Page 7 | Can we have a thread where we share unlikely but true stories?

letsgowiththat · 2021-04-08T11:27:10+00:00

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

wigglerose · 09/04/2021 16:52

As part of my job I once had to confact two people to tell them about their long forgotten pension scheme. One was worth about 200k (the beneficiary was loaded anyway) one was worth about 15k (the beneficiary was less loaded so a v nice nest egg). The first beneficiary's daughter rang me to ask if it was for real. Very satisfying to say it wasn't a scam.

ExJasper · 09/04/2021 16:52

Both sets of dh's grandparents had the same Christian names - so both grandmas were Mary for example, and both grandpas were Joseph (not their real names!). I always found that hugely coincidental.

Dd and I quite often do that thing where one of us will ring the other, just as we were thinking about each other. A couple of years ago she was on holiday with her friends, and I was home alone. I was just wondering how she was getting on when I heard her hiccoughing downstairs. "That's strange", I thought, "why is she back early from her holiday?"

I was just about to go downstairs to see what had happened to her when she rang me. I told her about being absolutely convinced I'd just heard her hiccoughing downstairs, and she said "I actually have the hiccups right now".

goingtosaygoodbye · 09/04/2021 16:53

@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.

Love this

SunshineCake · 09/04/2021 16:59

My friend had a friend who she told me about and then they lost touch. A few years later he made contact with me, not knowing who I was and we are now married.

Blyatiful · 09/04/2021 17:02

My Dad used to spend all of his spare time messing about with cars - converting from LHD to RHD, doing up classic cars and selling them on. He always used to fill up with petrol at the next village on his way home from work. There was a man there with a flash vintage car that he was having problems with. My Dad offered to have a look, went back to his house and sorted out the problem. They got on really well and my Dad would often pop over to look at this bloke’s cars and have a drive or a tinker. I was watching Top of the Pops one evening, when my Dad came in and recognised his car mate. It was Midge Ure. He had no idea.

MrsCalypsoGrant · 09/04/2021 17:03

In the late 1970s my partner's mother was driving along a main road when she saw an accident had occurred up ahead, a car had impacted a bridge. Emergency services were present. She waited in the tailback for a while but she had my 2 year old partner in the back so after a while she (and the other stuck motorists) turned round and headed home. She told her husband all about this when she got home. The next day she was concerned about what might have happened to the people in the car so she phoned the Police to enquire (this was before confidentiality and data protection etc!) The Police were baffled and assured her that no such accident had occurred on that stretch of road the night before.

The next night the Police turned up at her door. The accident she'd described had happened about an hour before. The Police wanted to know how she had predicted the events in incredible detail 48 hours before they'd actually happened

My partner's mother had a couple of other strange incidents like this happen, she is sadly gone now but her husband is still alive. He's very rational/scientific and not at all woo, but says he witnessed everything and simply can't explain it.

SchadenfreudePersonified · 09/04/2021 17:05

@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)....

Australia is out to kill us all!

Thorilicious · 09/04/2021 17:10

My husband and his friend got chatting to an older guy in a pub in London, while they waited for me to finish work. The man was telling them his life story, and mentioned he'd worked his whole life for a certain company.
DH said that my DF had spent his life working for the same company. Turned out he used to work with my dad. We got them back in touch with each other.

KisstheTeapot14 · 09/04/2021 17:13

@blissfulllife I LOVE your story about the little birthday cat who walked in!

SignMyStookie · 09/04/2021 17:14

My DCs paternal Great-Grandparents had 9 children. They split up and the GGF married again, he had children with his new wife and each child that came along was named after a child of his first marriage. He then split from the second wife and started a relationship with her sister, had more children and continued to name them after the children from his first marriage.

SchadenfreudePersonified · 09/04/2021 17:14

I'm enjoying this thread very much.

I believe that most (if not all) posters are giving honest accounts of incredible coincidences (coincidences DO happen, for you cynics!0

But you know something - even if one or two are exaggerations I DON'T CARE!

They are lovely stories.

TableFlowerss · 09/04/2021 17:16

My uncle told me that when he was a kid there was a lady up the street, who had family from Liverpool. One day this 11/12 year old boy was outplaying and my uncle started chatting to him and they hung about together for the duration the boy was here.

The boy was called John Lennon! He swears it was ‘thee John Lennon’!

