A man at the centre of an astounding missing persons case has spoken out about the moment he discovered he was 'kidnapped' as a baby.

Steve Carter had always grown up with several questions about his childhood. The salesman was raised in Philadelphia but had been adopted, and had no idea about his biological parents' identity.

However his curiosity about his mysteriously life prior to being adopted took a hugely unexpected turn after he learnt about the story of an Atlanta woman who had been abducted from a hospital as a baby in early 2011.

His interested peaked, Steve decided to browse the database MissingKids.com - and was stunned to find a photo of himself staring back through the screen.

After looking up the phrases 'Hawaii', 'missing 34 years' and 'male' on the website, Steve unearthed the case of a missing baby named Marx Panama Moriarty Barnes and immediately knew it was him.

'I got chills,' Steve said in an interview with People magazine at the time. "I was like, 'Holy c**p, it's me'."

Steve initially brushed the similarities off until he showed the website to a friend, who urged him to contact the police.

What he learnt next would shock him.

Marx Panama Moriarty Barnes was born on 17 January 1977 and had been reported missing in June that year by his Mark Barnes after his mother, Charlotte Moriarty, took him for a walk and never returned.