Three Identical Strangers

When I tell people my story

they don't believe it.

I guess I wouldn't believe the story

if someone else were telling it, but, I'm telling it and it's true, every word of it.

It started when I was born, 56 years ago,

but the real story began when I was 19 years old and I went to college.

It was 1980. It was the first day of school

at Sullivan County Community College up in the Catskills,

about 110 miles from where I grew up. So, I drove up there alone.

# I get the same old dreams #

# Same time every night #

- # Fall to the ground and I wake up... # - I used to have this really old car.

It was a Volvo. And it was a 1970 Volvo.

Had like 130,000 miles on it. And the car was burgundy and the hood was green.

- Actually, the car was called the Old Bitch. - # Since you been gone #

# Since you been gone #

- # I'm out of my head... # - But the Old Bitch got me there.

Sullivan was a community college.

This wasn't some longstanding institution of higher learning.

All these station wagons are dropping kids off.

I was nervous, I'd just gotten to the school, I didn't know anybody. I was a freshman.

I was never the captain of the football team in high school,

so I was never really like popular.

So, I'm walking around trying to find where my dorm is.

Meanwhile all these people are coming up to me

saying "Hi, how are you?"

"How was your summer?" "Mine was great. How was yours?" "Super".

Why are they asking me how my summer was? I don't know.

Everybody's being extremely friendly to me and they're going out of their way to do it.

I don't mean just a "hi", I mean, claps on the back and high fives.

And I was a little bit bewildered by this because

no one gets this kind of a welcome on their first day at school.

And girls were kissing me,

like fully kissing me saying, "I'm so glad you came back".

And I was saying "thank you" and "hello" back

but I had never been there before and I didn't know them.

It was bizarre.

And the next thing I heard from right behind me.

"Welcome back. Eddy!"

"Eddy! How are you? Eddy, hi!" I'm like, "My name's not Eddy.

"I don't know what you're talking about. I just got up here."

"Sure, Eddy, you're really funny, you're really funny, real funny."

I'm like, "I'm not Eddy. I don't know who Eddy is."

"Welcome back, Eddy", they were all saying.

I finally made it to this dump of a dorm room.

Before a minute had gone by...

"Who now? Who now is gonna come to find Eddy?"

I had been at college

the previous year with Eddy, and I knew that he wasn't coming back to school.

As soon as this guy turned around, I... I was, I was actually shaking.

I was... I know all colour from my face dropped 'cause I knew it was his double.

He had the same grin, the same hair, the same expressions.

- It was his double. - And I see this guy's face and he's like...

just standing there.

The first thing out of my mouth was "Were you adopted?"

and I was like, "Yes".

I said, "Is your birthday July 12th?" He said yes.

I was like, "July 12th 1961".

"Oh my God", I said, "You're not going to believe this". I said...

"You have a twin brother. You have a twin."

- "Oh my God." - I said, "Come with me".

And the two of us are crammed into this phone booth,

shoulder to shoulder and you know, we had to like, close the door of the phone booth.

And I'm trying to put the coins in

and they keep falling on the floor and Bobby's picking up the coins.

And he calls this guy and he's like, "Hey, Eddy, you're not going to believe this,

"you're not going to believe this. Eddy, Eddy, you are not going to believe this."

This guy's more hysterical than I am like weirded out.

"Eddy, you are not going to believe this."

So I was like, "Give me the phone." So I'm like, "Hi, Eddy?" "Yes."

But it was my voice that said, "Yes."

And I said, "Hi, Eddy, my name is Robert Shafran

"and, um... I'm meeting all these people "who say I'm you."

And he said, "Uh-huh, yeah, I've been getting some calls."

I said, "Were you adopted?" and he said, "Yes."

And I said, "When was your birthday?"

"July 12th."

And I said, "Do you know what the name of the agency was?" And he said, "No, hold on".

And I heard him go like, "Mum?"

And he came back and he said, "Louise Wise Services."

Sometimes when you are just having a dream, you know this can't be real, this can't be real.

But you know there's nothing you can do to stop it, start it, change it, you just go with it

and that's what I was doing. I just wanted to see what was gonna happen next.

And I'm like, "Let's go. Let's go meet Eddy".

So we got into the Old Bitch.

It was about 9 o'clock at night and it's about a two-hour ride.

And we were speeding on route 17.

We were going 100 miles per hour, perhaps more.

We were speeding.

We're driving as fast as this car would go. It was shaking.

And we got pulled over by a New York State trooper.

And as I roll down my window there's this gigantic cop

with like the sunglasses even though it's night time.

In the big hat. He said, "You know, I clocked you at 88 in a 50.

