Man spots someone with same unusual last name on TV weather report— it turned out to be his brother

One ordinary day, Randy Waites, who had never known his father, was watching the weather report when a name on the television caught his eye. A man, whose name was Eddie Waites, was being interviewed as part of the report on Sacramento-based NBC affiliate KCRA-TV. Although the name appeared on the screen only briefly, the uncommon last name they shared immediately grabbed Randy's attention. In fact, he didn't know anyone else with that last name. Randy's interest was piqued. He turned to his daughter, Camilla, and shared what he had just seen. She looked at the man and could see her father in him. "I saw [Eddie's] features and he actually looked a lot like my dad in the eyes," Camilla told KCRA-TV.

Randy could hardly believe it—an uncanny resemblance was one thing, but could they actually be related? Camilla searched for Eddie Waites online, and the similarities were too striking to ignore. Randy later shared, "I seen him on the news and I had never met anyone with the same spelling as my last name," said Randy later. Soon, they connected with each other through a phone call and discovered that they were brothers. "It was funny how we clicked, it was like were friends for 20 years," he said. The pair had spent more than 50 years not knowing they had a brother. Eddie knew it was his brother as soon as he saw a photo of him. "Once I seen a picture of him, I seen my dad. I seen our dad," said Eddie. "The whole thing is surreal. To have not only a brother, but a family I never knew existed is beyond words," he added. Eddie 'knew it was real.'

The brothers discovered they’d lived just 30 miles apart their entire lives. When they finally met, they were overcome with emotion, sharing a long, heartfelt hug before Eddie kissed his brother on the cheek. "It's just unbelievable," said Eddie, and Randy agreed. "Where have you been all my life, " asked Randy, and Eddie turned it on him. "Where have you been?" Speaking to the network, Eddie said, "It's almost an out-of-body experience," before adding that it was surreal to find a new relative out of the blue. "Beyond words," said Eddie. Soon the pair's families met up as well. "It was crazy," said Randy's 13-year-old son Dalton on gaining a new family. 

Eddie's immediate plan? To spend as much time as possible catching up with his brother. "Filling him in on all the gaps of his life, and filling in all the gaps in my life," he said. "I've never met my father, never saw a picture of him my entire life," said Randy. "[Eddie] has been texting me all kinds of different stuff, pictures of my grandfather, and filling in on the family history that I never had on that side."

This article originally appeared 3 years ago.