Girlfriends With The Same Date Coincidence

A short coincidence story today sent to me by George from Bristol, UK.

What are the chances of this happening?

Back in 1997 I split with a girlfriend on August 14th. Three years later I parted from my next partner, the lovely Anne, on the same day and month - but this time in 2000. The date, therefore, is fixed in my memory.

The last time I therefore spoke to Anne was August 14th 2000 (which happens to be the first evening that The Weakest Link was broadcast on British television).

A few weeks after we had seperated I came across the first letter Anne had ever written to me - by another coincidence it too was dated August 14th, 1998.

Further Coincidences:
A Psychic Reading With Insider Knowledge
A Wrong Corrected By A Coincidence
The Red Balloon Coincidence

A Lottery Win Is Expected!

I'm Going To Win The UK Lottery this week!

How do I know? Because 'by coincidence' my name is Michael (but you can call me Mike!).

The UK National Lottery records show that you are most likely to win a jackpot if you are called Michael, John, David, Peter Robert or James. So how can I fail, I head the list.

The luckiest lottery winning women are called Margaret, Susan, Patricia, Mary and Christine.

Unfortunately my wife's name isn't amongst them so I'll just get the one ticket for myself. If she's good I'll share!

Let's see: a luxury house overlooking the sea, travel to far off lands ... we can all dream.

By Coincidence She Was Classed As A Heroin Addict

They Said She Was A Heroin Addict:
In the UK, if you want to work with children, you have to be checked out by the Criminal Records Bureau.

Amanda Hodgson didn't think there would be anything to worry about when she applied to become a welfare assistant at her children's school - how wrong could she be.

The CRB sent her a letter with the news that, according to their records, she was a recovering heroin addict who had been violent and had assaulted police. As a law abiding citizen Amanda was shocked by this, to say the least.

How did this happen? Simply because, by coincidence, there is another Amanda Hodgson in the same area who just happens to have exactly the same date of birth.

Easy enough to sort out, you might think, but the problem didn't end there. For some inexplicable reason the onus is on Mrs.Hodgson to prove her innocence!

Titanic Coincidence In The News

Titanic Coincidence:
You might well ask: How on earth can the Titanic be news? But there it is in UK newspapers. It's in respect of a book that has been published called 101 Things You Thought You Knew About the Titanic...But Didn't.

According to the writer, Tim Maltin, by coincidence, the Titanic came within two feet of crashing into another liner, as it set off on her maiden voyage from Southampton. Had the ships collided then the Titanic tragedy, with the loss of 1517 lives, would never had happened.

Maltin goes on to say how the Titanic's Captain was only used to boats half of the Titanic's size, and that's why he came close to hitting the SS City of New York.

Maltin explains, "The collision was avoided by about two feet, something which obviously is an indicator of the disaster to come. Anyone with a ship that size would have been accident prone - the world had never seen a ship that big before."

Some things seem destined to happen.

See also post Titanic Coincidences on 67 Not Out blog.

Date On Her Boyfriends Baby Photo Was Her Birthday

A coincidence story today from Suzie all about a date on a photo.

I have been living with my boyfriend for three years and a couple of weeks ago we went to see his parents. I don't really get on too well with his mother but that's another story, though his father laughs and says it's because we are so alike - ugh, the thought of that!

The boyfriend's mother dug out loads of baby photos of her darling little boy. He looked quite cute as a baby, he still does actually. There was one larger photo and for some reason I turned it over and there on the back was a date in pencil.

I took a bit of a gulp as the date was my birthday: day, month and year!

The boyfriend is two years older than me so it can't have been the date the photo was taken. This picture was of him as a very small baby. His mother and father have no idea why the date is there or what it means.

It's puzzling me as to what this might mean. Maybe our relationship is written in the stars or something. Could that be church bells I'm hearing? Finger's crossed.

More Coincidences:
Twins Killed On Same Day Coincidence
Titanic Coincidence Stories
Heart Saving Coincidences

A Coincidence Thousands Of Miles From Home

A coincidence story passed on to me about an unlikely meeting. Fancy being in a bus queue, thousands of miles from home, and finding out that the person you were talking too knew not only your home town but your house as well.

"My brother and I, we are from England, were travelling in Mexico, Belize and Guatemala last summer. We were getting on a bus to go to an island in Belize and were waiting with a group of people. We got chatting to an English girl and then got on the bus with her.

Later on when we came to a bus stop we had to change buses. She was going to find a hostel to stay in the town so we said goodbye.

About an hour later she returned having decided to go on into Belize, and asked if she could travel with us. We said yes and subsequently spent three days travelling with her.

Her name was Vanessa and it was only about 2 days after we met her that we asked where in England she was from.

We told her we lived in Gloucestershire, and specified it as near Bristol because generally people don’t know where Gloucestershire is.

She said "Oh I know Gloucester, I used to go to school in Cheltenham." (A town nearby with a famous ladies college).

We told her we lived in a small town called Newent (photo top right). She said she knew it and asked if we knew Elly Cox.

My brother and I were stunned! We know Elly Cox, she lived five doors down from our house. She was also our sister's best friend before she went to boarding school.

How crazy is that? Of all the people we decided to talk to in the bus queue we talked to someone who’d been within about 10 metres of our front door!"

~ wishes to remain anonymous

More coincidences:
There's A Coincidence Time For Everything
Secret Of Getting What You Want With Coincidences
The Red Balloon Coincidence

The Girl They Met On A Train Coincidence Story

Another reader's coincidence story today from Evanna and it's certainly an interesting one. I guess it raises the question: Are we linked to certain people and is it part of our destiny to meet up with them?

