16 Crazy Coincidences That Are Hard To Believe Actually Happened

A set of twins from Ohio who were separated at birth grew up without any knowledge of each other's existence. They lives did however share a number of strange similarities. They were both named James on their adoptions, they both grew up to be police officers, and both of them married women named Linda. But that's not all. Each had a son, one named James Allan and the other one named James Alan, and each also had a dog named Toy. Both brothers later got divorced, and both ended up remarrying women named Betty! (source: people)

Did Edgar Allan Poe own a time machine? Some people think so. How else could he have known about an event almost half a century before it happened? In his book called The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, the author describes how four sailors who survived the sinking of their ship were forced to eat a rather unfortunate cabin boy named Richard Parker. Although Poe claimed that the story was based on real events, that wasn't actually true. 46 years later however, a boat really did sink, and the members of the crew who were rescued were forced to eat a cabin boy in order to survive. The cabin boy's name? You guessed it - Richard Parker. (source: nytimes, seesouthampton)

Did the famous writer Mark Twain predict his own death? Well if he didn't then it was a major coincidence. The writer was born in 1835, when Halley's Comet was passing the earth. It only passes once every 76 years or so, but Twain predicted that he would die on its next passing. "I came in with Halley's Comet in 1835," he said in 1909. "It is coming again next year, and I expect to go out with it." The writer died on the very day of its appearance in 1910. (americanliteraryblog, wikipedia)

Depending on how you look at it, Violet Jessup was either one seriously lucky lady, or she was one seriously bad omen. The stewardess and nurse was on the HMS Olympic when it struck the HMS Hawke, she was on board the HMHS Britannic when it sank after hitting a sea mine, and she was also traveling on the RMS Titanic when it sank after hitting an iceberg in the North Atlantic. No wonder she later become known as Miss Unsinkable! (source: historybuff)

When Anthony Hopkins was preparing for his role in The Girl from Petrovka, he wanted to find a version of the book (written by George Feifer) so he could study it before filming began. But wherever he looked, he couldn't find a copy until one day, while sitting on the subway, he found a copy on the carriage in which he was travelling. But that's not the end, because when Hopkins later met the author, Feifer told him that he also didn't have a copy of the book. Why? Because he'd lent his last one to a friend, who had then accidentally lost it on the subway! (source: npr, dm)

The founder of the Ferrari company, Enzo Ferrari, died on August 14, 1988. Just a month later, on October 15, Arsenal footballer Mesut Özil was born. Take a look at their pictures side by side. Massive coincidence? Or proof of reincarnation? You decide!

The Simpsons has been known to accurately predict all sorts of things, but maybe their most impressive prediction of all (and also the most relevant right now...and depressing...) was guessing that Donald Trump would become president. We didn't see it coming. You didn't see it coming. But The Simpsons definitely saw it coming way back in the year 2000 (although the pictures featured here are from the 2015 episode). Either that or it's one seriously creepy coincidence...

Believe it nor not, Dutch cyclist Maarten de Jonge has escaped not one but two major plane crashes in his life. Not only was he supposed to be on board missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 before deciding to take a flight that departed an hour earlier; he was also supposed to fly on Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, the one that was shot down over Ukraine in 2014, before changing to a different flight in order to save money. (source: independent)

14 years before the Titanic sank, in 1898, Morgan Robertson, a fantasy writer from the US, write about a ship sinking in a novella called Futility. The ship in the book was called the Titan, but that's not the end of the similarities. For example, like the real Titanic, the Titan was described as unsinkable. They also both had insufficient lifeboats and they both collided with icebergs in the North Atlantic. (sources: titanic.wikia, historyonthenet, cruiselinehistory)

Two of America's presidents, namely Abraham Lincoln and John F Kennedy, share a multitude of barely believable coincidences. Both were killed from gunshot wounds to the back of the head; both died on a Friday; both died before a celebration (Kennedy was assassinated on the eve of Thanksgiving, Lincoln was killed right before Easter); and each one of them were accompanied by their wife and another couple. But there's more! Both had a friend called Billy Graham, both had four children, both had secretaries named after the other (Kennedy's secretary was called Mrs. Lincoln, while Lincoln's secretary was called John), and both of their successors were vice presidents called Johnson! (source: logic-books, historynewsnetwork, wikipedia)

World War 1 began after Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in Sarajevo on 28th June 1914. The car in which he was traveling at the time of his murder bore a license plate with the number A III 118. What's so strange about that? World War 1 officially ended on Armistice Day, 11th November 1918, otherwise written as 11/11/18...(source: telegraph)

112 deaths were associated with the building of the Hoover Dam, but there's a strange coincidence between the first and last men to lose their lives during its construction. The first man to die was a surveyor called George Tierney, who drowned in the Colorado on December 20, 1922, while looking for an ideal place for the dam. The last man to die? Patrick Tierney, George's son, who also died on December 20 in 1935. (sources: damofhoover, usbr, digital-desert)

An American named Matthew survived last year's terrorist attack on the Bataclan theater in Paris by playing dead after being shot. What's even more amazing is that 14 years earlier, on September 11th 2001, he narrowly avoided another terrorist attack when a United Airlines plane struck one of the twin towers while he was passing the building on his way to a meeting. (source: telegraph)

The first and last British soldiers killed in the First World War are buried in Belgium’s Saint Symphorien cemetery. Their graves are located just 6 metres apart and their headstones face each other, which is a major coincidence considering that this arrangement wasn't at all planned. (source: the guardian)

On June 20, 1940, Soviet archaeologists uncovered the tomb of Tamerlane in what is now Uzbekistan. Tamerlane, who saw himself as Genghis Khan's heir, was a Turco-Mongol conqueror and the founder of the Timurid Empire in Persia and Central Asia. A warning inscription on his tomb read "Whomsoever opens my tomb will unleash an invader more terrible than I." Clearly not superstitious, the Soviet archaeologists ignored the warning and opened the tomb anyway. 3 days later, Adolf Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa, the largest military invasion of all time, upon the Soviet Union. (source: wikipedia)

On the night of September 29th, 1888, at around 8:30pm, Catherine Eddowes was found lying drunk on Aldgate High Street in London. She was taken into custody and released at 12:55am when she was sober enough to go home. Upon leaving she gave the police a fake name - Mary Kelly. The same night she was released, Catherine Eddowes was murdered by Jack the Ripper, who then went on to murder another woman named - you guessed it - Mary Kelly. (source: wikipedia)