The world is full of coincidences. Seemingly unrelated things have an odd way of coming together. Connections are formed between things that really have no business being connected, and as long as the inner workings of the world remain out of our reach, there will always be things that we’ll have to accept with little to no explanation. That, however, is what makes them so mysterious. These are some of the most reality-bending coincidences that continue to baffle us to this day.
“The Wreck of the Titan” – the book that depicted the sinking of the Titanic 14 years in advance.
Robert Morgan had published The Wreck of the Titan, Or Futility in 1898, 14 years before the Titanic hit an iceberg and fell into the ocean. The book tells the story of the ironic sinking of a ship thought to be “unsinkable”. Both the Titanic and the ship in the book, named Titan, hit an iceberg. They were also both 400 miles off Newfoundland when they sank on an April night. And in both cases, the shortage of lifeboats brought about a crisis.
The Jim twins were separated at birth. They both married and divorced a woman named Linda, remarried a woman named Betty, and had a dog named Toy.
The twins were both adopted by separate families shortly after they were born. Both pairs of foster parents decided to name their newly adopted kids ‘James’ or ‘Jim’ for short. Reunited at age 39, they were completely unaware of the fact that they had been living a 40 miles from each other their whole lives.
French poet ran into the man who introduced him to plum pudding every single time he ate it.
As a teenager, the 19th-century poet Émile Deschamps met an Englishman called Mr. de Fortgibu, who introduced Deschamps to the culinary delight known as plum pudding. 10 years later, Deschamps had spotted the pudding on a restaurant menu, yet when he tried to order it, the waiter told him that they had just sold the last one and pointed directly at Mr.de Fortgibu. After another decade, Deschamps attended a dinner party. Seeing that Plum Pudding was being served, he joked that the party must be for Mr. de Fortgibu, who, accidentally mistaking the party for a different dinner party, showed up at the door.
The Civil War began in Mr. Wilmer Mclean’s front yard and ended in his front parlor.
The Civil War first broke out in 1861 with the First Battle of Bull Run. Among other places, the battle took place on the farm of the 46-year-old Virginia native Wilmer Mclean. Awestruck by the terror of war, Mclean left to find safety in a new home in Appomattox, Virginia. In 1865, General Robert E. Lee surrendered just steps away from McLean’s property.
“My dad (right) had the tip of his index finger cut in an accident. I (left) was born with a naturally short index finger.”
While it’s true that the most spectacular coincidences often hold a certain sense of mystery, a little bit of unexplainable magic, this strange occurrence truly isn’t justifiable through reason. There’s absolutely no explanation for this weird turn of events.
Three of the Founding Fathers (Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and James Monroe) passed away on the 4th of July.
On the 4th of July. James Monroe died at the ripe old age of 73 at his son-in-law’s home. This was a remarkable coincidence, given that he was the third founding father to die on Independence Day. Five years earlier, longtime friends and political rivals Thomas Jefferson and John Adams both passed away, hours from each other, on the 4th of July.
Joseph Figlock was struck by two falling babies on separate occasions. He saved them by cushioning their falls.
The scene is 1930’s Detroit. Street sweeper Joseph Figlock was working his shift when a baby suddenly crashed down from a fourth-story window right onto Joseph’s head, which had cushioned the baby’s fall. They both survived. It was only a year later when yet another baby fell onto poor, unsuspecting Joseph Figlock. And yet again, he had saved that baby’s life.
“Today my beautiful dog, Flirt, found her Doppelgänger. How is this even possible?”
These two may be the sweetest cavaliers to grace the Earth. One can only imagine what the odds are of this peculiar meeting taking place. And out of all the places in the world, it seems as though this extraordinary coincidence had to take place in a Walmart. Fate surely does work in mysterious ways.
between 1993 and 2010, joan r. Ginther won the lottery four times adding up to a grand total of 20.4 million dollars
Gettyimages / Doug Griffin / Toronto Star
Joan’s first lottery win was in 1993, where she won $5.4 million in Lotto Texas. Her next win was only in 2006. Her third in 2008 and her final win was in 2010. Though it may be too soon to count her out of another win. This is astonishing, given that the odds of winning this many times are approximately one in 18 septillions (10 to the power of 42).