The greatest coincidence that happened to me so far I experienced in February 2002.

I am originally from Austria, and for half a year now I’ve been working in Frankfurt, Germany. On the particular weekend, my boyfriend had come to visit. We were sitting on a train talking to each other, when a girl who had been sitting nearby spoke to us.

She had recognized our Austrian accent and was happy to tell us she originated from the same area as we did. Before we could exchange names, addresses or anything, however, she had to get off the train. 


As the train left her station, she waved to us and that was the last thing we saw of her. I felt very sorry for having 'lost' her, as it is always great to meet people from home and I would have loved to stay in touch with her.

My boyfriend returned home, I stayed in Frankfurt. About a week later, he told me he had received a strange email. A woman was searching for an old school mate whom she had not seen for years. His name was the same as my boyfriend. The woman wrote that she came from our home area but had moved to Frankfurt some years ago.

Although my boyfriend was not the man she was searching for, he wrote a reply, telling her about his personal connection to Frankfurt. In the correspondence that followed he mentioned the girl we had met on the train. The short encounter had for some reason stayed on our minds. When the reply email came, we were stunned: It had been her whom we had met on the train!

In addition to the small coincidence of the likeness of my boyfriend’s (very common) name and that of the missing school mate, there is the big coincidence of her writing to my boyfriend of all people carrying that name, thus triggering off the 'retrieval' of people who would otherwise hardly have met each other again.

And I’m glad we did. When the girl and I met again, we immediately realized that there was a special, soul mate like relationship between us. She’s become my best friend in a foreign city. I’m starting to feel at home now.

Other Coincidences:
A Clutch Of Coincidences In Truro
Romantic Madeira Coincidence Story
Coincidence Photos Of Children And Their Dogs

Small Coincidence Stories Linking Two Friends

Today a story of several small coincidences or links between two friends - thanks to Angie for this.

These are coincidences about me and my mate Bec which I think are pretty funny.

We are 19 now and met when we were nine at the local swimming pool. Three years later we started at the same High School together. We weren't especially close but were friendly.

After completing High School I was interested in websites and heard about a course which interested me. I had an interview and was accepted. Who was also on the course? Bec! I bumped into her when we were put into the same class.

Two months later I sent her a text to say I had completed another milestone in my life by buying my first car. She sent a text back saying she had bought her first car that day as well!

A further month later I mentioned to her that I was nervous as I had booked my Hazards (the written part of the driving licence test) for the coming Friday. Low and behold, so had she!

After the test I phoned her to see how she had got on and, you've guessed, we had both got the same result - 67%!

Well I think it's funny or odd at least

~ Angie.

Interesting that they both got 67!

More Coincidence Stories:
Drenched With Water In The Spanish Mountains Coincidence
The Billions To One Coincidence Of Being Here Now
Married Couple In The Same Photo As Children

The Doppelganger Coincidence

This is a strange experience I had while on a holiday to the Canary Islands. I saw a double of my best friend who died a couple of years back - a doppelgänger I suppose.

My wife and I were in our hotel about to have our evening meal when in walked the double of my friend - someone I had known for over 30 years.

My wife and I looked at each other and both said, "Doesn't he look like Colin."

To be honest it felt very unsettling when this man sat down on his own quite near our table. In a way I wanted to find an excuse to talk to him but then I felt I shouldn't. I couldn't, however, stop looking at him.

When the waiter came over to the man it was if I was dreaming. Colin had a habit of putting two fingers of his right hand in his top pocket when he was slightly nervy. This is exactly what this duplicate did as he placed his order for a drink.

After a few days the double went away. I almost felt relieved. Then, as we were at Tenerife airport to fly back to England, there he was waiting for the same flight as us. This particular flight was heading for Bristol where Colin was born - an airport we don't normally return to when returning home.

Very strange.

As I understand it seeing a doppelgänger is okay as long as it isn't of our self. If this should occur it is supposedly bad luck or even an omen of death.

Further Reading:
The Advantage Of Being Mistaken For Someone Else

A Discounted Television Coincidence

A coincidence today sent to me by Alan Parker. In his words:

This coincidence happened to me when my girlfriend and I were soon to leave for University.

I had just received a large tax rebate so we decided to buy a new television. We took what we thought was enough money to buy what we wanted and then went to town to make our purchase.

When we arrived we decided to have a drink before looking around the shops. We didn't talk about televisions while there and left the bar soon after. As we did so a guy bumped into me, looked at me and asked me whether I was interested in buying a television set.

It turned out that he had a discount store card for an electrical retailer. As he was about to go to Australia for a few years and needed cash, he offered to let me pick any television set from the store. He would then buy this using his card and sell it to me for no more than £250.

Although maybe this was questionable legally, I took up his offer!

I had never bought a television previously, as I never had the money to do so before. Although I sometimes have a drink in that bar no-one had ever offered me anything remotely of that nature before or since!

The fact that I was there specifically in town to buy a television, and I got offered one pretty much as soon as I got there and at a discount, blew my mind.

I have never been able to explain why or how this happened – a coincidence perhaps?

Further Reading:
10 Coincidence Or Synchronicity Examples

The Duplicated Plane Crash Coincidence

An interesting coincidence story from a few years back. The story is about a duplication of events.

Back in 1979 Das Besteran, a German magazine, decided to stage a writing contest about unusual incidents. They asked readers to write in with their stories and the one they thought the best would have his published in the magazine.

There were lots of entrants but the winner was a Walter Kellner from Munich.

