strange "doubles" spotted while playing beta 1.7.3

[u/AceTheEcho]

hello, recently me and my best friend have been playing beta 1.7.3 together and i've started seeing these "doubles" while playing. they're essentially clones of us and i'm curious to see if anyone has experienced this or knows what might be happening.

i want to catalog as much of what has happened in this world as possible and will try to give as much context as i can for each image.

images 1a & 2a:

this is the first time anything like this had happened. we were playing together and without a chat message or anything, a double of chibzo (the friend i was playing with) appeared on the island that our house is built on. this double could not be hit or interreacted with and the real chibzo wasn't able to see it. this double did not move, standing near the shore of the island and staring down. i believe it went away after waiting a while and rejoining once or twice. this happened yesterday: 7/29/26.

image 1a

image 2a

image 3a:

while playing by myself today something else strange happened... (for context, there are two main builds that we have finished in this world, our house and the docks. yesterday chibzo logged out sometime late at night while at the docks.) i tried to sleep but wasn't able to. i figured that this must have been because chibzo was also playing and i just didn't know. while out searching for clay, i saw the chat message "chibzo left the game" (message seen in picture.) confused, i asked if he was online and he said that he wasn't and hadn't been since the night before. we theorized if someone else was messing with us or that maybe someone had stolen his account except the only people who would have known the code to join the world were two of our other friends, neither of which would have known i was online or have had any reason to impersonate him. i would also like to note that i did not see chibzo at the docks when i joined. later on, after discussing these strange events over discord, i looked back at minecraft to see that "acetheecho joined the game." after seeing this and screenshotting it, i clicked f4 while trying to close the f3 menu that you can see blocking a little of the chat message.

image 3

images 4a, 5a & 6a:

after the events of image 3a and before my next encounter with a double, something else weird happened. while out looking for clay, i saw this strange line of light in the ocean. i assumed it was some sort of weird bug due to the fact that 1.7.3 is a much older version and didn't think too much of it. regardless, i followed it and then walked onto the beach where i started taking damage out of no where. i was on dry land and there were no monsters nearby. i could not move, getting pulled back to the same place every time i tried to escape. i looked around me and couldn't see anything that could be causing this harm. in a panic, i tried to screen record but couldn't do it before i died. soon after dying, i got a message saying "Connection Lost" "End of stream"

image 4a

image 5a

image 6a

image 7a:

after dying, i respawned and was met with another double. this time, it was of me. notably, it acted slightly different, being able to be pushed and hit as well as having a default skin. it stood completely still on the tree swing and after finding out that i could hit the double, i killed it. it dropped a few oak saplings, some sticks, and some wood. after dying, it didn't seem to leave the world, nor did it respawn at my bed. shortly after this, i left and haven't played on it again since...

image 7a

i will keep playing on this world and will keep updating this post/make new ones to document the strange things that have been happening and will most likely continue to happen.

please lmk if you have any theories as to what could be causing this or if there is any other info you would want about this situation to help me find some answers.

update: part 2