FLUKEY OR SPOOKY? Incredible real-life coincidences or are they?

[LightbulbSun]

Similar stories?

When I was fifteen, an older friend and I took a 250 [roundtrip] mile bicycle ride from a suburb of Los Angeles to a camping area in the mountains above the town of Hemet. The trip out required about 18 hours of pedaling; much of it either up hill and/or through the desert. Since for a good part of the trip the primary highway was off limits to cyclists, for about eight of the eighteen hours we road along miles and miles of hot, flat, lonely desert roads that were well off the beaten tract. Right about the time I thought we had actually arrived at the middle of nowhere, being about eighty miles from my home and forty miles from any significant population centers, far ahead we noticed a small figure emerging from the blurry heat layer above the road. As we approached what we could then see was a rider on a horse, I finally saw that it was a fellow classmate - a girl from my [current] ninth grade class. It turned out that her family owned land out there and often spent weekends in the desert. She was the only person that we saw for many hours.

Coincidence. You're bound to find someone you know in the same area as you since this planet is so small. What's so magical about a person owning land out there?

This is the one that really gets me. At age sixteen I was a complete off-road motorcycle nut. I often went to a place called El Mirage dry lake bed with one or several friends for some desert biking. The lake bed is surrounded by miles and miles of sand dunes and hills. On one unlucky occasion, while riding with just one other friend we got lost in the dunes. We had no visible points of reference and had gotten completely turned around. Having about one gallon of gasoline left in our tanks and only a little water, and since it was about a hundred degrees out that day…at least, we agreed that the situation was serious and we started a systematic search for the truck. After about 30 minutes, since we seemed to be even more lost than before we agree to each ride opposite directions to two visible high points for a look. Well, let me tell you, those sand dunes are quite confounding; before long we lost each other. Since I couldn’t hear or see my riding partner I started getting really worried. Finally I decided to start a large circular pattern and rode for another fifteen minutes or so and saw nothing even vaguely familiar. Now I was getting really, really worried but what to do? Gas is getting low…oh sh*t! Again I started out with some other plan. No sooner has I started out around a dune that directly ahead was the truck AND my riding partner who was coming from the opposite direction. He also had just spotted the truck. I couldn’t believe my eyes!

There's nothing strange at all about finding the truck at the same time. You guys must of had done a complete 180 and if the truck wasn't there you would of intersected with each other. This is just a coincidence. When someone thinks of the same thing as me at the same time I just think they had a similar train of thought. Nothing magical or mystical about it whatsoever.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Coincidence. You're bound to find someone you know in the same area as you since this planet is so small. What's so magical about a person owning land out there?

Well, I don't mean to imply that either of my stories is suggestive of anything other than long odds. In fact the second story was most interesting to me because I was starting to worry about my life, not really because the odds were that great. But try to quantify the situation. In some cases the odds seem extraordinarily long and we would seem to expect that such events are very rare, but even events with long odds can be common.

One quickly realizes that in order to address these situations in a general way, one needs to assign classes of events to help sort things out. Some events that seem highly unlikely are in fact likely due to the number of similar benign events experienced in a typical day or year. But I was surprised to find just how common some types of events might be even though the odds seem very long.

Anyway, I suggested trying to quantify the odds for the story about the key, or for my encounter with my classmate. It often is not so easy to say with any mathematical certainty what the odds would be.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

It has long been a hobby of mine to dig up interesting stories like these, so I often probe my customers and friends a bit and see if they offer up anything intersting. If you ask people you will find that most have at least one story about something that seemed very odd; so much so that they find it to be a memorable event. At least this is what I have found.

Here is one story that I found to be very interesting because of the source and the nature of the claim. This came from a person who has no interest in paranormal stuff, and he seemed to be quite perplexed about his own story. As nearly as I can recall it goes like this: He was standing in his driveway and noticed that his neighbor across the street was working on his motorcycle. The guy was running his motorcycle with his rear wheel off the ground and spinning, and cleaning the moving drive chain with a rag. In fact this is a common practice for shade-tree mechanics. It is also very dangerous. Randy [my buddy] was watching this, and as he described it, in his mind's eye he saw the chain grab the rag and drag the mechanics hand into the spinning sprocket. According to Randy, he saw this as if was a memory, and he found himself starting to run, almost like an involuntary reflex, while wanting to yell at his neighbor to stop. He swears that after about two or three steps, and just as he started to yell, what he had seen in his mind actually happened, and his neighbor was injured pretty badly.

