If you’re a fan of The Matrix films, you’ll remember the classic moment when Neo spots a black cat passing twice and simply attributes it to déjà vu. But as Trinity swiftly informs him, it isn’t always so simple. In their world, this was actually a glitch in the Matrix, reminding everyone that they are in fact, in a simulation. Regardless of whether or not you believe we’re all plugged into the Matrix, (that’s a discussion for another day…) we think you’ll enjoy pretending, at least for as long as it takes you to read this article, that we are.

Below, you’ll find examples of creepily accurate animal doppelgangers that might make you feel like you’re seeing double. From dogs that look identical to rows of seagulls all perched in unison, be sure to upvote the animal look-alikes that you can’t believe were caught on camera. Then, if you’re looking for even more photos that might make you wonder if we truly are living in a simulation, you can find a another Bored Panda article featuring inexplicable glitches in the Matrix right here.

#1 People Always Ask How I Can Tell My Cats Apart, And I Can Never Answer How. I Just Know

Image credits: Lazy-Squish

#2 Twinsie Derp. How This Is Comfortable?

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#3 There’s A Glitch In The Matrix

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You might not be convinced that the Matrix, let alone the idea that it can glitch, is real. And that is totally fine; it might take donning a tin foil hat to believe in it. But you have to admit that it is not every day we see identical animals lined up next to each other or posed exactly the same way. Whatever it is that’s causing these occurrences, perhaps just simple coincidences, they are fascinating to see. 

When it comes to animals having doppelgangers, we often only hear about owners who look like their pets, rather than pets who look like one another. Psychologist Sadahiko Nakajima has dedicated his research to exploring human and animal doppelgangers, and he has found that it’s very common for owners to resemble their fur babies. He has several theories as to why this happens, one of which being the exposure effect. This essentially means that we are drawn to familiar things, so pet owners tend to gravitate towards animals with similar facial features to their own, particularly around the eyes. Perhaps this is also why animal doppelgangers tend to find one another? 

#4 I Adopted A Puppy (Right) And Today A New Dog Appeared In Front Of The Door And He Looks Like He’s The Same Dog From The Future Trying To Warn Himself About Something

Image credits: Clear-Relief-1424

#5 These Cats Napping Aligned On Stairs

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#6 Catnal Space

Image credits: DD1234567

Glitches in the Matrix can happen with anything and everything, though. They don’t have to feature animals who look creepily alike. And although the first Matrix film was released in 1999, many people have held onto the ideas discussed in the movies. In 2021, film directory Rodney Ascher released A Glitch in the Matrix, a documentary tackling the question of whether or not we’re living in a simulation, featuring testimonies, philosophical evidence and even scientific explanations in his search for the answer. 

Jordan Hoffman, a writer for Vanity Fair, spoke to Rodney Ascher about the film and discussed the world’s fascination with this topic. Hoffman first notes that the documentary features some very upsetting scenes, including one early on in the film where an “eyewitness” vividly describes a terrifying dissociative episode he had. Whether the Matrix exists or not, Hoffman says the world is certainly a bizarre place.  

#7 These Birds In Hyde Park

Image credits: reddit.com

#8 Everybody Smiles For The Camera

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#9 Last Month My Cat Disappeared. A Week Ago I Found Him And Brought Him Home. Today My Cat Came Back. Now I Have Two Identical Cats

Image credits: Stanislav Zak

Hoffman explains that A Glitch in the Matrix is a heavy film to watch, and it even features a testimony from the so-called “Matrix murderer” Josh Cooke, who at 19 years old shot his mother and father, claiming he was living in the Matrix. Hoffman wondered if the nature of this documentary started to mess with director Rodney Ascher’s head, but thankfully, he said he managed to keep work separate from his personal life. “Even having conversations with Joshua Cooke about the murder of his parents, I would go home and play with my kid, then fall asleep in front of the TV,” Ascher explained. “It’s a day at the office. I like to think that my movies are crazier than I am in person. What affected me was being in the mix room—watching it big, hearing the sound design and music that Jonathan Snipes made. Hearing that existential dread at a loud volume does start to work through your lower intestines.”

