From a 50-year football curse to an unsinkable stewardess, today we look at UNBELIEVABLE
Coincidences That Really Happened!
#8 Curse of Bobby Layne The world of sports has changed drastically
over the course of the last half-century, but there has been one consistency: The Detroit
Lions have not won a championship in 61 years and counting.
And some say legendary quarterback Bobby Layne is to blame.
Following an incredible eight years with the Lions in which he led the team to three championships,
played in four Pro Bowl games, and was voted first team All-Pro twice, Layne was traded
to Pittsburgh.
Upon receiving the news, he supposedly responded by saying Detroit would “not win for 50
years.”
And in many ways, he was right.
The Detroit Lions have a number of records that are less than flattering, including the
only team that has been in the NFL since 1970 and has never been to a playoff game and the
first team to have a winless record of 0-16 in a 16-game season.
While the curse is supposed to be long over, the Detroit Lions still have a steep summit
to climb back to the top.
#7 Morgan Robertson’s The Wreck of the Titan Fourteen years before the sinking of the RMS
Titanic, a novella written by Morgan Robertson detailed a similar journey and consequential
sinking.
The book, titled “The Wreck of the Titan: Or, Futility” follows the story of a man
named John Rowland as he drunkenly survives the voyage, iceberg crash, and return to mainland.
A redemption story of sorts, the novella doesn’t seem too aware of its grave subject matter.
But that doesn’t mean the parallels between the two are missing.
The Titan was 800 feet long and displaced 75,000 tons in the novel, a size not too much
heavier than the Titanic and just a bit shorter than it too.
Both the Titan and the Titanic were described as being “unsinkable” and having too few
lifeboats.
Both instances struck a tree at a pace of more than 20 knots.
The ships had similar builds, number of casualties, and even shared the same propeller design.
So when the Titanic went down in 1912, the world couldn’t help wonder if Robertson
was clairvoyant.
He went on to claim the similarities were all because of his extensive maritime knowledge...not
his ability to see the future.
#6 Jennifer Bricker and Dominique Moceanu In 1987, Jennifer Bricker was born with no
legs and put up for adoption.
She was raised and loved by two compassionate parents in Illinois and would grow up idolizing
gymnasts on television, particularly Olympic medalist and professional gymnast Dominique
Moceanu . Growing up adopted, Bricker wasn't accustomed to seeing someone that had the
same Romanian features as herself.
That combined with their similar size and stature and Moceanu's display of grace, Bricker
became immersed with the idea of following the same path as her idol.
With boundless determination, Bricker grew to be a gymnastic champion herself, refusing
any aid or handicap that was offered.
But there was more to find out.
When Bricker was 16 her mother finally told her the truth about herself: her birth-given
surname was Moceanu.
She immediately put it together and went about contacting her sister.
Stringing together documents, photos, and a letter, Bricker put all her faith in a single
package, writing: "you had been my idol my whole life, and you turned out to be my sister!".
Shortly after, Moceanu received the package and was completely shocked.
She called Bricker and they began the slow but gradual process of reuniting Bricker with
her birth family.
Today the sisters are close and have shared their story through books, articles, and interviews.
#5 Laura Buxtons The mind of a ten-year old can run rampant
with imagination, but young Laura Buxton didn’t make up this story.
Just ask her new friend: Laura Buxton!
Confused?
So were the Lauras as one of them received a deflated balloon with her name and an address
on it.
The balloon was found hanging from a hedge by a neighbor, who promptly delivered it to
a friend’s child whose name just happened to match the one on the balloon.
The message on the balloon simply stated “Please write Laura Buxton,” and so the girl did
and, to her delight, she received a phone call not too long after from...you guessed
it, Laura Buxton!
What had happened was that one girl named Laura Buxton had sent out a balloon in search
of a penpal.
The balloon had travelled 140 miles and ended up, of all places, at another Laura Buxton’s
residence.
The two girls, less than 1 year apart in age, learned they have more than names in common.
Both have similar hair, grades, and pets, down to the same number and breed!
#4 Steve Jobs’ Biological Father The co-founder and longtime chairman and CEO
of Apple, Steve Jobs was known for many accomplishments as one of the greatest computer-age pioneers.
However, what many may not know are his origins: Steve Jobs was adopted.
Born to an Arab Muslim father and a Swiss/German Catholic mother, an infant Jobs was put up
for adoption in San Francisco in 1955.
His parents, in their early 20s at the time, were forbidden to marry by Jobs biological
grandfather on his mother's side due to his heritage and religious beliefs.
So Jobs would grow up with two Bay Area blue collar parents who he would grow to cherish.
Fast forward to years later, Jobs would go on to meet his biological mother and sister.
He grew to know and care for them, but he never had much of an interest in meeting his
father.
Little did he know, he already had!
When he and his sister Mona Simpson found their father, Jobs decided his sister would
go to meet him alone.
