Co-Inky-Dinks?
A coincidence is defined as a remarkable concurrence of events or circumstances without a causal connection. Psychologist Carl Jung believed that there were “meaningful coincidences,” which occurred with no causal connection, yet a seeming relationship of meaning and that these coincidences happen for a reason, citing everything from ESP to fate. Jung called this concept “synchronicity.” On the other hand, skeptics say that patterns only exist to those who are seeking them out, apophenia is the term for seeking patterns in random or meaningless data. Below are a series of coincidences It is left to the reader to determine whether these coincidences are meaningful or not.
The West End Baptist Church, Beatrice Nebraska
In 1950’s America church was more than just a place to go on Sundays. It was often the social center of a community. A really active church member could conceivably be at church every night of the week
People attended worship, church picnics, potlucks, ice cream socials, they sent their children to Sunday School and Vacation Bible School. Singles met prospective partners at church…and of course people sang in the choir…
On Wednesday March 1, at 7:27 PM The West End Baptist Church in Beatrice Nebraska, exploded due to a natural gas leak which occurred just five minutes after choir rehearsal began. The blast would have surely killed the entire fifteen member choir, except every single member of the choir just happened to be late that night.
Reverend Walter Klempel went to church that afternoon to get things ready for choir rehearsal that night. He lit the furnace so that the rehearsal area would be warm for the choir members. Reverend Klempel then went home. After dinner he, along with his wife and daughter, would have been on time for practice, except for the fact that his daughter, Marilyn Ruth discovered that her dress was “soiled.” One can imagine Mrs. Kempel, hastily ironing a fresh dress, while Reverend Kempel tapped his feet and looked at his watch.
Royena Estes and her sister, Sadie, were ready, but experienced car trouble, they called their neighbor, high school sophomore, Ladona Vandergrift, for a ride. Ladonna was running late because she was wrestling with her geometry homework. Ladonna wanted to finish one last tricky problem before she left.
Mrs. Leonard Schuster and her daughter were delayed because Mrs. Schuster was helping her mother prepare for a missionary meeting.
Herbert Kipf was late because he was working on an important letter.
Joyce Black was feeling under the weather and “just plain lazy.” She put off leaving until the very last minute due to a cold.
Harvey Ahl, “got to talking,” to someone and looked at watch only to find that he was already late.
Marilyn Paul, the pianist, and her mother, Mrs. F.E. Paul, the choir director, usually arrived a half-hour early, but Marilyn fell asleep after dinner, and her mother didn’t wake her until 7:15, causing them both to be late that night.
Neighbors Lucille Jones and Dorothy Woods usually went to the church together. Lucille was delayed because she was listening to a radio program that lasted until 7:30 and she wanted to hear the end. Luckily for her, Dorothy waited for Lucille.
The church exploded at 7:25, the force of the blast blew the walls outward. The roof fell straight down. Windows shattered in nearby homes. A local radio station went off the air. But, not one of the members of the church choir of the West End Baptist Church was injured, because every single one of the normally prompt members just happened to be late on that particular evening. Divine intervention or an extremely lucky coincidence?
The Girl From Petrovka
In 1974 actor Anthony Hopkins, who would later go on to play Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs, was cast in a film adaptation of The Girl from Petrovka based on the novel by George Feifer. Hopkins wanted to prepare for the role by reading the novel. After unsuccessfully trying several London bookstores, Hopkins spotted a forgotten copy of the book on a bench. Upon examination, the book turned out to be annotated by its former owner.
Two years later, while filming the movie, Hopkins met the author of The Girl from Petrovka, George Feifer. Hopkins discovered Feifer didn’t have a copy of his own book. Feifer admitted that he had loaned his personal copy to a friend, who had lost the (heavily annotated copy) somewhere in London. Hopkins showed Feifer his copy and it was the very same copy Feifer had lost.
Anne Parrish’s Book (Jack Frost and Other Stories)
In 1920 American author Anne Parrish was on vacation with her husband in Paris. The couple was wandering through the used bookstores along the river Seine, when Anne spied a familiar book cover, Jack Frost and Other Stories, a picture book which had been a childhood favorite of Parrish. Parrish’s husband began to flip through the book and found an inscription which read, “Anne Parrish 209 N Weber Street, Colorado Springs.” Somehow the book that Parrish had loved as a child in Colorado Springs had managed to travel 4,922 miles away to Paris, France, only to be found in a used book shop by an adult Anne Parrish.
Image from Redman, Ben Ray. Speaking of Books The Spur (August 1, 1923): 46, obtained from Wikimedia Commons
The Erdington Murders
Barbara Forrest and Mary Ashford, were both brutally murdered in Erdington, England. Both women were twenty at the time of their deaths, both women were killed on Whit Monday, a Christian religious holiday. Both women had been out dancing with friends before their attacks. Both were raped and then strangled, both bodies were discovered in Pype Hayes Park. Barbara’s body was found 300 yards away from where Mary’s body had been previously discovered. The most natural conclusion would be that Barbara and Mary were killed by a serial killer. Except for the fact that Barbara was murdered 157 years after Mary!