Herr Kellner wrote about his experience when he flew his Cessna 421 between Sicily and Sardinia. The plane hit engine problems and down into the sea it went - splash. After spending time in an emergency dinghy the gentleman was finally rescued. The story was obviously written in an extended version and made more interesting than I have just done.

Anyway, a man in Austria - also called Walter Kellner - got a bit hot under the collar about this. "Plagiarism," he shouted, though in German.

The second Herr Kellner said it was he who had flown a Cessna 421, over the same sea, had engine trouble but he was forced to land in Sardinia instead of splashing into the drink. Okay the ending was slightly different but it was essentially very similar.

So was it fisticuffs at dawn? No, because the magazine checked out both versions of the story and they were both true. They two men were indeed both called Walter Kellner and both had made the same journey in a Cessna 421 plane from Sicily to Sardinia and both had engine troubles - well their planes did. Only the final outcomes were different.

Further Reading:
Romantic Madeira Coincidence Story
10 Coincidence Or Synchronicity Examples

A Psychic Reading With Insider Knowledge

A coincidence story sent to me by someone called Frank. It's not mind blowing but it does show how our past is often with us.

"It all started when I was sitting at the counter of a Denney's restaurant in Costa Mesa, CA, about 3:00am one morning. I had hitch-hiked out there to see a buddy of mine and was doing the cheapest thing possible to pass the time until I thought it appropriate to head on over to his place.

The waitress saw my backpack and asked where I had come from. I said, "Wisconsin". She said, "Oh, I lived there was a little kid."

"Oh yeah, what part?" I asked.

"A real small town west of Milwaukee. You've never heard of it." she assumed. I noticed that her Denny's nametag said 'Holly'.

"Really, tell me where, Holly. That's where I grew up."

She looked at me and said, "North Lake."

North Lake was less than 400 people and had only a four room schoolhouse in the early sixties. First and second grade shared a room on the first floor. Holly Melon was in first grade and I was in the second when their god-awful little house burned down. They left town for California.

"Dick Arndorfer pushed you down the stairs at the library and you broke your leg when you were five. When the house burned down, you smelled the smoke first and woke everyone up."

Maybe I should have asked her five dollars for a psychic reading before I blurted out things she barely remembered. Never scare the sh*t out of the waitress at Denney's at 3:00am is what I learned.

No great ending. When I came back the following night for some more coffee I remember she told me that she'd called her grandmother who remembered my family. I didn't tell her that Dick was killed later in a car accident."

Further Coincidences:
Jonathan Pryce Coincidence Story
Coincidence Story From Author Colin Wilson
Tecumseh And The Presidential Curse Coincidence

A Wrong Corrected By A Coincidence

A small coincidence story sent to me by Paul which illustrates how wrongs sometimes can be righted - with the helping hand of a coincidence.

"I had a girlfriend, Lisa, during the summer between Freshman and Sophomore year in college. I went back to college, then returned for Thanksgiving and had one more date with her. Then I broke up with her via a letter in December (a huge mistake, but that's another story).

I was back in St. Louis 12 years later, in 1994 and I visited a bookstore in a mall about six miles from my parents' home.

I visited that bookstore perhaps once every five years. When I went to stand in line to pay, there was Lisa, right in front of me!

I asked her how often she visited that bookstore, which was even further from her home, and she said that she had never been there before.

We had dinner that evening and I apologized for breaking up with her so impersonally."

More Coincidence Stories:
Helen Finds Boyfriends Buried Money By Coincidence
10 Coincidence Or Synchronicity Examples
World Champion Yo-Yo Coincidence

Classic Coincidence: Mark Twain And Halley's Comet

Though known of for many years previously (recorded by the Chinese in 240 BC) Halley's Comet was named after Edmond Halley, he concluded in 1705 that the comet returned every 76 years. If you missed the last one, we'll all get a chance to see what all the fuss is about on July 28th, 2061 (fingers crossed!).



Halley's Comet is thought of as a once in a lifetime experience but it wasn't for the writer and satirist Samuel Langhorne Clemens better known by the pen name of Mark Twain. I'm sure you will know that he wrote such classics as Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884) and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876).

Many famous coincidences you have to take with a pinch of salt, but this one about Mark Twain and Halley's Comet does seem to stack up. He was born on November 30th, 1835 exactly two weeks after the comet's perihelion - along with, of course, many other people.

The difference is that mark Twain made a prediction in his autobiography, published in 1909. He wrote:

"I came in with Halley's Comet in 1835. It is coming again next year, and I expect to go out with it. It will be the greatest disappointment of my life if I don't go out with Halley's Comet. The Almighty has said, no doubt: 'Now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together.'"

And, sure enough Mark Twain left this earth on April 21st, 1910 the day following the comet's perihelion. So his prediction proved correct.

It's a nice story but doubters will no doubt point out that in 1909 Mark Twain wasn't in the best of health and already suffered chest pains. It wasn't too difficult, therefore, for him to predict that he would die the following year.

I prefer, however, to just to go along with the Halley's Comet and Mark Twain coincidence as I feel sure he'd be chuffed to think that we do.

Further Reading:
Titanic Coincidences
Famous Coincidences: Abraham Lincoln

Hologram Theory Answers Why We Have Coincidences And Synchronicity

"Yes but how can everything link up, how can we be a part of everything?" A question often bandied about when trying to explain things such as coincidence, synchronicity, psychometry and so on.

One answer is The Hologram Theory - which I intend to keep very simplistic!

We probably all know what a hologram is - it's a flat picture that looks to be 3D and stretches away to infinity. From various angles they can sometimes appear to be slightly different.

That's pretty straightforward.

