Can we have a thread where we share unlikely but true stories?

[letsgowiththat]

I'll start.

My (non English speaking) DGF received an email (in English) from the solicitor of a man who claimed to be the son of a long lost relative from Africa claiming he was basically of princely status and there was an inheritance waiting for my DGF and his siblings.
So basically like the Nigerian prince scam.

Except it was all true and it was a relative who escaped my DGFs home country as he did not want to be drafted into the war and ended up never contacting anyone again and building a small empire in Africa, getting married (multiple times) and having DCs. He willed a small part of his accounts to my DGFs by then deceased mother who was his cousin and then it got passed down and split between my DGF and his siblings by default. Not life changing money but one of our favourite stories to tell!

The majority of the emails was done through google translate as well

Does anyone have any "sounds like a lie but is true" stories they'd like to share?

[quote Cuntryhouse]**@User22222222221

I immediately thought Jay-Z or Snoop?? That would be so strange/cool.[/quote]
i'm sure i read somewhere that snoop dog made friends with a uk allotment holder who's known for growing massive vegetables (he wanted advice?!) and they've stayed in touch ever since....

@whinetime89

I did a contiki when I was 18. A girl from my home state met a guy there and they got together on contiki and are now married. His parents coincidently met on contiki, got married and had kids.

I don't get this one? Is contiki a dating agency or website? Or some sort of event?

In a childhood accident when I was 18 months old, I lost part of my finger (just above the top knuckle).

It grew back, nailbed and everything. Medical records and photos as proof! As an adult I heal quickly but I def don't want to test regrowing anything!

We were on holiday a couple of years ago and my eldest son met a girl, I saw them together on the beach and she looked kinda familiar but I couldnt place it. It was only when I saw her with her parents that I realised her Dad was my ex from uni!! I hadn't seen or heard from him in 20 years. It was so awkward and made me feel really icky that my son and his daughter were having this little romance. Thankfully their holiday ended before ours and they left. Ex and I didn't rekindle any friendship and didn't get back in touch after but my son still has the daughter as an instagram friend. Weird!!!

We have an elderly family friend from USA. He came here on holiday, rural farm, and fell in love with it. Returns every year.

His mother was 98 and passed away. He then came here for the summer. On one of his travels he popped into a small, isolated village church. When he got to the front the bible was open at the passage he read at his mothers funeral the week before.

I w another one ...

When I was in my early 20's I worked in a london hotel, grew up in Kent. I happened to answer a phone I could hear ringing off the hook at work and clear that person wasn't at their desk. It was an enquiry from Someone about a conference room hire. I took the details and said I'd get the department to call him back, turned out to be my first boyfriend from when I was 15! Hadn't seen him since I'd left school 😆😁

Someone added me as a friend on Facebook because we had the same name (years ago when facebook first started). Surname is not particularly common.

We got chatting and had loads of life similarities - spent time in the same foreign countries at the same time, learnt the same random language (not a European one), even went to the same uni.

It turned out we had the same grandad - he got someone else pregnant when my nan was pregnant, so my dad and uncle have a half sibling almost exactly the same age as uncle. That’s her mother.

My dad and uncle had no contact with their father and I never met him. I haven’t told my family about this as my dad always made clear he isn’t interested in what his father went on to do.

Placemarking to read this later! Great idea for a thread OP

I was only around 10 years old and sleeping over at my cousins house. We were sharing a double bed in an upstairs bedroom with a huge bay window. I woke in the middle of the night to see a shadow of a human on the curtains in the bay and this figure was throwing a ball up and down but the ball was floating up and down up and down. I was terrified shoved the covers over my head and went back to sleep. Next morning cousin and I both woke up and she told me how she had seen a figure throwing a ball up and down in the night...........30 years later I can still see that figure in the window. It was bizarre and my only brush ever with something I just cannot explain.

My husband is good friends with a famous rapper.

Why do I think Vanilla Ice?

@Frownette I did meet my sister and her husband and kids. It was all a bit sad - she was in our lives in a really meaningful way for years but her adoptive parents weren’t supportive of her being in touch with us. She had a lot of mental health problems and it all got too much for her. We haven’t seen her in a few years now.

One night, my dog went crazy, howling, making all kinds of noise I never heard from her before. I looked at the time - approx 4.15am.

The next morning we found out my nan had died.

I said my dog had gone mad in the night, my sisters' dog had done the same at roughly 4.10am. My mum's dog had at about 4.20ish.

And if you put our houses in linear order, its my sister, me, my mum.