The first and last soldiers to lose their lives in World War II were unintentionally buried next to each other.
Gettyimages / Emmanuel Dunand / AFP
World War I had claimed an estimated amount of forty million lives, of which one million of them belonged to British soldiers. Yet somehow, without coordinating anything, 30-year-old George Edwin Ellison, the last casualty of the war, was buried only 15 feet away from John Parr, the first casualty of the war, with their graves symbolically facing each other.
Henry Ziegland died of a bullet shot at him years earlier.
Henry Ziegland had broken up with his girlfriend in 1883. Consumed with rage, her brother proceeded to hunt down Ziegland and shot him. Realizing what he had done, he then promptly turned the gun on himself. Yet the bullet shot at Ziegland had only grazed his face and then lodged in an abnormally large tree. Years later, Ziegland decided to cut the tree down, which was so huge, that he was set on blowing it up with dynamite. The explosion propelled the fateful bullet straight into Ziegland’s head, which passed away on the spot.
the year enzo ferrari passed away, his doppelgänger, mesut ozil, was born.
You may know Enzo Ferrari from the luxury brand of Italian sports cars that he himself founded. Unfortunately, Ferrari passed away in 1988, a seemingly ordinary year until you bring Mesut Ozil, the famous soccer player, into the equation. Enzo, who bears a striking, almost uncanny, resemblance to Ferrari was born in 1988. Spooky.
Xu Weifang saved a person from drowning. 30 years later, he saved that person’s drowning son, too.
Gettyimages / mrs / Mm
A Chinese news outlet reported that 80-year-old Xu Weifang recently saved an 8-year-old boy from drowning, despite his old age and frail condition. Things took a freaky turn when he discovered that he had actually saved that boy’s dad over 30 years ago. Oddly enough, both father and son had almost drowned when Xu Weifang came to their rescue.
THE LEGENDARY FOUNDER OF ROME WAS NAMED ROMULUS. THE FIRST ROMAN EMPEROR CALLED HIMSELF AUGUSTUS. THE LAST EMPEROR WAS ROMULUS AUGUSTUS.
So this coincidence is made up of three distinct moments: The first is Rome’s mythical founding by the legendary Romulus (which may or may not have actually existed). Next up is Rome’s transition from a republic to an empire through its first emperor, Augustus. How fitting is it then that the last emperor of Rome combined both their names into one, Romulus Augustus?
10-YEAR-OLD LAURA BUXTON HAD RELEASED A RED BALLOON UP TO THE SKY. A DIFFERENT 10-YEAR-OLD GIRL CALLED LAURA BUXTON FOUND IT.
Gettyimages / Olga Maltseva / AFP
The WYNC podcast Radiolab featured an intriguing story. A 10-year-old girl named Laura Buxton signed a red balloon in her possession with the words, “Please return to Laura Buxton,” with her address attached. She promptly let it float away in the wind. The balloon had managed to travel 140 miles south when it landed in the yard of another 10-year-old girl, who was coincidentally named Laura Buxton.
Less than a year before John Wilkes Booth famously assassinated President Lincoln, his brother, Edwin, saved the life of Lincoln’s son, Robert.
(On the left, Robert Lincoln. On the right, Edwin Booth.)
The story goes like this: Leaning up against a stopped train in a New Jersey train station, Robert Todd Lincoln nearly fell onto the tracks as the train began moving. Edward Booth, the brother of the infamous assassin, managed to grab him by the collar just in time, saving his life.
Roberto Clemente reached 3,000 hits – on his last day, on his last game, on his last hit.
Gettyimages / Louis Requena / Major League Baseball
The right fielder for the Pittsburgh Pirates cemented his place in the Major League Baseball books when he became the first Latin American player (and the 11th in all the Major League) to reach 3,000 hits. The astonishingly tragic part is that this would happen on his last game ever, as he was involved in a fatal plane crash off the coast of Puerto Rico.
mark twain was born on the day Halley’s comet passed earth. the comet’s next sighting was in 75 years, the day mark twain passed away.
