They’ve been friends for 60 years. Turns out they’re actually brothers

They played football at the same school.

They both love to play cribbage, they both have hairy arms and they go back a long way — 60 years, according to KTRK.

Now best friends and Hawaii residents Alan Robinson and Walter Macfarlane know the truth. They’re actually brothers, according to KHON.

“Yeah, hairy arms, that did it!” Macfarlane told the TV station.

They bonded in the first place over being unsure of where they came from, KTRK reported, because Macfarlane didn’t know his father and Robinson, who had been adopted, didn’t know either of his biological parents.

Their shared interests, not to mention their physical similarities, kept them close through all those years. In high school, according to KITV, they not only played on the same football team but were members of the same defensive line.

“It was so funny because when we played for Punahou, we were both first string and we’re brothers, playing side by side,” Macfarlane told KITV. “He’s the tackle, I’m the end, and we never knew, you know?”

Robinson, who goes by “Robi,” is 15 months younger than Macfarlane, and as it turns out, the two men share the same birth mother. Independent of one another, they both turned to DNA websites to fill in the gaps of their family histories this year after having little luck searching for answers on their own.

Macfarlane noticed a close match, including an identical X-chromosome, with a user on one site who used the handle Robi737.

And just like that, the brothers were united in time for Christmas on a whole new level. They’re family now.

“I’ve never gotten a Christmas present this good,” Robinson told KITV.

This story was originally published December 26, 2017 at 1:22 PM with the headline "They’ve been friends for 60 years. Turns out they’re actually brothers."