Coincidences.....what are your strangest?

[Rusty Nails]

I lost touch with the lad who had been my best friend since the age of 6 up until we we were best man at each other's weddings, after he had moved to the north of England.

Twenty years later I was sent on a management course by my company to Stratford on Avon. The course tutor walked in on the first morning and it was my old friend.

We have been close friends ever since, going on four road trips together across the south west US, based on our love of Westerns when we were kids.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

Met a Japanese woman and became friends in my second year at university turns out we have exactly the same birthday so same day month year.

 

[Dirk]

Met a Japanese woman and became friends in my second year at university turns out we have exactly the same birthday so same day month year.

Not as strange as you may think.
According to probability theory, you only need 23 people in a room to put the probability of 2 of them having the same birthday at 50%.
Presumably there were more than 23 people in your university group, and you would most likely be from a similar demographic regarding age, then the odds of it happening would appear relatively unremarkable.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birthday_problem

 

[Chris S]

In my office a disproportionately large number of people were born in August or September. I thought it tactful not to point out that this was 9 months after the Christmas/New Year period when most people are drunk.

 

[MontyVeda]

In my office a disproportionately large number of people were born in August or September. I thought it tactful not to point out that this was 9 months after the Christmas/New Year period when most people are drunk.

I know four people who's birthdays are on Valentine's Day
I randomly stumbled across this and it seems your people and mine are just part of a national trend:
https://www.ons.gov.uk/visualisations/nesscontent/dvc307/chart1/index.html

 

[clid61]

Was in marrakech, stopped by a couple who guessed I was English , they asked for directions. Got chatting and turns out they had moved into next door but one in Wigan , while I was in marrakech and decided on a quick break !!

 

[Globalti]

I had an odd one last night.
I'd spent the last part of the evening surfing YouTube on my tablet whilst wearing ear buds.
MrsD went to empty the dishwasher at about 11.30pm and then got ready for bed.
MrsD is always singing something as she mills about the bungalow.
At about 11.40pm I was in the bathroom and I caught a snippet of a song that MrsD was singing as she was getting into bed.
I asked her what the song was.
She said it was Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy from Company B by the Andrews Sisters - a famous wartime American song from 1941.
A bit obscure for this day and age, I know.
I asked why she was singing it.
She said that it had just popped into her head.

Now, the last video I watched last night was a music reaction video of a young American girl listening to ..........Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy from Company B by the Andrews Sisters!

There is no way MrsD could have known that I'd watched that video, as she was out of the room and I'd got ear buds in so she couldn't have heard it either.
She thought I was making it up, until I showed her my YouTube history for that evening.

What are the chances of that?
Spooky, eh?

I'm not surprised to read that story. Often it happens that I think about somebody and a minute later the phone rings and it's them. I really do believe there is some kind of deep-rooted ESP effect between humans and between humans and animals, it's just that our higher intellectual processes overwhelm the messages nearly all the time.

 

[Dirk]

I'm not surprised to read that story. Often it happens that I think about somebody and a minute later the phone rings and it's them. I really do believe there is some kind of deep-rooted ESP effect between humans and between humans and animals, it's just that our higher intellectual processes overwhelm the messages nearly all the time.

I would not attach any sort of hypothesis to why it happened, until such time as said hypothesis has a scientific basis. As far as I'm aware, ESP has not been substantiated.
I'm quite content to say -'That was odd, but I don't know why it happened'.

 

[Globalti]

Do you think scientists will ever acknowledge natural phenomena like ESP? That would be like turkeys voting for Christmas.

 

[Dirk]

Do you think scientists will ever acknowledge natural phenomena like ESP? That would be like turkeys voting for Christmas.

Why?
If it's a real then scientists would be all over it like a rash. Nobel prizes would be in the offing. Fame and fortunes would be made.
It cannot be claimed to be a 'natural phenomena' until such time as the evidence points in that direction and until it's studied, tested for and proven.
As far as I'm aware no one has ever got past the first two points without hitting a brick wall.
ESP remains an unproven claim and, as such, deserves no credence.

 

[Chris S]

Pale Rider's brother became a governor at my former secondary school. I have never (knowingly) met either of them.

 

[Badger_Boom]

One of my partner’s cousins married a chap from the fringes of London society, and we want to their wedding (in the church from the first ceremony in Four Weddings and a Funeral) followed by a reception at one of the better clubs. There was a distinct sartorial divide between the two families - hired morning suits v school uniform.

Fast forward a few years and we’re working in Italy with a friend and over beers one night we get to talking about weddings and he incites us to tell the story. At the end, an American colleague commented that it sounded a lot like a wedding his uncle had attended, which was because it WAS the same one.

 

[tyred]

A few years ago on a seaside visit with a friend, in a junk/antique shop, my friend picked up a fancy leather-bound Bible.

On the inside page there was a note with "if found, please return to.."

The return address was actually the exact address where my friend was living...

She did buy the Bible in the shop and track down the family and return the Bible to the family.

 

[Blue Hills]

Pale Rider's brother became a governor at my former secondary school. I have never (knowingly) met either of them.

May have posted before, but since we have strayed into the spooky dark side of cyclechat, accycylist narrowly missed being born in the same house as me.

 

[clid61]

bumped into my brother in Asda