It started out of nowhere. A few years back, a Romanian streamer called mavro_jr played an intriguing song during one of his streams. The song was 137704, by a so-called singer named Marinela Ivan. At first it seemed like harmless nostalgia, a surreal mix of love lyrics, awkward dancing and a party that felt a little too aware of itself. Then things got strange.

Viewers began noticing something in Marinela’s voice, a certain warmth, a tone, maybe even a trace of sadness that felt oddly familiar. Soon people began comparing her to someone else in the comments and on Reddit. It sounded ridiculous, but they couldn’t stop saying it: Could Marinela Ivan actually be Princess Diana?

Those who’ve studied the 137704 video insist it isn’t an ordinary performance. The wood-panelled walls, the neatly arranged trophies, the way the camera trembles and then steadies; none of it feels accidental.

Then comes the moment: Marinela raises a mobile phone, sings into it, and pauses. For a split second her smile fades and her lips form words that aren’t in the lyrics. That single frame has been replayed more than any other, with some convinced it marks the precise instant when the Princess made contact.

Since then, online sleuths have pulled screenshots, slowed the footage frame by frame, and compared her face to photographs from the early ’90s. Some claim the resemblance is too close to ignore. Others have gone further, creating “forensic” overlays and running voice-pattern analyses. One enthusiast even wrote a thirty-eight-page paper arguing that Marinela’s vocal waveform matches Diana’s 1989 speech within about two per cent.

A former radio technician from Bucharest swears the phone Marinela holds couldn’t have been available in Romania at the time, saying it was a British model built for limited export only. Another viewer insists they heard a faint whisper in the background, a second voice saying, “It’s me.” No one has verified it, but the rumour refuses to die.

Whether it’s coincidence, performance art, or something far stranger, the mystery of 137704 has grown far beyond the song itself. The number has no registered owner in Romanian archives, yet callers report a single tone before the line cuts off. Theories multiply. Some say it was the number Diana tried to call on the night of the crash. Others say the number never existed at all.

Archivists and amateur researchers agree on one thing: the original recording of 137704 seems to be shorter than it should be. A full minute of footage is missing from every known copy, replaced by static and the faint sound of breathing. No official explanation has ever been given. Some say the tape was damaged. Others claim the missing segment was deliberately removed before broadcast. Until that fragment is found, no one can say for certain what really happened after the song ended.