One In A Million Coincidences

The world is full of spooky coincidences and sometimes these uncanny happenings are so unexplainable it seems like the world we live in is just one big simulation. Without further ado, here are some one in a million coincidences you’ll have to see to believe.

20. The Ultimate Photobomb

There are plenty of cool photobombs out there, but this story of fate accidentally captured on film has got to be the craziest yet. A woman named Xeu posed in front of the May Fourth sculpture in the town of Qiangao in China during a trip with her mother in the year 2000 but this buried memory didn’t seem too significant.

That was until she began reminiscing with her husband over a decade later in 2011 when the pair made a shocking discovery. Xeu’s husband Ye instantly recognized himself as the figure in the background of the old photo as he had posed for an almost identical photo at the exact same time, just from a different angle.

The lovers met thousands of miles away from Qiango but had stood just feet apart on the same day as teens! If this isn’t fate, I don’t know what is.

19. What the puck?

88-year-old Minnesota resident Ray Ulvi was out for a stroll in a local park one day searching for the perfect branch for his cane-making business when he stumbled across an unusual object.

He picked up what he believed to be an old snuff-can from the path only to discover that the historical artifact was actually a hockey puck he had lost some 70 years earlier – it even had his initials still inscribed on it.

Ulvi was overjoyed at the discovery but was unable to tell his friends as they had all passed away, so he contacted the manufacturing company instead to congratulate them on the success of their lifetime guarantee.

18. Freaky Fingers

We can inherit all kinds of weird things from our parents but who knew it could go quite as far as this horror story. An anonymous poster took to reddit to share a freaky coincidence which began when their father had the tip of his index finger cut off as a child. To the posters distress the very same finger on their hand stopped growing at the same length, resulting in an abnormally stubby finger smaller than a pinky… thanks dad!

17. A Message from the Matrix

Who said coincidences couldn’t be self-aware? In this image, someone shares the uncanny way newspapers had been stacked at work so that the only visible sentence reads “this is not a coincidence” over and over.

This meta one-in-a-million chance quickly became a concern to commenters, though, who instantly saw the dark side and warned the poster that the strange occurrence could be a matrix-style message alerting them to wake up from a dream, or worse – a coma.

16. Lucky Numbers

Coincidences don’t always have to be creepy as this incredibly lucky couple from Canada have learned after becoming third-time lottery winners. Barbara and Douglas Fink from Edmonton first won big in 1989 when they split C$128,000 between themselves and four friends, and to their surprise, they repeated this feat in 2010 scoring another C$100,000.

In a historic turn of events, the couple became joint winners of a C$16.3 million jackpot in 2017. Realizing she was eligible for a C$8.2 million split, Barbara simply called Douglas and said, “I’ve done it again!”. Not everyone is capable of such a fluke though, and this poor soul could certainly use a few tips from the Finks.

15. The Unsinkable Woman

Whether this woman is extremely lucky, or a walking bad omen is totally up to you. Violet Jessop had survived a nasty case of tuberculosis as a baby, but little did she know she was about to become one of the most seemingly indestructible women of all time.

During her lifetime, Miss Jessop was an Irish stewardess and a nurse aboard three of the most significant boat-related disasters in history. She served on the HMS Olympic when it struck the HMS Hawke in 1911 and was aboard the HMS Britannic when it sank after hitting a sea mine in 1916.

Oh, and did I mention she also survived the sinking of the RMS Titanic in 1912? Just know that if a Miss Jessop is ever with you at sea, you’d better have your lifejacket ready.

14. Lucky Escape

Luck and coincidences often go hand-in-hand, but just how often is good fortune really at play? There’s definitely some force at work in this image, which shows a car narrowly avoiding being crushed by not one but two fallen trees in the wake of a storm. As onlookers stand by in amazement, no doubt the owner is claiming it was all in the strategic parking.

13. A Historic Moment

A true coincidence makes you think “what are the odds?” and the following image definitely encapsulates that feeling as two cars with personalized license plates are photographed at a red-light joining forces to convey an age-old classic: “peekaboo” & “I see U”.

A truly momentous occasion like this one should go down in the history books, but perhaps the saddest part is that the owners may not have even been aware of the incredible match-up.

12. Bathroom Renovation

Moving can be tiresome and renovating can be a truly momentous task, but all that stress was worth it for some new homeowners who made a hilarious discovery.

Alex and Jess Monney were in the process of jazzing up the dated bathroom in their new home in the Bay Area when their contractor sent them a photo of a note he discovered behind the plaster.

Some previous owners strategically placed the message in 1995 to tell future residents that they had remodeled in 1995 and – as they say themselves – “what’s wrong with the way we did it?”.

The hilarious homeowners even left a note from their pet rabbit for good measure. Of course, the find went viral, but efforts to locate the legendary Shineki’s from 1995 have been unsuccessful.

11. Who Wore it Best?

Spontaneous coincidences like the following one are often the craziest and immortalizing the moment on camera can produce a timeless gem. This guy must have been maintaining his physique all year round just to prepare for this legendary vacation snap.

And doesn’t that distant island look suspiciously like the human-shaped Te Fiti from Disney’s Moana?

10. Professor Marvel’s Coat

You may recognize actor Frank Morgan as the great wizard from the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz, but Morgan actually played five different roles throughout the film, including a cab driver, the guard at the gates to Oz, a soldier and the fraudulent fortune-teller Professor Marvel.

For the latter role, Morgan needed to look like a man down on his luck, so the costume department picked up a rack of coats from a second-hand store and allowed him to pick one. While filming, Morgan turned out the pocket of the coat and found the initials of L. Frank Baum, the original author of The Wizard of Oz from 1900.

