Help me solve this mystery!

[Potterwatch89]

Posting here for traffic...3 months ago I used my driving licence as ID to vote in the general election. When getting out the car at home, I put it on top of my car whilst getting some other bits out and the wind blew it off and into the surrounding driveway area. Despite looking extensively I couldn't find it so reluctantly ordered a new one from the dvla. Now the weird bit...I have just received a hand written signed for envelope containing the exact lost licence wrapped in bubble wrap with no other accompanying information like a note etc. when looking up the Royal Mail tracking number it was posted at a location a couple of hundred miles from my address. The weirdest bit is the post office is only a few miles down the road of a location I used to live in for several years. I guess my AIBU is am I being weird for being a little freaked out by this?! Also any ideas of how my lost licence travelled back to my old address, and then found it's way back to me 3 months later would be appreciated!

Was it from Swansea, by any chance? It could be that someone has sent it to DVLA as lost property and they have sent it back to you from their head office in Swansea.

I'd assume a small child found it while on holiday and a parent found it later on wedged in the car seat.

Nope nowhere near that location, and the envelope was hand written rather than from an official source if you get what I mean

I live in a cul de sac in a non tourist destination so unfortunately unlikely

Presumably the old licence wasn't registered to your old address?

Edited obviously not as it found it's way back to your current address.

Nope, new address as I've also lived here several years

Gulls. A gull found it and flew off with it. Someone found it and sent it back. It's the only logical explanation.

A teenager found it and has been using it as ID to buy booze. Now they are 18 and don't need it anymore. They have moved away to university in the place they posted it back from.

Wouldn't it be great if the sender was on here and sees this thread

Wow that is a bit mind bending. The only two likely explanations are:

1. That someone dodgy found it, tried to use it for nefarious reasons and then when they couldn't, suddenly felt a pang of guilt and so they posted it back to you from another location (the fact that it's where you used to live being coincidental)

Or

1. Someone local found it and meant to drop it off/post it before going away but never got round to it and so they posted it whilst they were away? I've had a parcel to send before and not had chance to do so until we were on a UK holiday, so have posted from either the nearest town to where we were staying or I've done so on the way there or back.

Hoping if that's the case that's all it's been used for. I am a bit worried now that my identity has been used in some way, but my credit history isn't showing up anything dodgy (yet!)

That's kind of what I was hoping also to thank them, as they paid to send it signed for delivery and everything.

These 2 are very probable. I think the 2 things for me are the location of it being sent being right near my old address but very far away from my current address, and also that it's been 3 months since I lost it. Very weird!

I’m with @unsync . It’s a combination of being blown around by the wind and a bird/birds of some sort have picked it up and dropped it somewhere miles away from home.

You could find the local Facebook group for wherever it was sent from and ask on there?

Have you been back anywhere near your old address in the last 3 months? It might be possible that it actually never blew off your car in the first place but was caught in/on your car somewhere eg. slipped down inside the fixpoints for roof rails on top of your car, or slipped inside the front vent between your windscreen and your car bonnet and that's why you didn't find it when you searched. And then fell out weeks or months later when you were driving near your old address?

This is what I thought.

Nope not been back there for well over a year 😬 I wish I had though as that would hopefully explain it

Ah maybe! Is this the kind of thing birds would pick up?!

Birds aren't going to fly miles with a driving licence in their beak.

Two possibilities.

i) It got blown away. Someone local picked it up and put it in the car to post, but forgot about it until they were a long way away for some reason. Work, holiday home, holiday destination.

ii) It somehow got stuck or blown into a vehicle. Maybe underneath or on a wheelarch or something. Then taken to another place and fell off.

What sort of condition was it in when it was returned ?

Could it have gone into a drain?

We all know it was The Borrowers 😀

Condition is really good which makes me wonder about the bird/car wheel arch/drains theories as presumably it would be in a pretty poor condition 🤔

Blew somewhere odd - got stuck on the bottom of someones bags then into a car and then found when the person was back home some considerable time later.

Pure coincidence it was near to where you used to live.

Most birds don't typically pick up that sort of thing (very hard to pick up if flat on the floor) though corvids are the exception and do like to play with the oddest of things. But then they also like to stash those things, never to be seen again!

That's weird, OP. Can't help you solve your mystery, but it reminded me of a something which happened to me.

Someone told me that they'd just got a new car tax disc (remember those?) and, while putting it in place with the windows open, the damn thing blew away - and despite their best efforts, they couldn't find it. I secretly thought 'how stupid of them, and how could you not find it?!'.

While I was waiting in my car for my daughter to come out of her piano lesson a month or two later, on a summer day with a very light breeze, I got out my tax disc and tried to put it in the holder. It blew away through the window, and although I searched all over - moving the car and checking under it, looking over people's garden walls etc etc, I never found it and had to get another. I wasn't quite so smug after that and it's still a complete mystery!