The most astounding part about this peculiar coincidence is that Mark Twain himself had managed to predict it. He’s quoted as saying, “The Almighty has said, no doubt, ‘Now here are these two unaccountable freaks [Twain and the Comet]; they came in together, they must go out together.”
the first person to lose his life during the construction of hoover dam was George Tierney. the last was Patrick Tierney, George’s son.
Approximately 21,000 people worked on the construction of the Hoover Dam. Unfortunately, around 96 fatal casualties occurred on the construction site. The whole project took around fourteen years. Taking all this into account, the fact that the first and last casualties were father and son is one of the most tragic accidents in US history.
this astonishing picture of an elephant being splashed by elephant-shaped water.
There are many ways that coincidences can be told, sometimes a short story will do the trick, and sometimes there’s just no need for words. This stunning photograph of water taking the shape of an elephant while on its way to splash that elephant is a miniature miracle. Seriously, what are the odds that something like this could happen?
french king Louis xvi was warned by an astrologer of the 21st: he was arrested on 06/21/1791 and executed on 01/21/1793.
The French revolution was a turning point in the history of mankind. The old social order was toppled in favor of the new republican society. That, however, meant getting rid of the current king. Louis XVI just happened to be around at the wrong time, and, apparently, his astrologist tried to warn him.
George Handel & Jimi Hendrix were neighbors from different centuries.
The only things separating the mythological rockstar Jimi Hendrix and the acclaimed classical composer George Frideric Handel were a wall and 200 years. Handel lived in 23 Brook Street, while Hendrix settled in 25 Brook Street. The two changed music forever, and they both happened to live right next to each other.
Major Waler Summerford was struck by lightning three different times throughout his life, and once more in death.
Gettyimages / Rakesh Bakshi / AFP
You may be unlucky, but you’re not Major Waler Summerford unlucky. As if being struck by lightning three separate times throughout his life weren’t enough, mother nature decided to double down on her inexplicable hatred for Summerford by hurling a bolt of lightning straight through his gravestone.
A comet hit the commette family residence.
Gettyimages / Rich Fury / Getty Image News
There’s a 1 in 1,600,000 chance that a comet will actually collide with you head-on, yet it somehow made contact with the “Commette” family. Not weird enough for you? Alright, let’s put it like this: For over four and a half billion years, this mindless blob of rocks and dust had been soaring through space, only to hit the home of a family named “Commette”. That’s an incredible cosmic coincidence.
Royce Burton was talking about a texas ranger who saved his life, only to have him walk in mid-story.
Gettyimages / Denver Post
Going by a CNN report, Royce Burton was teaching his class at New Jersey University, when he decided to tell them about a story that had taken place all the way back in 1940. He had nearly lost his balance while climbing out of a canyon when, suddenly, a Texas ranger managed to drag him to safety. The two became friends but lost touch after WWII. Somehow, in front of a classroom of witnesses, that same Texas ranger walked in, exactly as he was telling the story. He had tracked Royce down after all those years.
tHE “Dennis the menace” character was invented in two different countries at the same time.
It was March 1951 when Dennis the Menace was born. Twice. Once by Seattle’s Hank Ketcham and once by a group of British writers in the United Kingdom. American Dennis’ British counterpart is, as you can see, quite a bit more sinister and wild. While the US Dennis would unintentionally cause trouble, the English Dennis actively sought it out.
a sandwich started WWI.
As told in history class, World War I began with the assassination of the Austrian Archduke, Franz Ferdinand. A group of assassins tried to lob a grenade into Ferdinand’s open-roof vehicle. The grenade missed, and the assassins quickly dispersed. This could’ve been the end of the tale, but Ferdinand, adamant about visiting the people hospitalized victims of the failed assassination attempt, randomly passed by a cafe where one of the assassins, consumed by a feverish craving for a sandwich, was dining. He quickly drew his pistol and shot the Archduke, setting the wheels in motion for WWI.
Edgar Allen Poe predicts the future in his novel about a shipwreck and he was scary accurate.
