One in a Million Coincidences - Part 7

Serendipitous happenings take place all the time, but there are some that are really worth talking about. From mix-ups at birth to freaky fortune and a helping hand from lady luck, here are some more one in a million coincidences you’ll have to see to believe.

The Brothers of Bogota

We’ve heard plenty of stories about unexpected reunions between long-lost siblings, but this tale of two sets of mixed-up identical twins sounds straight from a telenovela. It all started in 2015, when a colleague of Jorge Enrique Bernal Castro went to buy meat at William Canas Velasco’s butcher shop in Bogota.

When she arrived, the woman couldn’t believe how similar her colleague and the butcher looked, so she snapped a photo and showed Jorge. Dumbstruck, Jorge and William met up, and sure enough they shared the exact same features, a slim face, narrow mouth, and cheeky smile.

Things got even weirder when the pair realized that their respective fraternal twins, Carlos Bernal Castro and Wilber Canas Velasco, also bore a striking resemblance to one another; with wider faces, fuller lips and more stern expressions.

The revelations didn’t stop there: William and Jorge had been born on 21st December 1988 in the Materno Infantil Hospital in Bogota, and Wilber and Carlos were born a day later in northern Santander province. All four men were born prematurely at 7 months, and when Carlos fell ill he and Wilber were taken to the Materno Infantil Hospital.

When both sets of twins were placed in the same room, they were mistakenly swapped around, and their mothers were none the wiser. Nowadays, the four men call themselves the ‘brothers of Bogota’, and they still can’t believe fate bought them back together so serendipitously!

Runner Wearing "Jesus Saves" Bib Saved By Nurse Named Jesus After Collapse

You may not believe in divine intervention, but this story is enough to make you question whether there really is some other higher power out there. On October 6th, 2019, 25-year-old Tyler Moon stood at the start line of the Medtronic TC 10 Mile Marathon in Minneapolis preparing for the race ahead, but he could’ve never predicted what was about to happen.

At the last minute, he’d changed his running bib to say ‘Jesus Saves’ instead of his name on a total whim. Being a college football player, Moon considered himself to be athletic enough to complete the race. But just a little after the first mile, his heart started beating irregularly for 10 seconds and stopped pumping blood, causing him to collapse.

Thankfully, a registered nurse anesthetist was running behind him and rushed to his aid, and here’s the kicker: that nurses named happened to be named Jesus “Jesse” Bueno, seriously. Bueno performed chest compressions until an ambulance arrived to take Moon to hospital to recover; who else can say they asked Jesus to save them and he actually showed up?

Royce Burton & The Texas Ranger

In 1965, Royce Burton, a history teacher at New Jersey University, decided to share an anecdote with his class about a frightening experience from his past. Back when he was a Texas Ranger patrolling the Rio Grande in 1940, he got lost in a canyon after dark and tried to climb back out when he dangerously lost his balance as he neared the top of a cliff.

Suddenly, a fellow ranger named Joe appeared seemingly out of nowhere, hoisting Burton back up to safety with his rifle strap. Burton thanked Joe for saving his life, but the two men lost contact after they were both enlisted into the military during WW2.

Now, here’s the amazing part: just as Burton was in the middle of sharing his story with the class, an elderly man appeared in the doorway, Joe himself! He’d tracked Burton down for the past 25 years, and just so happened to walk into his classroom as Burton was recounting the story.

Burton said, “I’ll have Joe finish the story” and the students were astounded to witness the duo’s unexpected reunion. Now, how boring does your history class seem?

Robert Todd Lincoln & Presidential Assassinations

When you hear the name Lincoln, you probably think of the late U.S. president Abraham Lincoln, who was assassinated in 1865. Some would say going out like that is a curse itself, but an even spookier affliction beset his eldest son, Robert Todd Lincoln.

As it turns out, Abe’s untimely demise wasn’t the only assassination Robert was connected to, in fact, he seemed to have really bad luck when it came to presidents. Robert wasn’t actually present for his father’s assassination after declining an invitation to join his parents at Ford’s Theater, but he was at his bedside when he passed on 15th April 1865.

Following his fathers death, Robert pursued a political career of his own and eventually earned himself a spot in President James Garfield’s cabinet, serving as the secretary of war from 1881 to 1885. Unfortunately, this also meant Robert was present when Garfield was shot and killed in 1881.

By 1901 Lincoln had found himself serving as the acting president of the Pullman Palace Car Company in Chicago. It’s safe to assume he’d just about recovered from experiencing so much death first-hand when he just-so-happened to be present when President William McKinley was assassinated at the Pan-American Exposition that year. After witnessing so many tragedies, poor old Robbie declined any further presidential invitations for fear of accidentally causing another assassination.