A friend of mine knows ‘Lucy’ from ‘Lucy in the sky with diamonds’!

Cowbells · 09/04/2021 17:21

@MrsCalypsoGrant

In the late 1970s my partner's mother was driving along a main road when she saw an accident had occurred up ahead, a car had impacted a bridge. Emergency services were present. She waited in the tailback for a while but she had my 2 year old partner in the back so after a while she (and the other stuck motorists) turned round and headed home. She told her husband all about this when she got home. The next day she was concerned about what might have happened to the people in the car so she phoned the Police to enquire (this was before confidentiality and data protection etc!) The Police were baffled and assured her that no such accident had occurred on that stretch of road the night before.

The next night the Police turned up at her door. The accident she'd described had happened about an hour before. The Police wanted to know how she had predicted the events in incredible detail 48 hours before they'd actually happened

My partner's mother had a couple of other strange incidents like this happen, she is sadly gone now but her husband is still alive. He's very rational/scientific and not at all woo, but says he witnessed everything and simply can't explain it.

I love stories like this. They intrigue me.

muddyford · 09/04/2021 17:22

I took my parents to the officers' mess for lunch. They got chatting to one of the chaplains. It turned out the chaplain's father had served his five year apprenticeship alongside my father.

dobidobidooo · 09/04/2021 17:23

When I was in my first year at uni I got my schedule for my exams at the end of the year. I was surprised to a module on it that I had not opted for. So I took it to the office and explain that there was a mistake and I wasn't in the module suggested. I was then informed that the module in question was in fact mandatory!! I had missed the whole year...luckily for me it turned out to be my only module that had no Continuous Assessment (which was odd) so I had no lost marks. I crammed as much as I could and got 84%...the highest Mark out of all of my exams 🤣🤣

benorjerry · 09/04/2021 17:25

[quote JustNotFunAnymore]**@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![/quote]
The father of Gary, Phil and Tracey Neville was called Neville Neville.

JustLyra · 09/04/2021 17:27

My DS works in a care gone. Early last year he was playing scrabble with a resident, a lovely lady who told him that she used to play scrabble with her best friend from school. She told him they’d stopped spending much time together after her friend had to take on her grandchildren because her son’s drug addiction. She told a few random stories and DS realised that her friend was my Nana. I got very teary when DS relayed some of the stories he was told from my Nana’s POV.

JustLyra · 09/04/2021 17:27

*Care home

LemonMeringueThreePointOneFour · 09/04/2021 17:30

@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!

I've heard a virtually identical story to that several times, except it was passing the pepper. I don't remember who it was about, but it certainly wasn't Whoopsies' cousin.

TatianaBis · 09/04/2021 17:31

@MojoJojo71

My dad was adopted and had struggled to find his birth mother for many years. My mum had a heart attack and while recovering in coronary care she struck up a friendship with the elderly woman in the next bed. They got chatting about their children and the lady told her she’d had a son who had been adopted and it turned out to be my dad. I was with him at home when he got the phone call from my mum to say ‘I think I’ve found your mother’

Wow, that's amazing.

SchadenfreudePersonified · 09/04/2021 17:35

@parsnipsnotsprouts

Cat story is my favourite so far

And mine.

LemonMeringueThreePointOneFour · 09/04/2021 17:36

A few years ago someone new started in my department. He had an accent from a completely different part of the country, so I asked him where he was from. Turns out we grew up in the same small town (500 miles away) and went to the same tiny primary school.

Ilovelove · 09/04/2021 17:38

@Cowbells and @ChristmasFluff

I have seen the end of a rainbow and people don't believe me either. It came down in front of the trees and it was amazing!

33goingon64 · 09/04/2021 17:38

Soon after I met my DH it emerged via a chance conversation that my mum's cousin is also his exW's mum's cousin. He is an MP so a name we were both familiar with, otherwise we would probably never have known. She and I are from completely different parts of the country and different backgrounds.

SnipSnapGiraffe · 09/04/2021 17:42

I had a dream that my best friend (who was pregnant) had a baby boy and called him (let’s say) Charlie (not really Charlie but not particularly common at the time name). I emailed her sister and mentioned the dream. Next day my best friend phoned to tell me she’d had the baby that morning and his name was Charlie. I laughed and asked if it was a joke because of my email to her sister. It wasn’t, and she hadn’t heard from her sister and didn’t believe me until her sister produced a copy of my email.