50 One-In-A-Million Coincidences That Are Hard To Believe

Let’s say that these amazing photos people were able to capture are a mere coincidence. Still, do we know what that really means? Well, according to its definition, that unlikely meeting of your long-lost classmate on the same vacation island abroad is a “surprising concurrence of events, perceived as meaningfully related, with no apparent causal connection.”

While some tried attributing the reasons for coincidences to physical forces, the collective unconscious, and even extrasensory perceptions, statistics and the law of large numbers tell us that with so much happening everywhere and the vast number of people, it’s not out of the ordinary to encounter rare coincidences.

For example, the birthday paradox suggests that theoretically it would only take 23 people in the same room for it to be likely that two or more people will share the same birthday.

This means that even when you’re in a bus or a classroom, it’s probable that you share your birthday with at least two people around you. It seems like an unlikely thing to happen, but it's quite likely to occur, we just aren’t aware of it, so when it happens, we are quick to attribute a special meaning to it.

“Pretty much any event or object in our lives has the power to generate coincidences. It’s just that we don’t notice the vast majority because they’re boring – like seeing two blue cars parked next to each other,” said physicist and science writer Robert Matthews.

“But every so often, we think we’ve encountered an incredibly rare coincidence. What we’re forgetting is a basic rule of probability: that even rare events are sure to happen if given enough opportunities. It’s often hard even to estimate the number of these, and thus it’s impossible to gauge their true probability, leaving us feeling baffled and spooked."

The author of The Improbability Principle and statistician David J. Hand said that “We should expect the unexpected,” while statistician David Spiegelhalter has even summarized a list of the most common coincidences that people have experienced and shared with him.

He has a website where people can submit their stories, and since 2011, more than 4,000 have done so. From this data, Spiegelhalter was able to find that the most common type of coincidence people face is finding a link with someone they meet.

The list of other common coincidences (in order) includes: 

1. Simultaneous occurrence of events
2. Repetition of very similar events
3. Meeting someone you know in an unlikely place
4. A matching date
5. A matching name
6. Finding a link with an object
7. A matching number
8. Parallel stories with multiple matches 
9. An object reappearing 
10. Matching music

Spiegelhalter says that the most interesting thing about coincidences isn’t really their occurrence but the fact that we notice them. That’s why research has found that coincidences happen to certain kinds of people more often than others. Or are simply noticed by some more than others.

Psychiatrist Bernard Beitman, in his research, found that people who describe themselves as religious, spiritual, self-referential, and meaning-seeking are more likely to be coincidence-prone. He also revealed that people are more likely to see coincidences when they experience extreme emotions of sadness, anger, and anxiety.

Spiegelhalter perfectly illustrates the previous point by saying, “Coincidences never happen to me at all, because I never notice anything. I never talk to anybody on trains. If I’m with a stranger, I don’t try to find a connection with them, because I’m English.” Meanwhile, Beitman is the opposite. “My life is littered with coincidences. [...] I got into [studying coincidences] just because, hey, look Bernie, what’s going on here?”

For Beitman, statistics and probability aren’t enough when it comes to studying coincidences. Because they can’t explain it any further than chance. “I know there’s something more going on than we pay attention to,” he says. “Random is not enough of an explanation for me.” So no matter what side you belong to, whether to the probability and chance or meaningful, fate-like coincidence, you are free to choose which one to believe.