What he thought was an added stamp of authenticity actually turned out to be an incredible coincidence as the producer contacted the original tailor and discovered that the coat had in fact belonged to the deceased author. The legendary coat was returned to Baum’s widow after filming, but it made the movie all the more special.

9. Christmas Crash

This unbelievably spooky coincidence happened at the jolliest time of year as sisters Levinia and Lorriane from Norfolk, England were driving home on Christmas eve of 1994 when they were involved in a crash.

This wasn’t any old car accident, though, as the sisters had crashed into each other – and they hadn’t even been aware of each other’s separate journeys.

The 31-year-old sisters were ironically on their way to deliver presents to each other when they collided on an icy country road. And the icing on the cake? Their surname is Christmas… seriously, look it up.

8. Identical Lives

Coincidences involving family members are so common that it's hard to deny the inexplainable connection between close relatives. These twin brothers have proved this so much that they had a big part to play in the age-old nature vs nurture debate which questions the impact of learning from our environment versus the influence of biological traits.

Known as the Jim twins, the brothers were put up for adoption as babies in 1940 and grew up without any contact or knowledge of one another, yet they lived identical lives.

Both men were re-named James – or Jim for short – and grew up with a dog named Toy, drove the same Chevrolet, and each married a woman named Linda who they divorced to remarry women named Betty.

Both had sons called James Allan and had similar jobs in security; they even vacationed at the same beach in Florida. After reuniting in 1977 aged 39, the Jim twins were shocked to learn about these similarities, and their life stories became worldwide news.

7. An Ancient Fossil

Fossils can teach us a lot about the past, but what about this insane discovery? In the most meta twist, one lucky person stumbled upon an infamous Nokia brick fossilised inside an actual brick, as if we needed any more proof that these things are actually indestructible.

The best part is that the battery probably still isn’t dead – just switch it on and that baby is good to go.

6. The Simpsons Prophecy

It’s no secret that The Simpsons has been accused of prophesizing all sorts of current affairs in vintage episodes. Most notably, Twitter users noticed that the show predicted the rise of Trump as president in some pretty uncanny ways.

Although the near-identical image below is from a 2015 Simpsons clip, an episode called ‘Bart to the Future’ from the year 2000 did reference Trump's presidency in a joke when Lisa Simpson is president.

Now fans are speculating that The Simpsons has predicted the tension between child climate-change activist Greta Thunberg and the president in some strikingly similar images.

Some have compared her passion for the environment with Lisa’s own activism, suggesting that – if she were an American citizen – she could’ve been the future POTUS.

5. True Job Satisfaction

When a new member of staff joined the Packard Children’s Hospital in Stanford USA, experienced nurse Vilma Wong felt an uncanny sense of familiarity.

Wong looked up the man’s name and discovered that he had been a premature baby she cared for at the very same unit some 30 years earlier.

The once 2lb baby – named Brandon Seminatore – was now a second-year pediatric neurology resident who was to become her colleague at the unit. Perhaps his experience under Wong’s care inspired his career path, and the reunion between the two certainly made her life’s work well worth it.

4. Soulmates

Sometimes it just seems like two people are destined to be together, and with coincidences like this one around it's hard not to believe it. An engaged couple were rummaging through old photos in preparation for their wedding when everything they knew about their relationship changed.

Originally believing that they first met in their 20s, the lucky couple discovered that their mothers had been friends in high school, and they even found a photo of the two of them unknowingly meeting for the first time as babies. The wholesome photo was displayed on their wedding day, proving that they truly are star-crossed lovers.

3. The Money Shot

On 3rd March 2017, New England-based photographer Ron Risman snapped an incredible image of some huge waves striking a local lighthouse during a storm.

After uploading it online, a local TV station asked for permission to use the photo – but it wasn’t long until Risman was accused by viewers of plagiarizing the work of another photographer named Eric Gendron.

After seeing Gendron’s identical image, Risman got in contact and discovered that the pair had captured the exact same millisecond from within a few feet of each other without knowing. With only the tiniest differences between the two images, this one-in-a-million coincidence is a total turnout for the history books.

2. A Crappy Self-Portrait

Koda Inman-Ahlstrom was out for an afternoon stroll with his girlfriend in a California park when he noticed something unusual among the autumn leaves. Stopping to pick up the discovery, Inman-Ahlstrom almost couldn’t believe his eyes – an artistic pigeon had pooped a perfect self-portrait on a leaf.

After snapping a photo and saying his goodbyes, Inman-Ahlstrom posted his find on reddit and was met with accusations of suspicious photoshop. Determined to clear his name, he returned to the park and sure enough discovered the leaf once again.

Redditors suggested it be sent to a museum, while one even offered $1000 for it, but sadly mother nature got in the way and the portrait turned moldy and misshapen. The feathered Banksy is probably still at large today.

1. Bill Morgan

At first, Bill Morgan might seem like an incredibly unlucky guy. This Australian truck driver was involved in a brutal collision which almost killed him, declaring him clinically dead for 14 minutes. Morgan cheated death by miraculously reviving, but quickly entered into a coma from which he may never return.

After 12 days, just as his family prepared to switch off the machines Morgan miraculously awoke. Happy to be alive, he spontaneously proposed to his girlfriend, got a new job and bought a scratch card which won him a new car worth about A$17,000.

Amazed by his incredible luck, a local news station had him re-enact the moment by completing a scratch card on TV, and the unthinkable happened. Bill Morgan won a $250, 000 cash prize live on air, and his reaction is just priceless. If you ever feel down on your luck, just think of the man who almost lost everything before winning it all.

If you were amazed at these one in a million coincidences, you might want to read this article about bizarre historical coincidences and part 2 of this series. Thanks for reading!