What's the most unlikely coincidence you've ever experienced ?
 

...as the title really...hit me with those wierd coincidences that you cannot explain .... :)

About 7-8 years ago, I was listening to an obscure song from the 80s (The Art Company - Susanna) on my iPod in the car.

I got out and walked into the off licence and the exact same song was playing in the shop.

Can't even imagine the odds of that.

A long time ago in Guildford thinking it would be great to meet Helena Bonham Carter as I had a crush on her. Low and behold she walked out in front of me and starting talking to someone right next to me outside a shop. My jaw hit the floor and I was speechless :)

Shame the same hasn't happened yet with Gal Gadot :luvlove:

higher than you would imagine I suspect

it would be even odder if these coincidences never happened

Not so much a coincidence but definitely one in a billion.

I was 7yrs old on a beach in Jamaica, saw something shiny in the surf, picked it up and it was a silver 6 pence, still have it almost 43yrs later.

Was in Australia back in 2002 and we stopped over in a back packers in the middle of nowhere coming back down from Cook Town.

Was only a couple of young guys apart from us there, got talking by the pool and it turned out that one of the guys father used to work with my mates father, who was with me, back on a farm in Wiltshire.

Small world eh!

Walking along the platform at Doncaster railway station about five years ago with a mate. he bent down and picked something from a crack between the coping stones on the edge of the platform and the platform surface.
It was a farthing...the last ones were minted in 1956, they stopped being legal tender in 1960.

What's the chance of that?

As for coincidences:

We met a couple via my wife's work, and started a friendship.

We later found that they had got married on the same day in the same year at the same time as us, except 60 miles away.

Even later we discovered that they spent their first night of their honeymoon in a Hotel called the Saxon Arms, while we were in the Saxon Motel at Harlow.

I was at college with a lad from Blackpool. After we bought a property in France, we discovered that he and his wife also had one...less than 25 miles from us.

The more the think about it the more you have probably experienced, but it would be freaky if nothing like this ever happened.

I once got interviewed for a job in Essex and the guy had the same first and last name as me, was not good when I got a letter telling me that I didn't get the job and it was signed by me?!?

Found a silver sixpence on holiday when a kid and then lost it on a beach in Jamaica later, wonder what ever happened to it.

Have met several people around the country and world that were born in the same hospital as me in Romford that is no longer there, two born in the same month.

Had an operation on my back a couple of years ago, discectomey (or whatever it's called)

Got out of hospital, was at home, phone rang.. Woman on the other, wrong number. Put phone down. Phone rings again, same woman. She recited the number and I just said well you must have been given the same number. She was in Wales and started telling me that she needed to speak to her friend and she lived in a certain cul-de-sac... Oh, that's strange I said, my Nan lives there too. What's the chances.

But that wasn't the weirdest bit. She said she'd just got out of Hospital and was ringing to tell her friend how it went. That's strange I said, I've just got out of hospital. She then went on to tell me she'd had the exact same operation as me too!

Gotta admit that's pretty odd. Wrong number, lives miles away in Wales, the woman she wanted lived next to my Nan, and to top it off she'd just got out of hospital having the same operation as me! I was pretty spooked after.

this is a good little article by the BBC

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-31302312

it discusses the concepts of chance and randomness - with specific regards to music "shuffle" algorithms

people are programmed to see patterns - it is an evolutionary thing

...

me and an ex girlfriend had the same 4 digit pin number for our bank cards. we had seperate accounts and account numbers and were living at the same address. the bank said they had never come across it before.

I was on holiday in Cornwall with the family, quite a few years ago now. I was crabbing in Padstow harbour when I heard a familiar voice. It was my next door neighbour. He knew we were away, but we hadn't told him where. We didn't know he had planned to be away either

Social engineering? did you give her your credit card numbers?

How would the bank firstly know what your pin was and secondly talk to you about it?

New neighbour moves in and she has a couple of boys similar age to my son, so they get to hanging out a bit and the woman and my mrs become friends. While I'm back in the uk she invites us round for dinner, after a couple of hours sitting chatting it turns out that she's the sister of one of my old school mates from Infant school, small world indeed.

Went on a trip to NZ a couple of years back to do the Milford Track, which was excellent.

Couple of American guys I met there were in the UK this year for a stopover on the way to Spain and we arranged to meet up for a nice wander around London.

I took them down to see Buck House and as I was standing there with them I heard my name being called, it was another of the walkers we had met who lived in Israel.

Got to say the odds of that happening must be minuscule!

because i went into the bank and Queried it obviously.

on one level it is, but if you take into account the number of interactions (especially amongst travellers) that go on in the world every single day then maybe not

imagine all the times you don't see anyone you met traveling!

New Zealand and London are pretty common on the traveller circuit anyway


take for example the national lottery - the odds on YOU/ME winning are minuscule

the odds on someone winning are pretty high - very high in fact

shown by how often it is won versus how often there is a "rollover"

Years ago we lived in Oz. Our neighbour went on a tour of Europe and was in Scotland. He was trying to make a call in one of the old phone boxes button A &B type. Having trouble using it a guy went to help him. It was only an uncle of mine on holiday from Northumberland!!!!

I don't think anything beats this

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-16374283

After my first daughter was born my wife was in a small ward of 6 beds.
She was in the middle bed on one side of the ward.Next to her on one side was the partner of the guy who lived next door to me when I was a growing up & on the other side of her was the partner of another guy I knew who lived about 100 yards down the same street.

I vaugely remember that, like you said it does take some beating!!!

I also vaguely remember someone in Sweden/Holland etc catching a fish with a ring in it - the ring was the catchers old wedding ring

although this could be me misremembering or confusing it with LOTR - lol

Being born.

Apparent coincidences can sometimes be explained by the maths of chance. Seemingly it only needs 23 people in the same room for there to be a 50/50 chance of two of them sharing a birthday, and with around 75 in the room it's practically a certainty.

There were only 30 people in our group, who had never met before. The Americans were only in London for 2 days and the Israeli likewise was just visiting.

For us to then meet in a packed London centre was pretty cool, certainly left me speechless!

10 years ago I was seeing a girl in Edinburgh (I'm from Manchester) and was doing the alternate weekends thing up there down here. One weekend we drove past the Edinburgh office of the company I work for and said 'I wonder what the chances are of getting a transfer to the this office?'. That following week back in the MCR office my boss approached me and asked if I'd ever been to Scotland, then asked if I could help out in the Edinburgh office for 3 months! Thing is, 10 years later I'm still here...and yes, we got married.:luvlove:

yes, I was going to suggest this -- every person born is a product of almost unimaginable chance


I have heard it expressed as the same chance of setting off from the coast of Ireland and swimming to America

and the chance of twins is doing the above but towing a bucket

the chance of identical twins - swimming the Pacific towing a bucket

It's unfathomable and ineffable when taken back to Big Bang and we then have pre-Big Bang and the notion of multiverses, but even this doesn't satisfy the problem of infinite regress. After this we travel all the way through to the 'creation' of Earth, abiogenesis, incalculable mutations of the species and so on until gran meets grandad and father is born and mother is born and procreation takes place and the staggering, magical, miraculous odds of conception! Any event after this only adds to how incredibly unlikely it is that anything happens at all. Yet here we are. Awesome!