Only in bad TV shows.

AFAIK complete amnesia is rarely permanent, so it would probably fix itself most of the time if there’s no serious compounding issues.

Either way, the likelyhood of two missing people in the same general area looking so similar that their family can’t tell them apart visually seems extremely low.

A wacky, best-selling comedy would happen, am I right!?

If the “right” person was under hospital care, and the “wrong” person is found and return in their place I imagine the indicators in their hospital care would be pretty clear they have the wrong person.

• “This patient’s blood type is different”
• “The labs on this patient are coming back drastically different than they were from last week. Last week this patient was pre-diabetic with no hypertension, and now they have no pre-diabetic indicators and are in Stage 2 hypertesion.”
• “This patient gained a 40 year old tattoo in less than 24 hours.”

I imagine, in the event no one ever knew, found out, or cared about the swap, then life would go on, just a bit more weird than before. I can’t imagine it in a modern society, even briefly. We have too many records of too many things. And beyond that, it’d depend on stuff like who they are and how long it’s been. Maybe on how readily both of them can convince people that they are mentally sound and worthy of respect. Who knows? That’d be wild.

Unrelated, but I think the fair folk used to swap infants out with ugly versions, or dying versions? Am I mixing up fairies and the UNSC again?

Off topic:

But imagine someone lost a cat, then finds an exact look alike cat that is just as friendly as their cat, do they just… accidentally kidnap a stray cat thinking its their cat? 🤔