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Strange Coincidences?

And not to forget, the late great Mr George Michael's cover.
 
Some years ago, I received a letter addressed to my mother, asking for permission for a photograph she had once sent to the FT to be included in a new fortean photo library.

Intrigued, I immediately telephoned the librarian (Bob Rickard, for it was he) for further details. I was surprised that he wanted to include the picture, because as far as I knew it had never been published; but it turned out that it had appeared in what must have been the only issue I'd missed in about five years (before I had the sense to take out a subscription, and the misfortune to thereby subject myself to receiving spam renewal offers every two months or so).

I was able to sign the permission form on her behalf and deliver it to Bob by hand the same day, in return for which he kindly supplied me with a spare copy of the missing issue; because Rickard Towers was only a short detour from the cemetery which I had already planned to visit, it being the first anniversary of my mother's death.
 
Today, my SO and I were talking extensively about a mutual good friend, someone who was a fellow-parent during the early days of our respective children, a person who we were very close to, but nowadays very-rarely see.

He's one of these proper lifetime friends, such that if/whenever we occasionally (re-)meet, it's as if we only last saw each-other a few hours ago.

So saying, it must be more than two years since I last saw him (and, he doesn't really do Fakebook).

Immediately after us discussing him, I reached down for a newspaper that was on lying the living-room floor, after it had fallen off the sofa armrest. I noticed what looked like a CD case sitting just underneath the sofa, and pulled it out.

It was the Christmas card that had been sent by that same friend, wishing us a 'Happy Xmas and Best wishes for 2018'. Neither my SO or I can remember having seen it before, either pinned-up on the wall at Christmas 2017, or having been taken-down after Twelfth Night.

It's most likely that it'd been opened (possibly by either us, or another family member) then accidently-kicked into hiding for 5 months.

Until today, when it was (apparently) summoned from oblivion, due to the arguable-but-inescapable powers of coincidence.

Just when that all seems (well, it does, surely?) markedly-coincidental in itself, I was listening to the news on the radio tonight, when one of the reporters clearly said "It's quite easy to get to (My_Friend's_Name)...".

[My friend's name is shared with a geographic location (an example of what I mean would be a Mr 'Angus' Smith, and Angus, the region in the east of Scotland)]

Coincidences are weird things. Yes, they are just perceived alignments of interpretation. But there is somehow, something else going on, beyond that, too.
 
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One of my hobbies is genealogy or family history research. Hours spent online or in the local history archives searching through microfilms for clues for births, marriages and burials.

Whilst trying to find the location of my x4 great grandmother's grave I spent a good few hours on multiple visits trawling through the many many pages of burials on the microfilm machine to find out which burial ground she may be in. It means scrolling through metres of film to manually find the correct year over a number of different films. Sometimes you have to fast forward the machine at a rapid rate to scroll through the years stopping occasionally to check where you are.

On this occasion I was fast forwarding the machine through to get somewhere near the year of her burial so that I could fine tune it and see if she was listed. When I stopped not only was I at the correct year and month for her burial her name was the top one on the list. The co-incidence and chance of that happening hardly seems real.
 
terracuk said:
On this occasion I was fast forwarding the machine through to get somewhere near the year of her burial so that I could fine tune it and see if she was listed. When I stopped not only was I at the correct year and month for her burial her name was the top one on the list. The co-incidence and chance of that happening hardly seems real.
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She wanted you to find her!


Reminds me of my when I'm sewing on my machine and notice that the top thread's about to run out, and it ends exactly with my last stitch! That's happened less than 10 times in 40-some years.
 
Richard Dawkins? The Carl Sagan of our times...
 
Just observation... an academic who also makes a more lucrative career as a showman, uses a wider platform to popularise his views and opinions, enjoys being a superstar with all the ego-flattering and adulation it entails, and while he does make a genuine contribution to science, isn't above using a privileged platform to utterly rubbish everything and everyone he personally disagrees with. The plusses and minuses of having lots of charisma, as Sagan's career illustrates.
 
Ag Prov, you've just 'coincidenced' me! I've bought the audio book of Carl Sagan's 'The Demon Haunted World' and was just contemplating a quick listen! But I decided to take a wander over here first and... boom. Coincidenced. It's a word. Honest.
 
BaronHardacre said:
Whilst emptying yet another box of my books from my parents loft, I came across a book which reminded me of a particularly odd coincidence.

When I was but a callow youth, I bought lots of the "true" ghost story type books, as well as many compendiums, usually edited by Colin Wilson.
To ensure no one ever thought of nicking them, I always wrote my name in the back cover.
No, I don't know who'd want to nick them, either.

Anyway, one of these books was "Spinechiller" by Peter and Mary Harrison (quick review: entertaining, but obviously bobbins).
When it was time for me to go to university, I disposed of these childish things to a jumble sale, so I could move on to the mature pursuits of cider and girls.
Now, I should point out here, that said jumble sale is in Leeds.