So, I don't know. Was this some sort of Deja Vu-like event where the event registered twice and left the impression that he saw it before it happened, or was this a legitimate ESP event of some kind, did he cause it by yelling, and/or was it just a coincidence? If it was coincidental, then as the story was told, the odds would have to be tremendously long. Randy claimed that even he had no idea why he reacted as he did - that it was very uncharacterstic of him. Normally he might have mentioned in passing that cleaning a chain like this is a bad idea, and more likely he would never say anything at all, but to jump and run as he did was perplexing even to him.

 

[small_bang]

Yep, it's like someone remarking on seeing the time 11:11 on the digital clock and thinking that he seemed to be drawn to looking at the clock at that particular time and thought it was significant, when in fact he just remembered the instances of seeing 11:11 or 12:12 etc... because it stood out in his mind because it was interesting, his mind blanked out the other hundreds of glances at the clock because they didn't catch his attention.

Hmmmm, I have a weird 11:11 story.
I started noticing this 11:11 thing and took notice of it but just laughed. This was back in the latter 90's. This went on for at least a couple of years. As far as I knew, this was my own private 'cosmic joke'.

Then, around '99 I found out about this infamous Art Bell radio show and began to tune in, on and off, around the early spring of that year.
My habit was to take a little radio and stick it next to my ear and then I would fall asleep within a half hour into the show..around 1:30 - 2am. I did this one to several times a week, but not necessarily consistantly everyweek. Many weeks would go by when never listened.

Then, the strangest thing happened. That fall, I happen to tuned in again one day the same way I described above. At 4:30am that same morning, I woke up wide awake.
The program was still in progress and my mind began to focus on what was being said.

Remember...as far as I knew, 11:11 was my very own personal and private 'phenomena'.

Art was talking to a caller. The caller was saying something to the effect: " Art... have you heard anything about lots of people saying that they keep seeing some kind of numbers or something like that?"

To which Art Bell replies: "Yes caller, I don't know what it is, but I can tell you that I've been receiving thousands upon thousands of faxes and emails from people ALL SAYING THAT THEY KEEP SEEING THE NUMBER 11:11 !

Well, let me tell you...I FREAKED OUT

No bull..true story. Let me know the statistics on THAT one.

 

[small_bang]

All of a sudden everybody clams up? Everybody's reading but no one has nothing to say? Thats weird and spooky!

Heres another flukey coincidence. Whats the statistical probability of one person killing each and every thread they post on? hehehehehe

 

[wolram]

Some time ago a million to one event was thought to be improbable, the population of Earth has increased, machines work faster, so now a million to one chance is much more probable even expected, the unexpected is buried in numbers per cycle.

 

[baywax]

Some time ago a million to one event was thought to be improbable, the population of Earth has increased, machines work faster, so now a million to one chance is much more probable even expected, the unexpected is buried in numbers per cycle.

What's the cycle and what's its rate of attrition with regard to chance and improbability? I would imagine it would, to a large degree, rely on the level of efficiency re: the society producing the numbers and the conditions.

Are coincidences dependent on any sort of condition? Is there a cycle of coincidence?

I would suggest that the rate of coincidental occurances only seems to multiply with the reporting, publishing and discussion them. There may be a correlation between population numbers, technological advances and so on but these factors also add to the efficiency/proliferation of reporting, publishing and discussion of events such as "coincidences".

There are some events that are hard to explain such as thinking about someone then running into them within the same hour. This may be something other than coincidence and more of a result of cognitive interpretation of events resulting in a conclusion such as thinking of a friend. I could explain if anyone wants.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Please limit all formal explanations to well established science. Our goal is to see if events can be explained with known science; not to posit new theories. Likewise, to say it is all a matter of the odds means nothing without quantification.

 

[wolram]

Please limit all formal explanations to well established science. Our goal is to see if events can be explained with known science; not to posit new theories. Likewise, to say it is all a matter of the odds means nothing without quantification.

Maths is not scientific? what rules do you want to apply to two bodied to show they will not meet at some point?

 

[LightbulbSun]

Please limit all formal explanations to well established science. Our goal is to see if events can be explained with known science; not to posit new theories. Likewise, to say it is all a matter of the odds means nothing without quantification.

