With Internet search engines like Google, finding your namesake — or, more often, namesakes — takes less than a second.

Among my 19,300 hits: Kathryn Skelton, business lawyer. Kathryn Skelton, bank executive. Kathryn Skelton, med student.

Accomplished, dashing ladies all, I’m sure.

When we poked around online a few weeks ago in the newsroom to see what, or whom, we could find, no one could top Regional Editor Scott Thistle’s doppelganger.

That would be Scott Thistle, Cryptozoological Explorer.

He can be found (thank you Internet gods!) on YouTube. The shorts are super short, the sunglasses are rose-tinted fabulous, the attitude is turn-it-to-11 flamboyant and, according to that Scott Thistle, the hunt is on for the “Alligator Boy.”

“Man, the water’s sweet,” he says, dipping his hand in a brook. “I know we’re getting close.”

In the six-minute-long clip, he clacks rocks, sings and high tails it at the sound of growls.

“I was pretty amused by this guy’s energy and creativity,” said the SJ’s Scott Thistle. “I’ve since learned there are several other Scott Thistles, including one in Pennsylvania, a lawyer, one in Canada, a biologist for the Canadian government. Another, who was in prison in Indiana, is (also) NOT me.”

If you haven’t already looked, your own doppelgangers are out there, waiting to be discovered.

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