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 also tend to have a weird sixth sense for big life events happening in my friends lives. So many times, I've mused to myself or dreamt that a friend was pregnant, and then find out soon after that in fact, they were! Similar with pregnant friends giving birth - OK, less of a woo maybe as I was aware they were due, but I'd get a strong sense or have a dream that baby had been born, to then hear it had happened a few hours later. Same goes for couples splitting - I just get a sense of change, and then ask around (or nosy on Facebook) to see that I'm right. And before you ask, some of these people I'm not friends with on Facebook etc to know it's happened. Just one of those things 👀

When I was about 15 I dreamt I called my best mate from a phone box outside a pub we used to sneak into.

In school the next day she came up and said she dreamt I called her from the phone outside the pub.

I didn't tell her I'd had that dream.

Pretty shit one but to us it was amazing!

I went out with someone who had an auntie who knew my mother at school, they were good friends, my mum died when I was a baby and the auntie came back to visit her parents (from a far flung country) and I was sitting with BF in their kitchen, the poor woman walked in to everyone cheering and smiling only to clap eyes on me and turn tail, walk out of the house and burst out in tears. She literally thought she'd seen a ghost!

Years ago I met someone who told me that he had a gift. I assumed that he was trying to chat me up so told him to read me. He told me things that literally no one could have known. Things like sleeping in my dogs bed when i was scared as a child and how my grandfather had died. He also told me that my grandfather was proud of me despite him having died years previously. It was really strange

DD went to the US to do camp america in Pensylvania, she got chatting with a girl in camp who it turned out came from our small town, although she had moved away.
When they came back , this girl was visiting the town but stayed with us for night and next day went to visit her ex SIL. DD was leaving to go back to uni next day and there was a problem with trains, so we ended up picking up DDs friend from her SIL, who i recognised as my ex childminders granddaughter. I had known her since she was a little girl!

I love this thread!

I met my older brother for the first time last year. He was adopted at birth by a lovely family, My mum went on to have me 15 months later but I had very little to do with her during my life and knew very little about my brother.

Upon meeting my DB, it turns out he grew up in the next town along from where I grew up, his school played rugby against my school and I undoubtedly watched him play at least a couple of times without knowing.

He went to the same university as a close friend of mine and worked as a DJ in one of the club's we used to go to whenever I would visit my friend.

Our daughters are of very similar age and his daughters name was number one on my name list for my DD until right at the last minute when I changed my mind. Both DD's and Dan's names are very unusual and more masculine than feminine.

He lives about half an hour from where I live (not really anywhere near where either of us grew up) and his in laws live about a 4 minute drive from me on the same road as my DC's childminder. Until we moved 3 years ago, we actually lived on the other side of the main road from where his in-laws live, literally spitting distance. He has spent Christmas day just across the road from me many times and I didn't even know.

Small world.

DN's not Dan's

@custardbear

When my gran died in 1980 there was a big storm and our house was struck by lightening, only tiny damage and my mum always said it was her mum saying goodbye, my mum then said, for years, she'd make it thunder when she died to say goodbye to me. June 28 20012 my mum died. There was a MASSIVE supercell thunderstorm across the UK which started over my house about 20 minutes after she died (she was in Australia and I was UK with a newborn so couldn't be with her)- I never believed up til then that there was anything after death

I remember that thunderstorm. My mum was in hospital, she died a week later, but I remember thinking how ominous it was. Really wierd light.

When I was 19 and still living at home I did a big tidy of my room one day. Just after I'd finished I had a phone call on the house phone downstairs. It was a friend calling to say our mutual school friend had died.
I went back upstairs and there in the middle of the floor was a passport-style photo of my deceased friend just sitting all alone in an otherwise pristine room.

My DP and I years ago were on holiday in Australia (first and so far only time there for us both). Were in a clothes/undies shop in Melbourne looking for Bonds undies and we'd wandered to different bits of the shop. I heard a woman start shrieking and distractedly thought, 'She's annoying'*, then looked up and she was shrieking because she'd spotted my DP. It was a friend of a friend from back home in the UK. OK, she was working in Melbourne, although I hadn't known that. And she came into the same underwear shop on a random weekday afternoon...

*I don't actually find her annoying, she's ace

A friend of my parents originally from Kosovo came to this country as an asylum seeker. He was living in a hostel. He found a handbag when he was out one day, designer bag and a purse with lots of money. He found the ladies phone number inside a little diary in the bag and called her from a payphone and she met him for him to give it back.

She was so grateful! She took his name and date of birth. He was probably thinking - wtf ?!

A few weeks later he got UK citizenship, her husband worked in the home office and pushed it through for him.

I was amazed when he told us the story because he was so desperate for money at the time and it showed just how much of a good man he is, that he saw that bag get back to its rightful owner. And he was repaid very handsomely.

My Mum lost her engagement ring on the day of my christening. 20 years later, my Grandma (living 3 doors down) pulled out a carrot from her veggie patch, with Mum’s engagement ring on it.