#10 A Group Of Black Cats Out In The Wild

Image credits: totzalotz

#11 On Our Walk Today, We Met Two Dogs Identical To Ours

Image credits: Libss231

#12 Sometimes It’s Hard To Tell Them Apart

Image credits: Costasmk

And although Rodney Ascher was happy to make a film exploring possible glitches in the Matrix, he understands that sometimes the reason people believe in such an idea is due to the use of psychedelic drugs, though he decided not to discuss that in his documentary. “We considered including the topic of DMT, in which people who take it go to another reality,” he told Vanity Fair. “If you read the book The Spirit Molecule, there are descriptions of people who take a short psychedelic trip that reminded me a lot of sleep paralysis, in that there are reports of similar apparitions,” Ascher explained. “One possibility suggests that it is not a hallucination from random imaginary sparks—that you are seeing something ‘real’ from a heightened sense of awareness.”

#13 There Is 2 Of Each Cat Outside Of This Abandoned House

Image credits: StrangeBedfellows

#14 My Cat’s Doppelganger Lives Upstairs From Us

Image credits: BoognishWeen

#15 Night Herons And Kingfishers With Identical Poses. Looks Like Copied And Pasted (Taiwan)

Image credits: manaluuu

There are a variety of possible explanations as to why we might think we’ve observed a glitch in the Matrix. One interesting point that Dr. Steven Novella brings up on his blog, Neurologica, is that we could be experiencing glitches in our brains rather than reality. “There is no question that people experience glitches in their stream of perception of external reality,” Dr. Novella writes. “This is a common topic of psychological study, and pretty much the entire field of stage illusion. One very common theme of critical thinking and scientific skepticism is that we seek to carefully explain these apparent glitches as largely neurological phenomena (an approach I call neuropsychological humility).”

#16 For Weeks Kept Seeing What I Thought Was The Same White Cat Everyday But Like A ‘Glitch In The Matrix’ It Was Impossibly Everywhere. Then Today My Questions Were Answered

I thought maybe it was two cats just never spied at the same time. Then that seemed impossible. 

Image credits: ArtfulPandora

#17 I’ve Seen A Lot Of Wildlife This Spring But This One Takes The Cake

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#18 This Is Higgins And Benson, Two Brothers From South Of Stockholm, Sweden Who Likes To Hang Around When I Do The Dishes

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Dr. Novella explains that when we experience an anomaly or an amazing coincidence, the idea of neuropsychological humility means that we should first consider that it was a glitch in the way our brain functions, rather than assuming there were external phenomena at play. “Our stream of experience is an extremely active constructive process,” Dr. Novella notes. “Perceptions are filtered, altered, enhanced, compared, matched to internal patterns, and altered again. Memory is also an active constructive process. Attention, cognitive biases, and expectation all shape our perceptions of reality.”

#19 Look-Alikes

Image credits: vladgrinch

#20 My Cat Went Missing For 2 Days. My Cat Comes To The Door And 30 Mins Later My Neighbor Comes And Drops Off What He Thought Was My Cat

Now I have two identical cats.

Image credits: teoman_asyn

#21 My Dog, Flirt (Left) Found Her Doppelgänger

Image credits: minty_farts

Dr. Novella goes on to note that the brain is not perfect. “Even things that the brain does well comes at a cost. Our brains are great at finding patterns in data – but that talent means that our brains also tend to see possible patterns in noise,” he writes. “Further, the brain is not always functioning ‘normally’ (within nominal parameters). We may be sleepy, drunk, highly emotional, or even experience seizures or similar neurological phenomena. But to be clear, even when functioning perfectly, the brain is subject to glitches.”

