The Strange Coincidences Archive

I was hanging out with one of my friend’s once in his house, we were both 16 and obviously loved trouble. So we decided to sneak out and go mess with cars that drove by. While we were messing with cars (standing by the side of the road in our boxers, being stupid) My friend’s Grandfather drove by at 2:30 in the morning. He saw us and stopped and for some reason seemed much more in awe than upset, He said that 19 years earlier he had caught my friend’s dad and my dad doing the EXACT same thing @ 2:30 in the morning. This was truly creepy to all three of us, I never mess outside by the road at night anymore- that was a sign.

I was in Montreal at the time on a ski trip that was supposed to be enjoyable, had it been with people I actually know!.. The people I were with could be labelled, “casual acquaintances”, in other words, I see them perhaps twice a year! Our personalities seemed like night and day. Why I went with them, was probably to escape the confines of our house in the winter time. So I agreed to go on this ski trip. By the second evening I was feeling quite bored with them, as they weren’t my usual crowd I hung out with. So I had this brilliant idea that I would make up a story about my mother, who at the time was recovering from her gallstone removal surgery, and had a 10 inch scar that was supposedly healing. I told the group that I needed to head home ASAP as my mothers incision had burst open and was infected. My good friend Joseph drove me to the bus terminal that evening, and I headed back to Toronto. It took six, long hours of driving through a winter storm to finally reach T.O. I waited for my father to pick me up, and when he finally picked me up, he told me, “your mom’s incision had just burst open and was infected!”, I nearly freaked out at this weird coincidence!! Coincidence, or what???

in 1980 i moved into a furnished basement apartment of a house in denver, colorado. the owners an older couple lived upstairs. i lived there for 3 months. about 5 years later i was attending a training class about 20 people attended and there were people from other companies. i worked for mountain bell. during the course of converstion one of the other girls was relaying a story about her landlords when i realized she was refering to the same older couple and the same house. she too had also rented the basement from these same people.

Some time around 1994, I was watching the UK version of ‘Wheel of Fortune’. As you probably all know, the first person to complete the correct answer to the clue wins the round, done by gradually revealing the letters of the answer.
On this one occasion, the clue was ‘Classic TV’, and instantly (with no letters having been revealed whatsoever), I correctly guessed ‘The Krypton Factor’. Anyone in the UK will tell that this was hardly the most obvious of ‘classic TV’ shows.

My family thought I had seen it before but I swear that this was an outrageous coincidence!

One beautiful afternoon, a long time friend of mine and I were fishing. As we sat on the tailgate of his truck, I happened to sing the Beatles song “She came in through the bathroom window”. It was not on the radio, nor was it a favorite of mine. Later that evening we were havivg dinner in a restaraunt. In the room opposite of us was a musician entertaining other diners with a guitar. From where we sat we could not see him. He stared to play “She came in through the bathroom window”. I said to my friend, “How bout that!” Well, I had been trying to get this certain job at the time for a long while. It was at this job the next morning that I met a man who introduced himself (as my co-worker). Within five minutes, he just happened to mention that the bar in which he was playing last night had asked him to turn down his gutar during “She came in through the bathroom window”.

I’m an Freshman at Fremd High School in Palatine IL, and 2 years ago, we had just gone back to school (for me 7th grade) snd about the third day of school we went to the library and got book that we wanted. Well I had found this book called the Terrorist, i forget the author. I thought it seemed interesting so I brought it to the check out counter and the librarian told me to put a date due card in it and I so i did. The date that it was due back Sept.11 2001. Of course at the time that date semeed of no significance till me until that awful day. That freaked me out so much, but I didin’t tell anyone because who would believe a little 7th grader.

One strange coincidence was an old Johnny Cash record. I just wanted to see what songs were on it, because it was old. It was in with some old records that had been in my family awhile. But, I hadn’t been sitting around listening to ANY of these old family records. The song by June Carter Cash was on the album, “Darling Companion.” All of a sudden, I loved it. I listened to it over and over and over. Even DANCED!!! Imagine my surprise when the next morning, I heard on the radio June Carter Cash had passed away. And, I beieve it was around the same time I was listening to the old song!!! As we all know, Johnny has since passed away as well. I love the song!!!!!! I bet they are happy to be together again on the other side.

This coincidence needs a lot of history to understand it—so here goes. I was extremely close to my in-laws. They truly were like second parents to me and they loved me very much. Unfortunately, due to bad behavior on their sons’ part, we divorced. My in-laws were devastated by it as well as I. My father in law was a genuinely wonderfully kind gentle giant. He was a huge man with a huge heart and the way he lived his life was exemplary. He dearly loved his wife. One day, my mother in law told me a story of how when they were young and dating, she used to babysit her much younger cousin who had a crush on Bill (my father in law). She would tell my mother in law that she was going to marry a Bill. My mother in law thought that it was funny that she did grow up to marry a Bill. When I was going through the divorce, my mother in law and I were talking about how men today were different than in her day. She felt bad what her son had done. I told her that I nee ded to find someone as wonderful as Bill. She tearfully told me “Lainey, you need to find your Bill”. Shortly after the divorce, Bill died and a year later my mother in law died.

