Spooky coincidences?

[Busaholic]

Like many of us, I've had a few over the years, but one this afternoon really piqued my interest.

I'd been out and, returning home to settle on my sofa with a cup of tea, I opened a book on London buses. The first two photographs I came across were of buses on the 365 and 607 bus routes respectively. At this point, reaching for my cup of tea, I thought I'd better check my landline to see whether any messages had been left. One had been, requesting me to phone another landline number. As it was quite important, I phoned back immediately to a number with its area code followed by the numbers 365607. As soon as I'd dialled it I cancelled the call, in order to check the answerphone message again in case I was conflating the number with my reading matter, but no, it was correct.

What are the chances? More importantly, do you have tales of remarkable coincidences you have experienced?

 

[lxfe_mxtterz]

I seem to recall we had a similar thread about strange coincidences a couple of years ago.

In that thread, I made a comment regarding how I have often thought (or learnt) about a certain name or location and said name or location would then appear - for example in the headline of a news article - within the following few days.

It was also at this point that I discovered the "Baader-Meinhof phenomenon" as an explanation to this, which is really quite a fascinating read.

 

[THC]

I seem to recall we had a similar thread about strange coincidences a couple of years ago.

In that thread, I made a comment regarding how I have often thought (or learnt) about a certain name or location and said name or location would then appear - for example in the headline of a news article - within the following few days.

It was also at this point that I discovered the "Baader-Meinhof phenomenon" as an explanation to this, which is really quite a fascinating read.

Frequency illusion - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

At the moment I'm reading "Thinking, Fast and Slow" by the Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman and he covers lots of these cognitive biases within. It requires a lot of concentration to take it all in but all quite fascinating, as you say.

THC

 

[Railsigns]

In that thread, I made a comment regarding how I have often thought (or learnt) about a certain name or location and said name or location would then appear - for example in the headline of a news article - within the following few days.

I remember Stephen Fry remarking on an episode of QI how strange it would be if this sort of thing never happened.

 

[Magdalia]

The field of all possible coincidences is infinite.

It is inevitable that a few of them actually happen, but nearly all of them do not.

 

[Herefordian]

My best friend went to Watford to visit the Harry Potter studios recently.

The hotel room he stayed in was room 311.

The shuttle bus to the studios was the number 311.

His second eldest daughter's birthday is November 3rd, or 3/11.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

The human brain is great at spotting patterns, so we notice apparent coincidences like this all the time. However we tend not to give a second thought to the multiple occurrences of non-coincidental numbers.

We remember the hits, but ignore the misses.

 

[nw1]

I've had an instance of thinking about a particular song ("Mr Wendal" by Arrested Development, for those familar with it) and when I turned on the radio, that song was playing - though admittedly the song, while out of the charts, was a fairly recent (3 months or so old) hit so the chance must be quite high.

On a recent-ish visit to the USA, I originally planned to take a direct BA flight to a particular city. The three-digit flight number was the same as one of two numbers my local bus route used in the 1980s (it changed to a slightly different number at deregulation).

As it happened, plans changed and I never did take that direct BA flight.

Many places I've lived have been close to areas of occurrence of the (rather dangerous and spooky-looking) Giant Hogweed plant, which isn't that common.

 

[Devonian]

Years ago I was at home when my mother lifted the telephone receiver to call one of her friends, but heard silence rather than the purr of the dialling tone; she was about to hang up, when she heard the same friend say 'Hello?'. The friend had gone to call my mother at almost the same time, but got no ringing tone because mother had coincidentally lifted our receiver in the split second between the connection being made and the exchange beginning 'ringing'. Their confused - and slightly freaked out - reaction was priceless.

 

[Trackman]

I know someone who's relative was killed and pronounced dead at 08:08 on 8/8/88 after being hit by a no.8 bus

 

[Busaholic]

I know someone who's relative was killed and pronounced dead at 08:08 on 8/8/88 after being hit by a no.8 bus

I got married at 11.11 on 11/11/69, when my new father-in-law was also celebrating his 51st birthday, having been born on Armistice Day, 11/11/1918. For very many years my favourite bus route was the 11 in London too, now dismembered by the powers-that-be.

 

[nw1]

I got married at 11.11 on 11/11/69, when my new father-in-law was also celebrating his 51st birthday, having been born on Armistice Day, 11/11/1918. For very many years my favourite bus route was the 11 in London too, now dismembered by the powers-that-be.

Hard to believe that someone born in 1918 would be only 51 in 1969, but if you do the maths, it does indeed work out that way.

On other matters, on two consecutive years in the 80s I had a very bad day on June 16th. And also in the late 80s, Tuesday 16th also seemed to be perpetually unlucky (though strangely, not Tuesday 16th June).

Friday 13th was, strangely, an unlucky day in various ways in recent years, though in one case it depends on your political persuasion.

Friday 13th Dec 2013 was the date the weather pattern which produced the historically wet winter, with severe and historic flooding, kicked in.
Friday 13th Dec 2019 was the date of the 'glorious victory' of Boris, which for some of us was very bad luck.
Friday 13th March 2020 was the date when Covid seemed to really ramp up in the UK.

Also, on a specific Friday 13th in the 80s, I had a very bad school report; I went through a phase - in the early years of secondary school - when I didn't work as hard as I should have done as I was more interested in computers and trains!
Thankfully I did well in my exams aged 15, though.

 

[Bantamzen]

On the day before the 9/11 attacks, myself and two colleagues were sitting having a lunchtime pint discussing world politics, and in particular the threat of terrorism. We all agreed that at some point in the future terrorist groups would eventually get bold enough to hit high profile targets in the west, such as the Twin Towers.

Admittedly we had never thought of the use of commercial airplanes, but this conversation took place a little over 24 hours before the attacks.

 

[Busaholic]

Hard to believe that someone born in 1918 would be only 51 in 1969, but if you do the maths, it does indeed work out that way.

On other matters, on two consecutive years in the 80s I had a very bad day on June 16th. And also in the late 80s, Tuesday 16th also seemed to be perpetually unlucky (though strangely, not Tuesday 16th June).

Friday 13th was, strangely, an unlucky day in various ways in recent years, though in one case it depends on your political persuasion.

Friday 13th Dec 2013 was the date the weather pattern which produced the historically wet winter, with severe and historic flooding, kicked in.
Friday 13th Dec 2019 was the date of the 'glorious victory' of Boris, which for some of us was very bad luck.
Friday 13th March 2020 was the date when Covid seemed to really ramp up in the UK.

Also, on a specific Friday 13th in the 80s, I had a very bad school report; I went through a phase - in the early years of secondary school - when I didn't work as hard as I should have done as I was more interested in computers and trains!
Thankfully I did well in my exams aged 15, though.

My wife worked for a large public company in the 1970s and 1980s on the Public Relations side, and her chairman refused to get out of bed on Friday 13ths, and would only take phone calls at his lovely country home in exceptional circumstances! She did manage to keep this particular eccentricity out of the newspapers at the time, together with one or two others.