VapeVamp12, that's a wonderful story. What a good man. (and a good woman and Home Office man!)

@Garlia

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!

Are you sure you're fully human

My best friend of 20 years and I met our spouses separately, but within a week of each other 15 years ago, but that was just the start of the strange coincidences. My friend and I lived (together) and worked in London, but I met my DH at a house party of another friend I was visiting who lives in Oxford. My friend met her future DH the same week through her work.

We then discovered our spouses-to-be knew each other very well, had similar names with the same initials, were from the same small town in a different part of the country, went to primary school together and their parents were friends. The husbands also share a birthday, which is also the same date as my friend’s birthday. Odd odd odd.

So eventually after marriage my friend and I ended up living in the husbands small home town close to each other as both husbands needed to be near their families.

Then we both got pregnant at the same time, had a girl each within a week of each other.

Both of us then had years of fertility issues, had both hit the big 4-0 and given up on more babies when we both had surprise pregnancies again, with due dates 10 days apart - both had boys!

Finally... when my best friend and I met, we bonded over the fact we both have parents called Dave and Brenda 😳

We went to Brighton regularly and always made a trip to a certain ice cream shop which has a stand outside saying "if your name is ...... you get a free ice creqm" one day we were driving down and my daughter said with certainty it will be my name today, her name is not particularly common, we got there and it was and we were all very impressed. The next time we went the kids were harrasing me to get a kitten and I jokingly said pick a name for the kitten and if its on the ice cream stand we'll get one. I felt totally confident that she couldn't pick the name twice, she picked a typical cat name, could be used for a human but I've never come across one and sure enough we got there and she had picked the right name! we got 2 kittens in the end!

@IntermittentParps he really is one of the nicest people I have ever met!

[heart emoji] to Vape (sorry, don't know how to put in an actual emoji!)

I got angry after my daughter died and threw a necklace I wore whilst she was ill away, in the bin. It has some distinct charms on it.

On the 5th anniversary of her death, that necklace was in my jewellery box.

I used to work in a shop when I was a student and quite often I would have to stand at the entrance and hand out catalogues or say hello as people came in. The shop front faced a busy high street.

One day I was stood there and it was a really busy Saturday with huge crowds of people walking on the high street. I noticed in the crowds a little girl walking. She looked about 4 or 5 and something just felt 'off'. I only had a split second glance at her as she walked past the shop doors but I got a strong feeling.

I checked with my colleague if I could leave for a second and run out the doors. I caught up with the little girl and asked people in the crowds 'is this girl with you?'.

It turned out she wasn't with anybody and was walking alone.

I walked her back to the shop and we called the police. Eventually the police found out the parents were sitting outside a coffee shop on a different street. They had realised she'd gone missing but were foreign and didn't know you were supposed to alert the security, police etc when a child goes missing.

I sometimes think back to this event and feel glad I found her and not somebody with bad intentions. I also think it was a lucky coincidence I just happened to glance at her in that split second and feel that something didn't look right. The crows around her were completely unaware she was alone.

Remembered another one

Was visiting a relative in Liverpool. Got on the train at Birmingham on a foul windy very wet day. Got as far as Crewe when we were told flooding ahead had meant train was terminating. I was rushing around trying to find a connecting train and was getting quite stressed. Spotted another lady who looked as stressed as me and she was also trying to get to Liverpool. So we stuck together and managed to get another train then two buses to get there. We had a right laugh and turned it into a bit of a pub crawl lol.

We finally get there and go to order taxis and say our goodbyes. Turned out she wasn't just going to the same area as me she actually lived two doors down from where I was going!.

Still friends 15 years later

My stepson's ex, the mother of his children, is the second cousin of my ex. They have never met - I don't think they are even aware of the connection or that they are related to each other.

My ex was adopted at birth and when we were together he successfully reunited with his birth mother, who had moved away and was no longer in contact with her family. My ex had gone through electoral rolls and so on and knew the names of his aunts and uncles. When I met DH, he introduced me to one of his army pals, who happened to be married to one of my ex's aunts (really unusual name, very close physical resemblance so I knew who she was). A few years later DSS met the niece of this woman and had two children with her, unaware that we knew individuals within the family. Because ex's mum was chucked out at 15 when she was pregnant, she was not spoken of in the family apparently.

So weirdly, I am very loosely related (by marriage) to my ex, and my DS has a blood relationship through his nieces. Strange or what?!

nothing to add really only that DM has a friend who contacted her years ago - they'd both stayed in the same house that was haunted - due to apparently a murder, they found out when a police officer separately visited the house and looked into this. My DM was no longer living there and this was after she'd lived there.

My DM was pretty freaked out by it because she'd not seen a ghost or anything but had had a very unpleasant experience there.

When I was a teen I had to sillitid do many times that my tonsils actually eroded away and now I don't have any - I found out when a doctor examined me and asked when I'd had them removed (gross)

*tonsilitis