This second piece of history is necessary in order to understand… My father was a “bully” when my siblings and I were growing up. Because of that, when we grew up, we had a lot of hard feelings towards him once we were out from under his thumb. When he saw that he had alienated his children, he tried to change. I was the youngest and experienced the least of his “bullying”. I felt a little sorry for him at times when one of us would hurt him. It didn’t take much to hurt him because he was emotionally immature and that was why he was such a poor father when we were young. When my eldest sister had a daughter she named her after my mother. When she had a son, she named him Jake after a friend of hers. My father was named Alton after his father and he had named my brother Alton. My sisters son was the only grandson. One day shortly after Jake was born I saw my father lifting him in the air and smiling at him and calling him “Alton”. I knew he realized that my sister did not wa
nt to name her son after him even though she wanted to name her daughter after my mom. I thought “If I ever have a child I’m going to name him Alton after my dad” So—several years later, after my divorce and right after my in laws had died, I decided that if I ever got married again and if I ever had a son, I would name him William Alton after my father and my father in law. I knew that it would be hard to do because who would let me name our son such un-cool names?
a couple of years later, I moved across the country. I started dating a man named Bill. When he first asked me out, I thought “I wonder if this is my Bill?” but not really seriously because I really didn’t know if I really liked him. One night we decided to stay in and rent a movie. During the movie, I suddenly asked him what his middle name was. He wouldn’t tell me. I kept pressing him and he finally said “You better not laugh. It’s Alton.” I felt like I was punched in the stomach. I kept saying “Really?” and he kept saying “yeah!” Then he said “And if I ever have a son I have to name him William Alton because I’m a Junior. My dad would be upset if I didn’t.” He even got a little upset because he thought I was shocked because it was a goofy name. I didn’t tell him why I was so shocked.

Post script- We broke up and I moved away. I never did understand the meaning of this coincidence because we never really hit it off. We do still keep in touch from time to time as friends.Please do not use my email address.

Ok, weird coincidences have been happening to me for the last 9 months. All of these relating to a boy who I like but apparently is not interested in me at all. I wanted to learn about coincidences and why they happen so I looked up coincidences on the internet and found this site. I will tell you about one of my more recent coincidences. I am a missionary living in Vancouver, BC and last Friday I took a trip down to Washington for a conference. There were about 70 people in attendance. At the end I made friends with three missionary kids. We talked about many different topics, toys, countries, movies, siblings etc… Then after asking how old they were I asked the one boy when his birthday was and he told me about a big party they were going to have for his birthday which was on October 18th. He was the only one in the whole building I asked when his birthday was and October 18th is the same birthday as the boy that I told you about at the beginn ing which many many coincidences have already occurred concerning him in my life. Ok, not only that but I was reading your site just now and the one submitted by Daniel H. is the only one talking about birthdays being the same, guess what birthday he talks about? October 18th. Just thought that was kind of weird.

The brand new pastor and his wife, newly assigned to their first ministry, to reopen a church in suburban Brooklyn, arrived in early
October excited about their opportunities. When they saw their church,
it was very run down and needed much work. They set a goal to have
everything done in time to have their first service on Christmas Eve.
They worked hard, repairing pews, plastering walls, painting, etc. and
on Dec 18 were ahead of schedule and just about finished.

On Dec 19 a terrible tempest – a driving rainstorm – hit the area and
lasted for two days. On the 21st, the pastor went over to the church.
His heart sank when he saw that the roof had leaked, causing a large
area of plaster about 20 feet by 8 feet to fall off the front wall of
the sanctuary just behind the pulpit, beginning about head high. The
pastor cleaned up the mess on the floor, and not knowing what else to do
but postpone the Christmas Eve service, headed home. On the way he
noticed that a local business was having a flea market type sale for
charity so he stopped in. One of the items was a beautiful, handmade,
ivory colored, crocheted tablecloth with exquisite work, fine colors and
a Cross embroidered right in the center. It was just the right size to
cover up the hole in the front wall. He bought it and headed back to the
church.

By this time it had started to snow. An older woman running from the
opposite direction was trying to catch the bus. She missed it. The
pastor invited her to wait in the warm church for the next bus 45
minutes later. She sat in a pew and paid no attention to the pastor
while he got a ladder, hangers, etc., to put up the tablecloth as a wall
tapestry. The pastor could hardly believe how beautiful it looked and it
covered up the entire problem area. Then he noticed the woman walking
down the center aisle. Her face was like a sheet.

“Pastor,” she asked, “where did you get that tablecloth?”

The pastor explained. The woman asked him to check the lower right
corner to see if the initials, EBG were crocheted into it there. They
were. These were the initials of the woman, and she had made this
tablecloth 35 years before, in Austria. The woman could hardly believe
it as the pastor told how he had just gotten the tablecloth.

The woman explained that before the war she and her husband were
well-to-do people in Austria. When the Nazis came, she was forced to
leave. Her husband was going to follow her the next week. She was
captured, sent to prison and never saw her husband or her home again.
The pastor wanted to give her the tablecloth; but she made the pastor
keep it for the church.

The pastor insisted on driving her home, that was the least he could do.
She lived on the other side of Staten Island and was only in Brooklyn
for the day for a housecleaning job.

What a wonderful service they had on Christmas Eve. The church was
almost full. The music and the spirit were great. At the end of the
service, the pastor and his wife greeted everyone at the door and many
said that they would return. One older man, whom the pastor recognized
from the neighborhood, continued to sit in one of the pews and stare,
and the pastor wondered why he wasn’t leaving.

The man asked him where he got the tablecloth on the front wall because
it was identical to one that his wife had made years ago when they lived
in Austria before the war and how could there be two tablecloths so much
alike?

He told the pastor how the Nazis came, how he forced his wife to flee
for her safety, and he was supposed to follow her, but he was arrested
and put in a prison. He never saw his wife or his home again all the 35
years in between.

The pastor asked him if he would allow him to take him for a little
ride. They drove to Staten Island and to the same house where the pastor
had taken the woman three days earlier. He helped the man climb the
three flights of stairs to the woman’s apartment, knocked on the door
and he saw the greatest Christmas reunion he could ever imagine.

True Story – supposedly submitted by Pastor Rob Reid

(Circulating via e-mail—I can’t vouch for any of it!)