34 "One In A Million" Coincidences That Left People With Their Mouths Hanging Open In Shock
BuzzFeed Community users recently revealed some of the statistically improbable, highly unlikely coincidences they've actually lived through. The comments filled even more one in a million stories that made my jaw drop. Here's what people shared:
1."My mom owned a gardening business until her death in 2006. In 2019, I met someone and moved more than 100 miles away from my hometown (and where that business was located). We lived in various apartments until buying our first home together in 2023. The previous owner had left a drawer full of all the manuals to every appliance, as well as random business cards, like local plumbers and rug cleaners. One of the cards was from my mom’s gardening business miles away from 2006. I found the card the day we closed, so nothing had been moved and there was no chance I brought the card. I didn’t even remember she had cards. It was a sign that this was the right house to choose and live in forever. Thanks, mom."
2."My wife ran into her cousin during a 45-minute layover in Minneapolis. They’re close but live on different sides of the USA, were traveling to different destinations, and had no idea the other was flying."
3."A few years ago, I worked for a university in Oregon and was sent to recruit high school students at an international science fair in Arizona. There were students there from all over the world, and a couple of girls wearing name tags from American Samoa stopped by my table. I casually said, 'I have family that live in Samoa,' and one of the girls asked who (because you know, small island). I said my uncle's name, and her jaw dropped. She goes, 'That's my grandpa!' I met my cousin randomly that day."
4."I left home when I was a freshman in high school and ran away to another state. I lived and worked at a ski resort in a tiny mountain town in Colorado. While there, I met a very eccentric man who frightened many residents of the town. To me, he was just larger than life. Everything about his life was out of the ordinary. He lived in a trailer house that wasn’t level and had an old bank vault door on a bedroom to protect his 'valuables.' 50 years later, I ran into a kid from the neighborhood I grew up in and was invited to a BBQ at her friend’s house. During conversation, her friend’s husband began describing how odd his wife’s father was. I recognized my old friend in his story. It turns out that my old friend from where I grew up is friends with the daughter of the eccentric man from Colorado. What a fun night of reminiscing it was!"
5."I found some 50-year-old photos of my dad in a random antique store nowhere near where he grew up."
6."My brother-in-law is one of those people who talks to anyone who will listen. He’s just a friendly guy. He’s originally from Italy, but he was mostly raised in Canada. When he was in Rome maybe 10 years ago, he was sitting in a cafe chatting with another man (in native Italian) when the man asked him where he was from. My BIL named the small Italian town where he was born. Turns out the man he was speaking to was actually the doctor who DELIVERED him. That’s cool and all, but compared to Canada, Italy’s a small country. Randomly running into people from the same town is not unheard of."
"But, they kept chatting, and the doctor asked why my BIL had a bit of an accent in his Italian. My BIL said that he actually grew up in Canada. The doctor laughed and said he had a distant cousin in Canada — another OB/GYN. He asked my BIL if he knew him, jokingly of course. Everyone asks every Canadian, 'Hey, do you know Wayne from Moose Jaw? Or Steve from Toronto? Sue from Vancouver?' You get the idea. Well, guess who delivered my nephew? The Italian doctor’s Canadian cousin."
7."When I was about 5, I was playing in a neighborhood playground, straddling the monkey bars. Another little girl climbed up and we sat facing each other. 'What's your name?' she asked me. I told her and she said, 'That's MY name! What's your last name?' I told her, and again, she said, 'That's MY name!' Fast-forward about three or more years later, and we were at a day camp for Campfire Girls and Bluebirds. They called out my name. I stepped forward and some girls said, 'Not YOU!' and the same little girl I had met a few years before stepped forward. Fast forward to junior high school. I was a troublemaker in eighth grade. I got called into the office and there was another girl standing there looking puzzled. She wasn't the one in trouble, I was. We laughed it off. Then, I remembered her from when I was little. We share similar birthdays. We are in our 60s now and friends."
