When movies and TV shows rely on a blatant coincidence to drive the story forward, you
can't help but groan.
But sometimes, real life lines up in a way that feels like a setup by a bad writer.
The only difference is, when coincidences like this happen in the real world, the results
are nothing short of creepy.
Poe's prediction
Edgar Allan Poe wrote a ton of short stories, but his only completed full-length novel is
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket.
It's about a ship where everyone mutinies, before a storm leaves some of the mutineers
adrift at sea.
In the end, they eat a guy named Richard Parker.
"I'd rather eat Hodges."
"Well, alright!"
"No, I'd still prefer to eat Johnson."
"I wish you'd all stop bickering and eat me."
Poe's novel was published in 1838, and in 1884—46 years later—a real ship called
the Mignonette went through the nearly the same thing, minus the mutiny.
The yacht was hit by storms off the coast of Africa, leaving four men adrift in a dinghy
with no food or water.
Eventually, three of them killed and ate the fourth guy.
That's just a tragic coincidence, but the creepiest detail of all was their victim's
name: Richard Parker, just like in Poe's story.
White Star survivor
In the early 20th century, The White Star Line was one of the premiere ship-builders,
and three of their biggest and best were the Olympic, Titanic, and Britannic… all of
which met disaster.
And one woman named Violet Jessop was onboard all three of them.
In 1911, Jessup was working as a nurse on the Olympic when it collided with the HMS
Hawke.
The Olympic didn't sink, so Jessop took a new job… on the Titanic.
And we all know how that turned out.
"I'm the king of the world!
Whoooo!"
Amazingly, Jessop survived the disaster, at which point you'd probably guess that she
was done with the ocean for good.
"This is for America, baby!"
But Jessop went right back to sea on White Star's Britannic, which was drafted as a hospital
ship during World War I.
That ship hit a mine, and Jessop found her way into a lifeboat for the third major ship
disaster of her life.
But Jessop wasn't the only weird story to come from the Titanic...
Predicting the Titanic
In 1898, an author named Morgan Robertson wrote a book called The Wreck of the Titan,
which was about an unsinkable ocean liner that hits an iceberg.
Sound familiar?
It gets better—Robertson's fictional ship was called the Titan, it was described almost
exactly like the Titanic, and most of the people aboard died because there weren't enough
lifeboats.
And the strangest detail of all: the book was published 14 years before the Titanic's
maiden voyage.
Eerie.
Twin accidents
In 2002, two 70-year-old twin brothers died two hours apart, but that's not even the strange
part.
The first brother was riding his bike on a roadway north of Helsinki when he was hit
by a truck and killed.
Before the family was even informed of his death, the second brother also died.
He was riding his bike on the same road, less than a mile apart when he was also hit by
a truck and killed.
One of the police officers involved in the cases said,
"This is simply a historic coincidence.
Although the road is a busy one, accidents don't occur every day…
It made my hair stand on end when I heard the two were brothers, and identical twins
at that.
It came to mind that perhaps someone from upstairs had a say in this."
Chris Benoit's Wiki update
In June 2007, news broke about the tragic murder-suicide involving pro wrestler Chris
Benoit and his wife and son.
But 14 hours before their bodies were discovered by police, Benoit's Wikipedia page was updated
to say that he'd been having difficulties because of "personal issues … stemming from
the death of his wife Nancy."
The IP address where the changes originated was traced to Stamford, Connecticut, which
is, coincidentally, where the WWE headquarters are located.
In the end, the person who edited Benoit's Wikipedia page posted an apology saying that
the entire thing was "just a major coincidence" and not the result of firsthand knowledge
or a psychic gift.
Cosmic Twain
Halley's Comet passes Earth once every 75 years or so.
In 1835, Mark Twain was born two weeks after the comet passed overhead, and he felt a special
kinship with it.
Seventy-five years later, Halley's Comet was getting ready to come around again when Twain
reflected, "I came in with Halley's Comet in 1835.
It is coming again next year, and I expect to go out with it…"
And that's exactly what happened.
Twain died on April 21st, 1910, just as the comet passed overhead.
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