But there is something strange about a hologram. If you cut them in half, and then maybe in half again, each section will contain the whole original picture. And if you cut the pieces again and again they would still contain the image - no matter how many times you do this.

The smaller the pieces get, the pictures may not be quite so clear, but they will still be there - just a bit hazier.

Now some say the universe is a Hologram!

The physicist David Bohm, for example, theorises that the universe is at heart a phantasm, a gigantic and splendidly detailed hologram.

David Bohm tells of how we view objects such as subatomic particles as separate from one another because we are seeing only a portion of their reality. Such particles are not separate 'parts', but facets of a deeper and more underlying unity that is ultimately as holographic and indivisible.

Now back to keeping it simple. If we followed this theory - each part of us is the whole universe (God?). We are a snippet like one of those pieces of the hologram we cut up.

Everything interpenetrates everything. So when the phone rings and we 'know' who it is before we answer - we know because we are part of that other person (who is ringing us).

We may be a bit hazy, like those small pieces of the hologram but, perhaps, if we can learn to tune in properly, with the right energy, we can gain a clearer sight of the whole universe - and all things will become possible because there will be no time, space or separateness.

Okay, that'll do for now but The Hologram Theory would explain coincidences, synchronicity, telepathy, being in two places at once and so many other things. Maybe it's worthy of further thought.

There's A Coincidence Time For Everything

My wife and I have been out all day (it's now 5.05pm) so I'm a little behind in writing a post. What to write about? I wasn't at all sure, so I decided to check my emails first. Perhaps I might come across a coincidence or something.

There was an email from Amazon UK saying that our order had been dispatched. It's something we had been expecting for over a month - the microwave we wanted had been temporarily out of stock.

I left my office to shout down to my wife, "Good news, the microwave is on it's way."
As I glanced out of the upstairs hall window a delivery van drew up outside our house - and it was our Amazon order! If he had been any earlier we would have been out.

Okay, not exactly a mind blowing coincidence but it made me smile.

While we had been out today we went to the nearest big town, Plymouth, as my wife wanted to buy a new coat. We traipsed round the shops - not exactly my favourite pastime! - and couldn't find one she liked. Well there was one coat that got the approval for looks, but they didn't have her size.

We had some lunch and then was making our way back to the car. There was one shop we hadn't tried, which is usually quite expensive. "They might have a bargain," said my wife tongue in cheek and I felt my credit card tremble with fear.

But there it was: the perfect coat - right colour, size and, most importantly, price - actually a bargain. It had been reduced to half price and there was a ticket saying it had been cut by another 50%! Almost unbelievable, surely a mistake. My wife was right about there being a bargain.

We got to the till to pay and my wife mentioned the extra 50% off. "Oh that's not right, it doesn't start today," said the assistant, "but as it's on the ticket we'll have to honour the price."

I guess the lesson is: there is a time for everything.

Further Coincidences:
We Came Across Spike Milligan By Chance
Jonathan Pryce Coincidence Story
Coincidence Of Photo And Dorset Calender

A Phone Number Coincidence Led To Romance

Some coincidence stories are hard to believe but nevertheless the people involved are always adamant that the stories are absolutely true. One such case is the romance of David Brown and Michelle Kitson - real people, that's them in the photo on the left. This involves a coincidence example with phone numbers.

One morning in 2007 David woke with an unfamiliar mobile phone number going over and over through his head, he couldn't shake it off. Curiosity got the better of him so he decided he might as well text the number.

Michelle, a 17 year old, answered. She lived some 60 plus miles away from John, didn't know him but, to cut a long story short, they exchanged texts, then phone calls and eventually agreed to meet up ... and now they are married.

John described what happened, "I went out for a quiet night with some mates and ended up having a few to drink. When I woke up this phone number just kept running through my head."

Michelle said that after the initial contact with David, "It was really weird but I was absolutely hooked. My mum and dad kept saying, 'But he could be an axe murderer', but I knew there was something special about it. I hadn't had a boyfriend before. Those first text messages were a real adrenaline rush.

"I believe that things happen for a reason. I know some people will find it hard to believe, but we know the truth."

Regarding their very first meeting David got there early and decided to phone her. He saw a girl answer a phone on the opposite side of the road, it was Michelle.

He says of that first meeting, "It was love at first sight for me - I loved everything about her."

About remembering Michelle's number he explains how he has, " ... no idea how I ended up with her number in my head - it's only a few digits different from mine."

Of course many will be sceptical of such a story but the couple insist that it is absolutely true. The Daily Mail newspaper tried to find out how this sort of thing could happen and asked a Professor Heinz Wolff, an emeritus professor of Brunel University.

Professor Wolff answered, "Whatever else it is a charming story but I would be against a supernatural explanation. It is likely the number of this girl was mentioned in the pub (where he was with his mates the night before) and somehow this young man overheard it, even without realising, and his subconscious remembered it."

Is this a big coincidence or maybe some precognition in a dream? Were the couple destined to meet or is the spoilsport Professor correct?

David and Michelle know exactly what they believe and so do other people, who have had very similar coincidences with phone numbers and romance.

Like, for example, the friend of Roy Smith's from Vancouver:

"Many years ago a friend of mine was making a regular routine mid-week phone call to his girlfriend. However, on this occasion, he absentmindedly miss-dialed the last digit and ended up talking to the 'wrong number' for an hour or more. They decided to meet for coffee. They got along fine. He ditched his current girlfriend and he and the 'wrong number' have been happily married for over 30 years."