It really is just the odds. I don't see anything else to this.

 

[sas3]

I posted this on a different thread a while agao, but thought i would repeat it in this one.

Enjoy the strangeness!

I went to a concert (Moody Blues, Beach Boys, and The Fix) at Alpine Valley. During the Moody Blues I and my X were standing just behind the paid seats and she did not like the people we were around so we moved way up the hill and sat on the grass. Well I was bummed because the Beach Boys were just about to start and I could hardly see the stage. Well just then a couple came up the hill and asked if we would like there tickets, 3rd roll center. They just came to see the Moody Blues. Well we took the tickets and enjoyed the rest of the concert. 12 years later I was divorced and living back in my home town Tichigan Lake, one night I went to the local bar to have a few drinks. I went and played some Moody Blues and Beach Boys on the jukebox and sat down at the bar and the girl next to me started up a conversation about a concert she went to at Alpine Valley. It was the same girl that gave us the tickets. Tichigan Lake is a very small place and she just happens to end up at that bar on that night (she had never been there before) and just happened to start talking to the guy next to her which was me.
I often think back on this and think of all the things that had to occur for this to happen.
Very Strange!

 

[small_bang]

Yes...when you think of all the things that had to fall in place precisely in order for it all to come together...

I have another one.

I had a client that I performed an ongoing service for (photography) The owners son also worked there. This son had a woman friend who worked in a large graphic design firm. Through this connection I got several jobs from this woman. She was also involved in producing a one-off catalog for my client that I did the photography for.

In the meantime, my client was being solicted by another ad agency to use their services. Eventually they did and hence I became involved with them too. I also have since become friends with one of the partners of this agency and to this day, over15 years later, still work together.

Coincidentally, this person from the agency (I'll call Tom) also went to college with this women friend ( I'll call her Jane) of my clients son and actually knew each other back then.
(OK, its a small world...nothing weird about that)

Fast forward 3 or 4 years later. In that time I never had contact or even heard from, or about, this woman Jane.
So one day I'm sitting in the office of Tom, discussing some business. Out of the blue I do a total non sequitor and say..." Gee, I wonder what ever happened to Jane.
"Have you ever heard anything from her?"
He tells me "No...nothing." We finish up our business and I go home.

That evening I turn on the tv and start quickly surfing through the channels. As I'm flipping, my brain quickly registers recognition of a face. I stop and tune in. It turns out that the face I recognized is none other than this woman Jane! She was the topic of a segment on one of these lifestyle shows. She was now the photo editor of a fashion magazine.

When I think about the coincidence of all this...not only the bringing up her name in conversation but that if it I had just been a fraction of a second off in my channel changing...whew. weird.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Maths is not scientific? what rules do you want to apply to two bodied to show they will not meet at some point?

To make blanket statements without any calculations is not scientific. You stated that it is all in the odds. Well then, take one of the more interesting examples and prove that this makes sense by calculating the odds, and then showing how many similar events can be expected [perhaps for a sample population over a given interval of time].

Baywax was talking about something else - a personal theory to explain these sorts of things - and I wasn't sure where he or she was going, so a reminder was posted to avoid going into no man's land.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

It really is just the odds. I don't see anything else to this.

We already know your opinion, now prove that it makes sense.

 

[LightbulbSun]

We already know your opinion, now prove that it makes sense.

What exactly do you want the odds on?

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I suggested the "key story" long ago... of course I know for a fact that my stories are true, and I like the one about meeting my classmate who was riding a horse in the middle of the desert. That was a real shocker! Or, perhaps other members have a favorite. But, to be fair, it would have to seem very unlikely on the face of things.

 

[LightbulbSun]

I suggested the "key story" long ago... of course I know for a fact that my stories are true, and I like the one about meeting my classmate who was riding a horse in the middle of the desert. That was a real shocker! Or, perhaps other members have a favorite. But, to be fair, it would have to seem very unlikely on the face of things.

Well just remember, even a one in a million chance these days is a very probable ratio. You're going to have to dig up some factual numbers so we can make a better judgment on this.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

One in a million events are common but only for some types of events.

What would you like to know?

 

[Integral]

How about meeting someone online, only do discover that you share alma mater, have the same degree, and most amazing the SO get along!

