ver felt so close to a friend you felt like they were family? For two best friends in Hawaii, this turned out to be reality, as they found out after 60 years of friendship that they were actually biological brothers.
Hawaiian news channel KHON2 said in a report on Christmas Eve (Dec 24) that Mr Alan Robinson and Mr Walter Macfarlane were best friends for 60 years.
Both of them were born and raised in Hawaii and first met in sixth grade. Mr Macfarlane did not know who his father was, while Mr Robinson was adopted.
Mr Macfarlane had reportedly been searching for his father for years through social media and the Internet, turning to DNA matching websites as a last resort.
He found that a top match - someone with identical X chromosomes - had the username Robi737. Mr Robinson's nickname was Robi and he flew 737s for Aloha Airlines.
Mr Robinson had also been seeking answers about his family on such websites.
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After putting two and two together and checking back and forth, the two men realised they had the same mother.
"It was a shock," Mr Macfarlane told Khon2.
Mr Robinson added: "Yeah it was shock, definitely, and then we thought about it and compared forearms."
"Hairy arms, that did it!" Mr Macfarlane chimed in.
Mr Macfarlane told Hawaiian news site KITV.com that it never crossed his mind that they could be brothers.
"Never crossed my mind either, that's what really amazing, we go 60 years," Mr Robinson said.
He added that Mr Macfarlane, who is 15 months older, had been like a big brother to him all along.
"You know we'd go to Punaluu to go skin-diving, I'd be making noise in the water splashing around, he'd be teaching me how to do it right," he told KITV. "He'd always come out of the water with the biggest string of fish and I had the smallest."
After getting over the shock, the newly reunited brothers said they plan to travel and retire together. They told their families and friends the news over the Christmas weekend.
They called it the best Christmas present and miracle they could find.
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