went to her page and searched both TikTok and YouTube. The first mimic post that I could find on her account was actually in 2021, not 2019. And the same thing goes for Reddit results where the preview will say that it was posted in like 2016 and then when you click into the post, it was actually posted in 2023. So I'm just giving you that context so that you know that if you want to go down your own research rabbit hole about this or anything else, just keep in mind the mantra trust but verify. Okay, timeline time, timeline time to show the evolution of the modern cryptid entity, et cetera, the mimic going back to 2020. Wow. All right, so going back to 2010 to 2014, there's no content on Google or Reddit or YouTube or TikTok or even. Ugh. Uh, 4chan about mimics by name. In fact, the reference to Appalachian mimics are actually only for Appalachian mimic millipedes, genus Recoria, which is just a millipede, which is terrifying in its own way if you hate bugs. Although hold on, because why do they actually call them mimic millipedes? I didn't write that down, so let's go find out. Hold on. Hold please.

I think roleplay improv nature of R no Sleep has negatively impacted online spooky spaces

Okay, I'm back. Malarian mimicry. This is Wikipedia. Mullerian mimicry is a type of biological mimicry in which two or more well defended species, often foul tasting and sharing common predators, converge in appearance to mimic each other's honest warning signals. This convergence of appearance achieves the following benefit to species that undergo predators need only experience a single unpleasant encounter with any member of a set of Mullerian mimics in order to thereafter avoid all creatures of similar appearance, whether or not it is the same species as the initial encounter. Okay, cool story. Now you know. Anyway, so up until the end of 2014 the only Appalachian mimics are insects. Got it? Then in 2015, one Reddit post references mimics and of course it's an R no sleep. I should have guessed, but the comment is trying to explain a fictional story in the subreddit because. Pause. Hold on. R. Nosleep on Reddit is basically like immersive storytelling or role playing. Honestly, where everyone who comments on the fiction in that subreddit have to pretend it's 100% true. Which I think is honestly in my opinion. I honestly think this has impacted all spooky spaces on the Internet either, because it's trained people to basically improv any claim that's made. Like, oh, Slender man is stalking you. Yes, and he will actually respect a restraining order, but to be granted one, you must first do a ritual involving blood sacrifice. Or. Because, uh, maybe people that are on R no Sleep don't know that that's the rules. And so they see the comments on no Sleep and then they think that people are genuinely reacting like this. Uh, you know, I don't know. But I do think that the roleplay improv nature of R no Sleep has negatively impacted all online spooky spaces. That's just my hot take. Anyway, this is what the commenter on Nosleep said. He was talking about what the author was experiencing in the story and how it was probably a skinwalker. Here we go. Quote. Don't know the origin here, but these are sharp teethed mimics, if you can call them that, that impersonate their prey or target, or often use the skin of their recent kill to lure you into a trap. So this user isn't even really calling the entities mentioned in the story mimics. In fact, when they say mimics, if you can call it that, they put mimics in quotation marks and they're specifically talking about skinwalkers. Never mind the fact that to my understanding, that's not even how Navajo skinwalkers operate. But I'm going to try to not get into that. So the point is, in 2015, still no one is using the term mimics like we do now, which takes us to 2016. I found one single YouTube video, a four minute short supernatural horror film called Mimic by Paul Del Vecchio. It's still not related to Appalachia, but it's closer to the concept of mimics. Here's the A man is stalked by a supernatural entity, but as he tries to escape, his own actions produce horrific results. Dun dun, dun. Um, it sounds really promising, but it only has 21,000, 121 views. I say only. Okay, I know only, right? But like, that's 21,110 more views than my YouTube videos get. But I'm just saying, in the scheme of things, it's not crazy, viral or highly impactful. Also in 2016, and I almost didn't include this, but I do feel like it's culturally relevant. Also in 2016, JK Rowling somehow got involved in this. So in March 2016, she posted an entry on her popular and incredibly lucrative Harry Potter website, Pottermore.com, now Harry Potter.com about the history of magic in North America. Apparently whatever she posted on Pottermore.com would be considered immediately canon, I guess. Anyway, she basically said that all Navajo skinwalkers were actually just animagi, which is a kind of witch or wizard in the Harry Potter universe that can turn into an animal. Which is okay. Why I know people feel really strongly about separating the art from the artist when it comes to Harry Potter. So I shall make no further commentary on the subject other than to say, hmm, that's a choice. Anyway, in case you think that a single post on a single Harry Potter website isn't enough to potentially influence the popularity of skinwalkers to a whole new young American chronically online. Aud. As of January 2026, annual revenue for Pottermore.com, harry, um, Potter.com is 10 million to $15 million annual revenue. And in January 2026 alone, there were 15,000 visits to the site. And that's not even when the site was in its heyday. So I do think that this was a little culturally important.