Some years later, when I realised that both cider and girls had their own drawbacks, I found myself in London, killing time before my trip back to the frozen north.
I happened upon a second hand bookshop, and realising I had nothing to keep me entertained on the train, I searched for suitable inspiration.
What should I spy but a copy of said Spinechiller.
After paying a significant sum for what was a tatty old tome, I relaxed into my train seat.
Somewhere around Doncaster I finished and came to the back cover where... you've guessed it, my name is scrawled.

Somehow the book had a journey of a couple of hundred miles, and ten years, just to come back into my possession.
Spooky, huh...?
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Interesting- that you thought it was bobbins, and given the books title...yep, spooky.
 
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escargot said:
I've mentioned this before, I hope it bears retelling -
Years ago a friend of mine, a Mr Ball, was booking a minibus for his stag night. The nominated driver was his good friend Mr Allcock.

It went roughly like this -
Minibus hire man: So, who's driving?
Groom: Mr Allcock.
Minibus hire man: And your name again please?
Groom: Mr Ball.
Minibus hire man: Allcock... Ball... Allcock and Ball? All cock and ball? Fuck off.
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So glad you decided to re-tell. That's made my day. Cheers!
 
Between November 2017 and March 2018 I had an unusual run of minor syncs. They were happening so frequently that by early December I had started documenting them as they happened, in the form of emails which I sent to myself.
I've just re-read a few of those and will post as and when I get round to doing so, but thought I'd kick off with first email.

Before I do, I think it's worth mentioning that during this period I was going through a difficult phase in a new job that I desperately wanted to work out well. The coincidences also seemed to really gain momentum once I started focusing on the synchronicity phenomenon itself.

Anyway, as mentioned, I'd become aware of a chain of a few minor coincidences in the run up to this particular incident and had just been chatting about them with a colleague.

This guy wasn't someone I'd normally be working with and had just been assigned to work with my while my usual co-worker was off for the day.

We arrived at our destination after a long drive and were early. It was a sunny day so we opened up the back the vehicle and both kicked-back lying around on the tail-gate, just chatting, killing time.

At one point, my companion reached up and with his hand started batting the bottom of the strap used to pull the roller door of the vehicle down. After a few moments I looked at him probably as if to say "what are you doing?" and he said "I'm a cat!"

By this time we knew that the shop staff would have arrived and so we walked down the corridor from the loading bay and in through the back door to the shop. As we entered and walked out on to the shop floor music started to play..."Everybody wants to be a cat" from The Aristocats.

I pointed up as if to say "you hear that?".
We looked at each other for a second and he slowly and quieltly said "Yeah....that IS weird!"

Ok, so there were no other cat related incidents I noticed either that day or thereafter that I can remember. But the next minor coincidence happened a few days later at the same location. Weirdly it occured shortly after I'd relayed the above story to another colleague. I'll post that one in the next day or two.
 
gattino said:
I've done posts in the past abut the internet/facebook appearing to read our minds. Accustomed to it promoting ads for things we've mentioned or searched, and as sinister as that is, i'm referring rather to such ads popping up in seeming sync with our unexpressed thoughts. What algorithm is involved there, I wonder.

Well I was just over in Tesco getting milk and found myself drawn to and pondering reduced price inflatable airbeds on display, for emergency extra guests (Its been like piccadilly circus in here lately). I spend a good 10 or 15 seconds looking at them and then think..maybe another time.

Just got home. Just looked at my emails. One just recieved around the time i was in, or just leaving Tesco. Amazon is prompting me to consider buying an inflatable airbed..includng the one i was just looking at in the real world. I had not done any search for any such thing. It's not in response to some internet interest of mine. I hadn't mentioned it on facebook publically or privately. Coincidence surely. But freaking creepy.
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Myself and a couple of friends have noticed these types of synchro-adververts cropping up over the last couple of months. This has continued after taking steps such as opting out of search engine relevant content ad programmes. Two of us don't have anything to with popular social media apps/sites. We've discussed the strong possibility that phones might have some kind of eavesdropping capability, and are looking at experimenting with orchestrated discussions about random products. In the interest of true randomness; anyone like to suggest a theme for us?
Will of course document and share if anything turns up...
 
Dave landfill said:
Myself and a couple of friends have noticed these types of synchro-adververts cropping up over the last couple of months. This has continued after taking steps such as opting out of search engine relevant content ad programmes. Two of us don't have anything to with popular social media apps/sites. We've discussed the strong possibility that phones might have some kind of eavesdropping capability, and are looking at experimenting with orchestrated discussions about random products. In the interest of true randomness; anyone like to suggest a theme for us?
Will of course document and share if anything turns up...
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Over-the-counter medicines for rarely-discussed-in-public ailments?
 
The main consideration is to pick a category of products or services that is relevant to none of you three.

I'd pick an entire class of products rather than a specific set of products within a category. For example:

- If none of you three have young children: Baby products (diapers, cribs, etc.)
- If all of you are males - Female-specific products (and vice versa, as applicable)

If you want to maximize the odds of snagging sniffers, be sure to include consistently-mentioned sets of both product types and one or two popular product names.

Wherever possible, choose product names that aren't likely to be mentioned except in reference to those particular products AND / OR aren't likely to be cited as common nouns or verbs.