A Cracking Coincidence

In 2018, Stockman’s Eggs hen farm in Australia hit the headlines after an employee found a whopping 176vgram egg in one of its free-range sheds, but that was just the beginning of the surprises to follow.

Considering the egg was about 3x bigger than a standard hen egg, staff were expecting to find two or three yoks inside, what they weren’t expecting, however, was another fully-formed regular-sized egg inside it. The farm’s poultry vet described it as a “freak of nature”, while a number of experts said they’d never seen anything quite like it.

For this extraordinarily rare occurrence to have happened, some have suggested that the eggs journey through the body, which is aided by contractions known as peristalsis, must’ve been interrupted by some kind of shock, or perhaps even the hen equivalent of a hiccup. This may have been enough to send the fully-formed egg back up the oviduct for the process to re-start all over again, resulting in this giant pass-the-parcel of eggs.

Couple Born On The Same Day And Hospital Get Married On Their Birthday

Dating has come a long way since the dawn of the internet, and nowadays Tinder is one of the most popular apps for bringing couples together online, no matter how many people try to hide it. One newlywed couple definitely have nothing to be shy about after they discovered that it wasn’t just Tinder that bought them together, but fate!

When Jamie Frantz Burkett and Anthony Burkett from Louisiana matched on tinder in June 2015, they exchanged numbers and made plans to go on a date. When Anthony’s email popped up in a text, Jamie realized that they had more in common than a mutual physical attraction.

Northshore couple set to wed discovers they were born the same day at the same hospital by WDSU News

After recognizing the numbers ‘11493’ at the end of her dates email address as her own birthday, Jamie and Anthony discovered they were born on the same day, but it didn’t stop there.

It turns out they were both born in East Jefferson hospital, which means they probably spent some time together in the maternity wards as babies. 25 years after they were born on the same day in the same ward, Jamie and Anthony tied the knot and sealed their fate!

Bottled Coincidence

Newly-weds Melody Kloska and Matt Behr were married on August 18th, 2007 in a sunrise ceremony on a beach in the city of Racine, Wisconsin. A week after their big day, they decided to put their wedding vows with their names and address in a bottle and throw it into Lake Michigan, presumably as some sort of declaration of their undying love.

On September 19th, husband and wife Lynette and Fred Dubendorf were walking along the beach near their home in Mears, Michigan when they came across the bottle in the sand.

After unravelling the message inside, Lynette and Fred were shocked to discover that Melody and Matt had married on the same beach as the Dubendorf’s, exactly 28 years after their own wedding date of August 18th, 1979.

The Dubendorf’s decided to write a letter explaining the remarkable coincidence and congratulating the happy couple. Melody and Matt were dumbfounded, both had had several failed marriages in the past and were skeptical about marrying again, but they took the note as a sign from the universe that they’d finally found the real deal!

The 2020 Corona Quarter

Any hard-core coin collector will know that there are tons of commemorative designs released each year by the U.S. mint, but one particular quarter caught people’s attention in 2020 for a rather unsettling reason.

The quarter in question, which was ordered by congress in 2018 and released in 2020, features a pair of upside-down Samoan fruit bats on its reverse. But what’s so strange about that?

Well, according to online conspiracists, the quarter could be an indication that the COVID-19 outbreak is part of some larger government plot, given that the virus likely originated from bat soup from Wuhan’s "wet markets".

However, the coin is just one in a series of 56 quarters released in batches of 5 per year from 2010 through 2020, each depicting a national park or other national site in a U.S. State or territory. The so-called "corona quarter" honors the National Park of American Samoa, and Samoan fruit bats have no known connection to the novel coronavirus.

Twin Mortality

They say twins share an inseparable bond, and in the strange case of two unlucky Finnish brothers it seems even death was could not stand in the way of breaking it. On March 6th, 2002, a 70-year-old man was hit by a truck and killed while riding his bike in Raahe, 600km north of the capital, Helsinki.

The accident was equal parts tragic and ironic, because, about two hours later, his identical twin brother crossed the very same road on his bicycle and was also hit and killed by a lorry. In fact, he reportedly died just 1.5km from the spot where his brother was killed.

To make matters even stranger, it later transpired that the brothers didn’t even live together, while the first lived in Raahe, the second lived in the neighboring municipality of Pattijoki. There was no way the second man could have been informed about his brothers accident before he met his own untimely demise, making this one seriously spooky coincidence.

Good Luck or Good Genes?