Mimic is a term that describes something pretending to be something else

Moving on. 2017, a South Korean horror movie called Mimic comes out. Now, this one really does seem like the Mimics we know and love. Now, the plot is inspired by the South Korean cryptid, the Jangsan Tiger, or the Jeongsam Bomb, a man eating creature that roams around Jeongsan, a mountain in the city of Busan. It is rumored to have sharp teeth and white fur and moves swiftly through the mountains and lures hikers by mimicking. See, mimicking the sound of a woman's voice to lure you close enough to, I assume, eat you. And this is why I say hiking is bad for you. Okay, 2018, we're moving on. Not deer. The not deer arrive on the scene via Tumblr. Now, from 2016 onwards, there were stories posted online about weird deer, but not deer. They're deer, but they're not deer. They're weird and they're creepy and there's something wrong with them. But the term seems to have been coined in 2018, further introducing the concept of something that is pretending to be or mimicking something else. Something harmless, a, uh, prey animal, even something you would not normally be afraid of.

The video game Fallout 76 introduces monsters called Wendigos

Also in 2018, and stay with me here, Fallout 76. The video game Fallout 76 introduces monsters called Wendigos. You may be saying, how is this related? Hold please. Wendigos mutated humans who have consumed human flesh. This is the Fallout 76 version of Wendigos, which is a reference to the Wendigo in indigenous North American Algonquian folklore. Okay, I'm serious. Stay with me here. I promise. From Wikipedia. The Wendigo is said to be a malevolent spirit, sometimes depicted as a creature with human like characteristics who may possess human beings. It is said to cause victims a feeling of insatiable hunger, the desire to eat other humans, and the propensity to commit murder. So the Wendigo isn't precisely a mimic, though it's vaguely adjacent with the possession part. Like if you can possess a loved one and then the loved one you think is your loved one, but it's actually someone else else. Okay, but I do think it's just as relevant as skinwalkers. Put a pin in that. But first, fun fact. Here we go. From Wikipedia. In modern psychiatry, the disorder known as Wendigo psychosis. Wendigo psychosis, okay. Is characterized by symptoms such as an intense craving for human flesh and fear of becoming a cannibal. That's spooky scary.

People conflate Wendigos and skinwalkers in Fallout 76

Okay, but Back to Fallout 76 Wendigos. Why are we talking about them? Hmm? Why have I brought them up when we've talked about skinwalkers and. Skinwalkers and Wendigos are different things. Well, we're talking about them because I have a hunch that people have largely and accidentally conflated Wendigos and skinwalkers. Meaning I think they think that they're the same thing, or they just get them confused for one another. And why do you think that I have that hunch? Because so much of the modern mimics are associated with Appalachia, and the Wendigos in Fallout 76 are specifically located in a post apocalyptic Appalachia. Uh, and while, yes, the Wendigo folklore is actually associated with the Appalachians, because at least 10 different Algonquian tribes are located on the northeast side of the Appalachian Mountains and forests and plateaus ranging from South Carolina all the way up the coast to Maine. I would say that a good portion of people playing Fallout 76 didn't know that before. They didn't know that Wendigos were associated with Appalachia, but now they do. Skinwalkers are not associated with Appalachia. And yet, if you Google it, if you go on TikTok, if you go on Reddit, all of the talk about skinwalkers is not all. Okay? Most of the talk about skinwalkers associates it with Appalachia. So you see what I mean? Do you see why I think people are confusing Wendigos from the Northeast and Skinwalkers from The Southwest. I mean, okay, yes, like I just mentioned in the Australian Tree Shaker episode, it's not like there are electric fences that are containing skinwalkers to the southwest or keeping Wendigos up north. Okay, they're not raptors. Not that we did a very good job of containing raptors in the Jurassic park universe, but I would wager that the people talking about skinwalkers on TikTok aren't really all that worried about monsters from other cultures reaching them. You know, they seem to think that, yes, skinwalkers can just pick up and walk around the country and they can just walk, go around the world if they want to. So you can really find a skinwalker anywhere. But I would argue that none of those people are worried about the Monanangal from the Philippines. From Wikipedia. In Philippine folklore, the monononggol is typically portrayed as a fearsome and grotesque creature, most often depicted as female gulls. It is known to detach its upper torso from its lower half with its entrails exposed, and it grows large bat like wings. Used to fly at night in search of victims, the manananggal is commonly believed to prey on sleeping pregnant women by using an elongated proboscis like tongue to extract fetuses or draw blood during its nocturnal hunt, the creature's severed lower torso remains stationary and its point of vulnerability. Tradition practices for killing a mononongal include applying salt, garlic, ash or fire to the lower half, thereby preventing the upper torso from reuniting with it. If it fails to recombine before sunrise, the creature is believed to die. Interesting, isn't it, that the people that are talking about how skinwalkers can be anywhere and there could be a skinwalker outside of their house in Oregon or North Dakota or Florida. Those people are not really concerned about monononggul. So isn't it interesting how we pick and choose what monsters we co opt into our personal American bestiary? Isn't it interesting?

