‘What’s the craziest coincidence you’ve ever experienced?’ – 21 weird happenings that can’t quite be explained

As novelist Kate Atkinson’s roguish detective Jackson Brodie often asserts: ‘A coincidence is just an explanation waiting to happen’. But is that true, or are there some things that simply cannot be rationalised by our little human brains?

Over on the AskUK subreddit, user huskydaisy asked ‘What’s the craziest coincidence you’ve ever experienced?’ and followed it up with their own very unlikely example:

‘I was chatting to my Dad at the weekend and he told me a story that blew my mind. His uncle emigrated to Australia after living in Romford his whole life (about 70 years).

‘After a year or so of living in Oz he had to visit the doctors and in the waiting room when a guy started chatting to him. ‘So, where in London did you live?’ asked the guy. ‘Well I grew up in Romford’. ‘No way, so did I’ said the man.

‘What street?’ ‘MacDonald Avenue’. ‘You’re joking, so did I!’. ‘What number?’ ’43’ ‘Shut up me too!’ What room was yours?’ ‘The one on the left at the top of the stairs’.

‘At this point the guy almost passed out with astonishment as it turned out not only had they had both lived in the same house at different times, they had both slept in the same bedroom! Can you beat that, or have any other crazy coincidences that defy belief?

And people were queuing up to add their own stories of strange serendipity.

1.

‘Someone came in to where I worked, saw my name badge and said that’s an unusual surname and he knew a guy in the army with my name when he was stationed in south Africa, but he was Welsh.

‘I was named after my dad and his side of the family are Welsh so I just laughed and said that was my dad as he was stationed in South Africa for a time when he was in the army. I live about 100 miles away from Wales too.’
–Pink_Flash

2.

‘A few days ago I was at Download Festival, a rock and metal music festival in the UK. Green Day were headlining and playing their song Wake Me Up When September Ends. It hadn’t rained all day. It was blazing sunshine.

‘Clouds had started to roll in later in the day, but nothing major rain wise. Then Billie Joe sang the line ‘here comes the rain again’, and it started raining for the next 10 minutes. It was fucking wild. The crowd went crazy and Billie Joe’s face was like wtf.’
–dookie117

3.

‘I was in Canada and talking to an Irish bloke. We’d noticed we didn’t look unalike. A bit of chatting and it turned out we were related through our great-grandparents.’
–No_Promotion_65

4.

‘I used to frequent AOL chatrooms in my teenage years and I (F/Scotland) got friendly with a girl who lived in London. For ages we became close online pals, and one time I was on the phone to her when her dad chipped in asking her who she was chatting to with such a ‘strong’ Scottish accent.

‘She told him it was her online pal and told him my full name. He laughed and said that he had a pal in the army who had the same unusual surname, but we obviously couldn’t be related cos the dude in question was English.

‘Oh, my dad IS English’ I told him, and at this, my dad overheard and asked who I was speaking to. My friend’s dad then asked me if my dad’s name was Paddy. It wasn’t, so I laughed and said ‘Nah his name’s not Paddy’.

‘At this, my dad was like ‘WHO are you talking to?’ so I told him quickly, my friends dad, blah blah blah, used to have an army pal who had the same surname as us, but the guy’s name was Paddy, so it obviously wasn’t you. My dad then said, ‘… but in the army, my nickname was Paddy…? Who are you speaking to??’

‘Yep, they were army buddies and had rediscovered each other by their daughters being random chat room pals, 22 years after their tours had ended.’
–BlueHornedUnicorn

5.

‘In 2004 I had a nightmare about a huge Tsunami happening and trying to warn people about what to do if all the water goes out of the bay suddenly. I was screaming and trying to get them to come back off the beach. You can imagine my confusion when I woke up to the news the next day, Boxing Day. That was pretty fucking weird.’
–ohnobobbins

6.

‘My ex and I broke up rather unceremoniously, with a complete cutoff in communication. I emigrated to Hong Kong and returned a couple of years later, my first holiday with my new bf was to Tenerife, and guess who was stood next to us in the check-in queue…?’
–Gaping_Whole_

7.

‘Teenage romance with girl I met on holiday. Years later on New Year I get a message on Facebook, she had a dream about meeting me randomly in this other city in a place neither of us live.

‘Years later, for completely un-related reasons I end up in that city, and I get a message on Facebook asking ‘Is that you in the square?’ and we ended up going for a drink. So weird.’
–syllo-dot-xyz

8.

‘When I was born my dad was 28 years and 28 days old. When he was born his Dad was 28 years and 28 days old. We were all born on a Thursday. Sadly I broke tradition by fathering children both before and after I was 28 but not at 28 years old.’
–SilasMarner77

9.

‘Worked with a girl who’s brother lived in Australia. I went to Madrid to watch the champions league final and when I came home I was showing her the pictures and stood in the background was her brother and his fiancee who had travelled from Australia to Madrid and were stood next to us in the street.

‘She sent her brother the photos and he sent back photos with me in the background.’
–MunkeeseeMonkeydoo

10.

‘Three years ago I went to hike Mam Tor to entertain myself while my husband was at Glastonbury. I don’t drive so I had to take the train and then a bus. When I got off the bus I felt a tap on my back and it was a girl I used to be best friends with when I was 7.

‘We are both Mexicans born and raised in a little city in the south centere of Mexico, we lost contact for 20 years and came to find each other on a bus in the middle of the Peak District in England.’
–CrisstinaMonge

11.

’60 years ago my parents were travelling across America. Stopped in a petrol station to fill up, one of those last gas for 300 miles types of places, in the middle of nowhere. The old guy pumping the fuel recognised my parents accents from a particular part of the UK where he said he was from but not been there in many many years.

‘He asked if they new his old friend from school which turned out to be my mum’s dad. They gave him his address and phone number and address and put two old school mates back in touch.’
–Jester7s

12.

‘I was in a pub in London when a dog came in with his owner. Dog came straight up to me and gave me lots of licks. Turns out I’d volunteered with him at a shelter in Peru a couple of months earlier and he’d landed the day before I bumped into him. The owner had volunteered there three weeks before me. Still blows my mind.’
–Mouldly_interesting_