Coincidence

Strange coincidences and weird instances of Synchronicity.

Dead Letter

A Russian woman received a letter from the police wrongly informing her that her husband was dead. She was so upset that she jumped out of her apartment window. Her husband, who was actually still alive, was walking below. The woman landed on her husband, killing him but saving her own life.

Richard Parker

In 1837, Edgar Allan Poe wrote a novel called The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket. It tells the fictional story of four sailors who are adrift in a boat and starving to death. They draw straws to decide which of them should be killed and eaten by the others. The one who draws the short straw is a cabin boy named Richard Parker.

In 1884 a yacht named The Mignonette sank. Four sailors managed to escape in a lifeboat, but they didn’t have enough food to survive. Eventually, three of the sailors decided to kill and eat the fourth, a 17-year old cabin boy. They dined on his remains until they were rescued 35 days later. The name of the cabin boy they ate was Richard Parker.

Carissa Glenn

Carissa Glenn was an 18-year old girl who lived in Cornwall, UK. She lived alone in her apartment and had a history of sleepwalking. She also had a history of acting out the things she dreamed about.

Carissa became nervous when she heard rumors that a woman who lived in the apartment before her had hanged herself and taken her own life. The girl became convinced that the apartment was haunted by the ghost of this woman. She even phoned her family to tell them that she had felt a ghostly presence.

One morning, Carissa didn’t turn up for work, so her friends went to her apartment to check on her. When she didn’t answer, they broke down the door and found her hanging from the rafters. The police said that during the night, she had hanged herself in her sleep.

The Twin Tragedy

On July 30, 1974, Neville Lawrence Ebbin was happily riding his moped down a stetch of road in Hamilton, Bermuda when he knocked off and killed by a taxi. It would have been merely a tragic accident if it wasn’t for what happened a year later.

On July 18, 1975, his 17-year old brother, Erskine Lawrence Ebbin, was riding down the same stretch of road, on the same moped when he was also knocked off and killed by a taxi. It was the same taxi driver, in the same taxi and he was carrying the same passenger. It was also the same moped.

(Source: Phenomena: A Book of Wonders, John Michell and Robert J. M. Rickard)

The Erdington Murders

On 27 May 1817, 20-year-old Mary Ashford was murdered and her body was found lying in a sandpit in Erdington, England. Police arrested a suspect named Mr. Thronton and charged him with murder, but after two trials, he was found not guilty due to lack of evidence and they had to release him.

Exactly 157 years later, on 27 May 1975, 20-year-old Barbara Forrest was murdered and her body was found lying in a ditch in the exact same area of Erdington. Police arrested a suspect, who was also named Mr. Thornton and charged him with murder, but he was later acquitted and released.

In the days before Mary Ashford was murdered, she told a friend that she had “bad feelings about the week to come”. Ten days before Barbara Forrest was murdered, she told a friend, “This is going to be my unlucky month. I just know it. Don’t ask me why.”

2 Men 1 Heart

There was a man named Terry Cottle who lived in the UK. He was a happily married man, but when he met a woman named Cheryl, he instantly fell in love with her. Terry divorced his wife and married Cheryl. However, after a few years of marriage, their relationship started to go downhill very quickly. The couple decided to split up, but on the day he was supposed to move out, Terry shot himself in the head.

Terry was an organ donor and his heart was given to a man named Sonny Graham. After the transplant operation, Sonny wrote a letter to Cheryl, thanking her for the heart. He was happily married too, but when he met Cheryl in person, he instantly in love with her. Sonny divorced his wife and married Cheryl. The two eventually married, but after a few years of marriage, their relationship started to go downhill very quickly. Sonny ended up shooting himself in the head, just like Terry.

Umberto I

On July 29, 1900, King Umberto I of Italy visited the town of Monza to perform a ceremony. He went to a small restaurant and noticed that the owner looked exactly like him. The two began talking and it turned out that there were more similarities.