"The girl with the same name as me, born two days before me, used to get into trouble when we were in school, also! When we were in middle school, I got called to the principal's office, and when I got there, the principal stuck out her hand and said, 'Hand them over!' and I was like, 'Hand what over?' And she said, 'The cigarettes! I know you were smoking in the girls' bathroom. I can smell them all over you!' and I was like, 'Uhhh, you know there are two of us with the same name in 7th grade here, right?' But she wasn’t believing me. Luckily, my elementary school principal had become the vice principal at our middle school and I told her to ask him because he would confirm that there were two of us with the same name. So, she called him into her office and told him that someone said I had been smoking in the bathroom, and he was like, 'Yeah, you have the wrong Ashley.' The principal quickly apologized and told me to go back to class. Stuff like that happened all the time though!"
8."After I had been dating my future husband a few months in 2001, we decided to take a road trip. He brought along a road atlas of the entire United States. On the cover was a map excerpt showing the tiny Montana town where I grew up, as well as the town where I was born."
9."I was born on 7/14 at 7:14 a.m. I weighed 7lbs, 14oz. My mom's hospital room was 714. The hospital's numerical street address was 714. I was 14 days late. And, the bill for her hospital stay was $714.00, which is my full birthday."
10."Growing up, I was friends with two girls who I shared a weird birthday coincidence with. They were each born exactly two months apart from me, on the same day of their respective birthday months, at the same time of day. We later learned that, in a very large hospital system, we were also delivered by the same person, even though our mothers would normally not have been admitted to the same hospital since one of my friends and I actually lived closer to other branches. I still keep in touch with them, and this makes it really easy to remember their birthdays."
11."I’m the family genealogist. One time, while searching my wife’s mother, Ina, on Ancestry.com, I found her high school graduation photo, which was not uncommon. But, the photo had been signed by Ina herself (who had since passed away), and she'd written a touching note! Ancestry.com happened to use Ina’s best friend’s copy of their yearbook!"
12."We’re living in a simulation. I think that makes these things make more sense. My best friend from the apartment complex in central Florida I lived in when I was 5 shared the same name as me, and we became best friends and did everything together. Sadly, we lost touch when her family moved to a different apartment complex. We moved into a house in the same city, then a few years later, we moved into a new house in a new city. I was starting school in a new place and didn’t know anyone. I was definitely shy and hating every minute being at my new school. While we were in the cafeteria waiting for schedules, I recognized my friend and immediately went up to her. I felt so much relief knowing I'd know someone at school."
"We discovered we were on the same bus too. We sat next to each other, only to get off at the same stop. It was then we figured out we lived five houses away from each other. We hadn’t had any contact in like nine years, and suddenly we lived practically next-door to each other."
13."I used to work in the US National Archives Motion Picture Branch in MD. One afternoon, I was helping refill some film cans and noticed the name on the pull slip was the last name of the Minister in the Iowa town where I was from. I asked the fellow and he said the Minister was his grandfather. I told him that his grandfather married my parents AND baptized me!"
14."I started a new job in Virginia after 10 years at another job (also in Virginia). The doctor whose rotation I ended up being assigned to grew up in the same podunk town in Michigan where I lived for two years. He was only three years older than me, and we found out we had lived down the street from each other, so it's very possible our paths crossed back then before we met again 22 years later."
15."I was born on May 7, which is 5/7. My partner was born on October 14, which is 10/14, or two times 5/7. Then, our daughter, who was born on Christmas Day 2022, was born at 10:14 p.m.! It also turns out that we knew each other as very young children and sometimes attended Sunday school together, as she and her parents went to the same church as my grandparents. My younger brother got put in time-out in Sunday school once for calling her and her three best friends 'jackass' (he didn't know what it meant), and I was a bridesmaid in two of their weddings! On top of all that, our uncles were friends in high school, and went to a lot of the same parties. We didn't meet until our early 20s, and she was friends with my ex."
