Coincidence Number Two
After arriving in Galway, the men went their separate ways.
Douglas had work to do. He was in Ireland to photograph a wedding.
Stirling had his own plans.
There was no reason to assume they would see each other again.
Galway is a city filled with hotels, restaurants, pubs and visitors. The chance encounter on the plane appeared to be over.
Douglas made his way to his accommodation.
Then came the second surprise.
His doppelgänger was there too.
The two men had booked the same hotel.
The Guardian, citing Press Association reporting, documented Douglas's account of discovering that the stranger from the airplane was staying at the same hotel in Galway.
The Irish Times also reported the remarkable sequence of events.
Think about the odds from Douglas's perspective.
First, he boards an airplane and discovers someone who looks remarkably like him sitting in his assigned seat.
Then they land in another country, travel onward to their destination and discover that they have independently booked accommodation at the same place.
At this stage, what began as an amusing seating mix-up was turning into something that sounded like the plot of a comedy.
But there was still one more coincidence waiting for them.
"There Was My Twin"
Later that evening, Douglas decided to experience some of Galway's nightlife.
He went out to a pub.
And there, once again, was Robert Stirling.
His accidental twin had beaten him there.
Douglas later summed up the experience as "total weirdness."
This time, instead of simply laughing and going their separate ways, the two men had a drink together.
The Irish Times reported that the pair enjoyed a pint after unexpectedly encountering each other again.
PRX's The World later interviewed Douglas about the experience. He explained that after checking into the hotel, he went out to sample Galway's nightlife. At the first bar he entered, Stirling was already there.
So they did the only reasonable thing left to do.
They had a pint and laughed about the extraordinary chain of coincidences that had brought them together.
In the space of a single trip, two men who had previously been complete strangers had encountered each other on an airplane, discovered they were staying at the same hotel and then walked into the same pub.
The story almost seemed too perfectly arranged.
But contemporary news coverage confirms that the basic sequence really happened.
Who Were the Two Men?
As the photograph spread, reporters began filling in some of the details.
The Independent reported that Douglas was 32 at the time and Stirling was 35.
Douglas was from Glasgow, while Stirling was from London.
They were not travelling together.
Douglas was heading to Galway for professional reasons: he was scheduled to photograph a wedding. According to Douglas's later interview with The World, Stirling was travelling to Galway for a party.
Their paths simply happened to overlap.
And visually, they overlapped even more dramatically.
It was not merely the fact that both men had red beards.
Douglas pointed out that there are plenty of ginger, bearded men in Scotland and elsewhere. What made the encounter remarkable to him was the similarity in their facial features.
He even recalled that a dentist commenting on the viral image had noticed similarities in their teeth.
Look at the photograph quickly and it is easy to understand why people online were fascinated.
They did not look perfectly identical in the scientific sense, of course. But their combination of hair color, beard style, facial structure and expressions created an uncanny effect.
It was enough for the internet to enthusiastically label them doppelgängers.