And also Ezgi Erkol from Izmir:

"Almost two years ago when I went to Italy I stayed with an Italian family which had a son at my same age. After coming back to Turkey, I decided to add him to my msn contacts. Fortunately I confused his name and surname and so I ended up adding another person, with the same name, to my list. Although we realized that I made a mistake, we didn't stop talking. Finally he came to Turkey just to see me and we understood that we were the two halves of the same apple!"

The Lobster Nightmare

Here's a strange coincidence story from John Moss and I'm assured that it's true. I can't explain how it happened maybe you can.

"One year in my youth when I had been working a couple of years, I went camping with a friend of the same age at a small seaside resort where we fished and went after lobster from a small rowboat.

Our tent was an ex army bell tent. My friend mentioned that we must be careful with lobster as his father had once been bitten by one and suffered three months of blood poisoning.

One afternoon we caught a number of lobsters and just left them free in a section of our boat. We were both barefoot and I disliked the creatures moving about, trying to climb up the sides of the boat, their legs and feelers never still.

The result was that all this preyed on my mind that night.

We turned in and made the tent safe by pegging down the ground flaps and roped the door flap to keep it closed against stray dogs, marauders and the wind.

In the early hours of the morning I had a violent nightmare when I saw hordes of red lobster coming for my bare feet. I must have yelled in terror, which woke me and I found myself standing outside the tent in the moonlight.

My friend lit a hurricane lamp and had to untie the door to get out and ask me, 'What's the matter.'

The tent was secure and to this day it remains a mystery to both of us how I got outside the tent."

Further Coincidences:
Lucky Numbers That Are With Us Through Life
Abraham Lincoln And John F Kennedy Coincidences
Hayley Mills Coincidence Changed Her Life

Drenched With Water In The Spanish Mountains Coincidence

I have been reminiscing about times when I have asked the Universe to help me and how this has arrived by 'coincidence'. I won't bore you with them all. However, one sticks in my mind from when our son was about ten or eleven.

We were in the south of Spain on holiday and, in a small hired car, set off into the mountains. Can't remember exactly where we were heading but the roads became narrower and narrower as we went higher and higher. We hadn't seen another car or vehicle for over an hour when our car suddenly decided to grind to a halt.

Luckily there was a space where we could pull over, opposite was a sheer drop. The car had overheated and the radiator was empty. I wasn't too sure what to do. We needed water to fill the radiator and I then figured we could just about turn round and head back to civilisation.

Only problem was the mountains were completely parched and it was very hot. I went off for a walk to try and find some water, perhaps a small stream but no such luck. There was nothing about and no villages for many miles according to the map.

Strangely I felt very relaxed about the situation. I went off again in the other direction and after a few hundred yards sat on a big rock looking at the wonderful view. I then started to visualise water - lots of it, gushing everywhere and asked the Universe to help me.

I wandered back to the car and my wife and son were getting quite anxious. I told them not to worry as we'd get some water soon. Not sure if I believed this fully, especially when asked, "Yes, but how."

Moments later a lorry was coming down the road towards us. The first vehicle we had seen for ages and ages. The lorry pulled up and the driver said something or other. I don't speak Spanish so, with hand signals and random words, I indicated that we wanted water for the car.

It was then I noticed the back of the lorry held a big circular tank and, yes, it was filled with water.

The driver beckoned me to the back of the lorry and I stood there with a small bucket he had given me. He turned a handle at the back of the drum and suddenly a jet of powerful water gushed all over me and virtually knocked me over. I was drenched from head to toe but couldn't help but laugh - as did my wife and son.

To cut a long story short, the lorry had been delivering water to some of the small isolated homesteads high in the mountains. Our car engine had cooled so I filled up the radiator with water (plus a bottle for emergencies), turned the car round - though very apprehensive of the sheer drop - and then slowly drove down the mountain and finally reached where we were staying on the coast.

My visualisation of water gushing everywhere certainly came true. It was as if the Universe was playfully saying, "So you wanted water ... I'll give you water!"

Sceptics will say that the lorry was heading in my direction anyway, but to me - and the way it felt at the time - I had a little help along the way.

Ask and you shall receive!

Further Posts:
The World Champion Yo-Yo Coincidence
A Message From My Dead Father Coincidence
Coincidence Of Photo And Dorset Calender

The Billions To One Coincidence Of Being Here Now

The posts on this blog are about coincidences or synchronicity. I've written about quite a few examples, some small and others more impressive. But when you think about it, we are all here on earth at this time by one big coincidence or maybe even millions of them.

The odds of us being here now must be billions and billions to one. For example, if our great-great-great-great-great-grandfather hadn't have met up by chance/coincidence with our great-great-great-great-grandmother then we wouldn't be here now. And you could take this right back to the first men and women who walked on earth - even Adam and Eve if this is what you believe.

It looks like we are all linked, almost relations if you like, going back thousands of years.

Let's now look at this from another viewpoint, this time looking forward. Our meeting with our partners and then us producing our children stretches way into the future. Our great-great-great-great-grandchildren will be there partly because of us and other coincidences along the way. We are linked therefore to millions and millions of people in the future.

Now some will say, though all of this might be true, there is more to it than this. They would bring in their beliefs of how we are souls or spirits - or whatever else you might wish to call the part of us which is God, for want of a better word.

If we are atheists then us being is here is definitely one massive series of coincidences. We are almost freaks by being here in our present form purely by chance - lucky to have had the opportunity to experience a short life. Simply a speck of dust along the highway.

If we believe there is something more to us, and we are eternal, then perhaps the coincidences that got us here are in fact part of some Master Plan. Some say we choose our parents, for instance, and are here for a purpose of learning. If this were/is true those coincidences, which created our physical bodies are less meaningful, but other coincidences and synchronicity are the opposite - very much more meaningful.