Someone says they refer to skinwalkers as mimics in 2020

Anyway, back to mimics. Okay, finally we're in 2020, January 2020 to be exact. On Ugh 4 uh Chan. Someone there says that they refer to skinwalkers as mimics. Now they're still not calling mimics mimics, they're still just calling them skinwalkers. But they say I refer to skinwalkers as mimics. That is the closest so far that we've gotten to actually calling mimics mimics. And it's just a toss away comment on ugh4uhchan also in 2020. Dazeddigital.com by Celeste Kaufman here's an article about how TikTok was treating skinwalkers like a trend. I thought this was really interesting, so I'm going to read it. Just this little excerpt. If you examine the defining characteristics of a skinwalker that it shapeshifts, that it mimics the familiar in order to falsely gain trust, that at its core it's a regular person who secretly is unthinkably evil. It's a monster that perfectly is suited to America in 2020 in a country ravaged by a pandemic where the enemy is invisible and ultimately each other. A horror figure that preys on our instinct to trust is a convenient outlet for a population that has spent the past seven months encountering each person, each stranger or loved one with a suspicious wall up asking do you have it? They mean Covid. Again, this was written in 2020. Okay? As an election nears, our confidence in our institutions is at an all time low. There is a growing faction of people who earnestly believe government officials and celebrities are covertly running child sex trafficking rings. Eek. And conspiracy theories are peddled as mainstream news. A fear of being tricked and betrayed by someone or something we trusted is the undercurrent of some of the most prominent elements of our daily lives. Isn't it wild that that was written in 2020?

Roblox the Mimic game came out January 15, 2021

Anyway, jumping ahead to 2021, are you starting to see just how recent the creation of mimics is? Here we go. 2021 Roblox Roblox the Mimic game came out January 15, 2021. From what I can tell though, there aren't any actual mimics. All at least not in the way that we're using the term mimic these days. But in 2021 you finally start to see a ton of short form videos about the Roblox mimic mixed among the birds and the D and D comment and the chameleons and the copycat recipes. Then, October of 2021 there's a TikTok about spooky Appalachian stuff by userwards with two S's at the end she's talking about skinwalkers, but she refuses to say the name out loud on the video, instead putting up on the screen in text the word skinwalk. And she even says in the video that she likes to call them mimics instead of skinwalkers, presumably to be able to speak about them without actually saying the name out of respect for the Navajo culture. But wait, as I was poking around on her TikTok, another one of her posts from 2022 and one of her pinned posts with 3.7 million views from 2023. She's explaining what a mimic is, which is our modern concept of a mimic. And she's no longer referencing skinwalkers at all as if they never existed. Hmm. Hm, Interesting. So we can see that in less than two years that just one single creator has changed the way that they talk about mimics to fit the evolving nature of the brand new Cryptid that now has a whole new definition completely separate from Navajo beliefs. Okay, so July 2023, here we go. That Five Nights at Freddy's game expansion came out and introduced the shape shifting bad guy, the mimic. This and Rob are what I personally believe are, uh, what really caused the mimic to be born. And if you're not much of a gamer or you're not into horror games, I really can't stress enough just how insanely popular the Five Nights at Freddy's franchise is. Or the huge overlap like the Venn diagram of Redditors and creepypasta readers and creepypasta writers and people playing. Five Nights at Freddy's is just one giant big circle with maybe like a little tiny little devil's thumbnail of a crescent along the side. Because it's not just a game franchise anymore, it's a movie. Or is there two movies? Three movies now? Oh, my God. Jesus Christ, look at this. Hold on. There's books too. There's also books. Hold on. Okay. There's something like 19 games total in this franchise, which is a lot. I mean, some of them are downloadable. Whatever. We'll, uh, call it 19 games. There were also three major novels, like books, published by Scholastic about Five Nights at Freddy's. There were two movies grossing over $500 million. And there was an attraction at Universal Studios in 2025 for Halloween featuring Five Nights at Freddy's. Which is to say that while the mimic is not featured in all of those games, it did show up in 2023 and again in 2025 when mimics have been at their peak popularity. Interesting, isn't it? Interesting. Okay, we're getting close now. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. August 2023. There's a doppelganger trend on TikTok where people make videos, usually 30 second skits around a voice clip saying, if you see another person that looks identical. Oh, it's probably like if you see another person that looks identical to you, run away and hide, you know? So not called Mimics by name, but it's like making doppelganger creepy again. I see what I just did there, and I don't like it. We're just gonna move on. Also, late summer of 2023, around this time, you start to see multiple TikTok videos where people are hearing a voice call out to them in the Appalachian woods. And finally, finally, finally, they're starting to call them Mimics. Yes, we finally got there. 2023. Mimics are fully formed cryptids, and they have a name, and it's mimics. No more reference to skinwalkers anymore. No, that's done. They don't reference it at all. They're just mimics. I wish that I could pinpoint the very first instance of a video or a post online calling a mimic a mimic, but my God, I have already sunk something like 20 hours into this episode because of all of the research that I've been doing. So please have mercy. I don't have the very first one, but, you know, what do you know? Are you the first person to call a mimic a mimic? Let me know. Madamstrangwaysmail.com Are you a mimic? Email me madamstrangeways.com we might be able to do some kind of, like, collab. It would be great. Like, if I had two of me, I could get so many more episodes done. So mimics, hit me up. Madamstrangewaysmail.com and so there you have it.

