Alaknanda: Indian researchers find galaxy like Milky Way from 12 billion years ago

What if it *is* actually the Milky Way, because we are looking into a “cosmic mirror” created by the light being reflected (orbited) by a distant black hole?

I doubt it would be possible (or that the effect would last long to begin with)… But I always wonder if we could actually use this method to peek into the past of our planet and check if our theories are correct.