Image by Michael Westley, Wikimedia Commons
Mary was murdered in 1817 and Barbara was murdered in 1974. The coincidences don’t end there, the prime suspect in both murders were men with the last name Thornton. Both Thortons were acquitted and both murders remain unsolved to this day. Just to add to the creepiness, both women were said to have had forebodings before their murders, Mary told a friend that she had a “bad feeling,” about the coming week. And Barbara said to a coworker, “This is going to be my unlucky month, I just know it. Don’t ask me why.” Very unlucky indeed.
Kennedy and Lincoln
Besides the fact that John F. Kennedy and Abraham Lincoln were both assassinated, there are many other interesting parallels between the two presidents.
Abraham Lincoln was elected to Congress 1846. John F. Kennedy was elected to Congress in 1946 one hundred years later.
Abraham Lincoln was elected president in 1860, John F. Kennedy was elected president in 1960, one hundred years later.
Both were concerned with civil rights.
Both presidents had last names containing seven letters.
Both men lost a son while in office. Kennedy lost his infant son, Patrick Bouvier Kennedy who was just 39 hours old. Lincoln’s son, William Wallace Lincoln was eleven.
Both were shot in the head on Friday.
Both presidents were succeeded by Southerners with the last name Johnson.
Andrew Johnson was born in 1808, Lyndon Johnson was born in 1908.
Both of the presidential assassins used their middle name, Abraham Lincoln was killed by a man named John Wilkes Booth, John F. Kennedy was shot by a man named Lee Harvey Oswald.
Both assassins had fifteen letters in their name.
John Wilkes Booth and Lee Harvery Oswald both died before they could be brought to justice. John Wilkes Booth was shot in a barn while on the run. Oswald was shot by Jack Ruby while being transferred.
The Titan and The Titanic
On a cold April midnight a British ocean liner, roughly 800 feet long, the largest ship afloat, crashes into an iceberg on its starboard side in the north Atlantic. Despite being believed to be unsinkable, the ship actually sinks quickly. Because of a shortage of lifeboats more than half of the passengers are trapped on the sinking ship and drown in the icy waters.
Image by Francis Godolphin Osbourne Stuart, Wikimedia Commons
Anyone with even a passing familiarity will recognize the tragedy of the Titanic. Except that the above description actually refers to a fictional shipwreck which occured in a novella written by Morgan Robertson, fourteen years before the sinking of The Titanic. The name of the fictional ship in question… The Titan.
The name Titanic derives from the Titans of Greek Mythology.
The Titanic was ironically lauded as being “unsinkable,” while the Titan was called “indestructible.”
Both ships were British owned.
Both crashed into an iceberg on the starboard side.
Both ships crashed at midnight in the north Atlantic in April, 400 miles from Newfoundland.
The Titanic and The Titan had three propellers and two masts each, both ships were made of steel.
Each ship had a capacity of 3000.
Both ships carried less than half the lifeboats required for the 3000 passenger capacity.
Even the minimal differences between the fictional and real cases seem rather to highlight their similarities. For instance…
The Titan was 880 feet long, whereas the Titanic was a whopping two feet larger at 882.
The Titan carried 20 lifeboats, The Titanic had a whole four more lifeboats, at 24.
The Titan was traveling at 25 knots, whereas The Titanic was creeping along at only 22.5 knots.
The fictional Titan carried 2500 passengers, whereas The Titanic only carried 2,207.
The similarities between the real and fictional shipwrecks did not go unnoticed at the time. After the sinking of The Titanic many believed that author Morgan Robertson was clairvoyant, which he denied. Robertson, a ship captain’s son, who worked as cabin boy and a first mate on a luxury ship, attributed the similarities between his novella and the real life disaster to his knowledge of shipbuilding and maritime trends. Still, most would agree that the similarities between the real and imagined shipwrecks stretch credibility.
The Story of Richard Parker
In 1838 Edgar Allan Poe, the grandfather of American horror, wrote his one and only full-length novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket. In the novel four crewmembers are stranded on a lifeboat after their ship, The Grampus, wrecks. Adrift on a lifeboat with no provisions, the crew catches and eats a turtle, but unfortunately it doesn’t yield enough meat to sustain the survivors for very long. The crew draws straws, crew member Richard Parker draws the short straw, and is then killed and eaten by the crew.
Forty-six years after the publication of The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket and 35 years after the death of Poe a small craft, The Mignonette, set out for Australia from England. The ship wrecked and the survivors escaped on a lifeboat with no provisions. They too catch and eat a turtle, but like the fictional crew of The Grampus the turtle does not have enough meat to sustain them for long. The crew of The Mignonette also discusses cannibalism and even considers drawing straws, but a cabin boy is already sick from drinking seawater, the crew decides to help nature along, dispatches the cabin boy and drinks his blood. The cabin boy’s name? Richard Parker, of course.
Image of Edgar Allan Poe, June 1849. Daguerreotype "Annie", given to Poe's friend Mrs. Annie L. Richmond; probably taken in June 1849 in Lowell, Massachusetts, photographer unknown. (Wikimedia Commons).
