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?

[bruffin]

@TheHoneyFactory

they did this as a segment on the radio the other day.... lady called in and retold story about how she was bitten on the stomach by a spider - but hadn't realized it was a spider bite at the time, just was a large sore boil/bite on her stomach.

Doctor lanced the lump....lump was full of alive baby spiders... so gross...
she ended up with infections and was very ill for months (recovered now)
spiders never bothered me until now (we are in Australia)....

My sister had a very painful spot on her head which turned out to be dome sort of larvae

[Iwantacookie]

Years ago when I was about 10 you only had one house phone on a curly wire in the hall.
Picked up the phone to call my friend and heard no dial tone but someone said hello.
I said hello back and turned out it was my friend who I was just about to ring. She had rang me and I had picked up the phone before it had begun to ring.
Was pretty odd and never happened to me or anyone else I know.

[WestendVBroadway]

@LucyAutumn, Your story reminds me of the time when my friend an I were messing around in a phone box '100' years ago. We dialled a random number , not expecting it to exist. A man answered so acting quickly I said "Could I speak to Emma please?" ( the first name that came to mind) The man said " Hang on I'll get her." I dropped the phone as I was so surprised!

[Etinox]

@Els1e

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.

Did Grandad and April ever meet again? Did she forgive him?

[Frownette]

@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.

It's fun to read!

[Etinox]

@blissfulllife

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.

That’s so lovely! DD as a toddler had very whispy sad hair and always talked about how it would go curly when she went to the hairdresser. It did, stunningly so!

[babbaloushka]

I grew up in a tiny little rural village in Scotland, and went to University in a small English city. I made very good friends with a girl there, who told me about her boyfriend, X, but only ever said his first name. Long story short, he comes to visit and she's keen to introduce us- turns out he was my ex-boyfriend from my home village that I'd had at 16! His mum was my dentist, which I think was one of the reasons I had broken up with him . They're still together now.

It's not insanely far fetched but a huge coincidence, very much a surreal small world experience.

[babbaloushka]

My Nephew was once in San Fransisco for work, and went into a bar of an evening. He heard a man order a drink in a familiar accent and struck up a conversation, asking him where he was from. DN is fantastic at small talk, and they managed to ascertain that the other man lived a street away from the house DN had grown up in, another tiny rural village in the UK. It really is a small world, and I think the chances of that happening must have been very small!

[LadyEuphemia]

My husband and I grew up 100 miles away from each other and met through friends in my hometown. He’d come down to work, and shared a house with one of my work colleagues.

Fast forward 20 years and I was doing some family tree research and found in 1939, my Nan and her children had been evacuated from hometown to near where my husband is from - about 6 villages away. Totally weird had never heard anything about it as my Mum was born long after the war. So I decided to look up where his family were in 1939.

Turned out his Great Grandfather and teenage Grandfather and the rest of the family weren’t living in DH’s village, they were in the same village as my Grandmother and the kids.

They ran the village post office and shop, so every time my Nan sent a letter home to my Grandad and family, or had to buy supplies she would have to use the shop and interact with my future husband’s family. Such a weird co-incidence, the world really is a small place.

[foxychox]

I had spent a week on a very far flung island and was really looking forward to the second week of my holiday in a fancy resort. After 2 days in the fancy resort I had a strong urge to get home, I changed my flight and even had to pay more in order to do it but the feeling was so strong. Within 2 days of me being at home I was hospitalised with malaria....

[Sciurus83]

Ooh @babbaloushka that reminds me of my first boyfriend at uni. He had recently broken up with a girl from home, let's call her Jess. He sees a photo of my best friend from home and recognises her, this is his ex's new friend at uni who lives on the same floor. 150 miles away by closest friend has made a new best uni friend who lives on her floor and has been rather upset by breaking up with her boyfriend and that he is seeing someone new. Me. Which was weird and awkward when I went to visit my BF at uni. Hello! I am your new friend's old friend from home, I also am dating your recent ex....it would be less weird if we were in the same city but different unis 150 miles apart?!

[Countrygirl2021]

I was back packing in the middle of nowhere. On the edge of a jungle I met a guy and started chatting to him. Turned out he lived in the same tiny rural village back in the UK as I had just moved to.

[110APiccadilly]

I met someone at uni, and kept thinking of her with the wrong name. Couldn't get it out of my head that her name was "X". I told her this and she said her sister was called X - we eventually realised I'd known her sister through a children's club when I was about 5! (Both we and they had moved away since.)

[ncjustobe]

no one believes this
I have 2 ancestors, cousins, on opposite sides of ww1. both pilots, they got in to a dog fight, shot eachother down, ended up as actual fisticuffs. until they recognised eachother!
the one spent the rest of the war as the houseguest of the other.

that's the family legend anyway...

