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!

life and death

Okay so this is the strangeness of my life. May 6th- my friend Steve's birthday also the day my friend Dylan died when we were 16. July 18th- my friend steve(mentioned above) passed away when we were 18, also my friend Annie's birthday and my aunt rhondas birthday. October 4th- my brother committed suicide and two of my very good friends birthdays. October 27th- my boyfriends birthday also the day of my fathers stroke and grandpas death.

Voodoo coincidence or anxiety?

I was really worried about something that I won't explain here. So I started overthinking like I usually do and my mind went to catch all unreasonable things that I could imagine for what I was worried about. So I started reading something about paranormal activities and voodoo and at the same time I received a message on a WhatsApp group about someone who was talking about voodoo rites (she was talking about it just for fun). Like you can imagine I thought there was a paranormal reason for that coincidence. I know, I'm a bit anxious!

My cousin Erik and my fiance

I had just moved back to fresno california in 1997 from San Jose, Ca. I started working at software company in Fresno and met a girl named Michelle who also worked at the software company. After a year I moved on to work for the county then many other jobs. In 2012 I connecged with Michelle again and we started dating. We were engaged to be married in 2014. My cousin Erik with whom I am very close to, his life seemed to go a different direction. He was in prison, again and was not going to be attending any wedding anytime soon. Erik and i talked on the phone regularly and he had been transferred to many different prisons because of fighting, but he was finally at a nearby prison and i was making plans to visit him. When i first met michelle she was married to a guy named Hue. Hue was from Clovis and was decent guy but had started using and selling drugs. I asked michelle why had they divorced and she explained that after i met her in 1997, her Hue had moved into a house in clovis they were hoping to buy. Hue had started using a lot of drugs and got out of hand. Something happened one night and he was arrested in 2010 and was currently serving his years in prison.

Circles of life

I have two daughters, Mazzy and Mia. Mia was 9 and Mazzy was 11 at the time of this coincidence. My wife and I divorced and the girls live with her across town in the city of Clovis that is directly connected to the larger city of Fresno which I live in. One day my cousins girlfriend came by my place with her two daughters. We were waiting for my cousin to arrive when her youngest daughter, Lily pointed at a picture in my apartment and said "I know her". She was pkinting to a picture of my daughter Mia. I asked how she knew her she said shes my friend at school. Turns out that although they lived across town, her mom used a her grandmas address in clovis and carted them every day to the same school my daughter attend. Lilly was not only in the same grade but also in the same classroom as my daughter Mia. There are many many elementary schools in both fresno and clovis, and more than one class for thier grade as well. I had never met my cousins girlfriend before and he had only recently started dating this girl. I tbought that was kind of odd.

My second wife

When I was growing up and in elementary school I made a friend named George. George lived close by the school we attended and I woukd iften go to his house after school to play. This went on from 5th grade through bigh school 10 years old thru 18yrs old. At 31 I met and married a Katie, who was only 20 years old. We had two girls and were married for 6 years. One day Katie and I were near her old house that she grew up in when i said I wanted to see it. We were also near my old elementary school and i was interested to see. Her house was directly across the street from my friend Georges house where I had visited many times over the years. I told George and he remebers the 3 little girls across the street.

From Malmo Sweden to Fresno Ca

I was born in RI, US in 1972. In 1973 my mom moved to Malmo Sweden to be with my Dad. We lived there almost 1 year before returning to the US. We lived in Sweden again for a few years then all around the US before settling in my moms hometown of Fresno, Ca. When I was 22 years old I met my first wife a bartending school in Fresno, Ca. She was born in Malmo Sweden in 1973. I have many other bizzare occurances ill post after this one.

The Matrix

The expiration date on Mr. Anderson's ID in the movie The Matrix was 09-11-01.

Rings on their fingers....

Yesterday my brother called and told me he had found a music track I had been trying to find for decades - Follow Me by Amanda Lear. He had also mentioned '7 years in Tibet' the film with Brad Pitt. In watching the videom I remarked that Paul O'Grady as Lily Savage might have been able to do a good version of it as the song is done in a camp style. After he left,Judge John Deeds was on TV which featured Simon Ward. I remarked to my partner that Simon looked like Martin Jarvis from the series "Rings on their fingers".

Fly in the Ointment

I was just doing some work on the mp3s I made of my on music - one of which is based on the Sci Fi classic 'The Fly' -the track is called 'Fly in the Ointment'. Later this evening I went back to the online version of the newspaper,and started reading it from the back to the front,as I had already read the major part of it this morning. In the sports section,which I usually omit,when reading the paper from the beginning,was an article about Italian striker Andrea Belotti which referred to him being stung. The article was entitled 'Fly in the ointment for puffed up Andrea'!!!

small world

I dated someone briefly I met on Match. He contacted me because he was looking for someone who played Ultimate Frisbee. I was in my early 40s. His father was black and his mother was Jewish and he was from a tiny town in Colorado. I thought, that's weird, a former Oregon colleague of mine was Jewish and had a young child with her old boyfriend, a black man, and they lived in a small town in Colorado. I didn't say anything of course, but the first time I went to Ian's house, there was a Holiday card on his refrigerator from my friend Annie. They were from the same town and Annie was good friends with Ian's mother.

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