"Another coincidence is that my brother and I are exactly two years, two months, and two days apart. Our dog turned 4 on 4/4 in the Chinese zodiac year of the dog. On top of all of that, one of my closest childhood friends is the great-grandson of the pastor who was responsible for bringing my grandfather and his mother over to Canada during the second world war.
Another friend found out just last year that we're actually distant cousins (she's my eighth cousin once removed, eighth cousin directly with my daughter).
Another time, my family was in Disney World and we were talking about some family friends we hadn't seen for years who are known to frequent Disney parks, vacation resorts, and cruise ships. As we were talking about them, I saw a shock of hot pink hair across the walkway. I called out, and it was those family friends! They were on the last four days of their trip, and had the exact same schedule as us for those days!"
16."I was out to brunch with my in-laws and brother-in-law in Manhattan. We got locked out of my brother-in-law’s apartment and a passerby suggested we go downstairs to the apartment below and see if the tenants were home to go up the fire escape and get in his open window. The girl that lives there and her sister let us in, and we were able to get into our apartment. About seven years later, I was divorced and owned a cafe. A mutual friend had her niece run a catering job for me. We met and started dating. We got to talking about where her sister lived, and lo and behold, it was the same girl in the apartment that let us up the fire escape. We have been married for 13 years and have three kids together."
17."I’m a Canadian born in the Middle East who has lived mostly on the east coast. My wife is a through-and-through California valley girl, accent and all. One day, early in our relationship, she showed her mother my photo for the first time. Her response? 'Wow, he looks just like his mother.' Obviously, that’s a super weird response. Even weirder because it’s true! We did some digging and found out that not only had her mother actually met mine in a party some 25 years ago, we also briefly lived less than a mile away from each other, and her brother and my sister (who are one year apart in age) attended the same small private school at the same time! Then, we met, more than a quarter of a century later, and ended up getting married."
18."When I was 6, my family went to Cocoa Beach in Florida on vacation where I met and played with another little girl while we were there. When I started school a couple months later (in another state), that same girl was in my class and even lived on my road! A few years later, we moved to a different area in the state and this girl turned up at my new school as a classmate there, too! I still think about it all the time."
19."I'm adopted, and in 2001, I posted on an adoption forum looking for my birth mom. It was maybe a few sentences with information given to me from my parents growing up. Fast forward to 2012, and my mom (adopted family) had broken her hip and we were moving her out of her condo. I was in the basement when I found the original letter sent to my parents from the adoption agency describing my birth mother. It was a brief paragraph, but matched the language my parents told me about her and how I wrote about her on the forum. The SAME day I found the letter, she contacted me through the adoption forum saying she thought she was my mother (she was). I STILL get goosebumps to this day thinking about it. I mean, what are the odds?"
20."I traveled from the state of Georgia (US) to Newcastle, England to play D&D in a castle. While on the shuttle bus from the airport, I started talking to a really nice couple. One of them was going to play, the other was going just for a vacation. After chatting for about 20 minutes, we realized we live about 15 minutes away from each other!"
21."My wife passed away in August 2021. She is laid to rest at Jacksonville National Cemetery. After her ceremony, the cemetery representative brought me the paperwork and we talked a bit. I almost fell over when I saw her grave number. I grew up in a small town in Maine (Kittery). In the '50s, we finally got a rotary dial phone and were assigned our 'official' phone number. The last four digits of the phone number were 1326. My wife's grave number? 1326!"
22."I worked across the street from the Mall in Washington, DC. On October 16, 1995, the first Million Man March was being held, and I was able to watch from my office windows. I decided to leave work a little early to catch the subway so it wouldn’t be crowded. As I took my seat on the train, people were piling in. Three or four young young men stopped right next to where I was sitting on the train. I usually don’t talk to strangers, but I decided to see what their experience was at the march. I asked them where they were from, and they told me Youngstown, Ohio. I was astonished because that’s where I was from. I asked them which college they attended, and they said Youngstown State University. I told them my sister-in-law was a professor of African American studies at that university. They told me that she was their professor, and then they mentioned my nieces and nephews by name."