To weird.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

That is funny. I think there were about 1500 members when I joined. Most of these people were from the U.S., but not all. And I think we had about ten mentors when I joined the staff [including Integral]... does that sound about right? Also, for some strange reason we had four mentors from Oregon!

Integral and I met on PF and found that not only did we attend the same school where we both got physics degrees, and consequently that we know or knew many of the same people as we are fairly close in age, but we also live a short distance apart. We struck up a friendship as a result, and considering that most people annoy me, that is saying something!

 

[LightbulbSun]

One in a million events are common but only for some types of events.

What would you like to know?

The odds of running into someone you know, but haven't seen in about a few decades.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Ah, but you are the one asserting that this can all be explained by the odds. The burden of proof is yours to support this assertion with calculations. I will gladly provide details of my encounter with my classmate, but I have no idea what the odds of the event might be.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Yesterday I posted this.

From there he went to The Tomorrow Show, which I watched for many years. I remember him talking one night with a comedian and good friend - forget his name - about an evening at an expensive Los Angeles restaurant. After getting exceedingly drunk, they noticed two suits of armor in the lobby. Somehow they managed to get into the armor and started greeting guests with a sword and lance, which nearly got them arrested.

https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=178756

A few hours later I ran into town [a small town some miles from here with a pop of about 10,000] and stopped at my favorite mart for milk and such. The adjacent business closed recently and a new one has moved in, but they are still preparing the building. The store only has a few parking stalls, and I was forced to park in front of their neighbors place. As I pulled up to the parking stop, I looked up and through the window saw a full suit of armor, complete with sword.

 

[moose]

On Wednesday I was with a friend leaving his GFs house. We were on our way to a grocery store. We were talking about many things and at one point we started talking about a friend of ours who joined the Air Force back in March. We go into the store, and my friend yells "Oh my god!". I look and there's the air force friend standing there! We haven't talked about this kid for months and the day we mention him happens to be the first day he comes back from Texas. The fact we even saw him was weird. He was only at the store for 10 minutes.

It's also cool when you and a buddy start singing the same song at the same moment out of nowhere. It's happened twice to me where a friend and I have started to sing the same song at the same moment at the same part of the song, without having heard the song for days. It's kinda creepy, but it's possible that there was some noise made by the AC or the fridge which happened to sound like a part of some song. I don't know.

 

[Far Star]

A number of years ago a man was walking along the road and my first thought was "Someone's going to hit him". He wasn't close enough to the travel lane for concern so it was a little weird to think that. A few minutes later I passed that way again and he'd been hit by a car.

Not quite as spooky as the nuns and dog, though. I've been wondering about that one for days.

 

[Swatje]

I once met someone from my class 600 miles from where I live.

Now THAT was wierd.

 

[mgb_phys]

Well just remember, even a one in a million chance these days is a very probable ratio.

I tried to convince an IT manager of this, we had a cluster of 64 machines, each with 16Billion bits of memory and doing 3Billion operations/second.
He couldn't see that we should get random errors occasionally - because "computers don't make mistakes"

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I had been planning that Tsu and I go for a hot-air balloon ride on Saturday for her birthday. As it turned out we decided to wait as it wasn't a good time to do this. Nonetheless, it was a real eye-opener to wake up to this on Saturday morning.
http://www.canada.com/topics/news/national/story.html?id=50ae170b-a69b-444f-80c4-15655297cb28&k=92642

 

[Burnsys]

This is what happened to me, i work as a software developer, so i have advanced knowledge of computers, i am also a performance freak, and my home computer almost never crashes.
I live with my girlfriend and i have a couple of folders she must never see! (that means if she see those folders the relationships is over!) anyway i am very carfull when opening those, i always close them, they are hidden in the hard disk and has names that don't mean nothing, So one day i forgot to close one of the folders and went to work. A couple of hours after i came back my girlfriend was in the computer and she told me: Look, what is this folder? Call me lucky, the folder just hang out Explorer.exe! (it never happened me before) and so it's contents could not be seen.. So i sayd, mmm. it looks like a virus! Restart the PC!

 

[mgb_phys]

i have advanced knowledge of computers...
my girlfriend...

Now that's a coincidence too far!
I mean, meeting the Loch Ness monster and Elvis in the same motel - ok, but "I have advanced knowledge of computers" and "I have a girlfriend" is just too far fetched.