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?

I was at the outdoor pool at my gym last summer and a man next to me suddenly dived under the water and came up holding a baby, less than a year old. The gym nursery had set up in a corner by the pool to get some sun and it must have crawled off.

Lifeguard hadn't noticed (it's a very small pool, not a proper full size one). The nursery staff looked ashen when he handed it back to them. The baby was fine.

@chicadelmonton - wow!

Lots of great stories on here, I especially love the reunion stories

SIL announced pregnancy and stated her EDD was late may to early June, her announcement made me realise I was late.
Took a test and to my shock I was also pregnant my EDD end of July, found out I was having a boy and SIL a girl, EDD's changed after her scan because of irregular periods was now due first week of July, we kept joking it could end up being within the same week but due to my due date being over 14 days away from hers we thought nothing more.
That was until I had complications and had to have my baby early.
She went 13 days over and was scheduled for induction, my son was born first by csection at 12:15 her daughter the same day at 11:45
Not only did my MIL's son have a son and daughter have a daughter on the same day but my son who was supposed to be over a month afterwards was born first.
So weird how it all panned out.

@imsanehonest that's crazy!

It is also not possible to drive through the end of a rainbow.

Rainbows caused by sunlight and raindrops do not have an end, they are circular, but from the ground we can only see half of the circle. They are not a tangible thing, but an optical effect that moves its apparently position as the viewer moves.

Anyway onto a real thing, a 'ooh small world how odd' thing.

In the early 2000's I met a lad online I forget where or how, game, forum, who knows. We chatted via video call back when that was extremely new indeed, we liked the same music and would just catch up about our days a few times a week.

Time passed, he got a girlfriend, I got a boyfriend, contact became more sporadic.

Then one day I was travelling from Northern Town to Midlands Town via Middle Town, stopping there to collect something I'd bought from ebay.

Loading this item into our car at 8.45am, piddling rain, hands full and a bit fraught, a young man waved at me and when i looked again he'd gone so i thought 'well thats odd' and carried on with my day.

Continued journey adn when I arrived at my destination and logged onto t'internet I had a message from long lost friend 'Hello Widdlin', I believe I saw you loading up a dresser in a driveway in Middle Town this morning, sorry i was rushing I was late for work. If it wasn't you, I've just waved madly at a total stranger!'

Never been to his town before or since, we'd never met in person, I hadn't spoken to him for years! Very odd!

When I was a brownie we linked up with another brownie pack from South Africa to be penpals.

I was signed up to a girl called Sarah, in our first letters we discovered that we were born in the same day of the same year only a couple of hours apart.

We wrote and then emailed for 11 years (until we were 18). She emailed one day to say that her family were moving to England and would I like to eventually meet. I asked where she was moving and it turned out to be only 20 minutes away!! We met a few times but unfortunately didn't actually have a lot in common at all.

We do always wish our 'birthday twin' a happy birthday! And check in now and then!

WiddlinDiddlin
It is also not possible to drive through the end of a rainbow

I thought that, but apparently it is claimed to be possible.

"But if there is only a stripe of rainy area, the rainbow is just a slice of a cone: an actual arc. When you approach the stripe of rain, you will see the near boundary of the arc on the ground coming closer (because it actually is). So even though the arc is not a fixed object, you can get closer to it, and drive trough its base."

www.physicsforums.com/threads/drove-through-a-rainbow.100103/
second reply.

I am unsure that I am convinced.... But there seem to be quite a few accounts, some with video.

DH and Ds(8) went to a football match this was in the 1990's. Parked up in a side street. When they were leaving the game it was pouring with rain.
They started running down this street when ds said that someone was in the car. DH told him to carry on running as he didn't want
any trouble. Within 20 yards of the car 3 very large men got out and ran away. The forth couldn't get out.
At that moment the police driving towards these men and chased them. The one left in the car was arrested.
It turns out they had robbed a van that delivers money to shops, banks etc and their get away car had broken down.

Myself, my mum, my gran and my great gran have all had a baby girl at the age of 30 in a year ending in 1; 2021, 1991, 1961, 1931 and 1901.

@MusicWithRocksIn1t

Myself, my mum, my gran and my great gran have all had a baby girl at the age of 30 in a year ending in 1; 2021, 1991, 1961, 1931 and 1901.

You have given 5 years. Did you forget to mention a great great gran?🙂

@Apple1971

I was involved in a major train crash in America when I was 21 (in 1993). I was very lucky to escape unharmed (apart from a few bruises and cuts etc) as 1/3 of the people on the train didn’t survive.

I’d been working on a summer camp and we were travelling afterwards when it happened.

@Apple1971 I think a girl I went to school with may have been in the same crash. She sadly died. I know it sounds far fetched but the date seems too coincidental.

25 Years ago my boyfriend was on a month long Uni trip to LA in his final year. The house phone rang (in the days before mobiles and we had one phone at the bottom of the stairs). My dad went to answer and I said "let me get it, it's Andy". Answered the phone with "Hi Andy" and it was him! Calling from a public phone box in LA!

Very similar to a previous PP... SIL announced she was pregnant which made me realise I hadn't had a period for a while and I was too. Neither baby was planned.