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket is an 1838 novel written by Edgar Allen Poe. It tells the story of a four-man crew, shipwrecked and lost at sea with no food or water. In a dark turn of the soul, they decide to resort to cannibalism in order to survive. The character named Richard Parked was chosen to be eaten. This actually happened in 1884, when a real shipwreck occurred. One of the shipmates, named Richard Parker, became ill. The rest of the crew decided to feast upon him before he became too tainted with the disease. They survived but were charged with murder.
“My cousin (guy on the left) was in his future wife’s family picture, 7 years before they met.”
Some of us aren’t even lucky enough to meet our significant others. Others, however, meet them twice. By chance. This turn of events is not only incredibly rare, but also very powerful. Just looking at the soon-to-be husband and wife standing right next to each other, completely unaware of the future, is amazing.
The word for dog in the lost language called mbabaram is “dog”.
Gettyimages / Grafissimo / DigitalVision Vectors
Mbabaram, an ancient, declining Aboriginal language spoken by the native residents of the land of Australia sounds nothing like English. If this doesn’t sound like a big deal, then we’ll put it this way: There is an incredibly slim chance of two unconnected languages coming up with the same word for the same thing; so slim, in fact, that we can’t even calculate it.
Woman writes her name on a RANDOM dollar bill. yEARS LATER, HER HUSBAND RETURNS IT TO HER.
Gettyimages / Peter Dazeley / Getty Image News
While paying for a sandwich, Paul Grachan noticed that he had received a dollar bill with the name “Esther”, the name of his girlfriend, on the note. He kept the bill, framed it, and gave it to her as a present. She was lost for words when she saw it and requested that he ask her about it some other time. As the years went by, they got married. When the subject finally came up, Esther told Paul that she had written her name on a dollar bill, years before they had even met, and told herself that she would marry the man who brought it back to her.
WELL, IT SURE LOOKS LIKE ONE.
So despite what this ominously ordered stack of papers may be trying to tell us, we are pretty sure that this is a coincidence. Yet who’s to say what this bizarre structure could mean to someone, somewhere. Maybe it’s the signal he or she has been waiting for their whole lives.
TWO MR. BRYSONS, ONE HOTEL ROOM
It was on a business trip sometime in the late 1950s when Mr. George D. Bryson registered for a room at the Brown Hotel in Louisville, Kentucky. After being given the key to room 307, he stopped by the main desk to see if any letters were sent for him. Turns out, there was a letter for a Mr. George D. Bryson, room 307, just not for him. The letter was for the room’s previous occupant, a different George D. Bryson.
This bird landed on a page about itself.
So this is how the whole thing played out in our minds: This man came to the park with a book about birds – perhaps he is an adamant fan of bird spotting – opened the book to a random page, where the bird in the picture spotted itself. Maybe it wasn’t happy with the way it was portrayed. We can totally imagine the bird saying: “Hey, I’m way more handsome!”
Stephen Hawking shares his birth and death dates with galileo and einstein, respectively.
Stephen Hawking, the great theoretical physicist renowned for his contribution to the theory of black holes and his efforts to popularize quantum physics’ crucial discoveries, just so happens to have a special connection to two other founding fathers of modern physics: Einstein and Galileo.
“So my dad, a fisherman, just fished the wallet he dropped into the water 20 years ago.”
In life, wallets dropped into the lake are lost forever. Apparently, Australian fishermen are the exception to this golden rule, seeing as they can somehow reel in their 20-year-old dilapidated wallet. Let’s just hope this fisherman is as skilled at catching fish.
actor Anthony Hopkins couldn’t fined a book he needed for a movie adaptation until he stumbled upon a signed copy on the train
Gettyimages / Walt Disney Television Photo Archives / Walt Disney Television
It was the early 1970s when Anthony Hopkins was asked to play Kosta in a film adaptation of The Girl from Petrovka. Unfortunately, he couldn’t find the original book version anywhere (oh, the days before the web). All was lost until someone accidentally left a copy of the book on a train Hopkins was riding. Even freakier was the fact that the copy was signed by the author, George Feifer, who had personally asked Hopkins to read the book.
Dutch cyclist was scheduled to board a plane. he couldn’t make the flight, and the plane crashed. this happened again in the same year.
