Best friends Alan Robinson and Walter Macfarlane have been best friends for 60 years, but recently discovered they’re even closer than they once thought – they’re brothers.
The pair from Honolulu, Hawaii met in sixth grade at a Honolulu prep school after being born 15 months apart. Macfarlane never knew his father and Robinson was adopted.
Honolulu news station KHON-TV reported the pair separately sought answers about their ancestry by using family history and DNA-matching websites after unsuccessful searches on social media.
Remarkably Macfarlane found someone on the site with identical X chromosomes, and the username Robi737 – who he would later discover shared the same birth mother.
It was Robinson, who had used the same website to find answers, is nicknamed Robi and flew 737s for Aloha Airlines.
“It was a shock,” Macfarlane told the local news outlet.
👍 Hence the saying: We cross paths for a reason. There are no accidents. https://t.co/V7CZiIRKwp
— Supriya Sehgal (@SupriyaSehgal_3) December 27, 2017
“It was an overwhelming experience, it’s still overwhelming,” added Robinson. “I don’t know how long it’s going to take for me to get over this feeling.
“This is the best Christmas present I could ever imagine having.”
The pair told their family about the revelation over the weekend, and say they plan to travel and enjoy retirement together.