So there’s a universe factored in here, because of life’s odd coincidences — those times the universe seems to make things happen in just an uncanny way. Many coincidences can simply be attributed to probability, but others are so absurdly bizarre and statistically improbable that even scientists cannot completely explain them. Here are seven of the most astonishing coincidences that you can’t easily explain.
The Twin Strangers
In 1900, two identical twins were separated at birth and were adopted by different families. They were both named Jim, grew up to be police officers, married women named Linda, divorced and remarried women named Betty. They even gave their sons the names James Allan and James Alan. They each met decades later, only to find these eerie similarities, to leave psychologists scratching their heads over the role of fate versus coincidence.
The Titanic: Tragedy Foretold
Fourteen years before the Titanic sank, a novel called Futility, by Morgan Robertson, told the story of an “unsinkable” ship, the Titan, that hit an iceberg and sank in the North Atlantic. The similarities between the fictional ship and the real Titanic were uncanny, right down to the size, speed and lack of lifeboats. Coincidence, or something more, with Robertson somehow accessing a bizarre predictive phenomenon?
Mark Twain’s Comet Connection
Mark Twain was born in 1835, the year Halley’s Comet returned. Amazingly, he also predicted that he would die when the comet returned, and he was correct. Twain died in 1910, a day after Halley’s Comet appeared closest to Earth. Since the comet shows up just once every 75–76 years, that makes it astronomically unlikely for this to even happen.
The Unsolved Legend of the Green Children of Woolpit
In the 12th century, two green-tinted-skinned children suddenly appeared in Woolpit, England. They had an incomprehensible language and would only eat raw beans. They gradually adjusted to normal food, and their green pigment ebbed. Theories go from a hereditary disorder to underground origins, but there’s no real explanation for their weird appearance and behavior.
History Repeats Itself: The 10 People That Died Building the Hoover Dam
The first recorded death during the Hoover Dam’s construction was a surveyor named George Tierney, who drowned in 1922. A total of 18 people died in what came to be known as the Galtier Project, and exactly 13 years later, on the same day, the last recorded fatality of the project was Patrick Tierney — George’s son. Perhaps the law of averages accounts for workplace fatalities, but it is the spooky correlation between the two deaths that has troubled many.
Edgar Allan Poe’s Story About Time Travel?
Inside Edgar Allan Poe’s novel The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket (1838)—which famously included a gruesome tableau of shipwrecked sailors stranded at sea and killing a young cabin boy, Richard Parker, for food. Almost half a century later, in 1884, another shipwreck in real life had desperate sailors resort to the same thing — and this time, stunningly, the cabin boy they killed to eat him was also named Richard Parker. Poe’s piece was fiction, but the actual occurrence bore an uncanny resemblance that led some to speculate whether the author had a prescient glimpse of the future.
The Lottery Lightning Strike
Bill Morgan also had a near death experience after he was declared clinically dead for 14 minutes and then survived miraculously. To mark his new lease on life, he purchased a scratch-off lottery ticket — and won a car. When a television crew asked to film him reenacting the moment he bought that winning ticket for its segment, he did — then bought another, on camera, and won $250,000. Winning twice, in such dramatic form, was a near impossibility, and his story a true outlier.
Wrapping Up
Some coincidences are just too stubborn to explain — even with the scientific advances of probability and statistics. Whether you believe in fate, destiny or sheer coincidence, these mind-boggling moments are a reminder of how mysterious life can be. These coincidences, like randomly hitting a winning combo, underscore the inexplicable ways of the universe, akin to the world of real money casinos online, where anything can happen.