I lost my passport while in the United Kingdom and had no other identifying documentation with me. The US embassy had me fill out a ~10 question sheet of paper and then "checked me out". 30 minutes later they said I was "good" and would have a new passport delivered to me in 48 hours.

UK/US relations are pretty good. I'm sure this situation could have been a lot worse in more unfriendly countries but I'm still shocked this solution was even possible.