Cambridge Coincidences Collection

As of the 23rd May 2022 this website is archived and will receive no further updates.

understandinguncertainty.org was produced by the Winton programme for the public understanding of risk based in the Statistical Laboratory in the University of Cambridge. The aim was to help improve the way that uncertainty and risk are discussed in society, and show how probability and statistics can be both useful and entertaining.

Many of the animations were produced using Flash and will no longer work.

Well I Never!

Professor David Spiegelhalter of Cambridge University wants to know about your coincidences!

Strange Cabinet- strange screw gun

So I'm a fabricator, at work we needed a shelving unit. I built one to mimic those cheap grey garage shelving units. Installed it that afternoon. That evening my buddy calls and ame out of the blue if I wanted one he was cleaning out his garage. It just was 2 specific of a design. Same guy next coincidence, so for two days I have been looking for a specific stand up tool to install screws in deck I'm building. Friend calls me this morning literally ten minutes after I ordered and told me he was lookinging into buying one of the guns for a sub floor job. I know we're both handy kinda guys but that's just wierd, I don't talk to him much and I assumed he already has one

Cat that shape shifted into an alien

This is a bizarre story. I lived in Mt Eden, Auckland. On 6th January 2012 I had a Life Between Lives regression with Gail Nicholls in Howick in which I saw five of my spiritual guides. There was a sixth Being which was shyly peeping out from between the legs of the other guides. I couldn’t really identify it because it kept ducking behind their legs, but I got the impression that it was a small grey dog or cat. The other guides were easy to identify and my friend who was doing the regression for me suggested I talk to this little Being to find out more about it. Suddenly I had the image of an alien, small and shy like a little boy, and grey coloured. It was a split-second encounter and then the regression moved on to other things. I forgot all about this regression until I decided to get a cat and on 18th August 2012 I went to a rescue centre in Te Atatu. There I found a little grey cat, very timid and shy and I just knew she was the cat for me. I called her Annabelle. On 27th November 2012 Annabelle was sitting on my lap (facing away from me) when Gail phoned. We chatted for some time and then I noticed that Annabelle had shape shifted.

Mother and daughter buy identical lipsticks

In the early 1970’s our family had returned to Coventry, UK after living many years in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa. My mother and I were not particularly close and certainly didn’t have “girlie” conversations. One evening she mentioned that she had bought a lipstick but it was only available in a long slim cylinder and not the short squat cases that she liked. I mentioned that I actually preferred the long slim cases and that I had also bought a lipstick that day, but mine was in the short case. She showed me hers and it was the exact same make and colour as mine, so we swapped and got exactly what we wanted. Bearing in mind there are 1,000’s of colours of lipstick and many manufacturers, the likelihood of us buying even the same brand would have been coincidental, especially as we didn’t discuss things like this.

Missing sunglasses turn up beneath a boot load of camping gear

In 2001 my partner and I fully loaded up my car for a 10-day Christmas camping retreat at Tauhara near Taupo in New Zealand. We lowered the back seat to make more room in the boot for all our gear – tents, sleeping bags, swim goggles, flippers, food etc. We set off from Papakura, a suburb in the south of Auckland, around the 21st December and drove to Rotorua where we spent the night with his sister’s family. The sun was glaring and so I wore sunglasses as I drove. The next day we headed for Taupo and the sun was already bright so at some stage I asked my partner to pass me my sunglasses. They weren’t in the glove box or the centre console or anywhere obvious. I decided I must have left them at his sister’s and I would have to pick them up on our return trip, although we had planned a different route home. Half way through our retreat some other campers and myself wanted to climb a mountain on the other side of the lake. I said we could use my car and I unloaded the rest of the gear from the boot. I raised the back seat and there were my sunglasses safely nestled on the seat cushion.