It seems like some people are natural born survivors, and no one proves that point quite like Ana del Valle, a 106-year-old grandma from Madrid. Way back in 1918 during the outbreak of the deadly Spanish flu, which infected as many as 500 million people in 36 months, Ana was a country girl aged about seven.

One day, she went out to collect some milk and collapsed under an oak tree, and hours later her mother found her with a high fever. Miraculously, Ana overcame the deadly flu and lived a full and healthy life, that is, until 100 years later, another virus rocked the world in 2020.

This time, Ana was living at a nursing home in Alcala de Valle, when her family were informed on March 20th that she was one of 60 residents who had tested positive for COVID-19. When Ana was transferred to a hospital in La Linea, her family feared the worst, but within a few days, the 106-year-old had overcome the contagion and was back fighting fit!

In October 2020, Ana turned 107, making her the oldest survivor of the coronavirus in Spain, and one of the eldest in the world! It takes some seriously killer genes to survive two pandemics a century apart, but this super-granny proves that anything is possible!

Best Dressed

For most people, turning up to an event wearing matching clothes is a total fashion nightmare, but not for these cool cats in the image below! Believe it or not, these two separate families happened to bump into each other wearing the same funky print and just had to snap a photo of the occasion. Who said matching parent-and-child outfits can’t be cool?

Blending In

On the topic of matching outfits, it isn’t only other people we have to worry about while picking out our clothes in the morning. Take a look at the girl in the image below, for example, who clearly didn’t consider what her classmates coffee cup would be wearing that day. How inconsiderate! If it wasn’t for the neon-green lid, this perfectly lined-up coincidence would’ve been the makings of some seriously effective camouflage.

Lucky Day

You know that mini heart attack you have when you realize your phone isn’t in your back pocket anymore? Anyone who takes a few extra minutes in the bathroom will know that that fear is only amplified by the possibility that your precious device might’ve ended up in the bowl, so can you imagine the relief of looking down to see this below instead?

Seems like whoever snapped this shot got a lucky break that day, your back pocket is never the safest place for your iPhone!

Perfect Timing

It’s important to be appreciative of everything nature has given us, but there’s one creature we can all agree on as being a total universal annoyance: mosquitoes. Their incessant buzzing doesn’t make them hard to spot but tracking one down and catching it is a whole different story, which is precisely why this thing in the image below is such a remarkable coincidence. You’ve got to be Neo from The Matrix to close your AirPods case at such an eerily perfect moment, right?

How A Sewer Hunter Broke Into The Bank Of England Vaults

The Bank of England is one of the oldest financial institutions in the world. Since 1734 it has occupied a 3.4-acre site in London’s Threadneedle Street, where the iconic building conceals eight subterranean vaults filled with gold.

With 8-foot thick walls, specially-designed keys to each vault, a state-of-the-art protection system and recently-added voice recognition tech, it’s no surprise that the bank hasn’t been robbed in its 325-year history. That is, apart from the time its defenses were breached by an enterprising security worker, entirely by coincidence.

Back in 1836, the directors of the Bank of England received an anonymous letter, in which the author claimed to have direct access to the gold in the bank. At first, they assumed the letter to be a joke and chose to ignore it. But then they received another one, this time offering to meet them at a time of their choosing inside the main vault.

The directors still thought it was impossible that someone could have broken in, but they decided to agree to the meeting anyway. So, one evening, they gathered inside the vault when suddenly, right on time, a man popped up from beneath the floorboards. According to the man, he was a sewer worker who had been working on repairs close to the Bank of England site at Threadneedle Street.

During a routine inspection, he had unwittingly discovered an old drain that led directly underneath the gold vault inside the bank itself. After a quick stock take, the directors found that the well-meaning man had not taken anything from the vault. As a reward for his honesty, the man was given £800, over $120,000 today, which would have changed his life for good. Whoever he was, he seems like a better man than most.

Incredible Aim

Some people seem to have a naturally good aim when it comes to sports like archery. Hitting a bullseye first time is no easy feat, but if you want an even harder challenge, why not try this in the image below on for size?

Believe it or not, someone managed to shoot an arrow right through a power line, no biggie! And it’s not the only time this has happened. In July 2020, the empower energy company posted some incredible images of another arrow that was shot through one of their fiber lines in South Jonesboro, causing some local outages.

What’s even more impressive is that the arrow was falling down towards the ground when it perfectly pierced the line. Even if it was shot downward from a helicopter, this would surely be one in a million shot. It makes you wonder; what kind of maniacs are out there shooting arrows at power lines?