#22 These Two Have Been Twinning Non-Stop Since Birth

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#23 Our Identical Twin Lambs

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#24 There’s Been A Glitch In The Matrix

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“The bottom line is that parsing reality is horrifically complex, and our brains do an incredible job, but they are also an evolved mess,” Dr. Novella says. “Like all adaptations, they work well enough with the material at hand, but are not perfect, include many trade-offs, and have serious limitations. It is no wonder that our perception of reality is a little fuzzy at the edges.” Our brains making mistakes can’t account for the photos on this list, as we have photographic evidence of these occurrences. But when it comes to spooky and unsettling experiences that we can’t explain, don’t count out the possibility that your brain just had a hiccup.

#25 Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V

Image credits: poisonouschimp

#26 Picture? What Picture?

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#27 A Glitch In The Puppy Matrix

Image credits: mouseinthecorner

Is this list convincing you that we’re living in a simulation? Or at least making you want to rewatch The Matrix? We hope you’re enjoying these adorable, yet maybe a little unsettling, photos of animals looking identical or mimicking one another. Keep upvoting the pics that would have blown your mind if you had seen them in real life, and feel free to share any of your own personal “glitch in the matrix” stories in the comments. Then, if you want to check out even more animal doppelgangers, you can find a previous Bored Panda article featuring animals who look suspiciously like celebrities right here.

#28 Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V, Ctrl+V, Ctrl+V

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#29 They Do This Every Day At The Same Time

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#30 A Few Years Ago I Found Someone Online Who Had My Dog’s Doppelgänger. Well, Thanks To A Road Trip, They Were Able To Meet Last Week! This Is Potato And Rufus

Image credits: BeansandWeiss

#31 My Dog’s Ear Looks Like His Own Face

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#32 You Don’t See This Every Day

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#33 2 Deer Pooping At The Same Time

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#34 The Dog I’m Dogsitting Looks Exactly Like Her Food

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#35 Glitch In The Matrix

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#36 My Roommate’s Little Voids

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#37 A Once In A Lifetime Shot For Me

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#38 Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V

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#39 Copy Dachshund, Paste Dachshund

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#40 Double Double Doggo

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#41 Goat Spawn Glitch In Earth Version 1.0.4

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#42 Um. My Parents Don’t Have A Cat, Let Alone Half A Dozen

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#43 Adorable Glitch In The Matrix

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#44 Found A Glitch While Scrolling On Facebook Pictures Of Cats

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#45 We Thought This Cat Was Ours But Ours Just Came Home And Now We Have Two. Is She Yours?

#46 A Rather Cute Glitch In The Matrix

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#47 Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V

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#48 My Dog Yawned At The Exact Moment I Took A Photo Of Him In Front Of The Graffiti That Looks Like Him

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#49 Thought My Cat Was Outside When I Saw This Guy

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#50 There Was An Old German Shepherd Here Last Month

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#51 Double Doppelgangers

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#52 One Of These Is Not My Cat, But Tried To Join The Dog/Cat Walk

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#53 Copycats

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#54 Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V

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#55 My Cat Gets Visits From His Doppelganger

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#56 These 2 Cats Came To Me As Strays, Several Years Apart. I Sometimes Call Them Copy And Paste

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#57 Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V

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#58 Can You Tell They’re Littermates?

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#59 My Dog (On The Left) Met A Look-Alike Friend At The Dog Park And Instantly Loved Him

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#60 One Of These Is Not My Cat, Can Get Confusing From A Distance

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#61 I Saw A Post The Other Day About Visiting Cat Doppelgangers. My Tuxedo Cat And His Tuxedo Neighbors

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#62 Copy And Paste

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#63 Lilo Met Her Doppelganger Today

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#64 Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V, Resize

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#65 Blursed Resemblance

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#66 Last Month My Dog Ran Away. It’s Been A Week Since I Met Him And Brought Him Home. Today My Dog Came Back And Now I Have Two Identical Ones