Our due dates were a month apart but she was 2 weeks late and I was 2 weeks early and we gave birth in the same hospital less than 24 hours apart.

When I was 6 I heard a voice telling me to pull my douvet over my head. I thought it was weird but did it and just then A pot ornament that was hanging from my ceiling fell and landed on my now protected head. Probably would have killed me!

DSS2’s teacher has a boat next to ours in the marina.

@AskingQuestionsAllTheTime

I found the same stuff as you, I guess if you were to create a small fixed area of water droplets, such as spray from a hose, then yes...

I did find a lot of videos of someone supposedly driving through the end of a naturally produced (ie by a raincloud and sun, not hosepipe) rainbow...

However it appears they are all the same video clip and in fact they do not at all, drive through the end of the rainbow!

When we were kids my best friend predicted I'd have 2 boys and she'd have 2 girls. It came true and we still laugh about it.

I live in a a really old house, formerly an inn. A neighbour dropped around a picture she had found of what is now our lounge, taken in 1920 I think. On the wall in the photo is a portrait of a girl. The girl in the portrait looks the total double of DD1.
Dd1 was immensely freaked out by it.

@shallIswim

At the very moment my MiL died my DH woke up with a start and shouted 'Mum!'. Minutes later at about 11.30pm we had a call from her care home to say she had died.

I woke with a start whilst sleeping in my mum and dads bed after leaving them at the hospital, minutes later mum rang to say say dad had died at the moment I woke up

Name changed as this could out me.
About 3 years ago DH and we’re going through a very tough time. We had a financial catastrophe. We had put everything we own into a business and then it failed. It was nearly the end of the marriage (as dh had made some silly decisions) and literally every day was a struggle to pay the mortgage and pay bills. We were slowly going backwards just paying living expenses. I have never felt so hopeless.
We had borrowed against the house a year previous to avoid bankruptcy so selling the family home wasn’t an option as it would’ve just paid the mortgage and that was it.
It was truly desperate.
Then dh got cancer. Stage 3.
Multiple operations and treatment. The prognosis wasn’t good. 50% survival rate. I was really at the end of my tether and just kept dreaming about the mortgage getting paid off which would make life so so much easier.

Then a letter came from our life insurance which we’d had for 10 years detailing the life insurance and also a policy neither of us can remember taking out or ever seeing any letters about before - which was for critical illness cover.
It covered the cancer dh had and the payout sum was exactly the amount of our (very large) mortgage within £5000.
Changed our lives and he’s still alive and healthy and our finances are back on track.

Literally life changing and still gives me goosebumps.

We still have no recollection of taking out the policy that literally saved us.

I live about 150 miles from the town my mum grew up in.
One of the teachers at dd's school is from that town - her parents live on the same street that my mum was bombed out of in 1940.

'Can we have a thread where we share unlikely but true stories?' By @letsgowiththat >

I met my first husband at the age of 19 and moved in with him two weeks later. Within four months we were married.

I've got one to share (not my own but a celebrity story I heard recently which I just thought was a lovely story).

John Bishop was on a podcast/radio show talking about how he got into comedy. He was in the process of divorcing his wife and found himself at a loose end one Monday - he was feeling down as he'd just handed his kids back, after having them for the weekend. In his quest to get out the house, he thought he'd go to a comedy club, alone - the bouncer told him he'd get in for free if he signed up to participate in the open mic night so he did. He'd never did stand up in his life but he went down a treat - the manager asked him to come back and he started going weekly.

He told nobody about his new hobby and in fact was a bit embarrassed by it - he'd turn up just minutes before he was due to go on and then leave again straight after his slot. But it was like therapy for him as a lot of his act was about his divorce.

Anyway, one night he reluctantly agreed to do another slot at another not-so-local club, on a Thursday night, months later. When he walked off stage, who should he bump into but his estranged wife! She had started a new job and just happened to be there after work with her new work mates - she was stunned to see him on stage joking about their marriage!

Rather than get cross, she told him she saw the "old John" on stage, the man she fell in love with. Long story short, they reconciled and it seems comedy saved their marriage. I thought it was amazing that a random event on a boring Monday night changed his whole life - it's also an amazing coincidence that his wife just happened to turn up at a gig he didn't usually perform at! Just lovely.

We arrived last night at a holiday cottage in a small village in Northumbria (3 hours from home). Took the dog for a walk and met a couple with their dog.
Spoke to them for a bit to find that they moved up here a few weeks ago from a few streets from our home.
We didn’t know them before at all and they were the only people we met on our walk yesterday.

I don't have a particularly large family or friendship group and I don't travel overseas particularly frequently. But when when I do go overseas I always bump in to someone I know. Sometimes it's just bumping in to a colleague or old friend in the airport (still a bit of a coincidence though since we don't live in a town with an airport). Other times have included being in the same hotel or restaurant as family members and old friends that I'd lost touch with and an old Uni friend being our holiday rep. One year we did not see anyone we knew, but did get chatting to a family who lived in the town that we'd just decided we were going to move to. We ended up living on the same street as this family (we had never swapped addresses etc so it was quite a surprise).