For example (US laundry detergents): 'All' and 'Tide' are poor choices, whereas 'Purex' is a good one.

The more unique the key terms you choose and make a point to cite, the better.

I'd also recommend choosing a minimum of 2 such categories with associated keyword sets.
 
Latest one for me occurred today, and reminded me of another that happened a few weeks back. Both are amazingly lacking in signifigance or indeed consequence.

Earlier today I found myself thinking about Tom Hardy's character in a tv series we watched a year or so ago.

Mentioned it to the wife earlier saying something along the lines of "remember that Tom Hardy pirate type thing...oh...what was it called...Savage? No...umm...Salvage?...no..."
We both knew what I was on about but couldn't recall the title. "Anyway" I continue, what happened to the second series they said they were making?

In the end she googles it "Taboo!" she says, "Taboo season 2 confirmed. Tom Hardy to return to BBC1 as devil Delaney....Radio Times 1 day ago"

Just thought it a bit odd that it should pop in to my train of thought the very day after RT publishes the story.

The coincidence that this one reminded me of was strikingly similar. Back in early March a friend had told me about a book he really enjoyed, that had been turned into a film which was pretty poor. with At the time he couldn't recall the name of the film but knew it had Daniel Craig in it. Eventually I think we got there anyway -The Golden Compass - The book it was based on, Phillip Pullman's Northern Lights.
Either that day or the next (I don't quite remember) I googled it the first thing I saw was a post from the day before announcing that The beeb were about to start shooting a TV version of the story. Again it had been just posted the day before.

Come to think of it, it was this pal that prompted the very first coincidence that stopped me in my tracks. A real what the... moment.

We used to travel to work together in Swindon.
Now more often than not, I seem to wake up with a song or tune in my head (at least I'm aware of one by the time I'm brushing my teeth). Don't normall see any reason to share this bit of personal trivia with anyone, but on this one occasion decided to announce that for some reason I'd woken up with a rather random, even by my standards floating around my head (as seen on some compellation-clip-type- show on TV some years previous)
"That's odd" (he may/may not have said) but he told me that he and his wife had watched that very same clip on youtube the night before. I thing I said something along the lines of "I'm terribly sorry, but I find it hard to believe what you are telling me"... just not in those terms. He then rang his wife, put her on speaker and asked her to sing me the song the lady they'd watched on youtube last night sang. She proceeded to sing.... "Ken Leeeeee, da-dibba-dibba-da-doo-oo-oo-oo"
 
I'm reading a book (a murder mystery) and in it one of the characters describes a watching a documentary about Howard Carter how annoying he is described as brave and clever, the character feels because he kept searching for Tutankhamuns tomb and found the trasure even though people had given up only because if the tomb had been empty he would be a laughing stock. Anyway turn on the TV and there is a documentary reconstructing Howard Carter's reactions to finding Treasure in the tomb.
 
Meechyemoo said:
I'm reading a book (a murder mystery) and in it one of the characters describes a watching a documentary about Howard Carter how annoying he is described as brave and clever, the character feels because he kept searching for Tutankhamuns tomb and found the trasure even though people had given up only because if the tomb had been empty he would be a laughing stock. Anyway turn on the TV and there is a documentary reconstructing Howard Carter's reactions to finding Treasure in the tomb.
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I'm curious. Can you also relate to anything going on your life (or anyone close to you)?
 
Meechyemoo said:
I'm reading a book (a murder mystery) and in it one of the characters describes a watching a documentary about Howard Carter how annoying he is described as brave and clever, the character feels because he kept searching for Tutankhamuns tomb and found the trasure even though people had given up only because if the tomb had been empty he would be a laughing stock. Anyway turn on the TV and there is a documentary reconstructing Howard Carter's reactions to finding Treasure in the tomb.
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On a similar note, I came across the Mirny Diamond mine in Russia for the first time on this very website a couple of weeks ago. Never heard of it, saw the pic on one of the threads here, looked it up online as it is incredible. And then that night it was mentioned and relevant to the plot of the book I was reading - Jeffery Deaver's latest novel (this is the tiniest of minuscule spoliers).
 
Today at work for some reason I started singing 'In The Navy'. A couple of colleagues jokingly took it up and a third began looking a bit, y'know, emotional.

Turns out two of his best friends joined the Navy today and he's really missing them.

Dunno why I was singing it but it set him off!
 
My mum had a good one yesterday: she'd been trying to remember the name of a German fairy tale because something had reminded her of it. Her sister phoned and whilst she remembered the story, also couldn't remember the name. Both of them were searching their bookcases whilst they were on the phone, but neither could locate the book.

After the call, my mum had a proper look on the shelves and found it. There was a bookmark in there... marking that very story.
 
onetwothree said:
My mum had a good one yesterday: she'd been trying to remember the name of a German fairy tale because something had reminded her of it. Her sister phoned and whilst she remembered the story, also couldn't remember the name. Both of them were searching their bookcases whilst they were on the phone, but neither could locate the book.

After the call, my mum had a proper look on the shelves and found it. There was a bookmark in there... marking that very story.
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What was the story?
 
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