He was a balding, Syrian man that had quit teaching to run a restaurant near San Jose.
Upon meeting, Mona would hear him say that "all of the successful technology people used
to come there.
Even Steve Jobs...oh yeah, he used to come in, and he was a sweet guy and a big tipper."
Hearing this, Jobs recalled visiting the restaurant and meeting an owner who looked a lot like
himself, but Jobs was completely unaware to their familial relation at the time.
However, out of caution toward his wealth and status, and respect for his foster father,
who he regarded as being his parent "1000%", Jobs would never seek out another meeting
with his biological father.
Jandali learned years later of his biological son's identity thanks to articles he read
online.
#3 Miss Unsinkable, Violet Jessop Born in the late 19th century, Violet Jessop
was a natural born survivor.
The first of nine children to a family of Irish immigrants, Jessop spent a vast majority
of her childhood looking after her brothers and sisters.
Only six of the children survived as illness ran rampant with Jessop herself overcoming
a case of tuberculosis...despite doctors predictions of a fatal diagnosis.
At age 16, Jessop’s family moved to England after her father’s passing.
Her mother worked away at sea and Jessop would attend school and look after her youngest
sister until her mother fell ill next.
Taking after her mother, she would apply to be a stewardess and earned her first position
aboard the Orinoco in 1908 at the age of 21.
But this would only be the beginning of her trials.
Jessop would go on to work for the vessel RMS Olympic in 1910.
A luxury civilian liner, the Olympic was the largest of its kind at the time.
On September 20, 1911, the Olympic collided with the British warship HMS Hawke.
No fatalities were reported and Jessop and the crew were able to take the ship back to
port without sinking.
Her next shipwreck encounter wasn’t quite as fortunate, however, as Jessop boarded the
Titanic in 1912.
Four days after it left the harbor for its first voyage, the Titanic hit an iceberg and
sunk in nearly 2 hours in the North Atlantic.
Jessop was loaded into a lifeboat, where she was handed a baby to look after by one of
the Titanic’s officers.
By the next morning, Jessop and the other survivors were found and rescued.
She reported in her memoirs that aboard the lifeboat, someone who she presumed to be the
mother took the baby from her and walked off without saying a word.
Jessop would later work as a stewardess aboard the HMHS Brittanic for the British Red Cross
during the first world war.
In November of 1916, an explosion that remains unexplained to this day tore through the ship,
sinking in 55 minutes and resulting in 30 fatalities.
As the Brittanic went down, large propellers began to churn and suck lifeboats under the
stern.
In a desperate attempt to escape the sinking ship, Jessop leapt from her lifeboat, suffering
a traumatic head injury but surviving the wreck.
Jessop would live a long life, ending at the age of 83 in 1971 with the well-earned nickname
of “Miss Unsinkable.” #2 The Jim Twins
Twins in fiction are often portrayed as having similar or shared minds, taking their similar
likeness to an exaggerated level, even when separated by birth.
In the case of the aptly named Jim Twins, reality may be stranger than fiction.
In 1940, two twin boys were put up for adoption at only 3 weeks old and split across Ohio
by two different sets of foster parents.
Both would be given the name James by their respective parents, each going by Jim for
short.
Both men had childhood dogs named Toy, and each excelled in math but did poorly with
spelling.
And it doesn’t end there.
By their adulthood, both men had married twice with each first marrying women named Linda,
only to divorce and marry women named Betty.
Each of them had a son named James Alan and were Chevy driving officers (with one working
as security and another as a deputy sheriff).
And to top it off, they were both heavy smokers.
It was 37 years until the two were reunited, spending their entire lives only 40 miles
apart yet living such similar lives in the meantime.
The two decided to take part in a study and found the twins to have nearly identical medical
histories, as well as extremely similar brain-wave and personality tests.
These reports have gone on to heavily influence nature versus nurture theories in the case
of hereditary and environmental effects on human behavior.
#1 Anthony Hopkins’ Girl from Petrovka When Anthony Hopkins first found out he was
to play a lead role in a film based off the George Feifer novel, “The Girl From Petrovka,”
he was eager to begin his research.
Travelling to London to purchase a copy of the book, Hopkins would go from bookshop to
bookshop but to no avail.
He could not find a copy of the novel anywhere.
Awaiting the underground train home, Hopkins would happen to find a book underneath a bench,
completely full of annotations.
As luck would have it, this just so happened to be the book he was looking for, “The
Girl From Petrovka”! In the midst of production of the movie two
years later, while filming in Vienna, Hopkins actually met author George Feifer.
During their visit Feifer commented he had lost his copy of the novel being adapted.
He had lent it to a friend to read and they ended up losing it in London.
Without hesitation, Hopkins would hand the copy he had found two years prior to Feifer
and ask, “Is this the one?”
To their astonishment, it was.