We sometimes hear about people who live unimaginable lives. Things happen in the background that they may not be aware of and when they discover what has happened, it can affect them on a very deep level.
That is the case with the identical triplets we are talking about in this article. They were born in July 1961 but were separated shortly after birth.
Robert Shafran, Edward Galland, and David Kellman were born to a teenage mother in New York. It wasn’t out of the question in 1961 for children born under such circumstances to be put up for adoption.
Although you might think that they would try to keep identical triplets together, they were actually adopted by three different families. They didn’t even realize that they were part of that adoption and part of an experiment that would remain hidden for many years.
The boys were teenagers by the time they met each other. It was a chance encounter that allowed them to know of each other’s existence.
It happened when Edward and Robert were studying at college together and they had no idea they were related. A mutual friend started to point out the resemblance and they then learned that they had both been adopted.
Eventually, they realized that they were brothers and it made the headlines. That is when David learned about the situation and realized that he looked a lot like them. That is what he called Edward’s home and spoke to his mother.
When the three met, they instantly became inseparable. After it was proven that they were triplets, they also learned about a controversial experiment that was also taking place.
Dr. Peter Neubauer would visit the three boys who were adopted by different families in different social classes. He worked along with the adoption agency.
David was in a working-class family and Edward was in a middle-class home. Robert was in an upper-middle-class family.
The doctor would visit the three boys every year for the first 10 years of their lives and would study them. He didn’t let them know that they had two identical brothers as well.
All three of the boys eventually suffered from mental health issues as a result of being separated. Edward and David both spent time in a mental health facility and Edward committed suicide in 1995 at the age of 33.
This story has been told in a 2018 documentary. It is called Three Identical Strangers.