Mimics, one of the newest, Internet cryptid,

Mimics, one of the newest, if not the newest, Internet cryptid, seems to have been officially born in 2023. But, you know, their gestation, um, began way back. I do think that the isolation of the pandemic really helped fuel it. But also, look around us. We're kind of living in a really scary time, if you haven't noticed. And I don't mean fun scary. We're in a world where you can get a phone call, the caller ID can say it's your mom or your sibling or your partner, and their voice can be on the other end, crying and telling you that you need to pay a ransom or they're going to be murdered, or that they're in jail and they need bail money immediately. And it's an emergency, and it will sound exactly like them, exactly like them. And it's not them. It's a scammer. Possibly across the globe, using AI. We're in a world where deepfakes and AI videos can realistically depict you, yes, you, doing anything that the person behind the keyboard wants you to do. And isn't that the scariest kind of mimic? We can no longer trust our eyes or our ears or any of our senses. Just like Abs in the story. I Shared about, um, a thousand years ago, how abs couldn't trust their own senses either. We can no longer trust our own eyes or ears or honestly, any of our senses. Honestly, if I had to choose between the paranormal mimic and one of these mundane mimics in the form of a scammer or someone with bad intentions, I'll take the paranormal mimic every time. Thank you so much for allowing me to take you down this strange dive with me. I know it's kind of a weird one, kind of a strange one, you might say, but that's why you're here. But if you listening, if you have a true strange story that you'd like to hear right on the show, you know I want to hear it. Email me right now, madamstrangewaysmail.com right now. I mean, right now. I'm not even joking. I'm not being funny. Do I look like I'm laughing? No. I need you to type up your little strange story. Typey, typey. And then I need you to email it to me immediately. And I can't wait to read it. Foreign. That you can feel afraid and not be in danger. You're safe here with me. M probably. Thank you for joining me for more true strange stories of the unexplained. I'm running a one Madam show here, so please do me a strange solid and follow the podcast. Leave me a rating on Apple or Spotify and maybe even join the patreon@patreon.com madamstrangeways for bonus content. Madame Strangeways is produced and narrated by me, Madame Strangeways. Theme music is by Marina Ryan at marinamakes Co. Cover art is by Andrea Giselle Roldan at Cult of Teddy on Instagram. Every strange story is shared with the permission of the author. You can submit your own true Strange story to madamstrangewaysmail.com See you soon, she said ominously. I froze and as soon as I gathered the courage. But it also. It also begs the question, oh, my God. Because that is part of the skin. Oh, my God, too. Like in R Paranormal. Wow. Like on air slot M. Oh, I dropped the lid. I'll never get it back. I'm gonna spill this. Ugh. Uh,