"Fool's covering spaces" are very close to overlays of R. H. Fox (see this paper in the first place and also this one), which I think are still better: they retain all nice properties of "fool's covering spaces" and have additional ones. An equivalent (see Lemma 7.3 in "Steenrod homotopy", Lemma 7.3 or Mardesic-Matijevic) definition of an overlay is that it is
A third definition of overlays is by their monodromy:. $d$-Sheeted overlays over a connected base $X$ (possibly $d=\infty$) are identified with
the homotopy set $[X,BS_d]$.
This is essentially the monodromy classification theorem of Fox; for a shorter proof and the above formulation see "Steenrod homotopy", Theorem 7.4. Another reformulation:
overlays are
functors $\check\Pi_1(X)\to Sets$$pro$-$\Pi_1(X)\to Sets$, where $\check\Pi_1(X)$$pro$-$\Pi_1$ is the Cech fundamental groupoidpro-groupoid.
Note that $\check\Pi_1(X)=\Pi_1(X)$ if $X$This is locally connected and semi-locally simply-connected. For the equivalence, seedue to Hernandez-Paricio (but note that his claim that Fox did his theory only for finite-sheeted overlays is not only incorrect but misleading; in fact, for finite-sheeted ones Fox shows that they reduce to coverings). InI'm not fully happy with the connected case (more precisely, "Steenrodpro-connected" aka "pointed 1groupoid definition because a pro-movable" case)groupid is a whole diagram of groupoids. I would prefer something like "overlays are functors $\Pi_1\to Sets$, where $\Pi_1$ is the Cechtopologized Steenrod fundamental groupoid reduces to the Cech fundamental group(which combines Steenrod $\pi_0$ and Steenrod $\pi_1$)"
Such formulation is possible, the monodromy classification was essentially done by Foxat least, and a proof much shorter than either Fox's or Hernandez's can be found in "Steenrod homotopy"a special case (see Corollary 7.5. in "Steenrod homotopy").
Over a base that is compact and Steenrod-connected (aka "pointed 1-movable"; in particular, this includes compact spaces that are connected and locally connected), overlays are
identified with functors $\check\pi_1(X)\to Sets$, where $\check\pi_1$ is the topologized Cech (or Steenrod) fundamental group.
Note that $\check\pi_1(X)=\pi_1(X)$ if $X$ is locally connected and semi-locally simply-connected.