It all depends on what we choose to believe.

Regarding coincidences in general I feel that The Celestine Prophecy guy James Redfield has got it partly right when he says:

"A new spiritual awakening is occurring in human culture, an awakening brought about by a critical mass of individuals who experience their lives as a spiritual unfolding, a journey in which we are led forward by mysterious coincidences."

This post was first published on my blog 67 Not Out.

Secret Of Getting What You Want With Coincidences

One of the things which interests me is to how we can introduce into our lives more meaningful coincidences or synchronicity. It seems logical to me that if we can, say, create a car parking space then we can also make absolutely anything else happen - even though it may not be necessarily 'good' for us.

I still remember the very first time I tried to find an answer to a question via asking the universe (or whatever you may prefer to call it). It was as a young man and I'd read about mind power for the very first time. I tested out getting an answer and chose a bit of a silly question.

I asked the universe how high Mount Everest was. This was way before the Internet but I could have looked this up in an encyclopedia or something similar. I decided, however, to wait for the 'magical' answer.

The next day the newsagent didn't have my normal daily paper so I chose a different one at random. I got to my then desk at work, opened the newspaper up, and there in front of me was an article about someone climbing Everest. It also gave the height of the mountain (29,035 ft). Quite a coincidence I thought.

Since that time I've asked for hundreds and hundreds of answers to all sorts of proper questions applicable to my life. I can't say I always get an answer but sometimes the problem I had solves itself so I don't really need the answer. But, more times than not I'm happy with the outcome.

I'm not into organised religion but there are many truths within the Christian Bible. A couple of examples, relative to what I'm writing about in this post:

And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you; Seek, and ye shall find; Knock, and it shall be opened unto you. St.Luke 11.9

Therefore I say unto you, What things soever you desire, when ye pray, believe that you receive them, and ye shall have them. St.Mark 11.24

In other words we have to ask for what we want. And this is pretty much what most of the self help and visualisation techniques such as Cosmic Ordering are based. (Though I personally don't think much of the Cosmic Ordering book that UK TV presenter Noel Edmonds popularised in England and Germany).

When we ask, things start to happen, coincidences or synchronicity if you like.

Now I don't look on this as a way for material gain, though it can be used as such. As I see it, it's up to individuals as to how they use this 'secret' and they should consider the consequences of any requests.

This post isn't a 'How To' get rich system, but the universe will look after us - we can receive what we request. We just have to be careful what we wish for!

If you are unfamiliar with asking the universe for answers, or anything else, one bit of advice, which works for me, is to ask and then ... nothing. Forget about it.

A bit like when we mail a letter. We don't start thinking about the van collecting the letter, the sorting office, the trains and maybe planes involved, the delivery man. We simply pop the letter in the post/mail box and forget it, knowing that it will be delivered.

This is also how the universe seems to work too. It's not up to us as to how the answer or item requested will come about. We simply have to know that it will and, as is often said, remember that 'God works in mysterious ways.' So look out for those coincidences and synchros!

This post was first published on my blog 67 Not Out

A Clutch Of Coincidences In Truro

Coincidences seem to happen when we embrace life, get about and do things. At least that's what I find. If we sit tucked away from the world at large, down in the dumps and negative, then not much happens.

I don't mean that dramatic coincidences or synchronicity will occur every day - though they might! Sometimes small happenings can also be interesting. Here's an instance of four which happened in one day at Truro, Cornwall - when my wife and I were out and about.

Firstly I had an hospital appointment. Nothing serious just a visit for a check up at the Dermatology Department. I was delayed at the hospital, they seemed to be all behind schedule. I finally left, after my appointment, about an hour later than expected.

As I did so there was my son and his fiance heading for the maternity department and I had the good news that I was to be a granddad! I was thrilled. They had kept it all secret so obviously I was 'meant' to see them.

My wife had dropped me off at the hospital and had then gone into the nearest town centre, Truro (photo top right), to look round the shops. I phoned her to pick me up and she said she had just that minute got back to the car as her phone rang, she would be with me in ten minutes. So that was two 'coincidences'.

We then decided to visit a friend who lived quite near the hospital. She was home and we chatted away for about an hour. I asked her if she still had the same lady gardener - whom she had told us about previously - as her garden was looking nice. She confirmed she did but said she wasn't due a visit from her for another couple of days. The door bell rang and - yes, it was her gardener who popped in on the off chance. So that's three coincidences.

The gardener came in for a coffee and we all got talking.

It turned out that the gardener was originally from my old home town (300 miles away). Of course we had places of interest to talk about, changes that had been made and so on. I found out, for example, that the Police Station where I worked after leaving college is now a coffee bar and restaurant. That's four coincidences in a day.

If we had stayed home in our living room we would have missed those 'magical' moments. You might say that they aren't very spectacular coincidences but they helped brighten our day. It shows an indication of how everything fits together and how we can receive all sorts of information.

Let the universe take the strain.

P.S. This post was first published on my blog 67 Not Out. Since then my son has married his fiance, so I have a lovely daughter-in-law, and I've become the proudest granddad in the world.

Photos of Cornwall on Mike's Cornwall

Romantic Madeira Coincidence Story

A story of romance mingled with a huge slice of coincidence or synchronicity.

My wife and I were in Madeira on a sunshine holiday  and while in the hotel got chatting to a couple in their mid to late sixties. We saw them again the same evening, as we were going in to dinner, and they asked if they could join us at our table.

They were a happy looking couple and we soon found out why, they were on honeymoon! And they had quite a tale to tell.