Maarten Jonge’s spontaneous decision to cancel a ticket to a flight that was shot down over Ukraine had saved his life. Yet de Jonge wasn’t done cheating death. In the same year, one of the world’s most mysterious plane accidents occurred, as a Malaysian Air aircraft had disappeared without trace over the Indian Ocean.
Stephen and Helen lee, lovers from opposite sides of the world, discovered that their parents had almost married each other.
Gettyimages / Toronto Star Archives / Toronto Star
Stephen and Helen Lee were freshly engaged when they found out that their parents, specifically the bride’s mother and the groom’s late father, had almost gotten married in 1960s Korea. It was only their parents’ strict disapproval that dissuaded them. Shockingly enough, the two ex-lovers became brother and sister and share grandkids.
Amanda birch discovered that her professor and mother lived in the same house.
Gettyimages / William Robinson / EyeEm
Birch was talking to her writing professor at the University of Rhode Island when she made an offhand remark about living in a small Vermont town. The town, however, was the exact town that Birch’s mother used to live in In fact, the professor was living in the same house her mother had grown up in. Eerie.
Flight 666 flew into help on Friday the 13th
Gettyimages / Thierry Monasse / Getty Image News
On Friday the 13th, January 2017, a Finnair aircraft numbered 666 departed from Copenhagen and landed in Helsinki, often referred to as HEL in airports and on the flight tickets. So what happened to this nightmarish airplane from hell? Well, nothing. The passengers landed safely. Definitely for the best.
Anne Parrish bout herself the same copy of a book she had once owned as a child.
Novelist Anne Parrish was walking along the bank of the Seine river, France, when she stopped by a bookstall, just to check things out. An old favorite of hers, Jack Frost and Other Stories, a book she grew up on, caught her eye. She spontaneously decided to purchase it. When she opened it, she was astounded to find out that the book was signed by none other than her childhood self.
Bradd Pitt tore his Achilles tendon whilst playing Achilles in troy (2004)
Gettyimages / Michael Kappeler / DDP
The mythical Greek hero Achilles was pretty much invincible with the exception of his one fatal weak spot – his heel. It is from this legend that scientists derived the name for a part of the human heel known as the Achilles tendon. In a strange, ironic turn of events, Pitt tore his Achilles heel while playing the role of Achilles himself.
Tsumuto Yamaguchi somehow managed to survive both Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings
Surviving the blast of an Atomic bomb is a miracle in and of itself. Surviving two goes beyond human understanding. While fleeing from the scene in Hiroshima, Yamaguchi found himself in Nagasaki, where he was met by another flash of radioactive destruction. Yamaguchi is the only person to have survived both the bombings.
James dean’s cursed Porsche
Gettyimages / The Enthusiast Network / The Enthusiast Network
When Alec Guinness saw James Dean’s new ride, he immediately told him: “If you get in that car, you’ll be found dead in it by this time next week.” Unfortunately, Alec’s morbid prediction came true. What’s even scarier is the fact that the Porsche 550 Spyder was passed on to several other owners, who all came to be involved in severe, sometimes even fatal, car accidents.
Mark Anderson set the record for “oldest message in a bottle ever found.” 6 years later, his friend broke the record.
Mark Anderson somehow reeled in quite the blast from the past, a 93-year-old message in the bottle. He then proceeded to boast about it non-stop to his friend Andrew Leaper, who was probably so fed up with hearing about it that he decided to break the record himself by finding a 98-year-old message. In truth, both records were set entirely by accident, making for a great coincidence story.
three strangers were the only people on a train: Mr. Bingham, Mr. Powell, and Mr. Bingham-powell.
This is definitely an odd one, and it reeks of 1920’s gentleman culture. Three Englishmen were traveling separately by train through Peru. Being the only three people on the train, they naturally made acquaintance, when, much to their surprise, they discovered their names coincided in what can only be termed a freak coincident.
3 times in 200 years: a ship sank at the exact same spot, on December 5th, and the sole survivor was named Hugh Williams.
The fact that over the course of two-hundred-years three ships gave way to the sea at the exact same place is spooky enough, but when you add the date and the name of the sole survivor, well that’s enough to make your blood curdle.
