Dead Ringer, episode 33

Originally first broadcast on Dec. 1, 1959.

A woman sets a fire. (Note: this is another of the shows that is in very bad condition, very, very dark.)

Same time, but miles away, a woman lies ill in her bed. It's the fourth time that year the same thing has happened to this woman.

The woman reads the paper and finds out there was an arson the previous night.

The woman tells a policeman that the fires are being set by her sister, Emily. She claims she has some kind of connection with her sister that allows her to know what her sister is thinking. The two women are identical twins.

The woman says she can will her sister to call her on the phone that night to prove to her husband that her sister really exists.

The sister calls that night, just as the wife said she would.

The wife says her sister started a fire at a convent school.The police chief, who was at the house with the husband and the wife's doctor, calls the town that Emily (the sister) called from and verifies that a particular school is there. It is, and he calls the school just as the fire alarm is sounded.

The police chief does some research and finds out that there is a twin sister named Emily. Or, had a sister. Emily died in a fire in the room in the orphanage the two sisters were in. The wife tries to point out to the husband and her doctor that the husband talked to Emily on the phone, so how could she really be dead?

The husband tells his wife to will that her sister come to their home.

The doctor and the husband go to the train station to meet the train that Emily is supposed to be on.

The sister shows up. (This part of the episode is so dark that it's almost impossible to see parts of it) Emily runs away and goes into the train station (I'm assuming here, since I can't see for sure), and there's a fire in the room she enters. When the husband gets home he finds his wife dead and badly burned.

The explanation given is that it is a case of bilocation, where an “etheric double” (astral double) is projected by a person so that the person will be in two places at exactly the same time. In this case, Emily was dead, but the wife was projecting part of herself elsewhere as her dead sister and setting the fires.

It's a shame that no real specific information is given because this would have been a very good episode to try and find some newspaper articles on.

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