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#67 I Looked Over, And My Cat Was Doing The Same Thing As The Curtain

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#68 This Is A Stray Cat That Suddenly Appeared 3 Days Ago. They Look Almost The Same

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#69 A Cat That Looks Just Like Mine Showed Up At My Backyard. Now I Don’t Know Which One To Bring Inside

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#70 Not My Kittens In The Yard This Morning

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#71 Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V

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#72 My Dog Stella (A Portuguese Water Dog) And Her Mini Look-Alike, Roxie (A Havapoo)

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#73 Sally Found Her Larger Doppelganger At The Dog Park

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#74 Copy Paste

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#75 I Think There’s A Glitch In The Matrix

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#76 A Glitch In The Matrix

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#77 My Partner Found My Cat’s Doppelgänger While Thrifting

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#78 My Window, Not My Cats

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#79 Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V

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#80 Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V

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#81 The Same Two Birds Sitting Under The Same Two Car Models Of The Same Color

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#82 Copy/Paste. Kind Of

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#83 A Glitch In The Matrix

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#84 My Cat Also Met His Kitten Doppelganger

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#85 When Shelby Bumped Into A Lookalike Corgi In The Park – Turns Out They Not Only Share The Same Face But Also The Same Blood

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#86 Ctrl+C Ctrl+V Twins

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#87 Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V

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#88 Pic Of These Turkeys Looks Like A Glitch In The Matrix

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#89 Mucha Is Proud To Be On The Yams’ Bag (Doppelgänger)

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#90 I Adopted My Dog’s Doppelgänger. I Think He Approves

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#91 Found My Cat’s Doppelgänger On A Safeway Aisle Ad

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#92 Copied And Pasted

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#93 My Cat Has Doppelgangers

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#94 A Glitch In The Matrix

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#95 Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V, Ctrl+V

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#96 My Cat Duplicated Itself

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#97 Found A Doppelganger At The Dog Beach

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#98 Zombie’s Reaction To His Lookalike Plushie

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#99 He Wants To Be My Cat, But Sir Odin Le Meow Meow Said Absolutely Not

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#100 Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V

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#101 Who Is Imitating Who?

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#102 My Dog Met His Cousin At Doggy Daycare

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#103 Took This Last Year Working At A Dog Daycare. Haven’t Stopped Thinking About It Since

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#104 Sea-Bird Glitch

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#105 Glitch In The Matrix At My Friend’s Party Last Night

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#106 Twins Taking A Nap Or A Glitch In The Matrix

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#107 Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V

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#108 Meeting A Doppelganger

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#109 Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V

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#110 Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V

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#111 Garret Found Her Lookalike! Just Got My Copy In The Mail

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#112 Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V

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#113 How Much Like It? Was It The Same Dog?

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#114 I Think My Cat Is Glitching

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#115 Lookalike Cat Shows Up And Lines Up With Our Cat

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#116 I Think My Dog Has A Doppelganger

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#117 Merlin Has A Doppelganger

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#118 My Dad’s Chubby Cat With His Pillow Doppelgänger

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#119 Harper With Her Doppelgänger, Lady

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#120 Doppelgänger

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#121 Copy. Paste

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#122 Meet My Kitty, Luna, With Her Litter Model Doppelganger

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#123 My Cat Has A Doppelganger

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#124 This Stray Dog We Found That Is Identical To My Nana’s Couch Cushion

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#125 My Little Buddy On New Bedsheets Featuring His Lookalikes

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#126 Not My Cat (Right) Chilling With My Cat. This Cat Tries To Trick Us To Come Inside. Looks Very Similar

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#127 Not My Cats

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#128 Found Her Celebrity Look Alike

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#129 My Cat Thinks She Is The IAMS Cat

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#130 There’s A Glitch In The Matrix

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#131 There Is 2 Of Each Cat Outside Of This Abandoned House

#132 My Cat’s Doppelganger Lives Upstairs From Us

Source: boredpanda.com