A man shocked his family by turning up to his own funeral in the town of Alagoinhas in northeastern Brazil. The 41-year-old car washer was identified by his own brother, Jose Marcos Araujo, Yahoo News reports.

"The confusion started when news started circulating that a car washer had been shot dead," Jose Marcos' wife, Ana Paula, told the UOL Internet news portal. "Police called my husband and told him that his brother had been killed and his body was at the morgue." Police inspector, Roberto Lima, explained that the confusion was “understandable” before adding "The two men closely resembled each other and both worked as car washers." Ahead of the ceremony, the supposedly dead man was spotted; "a friend of Gilberto's saw him walking down the street and told him that his family was mourning him," he said. "So he went to his mother's home to let everyone know he was very much alive."

When Araujo showed up at his wake "some people fainted and others were so scared they ran away. It was a big shock," family friend Maria Menezes told the G1 online news site. And we can just about understand that. "I am overjoyed. What mother wouldn't be after being told that her son is dead and then sees him alive," explained his dear mum.

Everyone loves a happy ending, don’t they? Well not so fast: there’s still a dead person to be accounted for, and his family clearly have no idea of his plight. The man in the morgue was named Genivaldo Santos Gama, but Lima said further information on Gama was not immediately available.