They first went out together when they were sixteen but, typical of that era, their parents objected. One of the reasons was that he was Jewish and she Christian. They carried on seeing each other secretly but finally Florrie, and her family, moved away to Australia (from England) and they never heard from each other again, even though George sent her many letters.

While in their mid twenties they both married other partners and had children. Florrie became a widow about five years ago and she moved back to England. George meanwhile got divorced at around the same time.

George said he never forgot Florrie and she giggled that she always remembered him.

In 2008 George went on holiday, on his own to Spain, and got talking to a woman sitting on her own and about his own age. After a while he introduced himself as George B and the woman said her sister used to go out with a boy of the same name, when she was a teenager.

"I suppose you are going to tell me she was Florrie T," he laughed.

"Well, yes, she was," was the reply.

George was quite taken aback, to say the least, and the woman continued by saying that Florrie was with her on the holiday. They were sharing a room.

Half an hour later George was emotionally reunited with Florrie and they have been virtually together ever since.

Florrie later told George how, when her mother recently died, she cleared out her home and there she found George's teenage letters to her, tied up with string. Her mother must have kept them for some reason but never showed them to her daughter. Unbelievably Florrie had them with her on her Spanish holiday when the couple met again by coincidence. She said she had a feeling that she wanted to read them quietly.

The couple said they couldn't help but think how their lives might have been if they had never been separated as teenagers.

We never saw them again as the next day they were on their way home.

Lots of people have a story to tell, if we have the time to listen.

This post was first published on my other blog 67 Not Out

Twins Killed On Same Day Coincidence

Not all coincidences are good news. One such case was reported by news groups around the world in 2002 when two 70 year old twin brothers died.

The Finnish twins were killed on the same stretch of road within hours of each other.

The scene was set in Raahe, 600 kilometres north of the capital, Helsinki, where the first twin met his death while riding his bicycle and was hit by a lorry.

Just two hours later his brother was crossing the same road, again on his bicycle, when he was hit and killed by another lorry. There is no reason to suspect that the second twin knew of his brothers death.

The police officer investigating the tragedies, Marja-Leena Huhtala, said at the time, "This is simply a historic coincidence. Although the road is a busy one, accidents don't occur every day."

Ms. Huhtala went on to say, "It made my hair stand on end when I heard the two were brothers, and identical twins at that. It came to mind that perhaps someone from upstairs had a say in this."

(Photo: Pertsaboy)

Twin Connections
It's interesting as to how many twins have a special connection. Debbie LaChusa for example has written a book, Twin Connections, covering this subject.

Debbie gives examples of her own connection with her twin:

"... our husbands also share the same birthday (no, they’re not twins!), they are both left-handed, they both wear glasses and they both graduated from the same high school. Pretty weird, huh?!

Is it just a bond, or is it something more?

We have another connection - and this is the one that baffles me the most. I can’t tell you how many times I have been thinking about calling my sister, when the phone has rung and it was her on the other end. It just happened again today, as I was writing up this story!"

Further Reading:
Abraham Lincoln And John F Kennedy Coincidences
16th Century Cottage Coincidence Story
The Twinless Twin Mystery

(code 9AZJNRAS7Z3U)

Titanic Coincidence Stories

Titanic in dock
This is one of those 'famous' happenings which I find fascinating. In this case it's about the Titanic coincidences.

But first lets put a slightly different slant on things. How and why things happen is always interesting. Are they destined to happen and if so why?

With the Titanic the problem, as we know, was an iceberg and we accept this without a second thought. But if we think about it properly wasn't it a bit of a coincidence that the iceberg - most likely thousands of years old - broke away from Greenland at that precise time and moved south as far as the New York latitude?

Wasn't it also strange that the Titanic's captain had sped up the ship to try and reach it's destination before time? If he hadn't have done this the Titanic wouldn't have hit the iceberg and killed all of those people.

It was almost like a plan coming together - the iceberg and Titanic had to collide. Some would say it was in the stars.

There are numerous tales of people foretelling the Titanic's demise. A Mrs. Marshall is supposedly to have screamed out as the ship sailed past the Isle of Wight, "It's going to sink, that ship is going to sink. Save them! Save them!" Her mother was on the Titanic.

There are dozens of these sort of stories but many cannot be proven. The case of Morgan Robertson is slightly different as in 1898 he published a novel telling of the 'unsinkable' SS Titan.

In his story the SS Titan steamship sailed out of Southampton on its inaugural voyage and went on to sink following a collision with, yes, an iceberg.

There were similarities between the Titan and the Titanic:

1) Titan and Titanic were on their first voyage.

2) Both ships were sunk after hitting an iceberg.

3) There is a similarity in the names of Titan and Titanic.

4) Titan was 70,000 tons and the Titanic 66,000 tons.

5) Titan 800 feet in length, Titanic 882 feet.

6) Both had three propellers.

7) Both the fictional Titan and the real Titanic were thought of as unsinkable by their owners and therefore had insufficient lifeboats. The Titan, according to the story, had 24 lifeboats for 2,500 passengers and the Titanic had just 20 lifeboats for 2,224 passengers.

Perhaps there was magic afoot with the Titanic sinking? According to the British Museum she was carrying an Egyptian Pharaoh mummy destined for an American museum.

Newspapers at the time made much of the mummy calling it cursed. They made claims that everyone who had photographed the mummy had all mysteriously died.

Some of all this we can perhaps take with a pinch of salt and yet some of the coincidences make you wonder.

As the Titanic left port a cockerel crowed - a sign of bad luck for sailors ...