They were both born on the same day, March 14th 1844 in the same city of Turin. Both of them got married on the same day to women with the same first name, Magherita. The man had opened the restaurant on the day that Umberto I was crowned King of Italy.

The next day, the restaurant owner was accidentally killed when his gun went off as he was cleaning it. When Umberto I heard the news, he decided to go to the man’s funeral. Within a few hours, an assassin burst through the crowds and shot the king three times, killing him instantly.

Chris Benoit

In June 2007, some anonymous guy on the internet was messing around with the Wikipedia page of Canadian professional wrestler Chris Benoit. he changed it to read: “Chris Benoit was replaced by Johnny Nitro for the ECW World Championship match at Vengeance, as Benoit was not there due to personal issues, stemming from the death of his wife Nancy.”

In a stunning coincidence, 14 hours later, the police found the dead bodies of Chris Benoit, his wife and his 7-year old son in their home. It turned out that, in a fit of madness, Chris Benoit had murdered his wife and son and then took his own life.

The police confiscated the computer of the anonymous person who posted on Wikipedia, but it turned out that he knew nothing about the murders. He was just messing around with the page and happened to be right.

The Titanic

In 1898, Morgan Robertson wrote a novel called Futility. It was about a transatlantic luxury liner named the Titan that struck an iceberg on its maiden voyage and sank with many passengers losing their lives.
In 1912, a transatlantic luxury liner named the Titanic stuck an iceberg on its maiden voyage and sank with great loss of life

A few months after the Titanic sank, a tramp steamer named the Titanian was traveling through the foggy Atlantic with only a young boy on watch. He was very nervous because they were sailing near where the Titanic had gone down. In a panic, he sounded the warning and the ship stopped just in time: There was a huge iceberg directly in their path and it had been hidden in the fog. If he hadn’t sounded the alarm, the Titanian would have struck the iceberg and sank.

Frane Selak

In 1962, Frane Selak was on a train going from Sarajevo to Dubrovnik when it jumped the tracks and fell into an icy river, killing 17 passengers. Selak managed to swim to shore suffering from hypothermia and a broken arm.

A year later, he was on an airplane when the door flew off and he was sucked out of the airplane. The plane crashed and he woke up in a hospital. He has been found in a haystack.

In 1966, Selak was on a bus that went off the road and into a river. Four people were killed, but he escaped with minor injuries.

In 1970, his car caught on fire and he stopped and got out. Just minutes later, the whole car blew up.

In 1973, Selak was driving another car when a faulty fuel line sprayed gas all over the engine and flames blew through his air vents. He wasn’t killed, but most of his hair was burned off.

In 1995 he was hit by a bus, but only sustained minor injuries.

In 1996, Selak was driving on a mountain road when he went around a bend and saw a truck coming right at him. He swerved and ran through a guardrail, but he managed to jump out just in time. He watched as his car tumbled off the cliff and blew up 300 feet below.

In 2003, Selak bought a lottery ticket for the first time in 40 years at the age of 74. He ended up winning $1 million.

9-11 World Trade Center

The Lone Gunmen was a spinoff of The X-Files. The pilot episode featured a plot in which hijackers attempted to crash a plane into the World Trade Center in New York. The episode aired in March 2001, 6 months before 9-11.

In the computer game Deus Ex, the Twin Towers were left out of the New York skyline due to memory limitations. The storyline in the game stated that the towers were destroyed by terrorists. The game was released in 2000.

The computer game Urban Strike featured a storyline set in 2001 where a terrorist attack destroyed the World Trade Center. The game was released in 1994.

The Maouforth Twins

John and Arthur Maouforth are twins that were living around 130km (80 miles) from one another in Britain. On the evening of 22 of May, 1975, the two started to feel bad from chest pain. Their families were not aware of the other’s illness. The two brothers were taken to separate hospitals around the same time and both passed away from heart failure.