19 One-In-A-Million Coincidences That Are Hard To Believe Happened But Totally Did
Sometimes, life serves up moments so unbelievable that if they happened in a movie, we'd all be rolling our eyes and throwing popcorn at the screen. But guess what? These jaw-dropping moments DO happen in real life, proving the universe has a seriously twisted sense of humor.
OK, so maybe we didn't throw popcorn at the screen when these two somehow met at summer camp...but still, that was one hell of a coincidence!
Over on Quora, people are spilling their unbelievable one-in-a-million coincidences that will leave you saying, "What are the odds?!" Trust us, you won't want to miss these incredible stories! Check them out below:
1."I worked in a pub in the UK, and one day, after finishing my shift, I stayed behind for a quick drink. There were three other customers in the bar, all female. The barmaid knew one of the women and — since my name is Steve Kemp — said, 'This is quite amusing, Steve; this is Sandra...she's also a Kemp.'"
"One of the other customers said, 'Oh, two S. Kemps! Well, make it three, I'm Sarah Kemp!'
At this point, the last customer burst out laughing and said, 'Make that four — I'm Sue Kemp'!
So, while there were only four people drinking in the bar (all strangers to each other), somehow they were all named 'S Kemp.'"
—Steve K., Quora
2."My friend died in a motorcycle accident. A week after the funeral, we were putting his clothes away. Some went to Goodwill, and some went to family members. Someone accidentally put his favorite jacket with his name on the tag in the Goodwill box. Well, it went to Goodwill, and his mother was heartbroken. This was in Tennessee. Three years later, his mother's sister was going through clothes at a Goodwill in Massachusetts. She lifted the top layer, and there lay a jacket that looked familiar. She pulled it out, and sure enough, there was his name written on the tag."
—Chase O., Quora
3."I was at a casino when a mother and son sat down at the slot machines on either side of me. They were having a loud conversation, and the son's phone kept ringing repeatedly, but he kept declining the calls. It turned out he was planning to leave his wife that day, and he spent about 30 minutes talking about how horrible she was. His mom chimed in with her opinions as well. Finally, as a joke, the next time she called, I said, 'Let me answer the phone,' and he laughed and handed it to me. I said, 'Who is this?' To my surprise, it was my sister on the other end, and the man was my brother-in-law! My sister started screaming at me to get away from her husband. I have seven sisters, and I hadn’t spoken to this one in five years due to a silly argument. She ended up divorcing him, and now she and I are best friends. It's funny how life works out like that. We laugh about it often."
—Maggie M., Quora
4."My husband was hiking in the woods when he found some electronic gizmo packaged in a box, took it home and forgot about it. This was before the internet, so there was no good way to research it. A few years later he bought himself a classic car, a Volvo 240 Wagon. A few years after that, it broke down, and he was told it needed some electronic gizmo part that would cost more than he wanted to spend. A glimpse of a memory. He goes home, finds the electronic gizmo thing he had picked up in the woods years earlier, and realizes it was the exact piece he needed in complete working order."
—Jill M., Quora
5."When my mom was having me, another lady was having her baby in the next delivery room. The two husbands talked outside the delivery rooms (fathers weren’t allowed in the room those days). Both women had boys born seconds apart. Ten years later, I had an accident after coming home from school. I cut my forehead when a glass cupboard I was fiddling with fell on me. I was rushed into an operating room immediately, and my parents waited outside. Believe it or not, the couple from 10 years ago were there too. Their son was in the operating room next to mine. He, too, had an accident after coming home from school that day."
—Anonymous, Quora
6."I had a close friend in college, but as life went on, we drifted apart and only saw each other a couple of times a year. Still, she was the maid of honor at my wedding, and I was her bridesmaid. As our married lives progressed, we saw each other even less; she focused on her career, and I had a child. Then, one Friday night, my husband and I decided to go to dinner at a little hidden restaurant we liked. We sat down and ordered drinks; then, I excused myself to visit the restroom. I walked in and realized a woman in tears was standing in front of the mirror. She turned around and threw herself into my arms. She was crying, and I realized it was my friend. Her marriage was falling apart because her husband had started using drugs and cheating. She just didn't want to go home. She had driven around randomly before stopping at this restaurant she had never been to. She was at a low point in her life and desperately needed a friend, and suddenly I was there."
"iI’s been about 35 years or so since that happened. We’ve been best friends ever since."
—Ann M., Quora
7."I'm an American but was in Barcelona on business. After the work was done my hosts took me to a restaurant for dinner. I walked in and saw someone that looked like a fellow I went to high school with. Trying not to stare I still kept a bit of an eye on him. A couple minutes after being seated this person came to our table and said in English, 'I may be losing it, but are you Ray?' I was gleefully surprised and said, 'Cecil?' He said, 'Yes, and I am having dinner with Robert (another high school friend)!' I asked if they decided to come to that restaurant by chance and he said, 'I came in alone and then Robert walked in and now you!' We all came separately and ended up in the same restaurant, in the same city, at the same time in a foreign country. What are the odds. We had a great reunion."
