Best Friends Of 60 Years Find Out They're Biological Brothers

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Best Friends Of 60 Years Find Out They're Biological Brothers

KHON

After 60 years of friendship, two men got the shock of their lives after finding out they're biological brothers.

Alan Robinson and Walter Macfarlane became best friends after they were introduced in their sixth grade class, and have been inseparable since.

The men - who were born 15 months apart - told Hawaiian television station KHON2 they've shared many similar activities throughout their lives, like cribbage and football.

"Let's see, well we love to play cribbage. We've been playing cribbage all our lives," Macfarlane said.

"I beat him the last time we played," Robinson added.

The two friends also shared comparable home lives, as Robinson was adopted, and Macfarlane never knew his biological father.

"I had a younger brother that I lost when he was 19, so I never had nieces or nephews. I thought I'll never know my birth mother, I'll never have any nieces or nephews," Robinson said.

For years, Macfarlane sought out more of his family, but all leads led to dead ends. With the help of his family, he decided to turn to DNA matching websites.

"So then we started digging into all the matches he started getting," Cindy Macfarlane-Flores, Macfarlane's daughter said.

When Macfarlane received his DNA matches, an individual with the username Robi737 was on the top of his list. They shared identical X chromosomes.

Unbeknownst to Macfarlane, Robinson had also used Ancestry.com to find his family.

"As a nickname everybody called him Robi and he flew 737s for Aloha Airlines, he was a pilot," Macfarlane-Flores said.

After a few phone calls, the pair realized they shared the same biological mother.

"It was a shock," Macfarlane said.

"Yea it was [a] shock, definitely and then we thought about it and compared forearms," Robinson continued.

"Yea hairy arms, that did it!" Macfarlane added.

The pair quickly told their families about their parentage, and planned to spend the holidays together, not only as best friends, but as brothers.

"This guy was, he was like an older brother all along, you know we'd go to Punaluu, go skin-diving, I'd be making noise in the water splashing around, he'd be teaching me how to do it right. He'd always come out of the water with the biggest string of fish and I had the smallest," Robbinson told Island News.

"As it should be, you're my younger brother," Macfarlane said.

Do you have a special bond with your best friend?

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