We reckon it was my nan visiting to say goodbye.

One day, about 2 weeks after having the front room ceiling replastered, I was about to get up off the sofa and part of the plaster fell down. When we looked at the ceiling, the hole was in the shape of my granddad's profile. The next day we got the call to say he'd died.

I was at my parents' house one day when the phone rang. This was in the days when there was one house phone in the hall. My dad went to answer it and I said, 'No let me get it, it's Y,' who was a friend I'd lost touch with about 5 years earlier. I picked up the phone and said, 'Hi, Y'. She was just astonished I knew it was her but I just knew. I have no idea how or why. Similar things very occasionally happen to me but I wish they'd happen more often. I love them.

@3Britnee that is amazing. The dog thing.

I’m a girl/boy twin, I’m expecting girl/boy twins. Due around our birthday!

I also have little sisters who are twins.

[quote Tinkling]@3Britnee that is amazing. The dog thing.[/quote]
@Tinkling Isn't it! I think dogs are much more attuned to the spirit world than we are.

And you know what else is funny? Your user name is very, very similar to my nan & grandad surname.

@Lesssaideasymended

My mum, brother & I were all struck by lightening - huddling together and the current passed through us all. Apart from strange bruising on the entry & exit points (where we were touching) of the current and shock (no pun intended) we were completely fine. I don’t understand how it happened but to this day no one believes us 🤦🏼‍♀️

There is an amazing video on YouTube about q man who was hit by lightning 7 times in his life- and after he died his grave was also struck! So I believe you!

My GM is German, from a small village in Lower Saxony, she moved to UK from there at 18 to marry my English GF.

3yrs ago a lady moved into her street, from the same village! They didn't know each other despite being similar ages, but it turned out their husbands (both passed on) served together in the same regiment!

GM has dementia and now struggles a bit with English, so it lovely to have a friend close that she can converse with normally (me & my DM speak German, but none of the rest of our family do).

As a teenager, me and a friend were walking to the corner shop when suddenly the phone box we were approaching started to ring, my friend ran to answer the phone and was shocked to hear the voice of her twin brother on the end of the line! He was at home and had just decided to prank call the phonebox at that exact time!

My grandad had an affair with my gran whilst engaged to another lady, we’ll call her April. Gran become pregnant and went on to have a son, we’ll call him John. Grandad broke off his engagement with April and married gran. Years later, John’s daughter meets a lad through work, they get together, marry, have 2 children. The lad turns out to be the grandson of April. And this is not all in the same city.

@daisychain01

I'm mistrusting of threads like this. Call me cynical but it's just a collection of far-fetched story ideas for someone to harvest and turn into new scams.

To be honest I'm the same about the woo stuff. I find stories like the OP fun to read though when it's just a coincidence and not anything mystic.

@Eminybob My friend has a cousin with the surname “Tracy” and his wife is called Tracy so when they married she became Tracy Tracy and kept it and goes by that name!

I used to work with a Tracy Tracy many years ago!

5 years ago my then 7 year old daughter kept telling us she was having a cat for her birthday. And we kept telling her she wasn't and that we'd take her to choose a toy cat on her birthday. Everyday she would still insist she was having a real cat. She told everyone lol.

Day of her birthday comes and she opens her gifts then gets ready to head out to the toy shop. Opens the front door to leave and in walked a little black and white cat!!!!!! "Yay he's here!" I was speechless

We asked around, took him the vets to check if he was chipped, put posters online etc. He was never claimed and has been here ever since.

I'm enjoying this and can't think of anything to add :(

My great grandfather was in the merchant navy during the war, the boat he was on was sunk by a German U-boat! He survived and was picked up by another boat!

My partner is from a eastern European country and her mum married an Austrian man when she was young, we went over to visit a few years ago and I met her step granddad, he was an officer in the German navy during the war and served on a U-boat, he was a very successful lawyer after the war and spoke very good English, so we got chatting and I told him about my great grandfather, he asked me the date of the day when he his boat was sunk, told him, he pulled a diary out of a box, and he confirmed on that specific date, the U-boat he was on, sank 3 boats that day, so there is a good chance my partners step grandad sank the boat my great granddad was on!

He passed away last year, and he left me all of his navy/military stuff, some really interesting stuff in there! He had a picture of one of his brothers in uniform, he never put the picture up because the uniform he is wearing, he was part of the SS totenkoph division, and they committed quite a few war crimes, one of the famous ones being the Warsaw uprising, and his brother was certainly alive when this happened!

Sorry I have rambled on!