—Ray, Quora
8."My husband was at my parents' house, looked at a photograph, and said, 'Why do you have a picture of my grandfather?' The picture was of my sister, mom, and me at Disney World when I was 6. In the background is my husband's grandfather, who had taken his young grandson — my husband! — to Disney World. My husband and I are pretty sure we were within feet of each other that day (sadly, my husband didn't make it into the picture). Afterward, he returned to Virginia, and I went back to New York, but we didn't meet until college."
—Erin M., Quora
9."I was traveling alone in Thailand, and I stopped by Khao San Road (one of the more popular streets in Bangkok) for a bite. While waiting in line for some food, I said hi to a cute girl behind me."
"HER: 'Where are you from?'
ME: 'New York. You?'
HER: 'Israel. Where in New York?'
ME: 'A place called Riverdale, in the Bronx.'
HER: 'Oh cool… is your mom Daphne?'
ME (in disbelief): YES!!! How in the heck?'
Turns out she was my babysitter when I was a baby. Her family left New York when she was young to move back to Israel. 25 years later, we bumped into each other in Thailand."
—Anonymous, Quora
10."My uncle was traveling on a night bus. The guy sitting next to him was studying non-stop for 5–6 hours. My uncle finally asked him what he was studying for. He said, 'I have a job interview, but I don't have any references, so I am just working hard for the interview." In Pakistan (where this was), most jobs are given based on references. My uncle took out his phone, called someone, and told him, 'This so-and-so guy is coming in for an interview, and I have seen him myself — he is very hardworking." The company's CEO, where that guy was going for the interview, was my uncle's best friend. The guy got the job."
—Azam J., Quora
11.When I worked at Hertz in the 90s at JFK in New York, a guy called from California, and I — one of 300 employees who could have answered it — picked up the call. The man said he lost his sunglasses in a rental car he returned in Boston, but the Boston team told him someone had since rented the car and returned it to JFK. I found the car on the lot and the sunglasses inside. When the guy gave me his name to mail them, I vaguely recognized it as that of an adult neighbor from my childhood on Long Island. He then also said he was a pilot, and I remember him wearing a uniform as a kid. I asked, 'Did you, by any chance, live on Monett Place in Greenlawn, NY?' He was shocked, saying he did and moved away in 1969 (when I was four). He remembered me and my parents, and I gave him my parents' phone number in Florida. The three of them ended up reconnecting!"
—Rich S., Quora
12."It was 1974. I was on the road with my band, playing at the Holiday Inn in a small Mississippi town. The keyboard player and I decided to go to K-Mart (after getting quite stoned). As we walked into the entrance, at THAT instant, 10 feet from the door, a pay phone started to RING! We stopped and looked around, but no one else was in sight, so I walked over and picked it up."
I said, 'Hello?' and then handed the phone to the keyboard player and said, 'It's for YOU!' He started laughing uncontrollably, thinking I was messing with him, but it really WAS for him! Our drummer was trying to reach him to get something from K-Mart, so he called 411 and asked for the number to the store. She gave him the pay phone number (for some reason), and the drummer just HAPPENED to call that phone just as we walked in! Stuff like that ONLY happens when you're a bit high, LMAO."
—Dino P., Quora
13."I met an older woman I had never met before at a social gathering. She was an artist, and I felt an immediate connection to her. I surprised myself by telling her about being found as a discarded baby. She asked me a lot of questions before inviting me to her home. She had produced a piece of art in 1965 based on a newspaper headline about a baby being found in a box. She'd put parts of the original newspaper into the painting. There was a picture of a newborn with a nurse, surrounded by her artwork. I was that baby. We both broke down at the same time. There was an inexplicable connection between us. She told me she felt compelled to do something with the newspaper article and never thought she would meet the baby as a grown-up woman. We are now close friends. She is the mother I should have had."
—That Woman, Quora
14."My husband and I met working in the same restaurant while in college. We got married and had two kids. One day, while looking through his old photos, I found one of him dancing at a formal dance with the girl he dated before me. In the photo, he and I are back to back, almost touching. I was dancing with the guy I dated before him. We didn't meet that night; it was months later! It's wild to think that we were so close to each other — and even had a photo together — before we even knew each other! We've been together for over 15 years now."
—Lisa W., Quora
15."My dad worked for a major TV studio in Hollywood. One day, an old woman and her daughter stopped by one of the guard towers and asked if they could have a tour. The guard called around and ended up asking my dad if he had time to give a tour. He said yes. As they toured the facilities, they got to talking, and the old woman said she was from a little town in Ohio. 'Really,' my dad said. 'My dad was born there.'"