[CovidCorvid]

I met Imran Khan on a train to Leeds about 33 years ago. He signed my guns and roses poster. He give me a world exclusive saying he was retiring from cricket (article in that days evening standard said he was undecided). The train then broke down on the main east coast line and we had to get off the train in the dark in the middle of nowhere and walk down the track to another train and climb up onto the new train. He helped me down off the first train. I was about 12yo.

Wish I’d kept that guns and roses poster. My mum told me to...she said that he’ll be prime minister if Pakistan one day!

[Oneeyeopen]

We moved to a town 100 miles away and I got chatting to a new neighbour it turned out her friends had just moved to our previous town.

10 years later we moved again over 150 miles north and the neighbours opposite had moved from our recent town, just one road away from ours.

[Whoopsies]

My cousin has asd and was non verbal for the first 6 years of his life. When he was 6 we were all sat round the big family dining table at my grandparents house for Sunday lunch and he piped up to ask 'can somebody pass me the ketchup?' There was absolute silence as he had literally never spoken a word before. When asked why later he said he had never had anything worth saying before!! He talked a fair bit after that and is now a normal talking adult!

[Myexisadick]

Years ago I was on a beach in the Caribbean when I could see some hotel staff setting up for a wedding a bit further along the beach. Being the nosey cow I am I moved to a closer sun-lounger so I could watch the wedding.
Along came the bride and groom who were a couple I knew from my home town. They’d wanted to elope in secret and there’s me grinning, swigging a cocktail and waving like a maniac at the pair of them.

[ThePontiacBandit]

I had a friend at senior school who I lost touch with when we went to different sixth forms (no social media back then). 4 years later we went on a family holiday to Cyprus. We were walking out of the airport to find our transfer coach, I looked ahead and thought “He looks familiar...is it?..” then we started running towards each other and embraced! He was working over there as a holiday rep. My Mum’s comment was She’s only been in the country five minutes and she’s already met a bloke! We actually met up and went on a night out. It was really lovely to catch up with him

[benorjerry]

@Confusedmeanderings

I had to defer the exams for one of my degree units for two years. It was Medieval French and I had not touched the subject during those two years. I was OK with the literature part of the exam, but for part of it I also had to translate a text into English. The night before, I panicked, went to the uni library, selected a book in Medieval French at random from the shelves, opened it at random and translated a page. Then I thought sod it and went off to the bar. When I got into the exam the next day and looked at the text, it was the exact passage I had translated the night before.

In the week before my O level German exam I pestered my teacher with all kinds of weird words I wanted translating. Almost everyone was on the paper, she gave me some funny looks during the exam!

[benorjerry]

A week after we moved into our new house we flew to the US for a long planned holiday, flying into Salt Lake City. Being interested in genealogy we visited the Mormon Family History centre and were invited to look round. On a table there was a huge book of maps open, when I looked at it I almost fell over, one of the staff asked if I was OK and I managed to point at the old map, 'That's our house, we moved into it 10 days ago!', it was an early 20th century map of our village and the surrounding area.

[letsgowiththat]

@Myexisadick that's hilarious

[Reclinehard]

Not amazing but the best I can do /also placemarking: I met a gorgeous guy at a festival with v distinctively dyed hair. Spent the whole night talking, planned to come and see him perform the next day but slept through and missed it, didn't have his number or anything. Months later, ran into the living room to tell my mum something I'd just read, glanced at the TV screen and saw this guy on the news - back when Occupy first started he was camping outside St Paul's or somewhere and was being interviewed. Nearly fainted in teenage excitement /disbelief.

[MatildaTheCat]

Many many years ago my brother was at uni in a city a couple of hours away. I visited and he took me to a party where neither of us knew anyone. I was drunk. Quite drunk.

Anyway I got chatting to a young man I knew nothing about and for some entirely mad reason I told him I knew everyone in England. He immediately came up with the name of a girl who had been in my class at school for several years. I was able to ascertain that he’d been her boyfriend (whom I’d heard all about) and was able to give him a scary amount of detail about her and her love life.

I’ve never seen anyone look so utterly spooked.

NB I don’t recommend trying this as the hit rate is probably about one in a million.

[Reclinehard]

Another one - I was working in a Spanish city as an au pair and was quite lonely, and had been meaning to contact this girl (let's call her Anna) from my hometown who was living in the same city. I'd never met her but had mutual friends with her back home. I was cycling and had to stop and walk because the bike was crap. A woman asked me for directions, asking if I spoke English. We gradually established that we were from the same town. Turns out she was Anna's sister coming to visit. Wouldn't have asked me for directions if my bike hadn't broken. That was enough of a sign for me to get in touch with Anna, and we became good friends and I had a much less lonely time.