In 1939 a ship called the Titanian was in the general area of where the Titanic went down. The helmsman had a dreadful premonition and decided to try and stop the ship. Later the Titanian hit an iceberg. It was damaged but could carry on thanks to the collision being at a slow speed.

Footnote: I wrote this post just before my evening meal. Feeling lazy my wife and I decided to have this in front of the television. I switched on the TV and it was the Antiques Roadshow Special and what were they talking about - yes, Titanic collectibles!

They had the original Titanic plans from when it was built, postcards sent by a musician from the ship before it went down (he died) and lots of info about medals issued to the crew of the ship that went to Titanic's rescue - the RMS Carpathia. Carpathia saved 705 lives but was sunk herself by a German submarine during World War 1 on July 17th 1918.

Titanic memorabilia is now valuable.

More Titanic Coincidences:
The Gun That Helped Sink The Titanic
The Titanic Boarding Pass Coincidence
The Costa Concordia Coincidences With The Titanic

Another Egg Coincidence Phenomenon

More eggy news. Following the box of double yolked eggs mentioned in Sunday's It Is A Double Yolk Coincidence post there has been another remarkable find.

70 year old Mrs. Ann Hordon, from County Durham in England, cracked open an egg into her frying pan and it had four yolks!

The chances of this happening are quoted at being 11 billion to one.

The British Egg Information Service were astounded.

After they had all picked themselves off of the floor they went on to say (in unison, of course) that the record number of yolks found in one egg is nine, but four is still exceptional. Their official spokesperson added, with a cluck, "To find a quadruple yolker is a very rare phenomenon."

The egg plot thickens, whatever will happen next! Is this some sort of scrambled message from afar? Can we decipher the code ...

Freebies Of Beethoven Music Coincidence Stories

Here's another couple of coincidence stories, though not my own. These stories comes from parapsychologist Alan Vaughan.

While Alan was a student he wanted to posses the nine Beethoven symphonies. They had recently been released as a deluxe box set of records by the N.B.C. Orchestra. Being a student he couldn't afford the record set.

At the time, to help with his studies financially, he had a part time job in a public library and someone ordered the very set of records he desired through the library. When they arrived Alan was amazed to see that two sets had been sent but the bill was for one. The spare set he considered to be a gift of providence to him, an impoverished college student, who loved music.

Alan also tells the tale of a woman who wanted to obtain a special arrangement of Dvorak's Humoresque for her elderly father as a Christmas present. The version she desperately wanted was for violin and piano but the local record store said that no such recordings were currently available.

A few weeks prior to Christmas the record store clerk was surprised to receive a recording of Humoresque for violin and piano. The store had not placed the order and they found that, unbelievably, the label was different to the company that had sent it.

As the record arrived in such an extraordinary way they presented the record free of charge to their customer whose father, therefore, received a logically impossible gift for Christmas.

At first glance it seems that this coincidence business can bring about freebies! But life doesn't always work out like that. What these two examples had in common was a great passion, almost an obsession for the music which finally came their way via ... coincidence, synchronicity, chance?

As with visualisation, and other techniques, if we have a genuine, powerful desire for something - no matter what, good or bad - it can come about. But, as is often said: Be careful for what you wish for!

This post was previously published on my other blog 67 Not Out

It Is A Double Yolk Coincidence

A bit more light hearted today. It's about Fiona Exon, from Cumbria in England, who was about to make some scrambled eggs for breakfast. As she cracked open the eggs into a bowl each one was double yolked. Yes, as she broke the full six pack of eggs each was the same.

"Erm, so what," you might say, "Is that really a coincidence story?"

Well sort of. The British Egg Information Service reckons this is extremely rare, a bit like hen's teeth. They reckon that finding one double yolk egg has odds of just 0.1 per cent (i.e. 1000 to 1). So finding every egg in a standard box of six this way is odds of ... I'm not exactly sure, but one expert mentioned it being 1 trillion to one (providing the eggs were picked at random to fill the box), but this does seem a bit over the top.

So what am I trying to say? I guess I'm actually putting a case forward for those who oppose any coincidence as being meaningful. If you can get a pack of six double yolk eggs then any coincidence is also possible somewhere in the world.

The thing is though, despite what I've just said, I still believe that some coincidences are meaningful enough to be considered as synchronicity. Yes, there really are messages from the universe to help us along our way. That is, if we can be bothered to consider them properly.

This post was previously posted on my other blog 67 Not Out

Other Coincidences:
Nazca Lines And Maria Reiche Coincidence
The Costa Concordia Coincidences With The Titanic
Chris Evans Will Be With His Wife Till Hell Freezes Coincidence

A Pizza From Her Dead Mother Coincidence

Today's coincidence is from author David Richio, writer of such books as The Five Things We Cannot Change. What this coincidence illustrates is (perhaps) how questions can be answered by the most basic of every day items - in this case a pizza!

"One evening, my friend's cousin, Concetta, a middle aged woman, whose mother died recently, was sitting with her father in the house where she had grown up. Her husband would be coming later to pick her up to return to their home.

As her father dozed off, Concetta was reminiscing about her mother and was wondering if their was a heaven or any afterlife. Suddenly she found herself saying, "Ma, if there is another world, send me a slice of pizza."

Shortly thereafter, Concetta's husband called from a pizzeria to tell her he would not be able to pick her up but that her brother would come instead. She said, "That's fine," and was about to hang up when Tony added, "And, by the way, he's bringing you a slice of pizza."

Other Coincidence Stories:
The Red Balloon Coincidence
Oliver The 133225-1 Baby
A Coincidence Meeting At Boscastle Cornwall