"'Oh?' she replied. 'What was his name?'
'Marcus.'
'Really? I went to high school with him.'
'Wow. Would you want to meet him? He happens to be in town for a few days visiting from Washington state.'
'Sure, why not?'
Later, my dad asked his dad if he remembered Blanche, the woman he'd met earlier that day, adding, 'She's in town and wants to meet you.'
'Really? I had a secret crush on her all through high school.'
Both my grandfather and soon-to-be step-grandmother were widowed. They met, married, and spent the rest of their days together."
—Jon L., Quora
16."I was on vacation in China, and I ran into a friend from college in Quebec who I hadn't seen in over 25 years – he was also on vacation. It was in a market in a small village in Northern China. Of all the places…blew my mind."
—Sean M., Quora
17."For my bachelorette party, my closest friend and I decided to take a girls' weekend in Charleston, SC. We both grew up in the suburbs of New York City. We had a fantastic Saturday, and on Sunday morning, we thought it would be interesting to tour a plantation. We asked our B&B hostess for recommendations, and she suggested one nearby. We drove there without doing much research, and its name was rather generic. The tour of the grounds was both humbling and disturbing. I found it odd that the family name of the plantation's owners was my grandmother's maiden name, but I didn't think much of it."
"When we entered one of the slave cabins, I noticed a portrait of the plantation owner's wife from the mid-1800s. She looked exactly like my mother. Over the next hour, I had to grapple with the unsettling realization and guilt that my ancestors had owned slaves. In the book about the plantation's history available in the gift shop, I saw my great-great-grandfather's name mentioned as the son who left the South for the North before the Civil War.
We spent the day exploring the grounds and learning about my maternal grandmother's family history — a history she probably knew nothing about. Of all the gin joints in all the world, we randomly chose to tour my own family's plantation."
—Meghan, Quora
18."We live in North Carolina, and my daughter went to a new school for high school. She became close friends with a classmate named Brittany, and they began to learn more about each other's lives and families. My husband grew up in New York/New Jersey, and we found out that Brittany's parents also grew up in New York. My daughter never met her NY/NJ grandfather because he passed away when my husband was in college. My daughter has always been fascinated hearing stories about him — he was a professional baseball player (catcher) who played AAA baseball in the 1950s. He played for several teams in several different cities. As it turns out, Brittany's grandfather also played AAA baseball in the 1950s in NY. The girls (who, again, live in North Carolina) thought, 'Wouldn't it be cool if they knew each other?' Well, the chances of that happening were so infinitely small. There were so many teams and players, and players often moved from team to team."
"Out of curiosity, my husband realized that baseball records are now online. He was able to look up all of his father's old baseball stats from every team he played on! Imagine his complete shock when he saw that Brittany's grandfather and my daughter's grandfather were on the same team at three different times in three different cities. Brittany's grandfather was a pitcher, and my daughter's grandfather was a catcher — so my daughter's grandfather caught Brittany's grandfather's pitches!
Brittany told her mother this story, and she looked through her father's baseball memorabilia and found a team photo with original signatures (the players all signed this photo) with Brittany's grandfather and my daughter's grandfather together in the picture! Even wilder, when my husband told his mom this story, she also had the same photo with all of the team signatures! What are the odds?!Who could have guessed that these teammates from 1950s New York would have granddaughters who would become best friends while attending high school in North Carolina?"
—Julie M., Quora
19."I went to the drive-up window at my local pharmacy to pick up my prescription. It was a very blustery day. As I reached to place my $20 bill in the drawer, a gust of wind blew it out of my hand. After paying with my ATM card, I pulled away and parked my car. When I got out and searched the area for the lost bill, I had no luck. I thought to myself, 'I hope whoever found it needed it more than I did,' and then I drove home."
"Over the next week, I was in and out of my car, including the trunk, several times. I had a bag full of clothes to donate to Goodwill. To get to the nearest Goodwill location, I needed to drive to the intersection by the pharmacy, turn left, travel about half a mile, turn right onto a busy highway, drive another half mile, and then turn left into the Goodwill parking lot.
After arriving, I deposited the clothes in the donation bin provided. Just as I was walking back to my car, a $20 bill blew right up to my feet. I couldn't believe my eyes! The bill appeared to have been outside for a while. Was it my lost bill from the pharmacy? Could it have become stuck to my car or trunk somehow? I had driven quite a bit and had been in and out of my car and trunk several times over the past week. Regardless of where it came from, I was thrilled to find the money, especially since I really needed that $20!"
—Lucy, Quora
(Entries have been edited for length and clarity.)
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