13 incredible coincidences you’ll doubt are real – but are

The world is a strange place, and sometimes things happen that are so outlandish that it seems impossible for them to be true. From Disney park guests to famous historical figures, no one is immune to bizarre, unbelievable coincidences.

In the early 2000s, soon-to-be-married couple Alex and Donna were looking through old photos to put in their wedding video. They happened upon one of Donna and her siblings posing with Peter Pan’s Smee on a childhood trip to Disney World in 1980. But there was something shocking in the background of the photo – or someone, to be exact. It was Alex, being pushed in a stroller by his father. Until that moment, the couple had had no idea that they’d been at Disney World at the same time as kids, long before they knew each other – let alone in the same photo! In 2010, they returned to Disney World to recreate the photo with their own children.

The seemingly meaningless sentence “Here was I like a psalm” is an anagram for “William Shakespeare”; they consist of the same letters and only the same letters. But…is it meaningless? The 46th word in Psalm 46 in the King James Bible is “shake,” and the 46th word from the end is “spear.” William Shakespeare’s age when the King James Bible was first completed, in 1611? Forty-six years old.

You might have come across this fact in your history class and immediately noticed its spookiness. Three of the first five U.S. presidents died on July 4, and two of those deaths were on the same July 4, within hours of each other. Friends-turned-political-rivals John Adams and Thomas Jefferson both died on July 4, 1826, the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. The fifth president, James Monroe, would die exactly five years later, on the Declaration’s 55th anniversary. So, the birthday of the country is the deadliest day for its presidents.

Here are 15 US presidential mysteries that may never be solved. 

Getting struck by lightning is a rather cliché example of a rare occurrence – but one that befell the same man four times, including after his death. The man, Major Walter Summerford, was struck three different times throughout his life…and then again, four years after it had ended when lightning hit his gravestone. Various embellishments of the tale exist – one (perhaps suspiciously) detailed account claims that the lightning strikes, including the posthumous one, happened precisely every six years – but no matter when they happened, that’s quite the odd nature coincidence.

Don’t miss these 10 weird facts about lightning strikes. 

In 1864, Robert Todd Lincoln – the son of US president Abraham Lincoln – tumbled off of a train platform and was rescued by a man named Edwin Booth. Now, why does that surname sound familiar? Because, yes, mere months later Abraham would be assassinated by John Wilkes Booth, the brother of the man who’d saved his son’s life.

These 13 mysterious celebrity deaths still remain unsolved. 

This is a really weird one! In 1940, a set of twin boys was put up for adoption. The boys were adopted by different families, both of whom named their sons James. The boys, both of whom ended up going by Jim, both grew up with dogs – with the same name, Toy. They also both grew up to work in security (one twin was a security guard, and the other was a sheriff). They also both divorced their first wives – named Linda – and remarried women named Betty. And finally, they both had one son, also named their sons James, and gave their sons similar middle names (Allan and Alan). And, until they were 39 years old, they’d never even met. That takes twins being “connected” to a whole new level!

Each Jim knew that he’d been born with a twin, and when they were 37 years old, one of them found contact details for his brother. They met in 1979, and that was when they learned just how similar their lives had been. And, unsurprisingly, news outlets and psychologists alike had a field day!

Millions upon millions of people died in the First World War, which makes this historical coincidence all the more incredible. According to The Royal British Legion, the first recorded British soldier to die in the war is buried in Belgium’s St. Symphorien military cemetery – mere feet from the grave of the last recorded British soldier to die in the war. Private John Parr died, reportedly in a German cavalry strike, on August 21, 1914. Four years of bloody combat later, George Edwin Ellison was killed at 9:30 in the morning on November 11, 1918, a mere hour and a half before the call for a cease-fire that would end the war (the armistice had been signed earlier that morning). The men were buried before their identities as the first and last to die were known.

Plenty of kids let go of balloons, whether accidentally or in hopes of sending a message and seeing where it ends up. This story begins just like any other like it but ends in an astonishing way. In 2001, a young girl in Staffordshire, England, took a balloon, wrote “Please return to Laura Buxton,” along with her address, on it, and let it go. The balloon traveled around 140 miles and ended up in a farm in Wiltshire, where a farmer found it – and realized the name on the balloon was familiar to him. One of his neighbors had a daughter named Laura Buxton. He brought the balloon to the Buxton family, and this Laura wrote to the first Laura’s address (which was on the balloon), explaining how she’d ended up with it. The Lauras’ parents eventually arranged for their daughters to meet.

And the strange discoveries kept coming. The Lauras discovered that, in addition to their matching names, they were also nearly the same age (one was ten, one was about to turn ten) and both had a pet black lab, a rabbit, and a guinea pig. Seriously! After the girls met, they ended up striking up a friendship and remained friends; they told their story together on a podcast in 2009. Pretty cool, right?

Great American author Mark Twain had a sharp wit, a knack for satire, and…clairvoyance? Twain (née Samuel Clemens) was born in 1835, a year when Halley’s Comet – which only passes the Earth every 76-odd years – was visible. It reappeared in 1910, the year Twain died; as a matter of fact, he died the day after it was at its brightest. This is already a fun historical coincidence, but it becomes downright astonishing when you learn what Twain said on the matter the year before he died. According to the New York Times, he said in 1909, “The Almighty has said, no doubt, ‘Now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together,” referring to himself and the comet. And go out together, they did. And Mark Twain wasn’t the only one who made some eerily accurate predictions about the future.

Here are 8 more of the most bizarre coincidences throughout history.