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!

All daughters gay

I have 5 daughters ranging from age 35-20 They are all gay,I am not.

2 family members die on the same month and date 5 years apart

My father died November 24th 2006 of cancer My daughter died on November 24th 2010 Of accidental overdose.

Stalked by Max Von Sydow

A few years ago I was channel surfing and happened to notice several different movies on that night all had Max Von Sydow in them. It was so many that it became strange and I began wondering if perhaps he had died . The next day I was telling a friend and asked if he had died and my friend said not that he knew of. That night and for several nights later the same thing kept happening. Even random tv shows I would click on and there would be Max. So I decided to give tv a rest and started reading a book I had special ordered called The Tale Of Crow and Sparrow. This book was a folk tale from India that supposedly explained why there were untouchables in the Indian Caste System. It was not something just anyone would read. As I am reading along the author said, " And in the words of the famous folklorist Carl Von Sydow, father of the well known actor Max Von Sydow.......... I threw the book across the room.

Chance meeting with lady who my Mum saved from drowning many years earlier, when she came back to England from Canada for one last visit

In 1939, my Mum and her family lived at Bindon, near Bindon Mill and Abbey Dorset which is near Wool in Dorset, they used to swim in the river at Bindon Mill, their neighbours and a cousin of their neighbours were at the Mill one day, their cousin, a young yet 'very bossy' 9 year old fell into the water and began struggling, she could not swim my Mum was very athletic and a really good swimmer aged just 5 at the time, Mum jumped in and pulled the girl to safety, aided by her older sister, they both dragged the girl out of the water to dry land, the girl was taken back to her cousin's house, a doctor was called and she then went back to Dorchester, my Mum and aunt often spoke about the bossy girl who they saved from drowning. </p> <p>In 2014, my Mum and her siblings were having a get together at Wool, I was invited to join them, I thought that I'd surprise them all with having an album of photos restored which had some of their old family photos from their time at Bindon and of their friends at School in Wool. I went to Bournemouth Station in order to catch the train to Wool, the train passes Bindon Mill on the way.

People from Past

I just moved to a new city. Since I have moved here I have run into a number of people from my past. This isn't that strange because I grew up in the suburbs and a lot of people from high school still live here. This past weekend I ran into 6 people from my past. 3 live in the city. Two lived in other cities. And one was the second time I had seen this person without speaking to them. This final run in was made even stranger by the fact that I was saying this person's name as they walked by right in front of me. They were not in view when I started talking about them, but it was the instant that I said their last name, they came into view and even turned their head when they heard their name. I was in too much shock to call out their name. So I just let them pass by.

Wallet Wonders

I was about to go for a drive and couldn't find my wallet. Asking a roommate to help locate it I surmised it must be in the last place I used it. We drove to the local department store where the night before I had made a purchase in the electronics department. My friend searched the parking lot. I believed the likelihood of it being in the lot remote and proceeded directly to electronics. A clerk informed me the wallet had been found and put in the vault. I proceed to the vault, once there, I was told the person was on lunch. As I waited, my slightly frantic friend arrived thinking they had lost me and the wallet. I reassured my friend and soon after my wallet was retrieved.<br /> Now, here is the story if you think in percentages.<br /> My friend, seeing as they were in the store, decided they needed to make a purchase, and I in tail proceeded off behind them. Now, as they wandered through the store I glanced down aisles, and there 3/4 of the way down one, was an elderly lady struggling for a jar out of reach.

Synchronized Vacations

In 1988, my wife and I flew to Jamaica for a short vacation. We met a couple there who was from our own home state (Texas). Several weeks after we returned home, we decided to take a weekend camping trip to Oklahoma (an adjoining state). We were slowly driving thru the park (at night) looking for our assigned campsite (which we were assigned when we arrived). Someone called my name and it turned out to be the couple we had met in Jamaica. Our campsite was directly across the road from theirs and they had arrived earlier the same day.

Multiple family members with same date of death (any month)

My husband lost his maternal grandmother, his sister, Dad, an uncle, a nephew & his mother was on her death bed on that date, dying only minutes after midnight! We're afraid to get out of bed on that date! It really makes us wonder.

eBay creep

I (in the U.S.) sold some handmade arrowheads to a man in Austrailia on the eBay site. The next year he came to the US via a camp counselor exchange program. He was randomly put in our state and ended up being my son's camp counselor where he sexually molested him. He's in (U.S.) prison for that now. I sold those arrowheads for someone else. As I was listing them I recalled as a boy being taught how to make those types of arrowheads using antlers and flint at that very same camp.

Birthday coincidence

My husband and I found out that we were born in the same hospital, by the same doctor, in the same week. We are 6 days apart. AND, I worked with a lady who has a daughter that I share a birthday with; we were born on the same day, in the same hospital, by the same doctor. And my mom and the lady I worked with both described each other as their hospital roommate. I also share a birthday with my aunt and a cousin. My birthday is August 29. I also had my son 3 weeks early and delivered him on my mom's birthday which is on Christmas. So we celebrate mom and my son and Christmas all in the same day!

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