Lost dog returned to owner

In the 1980’s we moved to a rural property south of Auckland, New Zealand and I always wanted a dog, so I advertised for a smaller, older dog in the New Zealand Herald newspaper. I didn't want a puppy or a large dog. A lady responded who lived in Manuaku City which was about 25kms away so I went to see the dog she was selling. The poor dog was in a sorry state and looked as if it had been “puppy-farmed” - it had obviously recently had puppies. I bought the wee thing and took it home. I kept it inside that first day so that it would get used to me but by dusk I thought it probably needed to relieve itself. I opened the back door and the dog darted out so fast I didn’t even see which direction it went. I looked and looked for it and eventually phoned the neighbouring farmer to ask him to let me know if he saw a stray Jack Russell. The farmer kept blabbering on the phone and when he calmed down he told me this was his dog – he so was overwhelmed to get her back. The dog knew exactly where it was and had gone home. Mary

The Road to Emmaus

I am a Quaker. Quaker Meetings are silent unless someone feels moved inwardly to stand and speak. In my early days going to Quaker Meeting I went through a very rough patch at work which no one knew about. I went to Meeting one day and sat there in misery and despair. I thought ‘ I feel just like the disciples did after Christ’s resurrection when they were walking on the road to Emmaus with nothing to cheer them only no Jesus is going to appear and cheer me as he reappeared and cheered them. Almost immediately an elderly Quaker stood up and spoke, saying, ‘Friends sometimes we feel alone and lost, like the disciples on the road to Emmaus....’ Eerie.

old flame

One January I was missing an old flame whom I had not seen in ages. When am I going to see X again I wondered. I picked two cards out of a deck and got a 4 and a 6. Ok so it is the 4th June. I tried a second time and a 4 and a 6came out again. A coincidence Final Result? on the 4thJune I randomly bumped into X at 4.06pm. I was so shocked that I could scarcely speak.

Strange and unlikely connection across continents.

My family lived in Africa for many years and our friends subsequently scattered to many corners of the world. Several years ago, I emailed a former teaching colleague from Gaborone, who had just moved to Northern Territories in Australia. At the time, I told her I only knew 2 families in the whole of Australia; my brother and family friends called Tanner. One of the Tanner family I knew had also recently moved to Northern Teritories and had some sort of connection to education. Maybe you may come across her, I said - somewhat unrealistically, as Northern Territories is 1.41 million square kilometres! She emailed me back immediately, to say that Sue Tanner was standing next to her when she opened my email...

Home town coincidence in remote village in Greece

Whilst working for the UN in Kosovo, I drove with my then wife to the Pelion peninsular in Greece for a long weekend break. It was early November and raining heavily when we crossed the border into Greece. We drove up into the mountains to explore and at lunchtime found a remote taverna in a little mountain village that seemed all but deserted. In the taverna, a log fire was blazing and two other couples were enjoying a meal by the fire. I could just hear them speaking English. I thought they were English but my wife thought they were American. After the meal, I went up to them and explained the discussion I had with my wife. 'We're English. Hello, my name is John. We live in Argalasti, not far from here. Where do you come from in the UK?' 'I come from Chichester,' I replied. 'Hello, ' said the other man. 'I'm also a John. I'm the new bishop of Chichester.'

Mrs H

I used to work in an office counting the change from Charity Boxes. One day, I saw a coin and thought it looked strange. It was a penny and the colour wasn’t the same as the others. I picked it up and it was a brand-new 1p from 1971, the year I was born. It had no scratches or dints n dings in it, it was as new. I was amazed, so I replaced it with a larger value coin and kept it for luck... Then one day without realising it, I scooped it up with a lot of other coppers and changed it where I worked for a bigger denomination, forgetting the coin was there. I realised I had lost it and be-moaned my carelessness. I obviously hadn’t looked after it properly, so it’s my own fault i’d lost it.... Cursing my ill-luck, I was counting a different charity box several months later and I thought that coin looks weird... As I picked it up, a voice in my mind said, look after it this time.... So I replaced it again and took it home and made sure I never lost it again... There where 7 cash tills and five charity boxes where I worked, but somehow that coin came to me, went back into the system and came back to me again...

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