Charles Herbert Lightoller: The Man Who Survived The Titanic And Dunkirk

On the morning of April 15th, 1912, the R.M.S. Titanic, the most luxurious liner to have ever sailed the seas, collided with an iceberg in the North Atlantic Ocean and sunk, taking over 1,500 lives with it.

Then, on 4th June 1940, and another significant historical event took place when 338,000 Allied British soldiers were rescued from the beaches of Dunkirk during Operation Dynamo, turning tragedy into triumph. What do these two things have in common, other than being two defining moments of the 20th century? The answer is one man named Charles Herbert Lightoller.

Lightoller had already survived a revolution and smallpox outbreak in Rio de Janeiro by the time he took the position of Second Officer on board the Titanic in 1912. As the ship began to sink on that fateful morning, Lightoller realized that all collapsible boats had already been launched and instead dove into the ocean and attempted to swim away from the vessel.

But the force of the suction from the sinking ship meant that he was dragged underwater and pinned against a ventilation shaft, fighting for his life. Lightoller had almost accepted his tragic fate when suddenly a boiler explosion from deep within the ship produced a blast of hot air powerful enough to propel him back up to the surface.

By a stroke of luck, Lightoller found himself next to one of the collapsible boats he’d launched, which was capsized. He scrambled on top of the collapsible and awaited rescue as he watched the Titanic sink in the distance.

Flash-forward to June 1st 1940, and Lightoller, who was not deterred by his near-death experience, set off to the beaches of Dunkirk with his son Roger and another sailor. There, Lightoller helped to save the lives of 127 men by taking them aboard his motor yacht, the Sundowner. Some people are just born to be heroes!

Weather Wonder

No matter how many rainbows you see in your life, chances are you’ll always look up and say “whoa” whenever one appears in the sky. You might even feel strangely compelled to snap a quick photo, which is exactly what one incredibly lucky person was trying to do when they caught something even more mind-blowing: a rainbow and lightning at the same time!

This is an incredibly rare sight because lightning often occurs during heavy storms, while rainbows generally appear after the rain has stopped. To capture both at the same time, it must be raining with enough sunlight for a rainbow to form and lightning strikes still sizzling, making this one seriously one-in-a-million coincidence. The plastic Jesus on the dash really pulls this photo together, though, the only thing better would have been Thor!

Golf Ball Inside Tree

If you’re an avid golf player, you’ve probably lost many golf balls in your time on the course. Thankfully, they’re pretty replaceable, unless you have a "lucky ball", so you don’t have to worry that you’ll never see one again once it goes flying out of your eyesight. That is, unless you happen to be cutting down a tree many years later and end up slicing right through a golf ball that has become totally encased within it.

Perhaps this poor ball got stuck in a fork of the tree during a lethal swing, or maybe it was even hidden by a pesky squirrel. Judging by the number of tree rings around it, it seems like this golf ball is at least 13 years old! But you have to wonder, was it wedged in there or was it driven in? And If you got those golf puns, you need to get out more!

The Curse Of The Panda Diplomacy

In 1974, three world leaders were forced to step down. Each owed their downfall to an unrelated scandal, but there was one very strange, very specific thing they all had in common: they had all been given two pandas.

Richard Nixon was given two giant pandas by the Republic of China during a visit in 1972, presumably, a box of chocolates was just too cliché, and he found himself resigning two years later thanks to the Watergate scandal.

Then, also in 1974, the then-prime minister of Britain, Edward Heath, stepped down following a series of miners strikes. And guess what? Heath had also visited China that year and had personally asked for two pandas.

There’s no denying that’s a bit of a weird coincidence, but it only got weirder when Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands got involved. Besides being a Prince, Bernhard was also one of the founders of the World Wildlife Fund and the guy responsible for making pandas as famous as they are today. But Bernhard was fired for getting involved in the Lockheed Corporation scandal.

Why’s that relevant? Well, that’s the same scandal that led to the arrest of former Prime Minister Tanaka of Japan, who was also given a pair of pandas in 1971 and resigned in1974! Unsurprisingly, China discontinued this trend of panda-giving in 1984, and instead started offering pandas to other nations on ten-year loans. Thankfully, who knows what chaotic dystopia we’d be living in now!

Funny enough, as the world gets more chaotic, the renewal of the so-called Panda Diplomacy is put into question. Countries are expected to pay around a million dollars per year for each loaned Panda and a former diplomat claims that “given the current tenor of US-China relations, it is not surprising that Chinese authorities are allowing panda contracts with US zoos to expire”.

If you were amazed at these incredible coincidences, you might want to check out our entire One In A Million Coincidences series. Thanks for reading!