There's been a lot of Friends-related news this week, and it's not about a reunion show (sorry), but rather crime. You wouldn't think that the theft of a crate of beer in Blackpool, England, would have anything to do with David Schwimmer, but this week it does.
Blackpool Police shared a still from CCTV footage of a man that looked remarkably similar to Schwimmer, who is best known to most of us as Ross in Friends. "Do you recognise this man?" they wrote. "We want to speak to him in relation to a theft at a Blackpool restaurant on the 20th September."
The internet soon pointed out the similarity between this man and the sitcom character, and who can blame them, really; it really does look like Ross Geller's life has taken a downward turn since we last saw him.
It turned out that Schwimmer was not in the country, police jokingly (you'd hope) confirmed. And, to put it all to rest, the actor took to Twitter to claim his innocence in a hilarious way.
"Officers, I swear it wasn't me," he wrote. "As you can see, I was in New York."
Back in England, there have been some developments for the case. In one surprising turn, a woman from an English town called Swindon is apparently "100 percent convinced" that the culprit is her son. Not only that, but she claims this is the first photo she has seen of her son since he went missing 11 years ago.
Susan Trowbridge, 58, was surprised when she was shown a photo of the thief, believing it to be her son, Paul. Paul had schizophrenia, and went missing without a trace in July 2007. The last time Susan saw him, she waved him off at the airport, and two weeks later he disappeared.
According to Susan, people remarked how much he looked like Ross even in his teens. Speaking to The Sun, she said:
"Someone sent the appeal to my daughter saying he looked like Paul and she showed it to me. I'm his mum - call it's mother's instinct or whatever you want but I'm 100 per cent convinced it's him.
"It's his eyes and the way his hair falls, I can just tell. It's the first picture of him I've seen in 11 years and it's amazing.
"I emailed police and told them I was his mum but they came back and said the man in the CCTV isn't Paul.
"I just don't know how they can be so sure - they haven't arrested anyone or named a suspect so they can't know for definite."
However, Blackpool Police do seem to believe that they have found the suspect - and are confident it isn't Paul. While no arrest has been made public yet, they did announce that they had identified the man in the CCTV footage, and take down the original post looking for help in their search.
Regardless of whether it's related to this case or not, we hope Paul is found and reunited with his mother some day soon.
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