- "Son, you better have a really good reason." - And I was like,

"Well, Officer, you're never going to believe this."

The two of us are like yelling at this guy.

"You, you don't know, "this guy, this guy has a twin brother,

"he was adopted and we're going to Long Island to go see..."

And, and, and the guy was, "Yeah, right." You know.

"Here's, here's your ticket have a good day."

And on to Long Island we went.

So, we got there.

But it's like, the middle of the night.

And it's this really quiet neighbourhood.

So, we get out of the car.

And walk up this little path to the house. And the lights were on in the house.

And I reached out to knock on the door

and as I reached out to knock on the door it opens.

And there I am.

His eyes were my eyes and my eyes were his eyes

and it's true.

They looked exactly alike. They're duplicates of each other.

There was no doubt in my mind that they were twins.

He's going, "Oh my God". I'm going, "Oh my God".

He's going, "Holy crap." I'm going, "Holy crap."

They just looked at each other and they moved...

Every time Bobby moved his head, Eddy moved

and then Eddy would move and then Bobby would move,

like... like they were looking at a mirror.

It was the weirdest thing.

It was like the world faded away,

and it was just me and Eddy.

So, I'm in the newsroom, it's the middle of a busy day,

we got a call from somebody who says they have an amazing story to tell us,

we are not going to believe this story,

and my first reaction, "Ah, it's a hoax".

So, I told our reporter, "I want to rent a plane".

In those days we had enough money to do this.

"I... I want to rent a plane, I want to see these two kids face to face or I don't believe this."

We flew the journalist up to Sullivan Community College

and he called me and he said, "Howie, it's true, it's true.

And I remember saying, "Oh my God, this is a great story.

"This is a memorable heart-warming story."

And then the story went from being amazing to incredible, OK, from amazing to incredible.

I was on the New York Subway.

Quite late at night.

Read an article about two boys who found each other.

That were twins separated at birth and found each other

at Sullivan County Community College.

There was no picture, but the story was fascinating.

I came home, and went to sleep.

My mother came into the room

and said, "Wake up, wake up, I have to show you something".

And she shows me a newspaper

with a picture of two boys

and I had to like, focus and I looked at the photograph and I said, "Is that David?"

And she's like, "No, but look at the hands".

And I was like, "Holy mackerel. This is beyond amazing".

It was a picture in the newspaper of two guys,

in the "Post" and I picked up the picture and I looked at it,

and I was like in shock,

cos the two guys in the "Post" looked exactly, exactly

like... like my friend David. I stared at it.

And it wasn't even just the look on their face.

It was the way that they were holding their hands.

They have these big meaty hands. And David always had this,

these hands that looked like baseball mitts.

And when I saw their hands, I just knew that this is David.

It was just a normal day. I got to school, ran into my buddy Alan.

He said, "David, take a look at this".

And he's got a copy of the "New York Post".

And, um, he opens it up and says, "Look at this. "Look, look familiar?" Something to that effect.

And I said, "Yeah, right. Sure".

But then we looked at it a little bit more closely.

It was an article, it said, "Twins reunited after more than 19 years".

And it had a picture of two of what looked like me.

It all started to sink in.

"Holy shit, oh my God.

"Do you? This is un... this is not believable, this is, this is unbelievable. Wow!

"This... this is big, this is serious, this is just not some kind of crazy coincidence.

"This is not a minor resemblance.

"This is real, this is happening, this is really, really serious."

I ditched classes and got home.

My mother was waiting at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee.

And I said, "Mum, you see this?"

She said, "You see this?" And we kinda exchanged newspapers.

It had "...born Long Island Jewish Hospital".

"July 12th, 1961."

And it was Louise Wise adoption agency.

I mean, I always knew growing up that I was adopted.

My parents were always open about it.

But it said Eddy Galland of New Hyde Park, Long Island,

Robert Shafran of Scarsdale, New York.

I remember it said, "Son of prominent Scarsdale physician Mort Shafran"

and, uh... my first thought, I said, "He's got the wealthy family.

"That SOB's probably driving a Benz! He got a doctor!"

And I remember being with David in the kitchen.

We were like, really nervous.

I mean we were, you know, jumping around, it was...

You know, we were 19 years old. I mean this was surreal.

And David picked up the phone and he called Information,

and he reached Eddy's mum.

- And I said, "Hi, is Eddy home?" - She says, "No, who's calling, please?"

And I thought, "OK, "now I've gotta go into this whole thing on the phone".

I said, "Well, my name is David Kellman, and I was born July 12th 1961

"and I'm looking at a newspaper

"and, uh... basically I think I'm looking at two of me. I think I might be the third".

And I think she dropped the phone, actually.

And I remember hearing her voice over the phone,