Violet Jessup, the world’s most unsinkable woman, survived three of the most catastrophic ship disasters: The Titanic, Britannic, and Olympic.
Violet Jessop had either the best or worst luck with ships. Either way, her story is unparalleled. A nurse and ocean liner stewardess by profession, Jessop had survived boarding three of the most infamous ships of the 20th century: The Titanic, which had crashed into an iceberg; the Britannic, which met the same fate; and the Olympic, which hit a warship and somehow stayed afloat.
King Umberto i of Italy met his double at a random restaurant. they were both shot the next day.
It was 1878 when King Umberto I of Italy came into a restaurant in Monza when he stumbled upon the owner of the establishment who, coincidentally enough, looked just like him. Their bond went even deeper: They were both called Umberto, they were born on the same day, they even both married a woman named Margherita. Yet the next day, the owner of the restaurant fell victim to a shooting, as did Umberto.
a costume used for the ‘wizard of oz’ movie actually belonged to the original author of the wizard of oz.
Looking for the perfect piece of rugged formalwear for the character of Professor Marvel, the crew behind the 1939 film adaptation of the Wizard of Oz tore through several second-hand stores until they found a coat they felt was just perfect for the part. The coat, however, had originally belonged to L. Frank Baum, the man who wrote the Wizard of Oz book
The curse of Ötzi
(A recreation of Ötzi the Iceman)
Ötzi the Iceman’s frozen body was discovered in 1991, approximately 5,300 years after he had passed away. Rainer Henn, who examined Ötzi, passed away one year later. Kurt Fritz, the guide who had lead Henn to Ötzi’s body, fell victim to an avalanche. Helmut Simon, who was the first to discover the body, passed away due to a hiking accident in 2004. Dieter Warnecke, the person who was in charge of retrieving Simon’s body, passed away just hours after the funeral.
two Patricia n. cambells’ lives were so alike that they managed to receive the same social security number.
Gettyimages / Oliver Rossi / DigitalVision
Both Patricia N. Cambells, completely unrelated, were shocked to discover that they shared the same social security number. Given that they were both born on March 13th, 1941, they both got married in 1959 to an active soldier, both had two children of the exact same name, both worked in accounts, it’s understandable that a small bureaucratic mishap would occur.
the haunting coincidence of Catherine eddowes and mary kelly.
Wikimedia Commons
The year is 1888, the place is London. Night falls, the faint streetlights barely holding away a certain bubbling uneasiness. Catherine Eddowes lies drunk on the pavement. She’s taken by the police, but, wanting to avoid certain repercussions, she gives them a fake name, “Mary Kelly”. She’s released from custody only to fall victim to Jack the Ripper, the infamous serial killer. Jack’s next victim? A woman named Mary Kelly.
Married couple in China discovers they both appeared in the same photograph as teenagers.
Photographs in public places often hold strange secrets. They’re also full of mysteries: Who are the souls that make up the faceless crowd inhabiting the picture? Every single person ever photographed proceeded to go about his day, so what did he do, and what came out of it? This happily married couple got to find that out for themselves.
in 1895 there were only two cars in the entire state of Ohio, yet somehow they crashed into each other.
Wikimedia Commons
Technically speaking, there’s no proof that this ever happened. It’s more of an Ohio urban legend than anything else, but there’s always the chance that this strange locomotive incident did actually take place.
identical twins Helen Mae cook and Clara Mae cook passed away on the same day.
Imgur
It was a sad day for the Cook-Mitchell family when 83-year-old Clara Mae Cook passed away due to a heart attack. Yet things truly became tragic when her identical twin sister, Helen Mae Cook, passed away just several hours later, her too of a heart attack. In an interview with USA Today, Helen’s daughter stated that the two had done everything together and that “it’s how they would have wanted it.”
Jorge was just visiting the butcher shop when he discovered he had a long-lost twin brother.
The remarkable story of Jorge and William all began in the butcher shop where William worked. There, Jorge and William accidentally encountered one another. Completely taken aback by how similar they looked, they did some digging and found out that they were actually twins that were separated at birth.