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I sat next to a stranger on a plane — we were stunned that we were…

He thought he was taking a different kind of trip.

A UK airplane passenger likely thought he’d flown to a parallel dimension after sitting next to his inflight facsimile — who shared his name, looks and even a friend.

“It’s crazy. What are the odds on that?” Mark Garland, 58, told South West News Service while describing the mind-bending encounter, which occurred on March 2 on a flight from London to Bangkok, Thailand.

The bus driver, who hails from Trowbridge, Wiltshire, had reportedly been checking into his flight when the gate agents perplexingly told him that he’d already checked in.

What would you do if you faced off with a clone on a trip? Getty Images/iStockphoto

It was only later that the staff realized that there were two Mark Garlands on the same flight. The other was a 62-year-old builder from Warmley, Bristol, who was a dead ringer for his younger counterpart with similar features and a matching bald head.

The younger Mark explained that the check-in employee apparently didn’t cross reference the booking number and checked in his lookalike instead, which initially caused him some agita.

“I stood at the check-in counter for 40 minutes while they tried to work out the problem,” lamented the transit employee. “We then had to go to the boarding gate early to identify our cases.”

That’s when the doppelgängers met in person — an experience that evoked looking in a mirror.

“I was shocked at how strange it was,” said the younger Mark on seeing his inflight stunt double. “People said we could be brothers.”

He added, “I said, ‘Look, I’m Mark Garland,’ showing him my passport, and he started laughing and opened his passport and showed me his name, and it was banter.”

They then proceeded to jokingly blame the other for causing them so many “problems.”

The elder Mark was similarly gobsmacked by the encounter, exclaiming: “It was crazy — I have never known anything like it.”

“I go to the desk and there’s a bloke who looks just like me, but he’s a bit bigger than me,” the construction worker said, before cheekily quipping. “I’m better looking.”

He continued to embrace the moment: “He’s like me, I’ve got a character and I love winding people up — we’re the same.”


Twins.
Just imagine seeing a twin seated next to you on a plane. Two men named Mark Garland didn’t have to imagine the scenario. Getty Images

The younger and elder Mark had coincidentally decided to travel to Thailand on vacation for four and three weeks, respectively.

And the serendipity didn’t stop there: When the pair boarded the plane, they discovered that they were sitting right next to each other.

The acquaintances subsequently chatted for the duration of the 11½-hour hour flight, during which realized that they had a lot more in common than just congruent names and looks.

The two lived just 15 minutes apart and had unknowingly crossed paths before like ships passing in the night.

“I’m a bus driver, and Mark said he sometimes uses my bus,” said Mark.

In addition, both men also had four children each, although bus driver Mark had never been married while construction worker Mark was separated.

They even knew some of the same people.

“One of my colleagues knows him and goes for drinks in the pub with him,” said younger Mark.

And, of course, the inflight facsimiles both have a passion for Thailand with each of them visiting the Southeast Asian paradise dozens of times.

“I told him I’d been 13 times and he told me he’d been 83 times,” said the older Mark.

By the end of the flight, the pair had grown so inseparable that younger Mark had taken “a little nap on his shoulder,” he recalled.

The two Marks now believe this is the beginning of a permanent bond.

“It [their chance encounter] made me happy,” said the bus driver, who plans to stay in touch with this older counterpart and meet up for a beer in Thailand.

“I’ve made a friend for life,” seconded older Mark.

This isn’t the first time someone has met their facsimile at 30,000 feet.

In 2015, a red-headed, bearded Scotsman named Neil Thomas Douglas was randomly seated next to his ginger-bearded doppelgänger, Robert Stirling, of London, prompting an inflight get-together for the ages.

Written by New York Post