23."I spent ages 12-18 in a small town in New Mexico. I'm in my 50s now and live in the Pacific Northwest. A few months ago, I went to the doctor and had to have an EKG done. The tech who did it and I were talking, and it turns out that she lived in the same small town at the same time I did and was best friends with a woman who I did community theatre with. I actually have photos from plays we did together that the tech remembers going to see! So, she saw me when I was kid on stage, thousands of miles away, 30+ years ago, and we met in a doctor's office randomly. So weird."
24."Years ago, I decided to move to a new state, so as a gift, my mom gave me a book of scenic photos of the new state before I moved. Years later, after living in the new state (New Mexico), I found the book again and went through it, only to discover that I knew the woman who was pictured on the back cover. She used to volunteer at a local living history museum, which was where the photo had been taken. I sent her a message showing her the photo. She had no idea the photo existed or had been used in a book, but was excited to find herself on the back cover of a book celebrating the beauty of our state! It was one of those 'small world' moments. This book had been purchased at a bookstore 2,000 miles away."
25."When I was 5, my immediate family went on a trip to Orlando in March to celebrate my father's birthday. We lived in Connecticut. One day while on the trip, we were going to go to one park, but decided last minute to go to Adventure Island. I remember running across a footbridge and smacking into another little girl. Turns out the girl was one of my friends from school! It was wild! Not only did our families vacation at the same time in the same area, but in a huge park, we both happened to be playing in the same area and ran in to each other, literally!"
"This happened to me too! I literally ran into my neighbor walking near Splash Mountain. We wound up riding it together, then our families went our separate ways, but it was still funny! Also, one time, my stepdad ran into his boss while we were at Disney."
26."My parents were born on the same day, of the same year, minutes apart, and only two hours away from each other."
27."My man spent a couple of his early childhood years about five blocks from the house I grew up in and we never met. When we finally met 40 years later, he invited me on our first meeting to my best friend's parents' restaurant in the town I grew up in. He had never been there. He just picked it out on a map."
28."My daughter gave birth on 1/1/14 in Ohio. Her room number was 1114. The doctor who we’d never met who was doing her emergency C-section came in to Introduce himself and was giving his 'history' when he mentioned that he’d been a doctor at a certain hospital in California in 1971-1973. I said, 'I had my first daughter at that hospital in 1971!' I didn't recognize him or his name, but we were in the same place 43 years apart. This was going to be his last C-section, as he had retired. If my daughter hadn't needed that C-section, we never would've had this coincidental meeting!"
29."I was in the US Army in the 1980s and stationed in Ft. Carson, Colorado. When I got to Ft. Carson, I was initially assigned to the wrong unit. After being there about six months, I was reassigned to the correct unit. It was a very small, specialized unit, and when I got there, I had two young men working for me in the motor pool. I was chatting with one of them, and he told me he was from a small town in southeast Missouri. My father was born in a small town in southeast Missouri, and it was close to the one he was from. My dad’s family had moved to Washington state in the 1940s. The young man’s last name was the same as my paternal grandmother’s maiden name. Turns out that our fathers were first cousins and remembered each other from all those years ago."
30."I met my birth father when I was 23. Making conversation, my father asked my boyfriend, who was with me that day, where his family was from. Turns out my great-grandmother was his great-grandmother’s teacher at a small rural school. They became friends for the next 80 years."
31."Growing up, I lived in NJ, as did my entire family, besides my grandmother, who lived in San Diego. When I was about 10 and visiting my grandmother in the summer, we went to Disneyland. As we were leaving the park at closing, I popped into a store to wander around. While wandering, I bumped into some family, my grandmother's brother and nephews, who lived in NJ. We were at an amusement park in Anaheim, CA. My grandmother had known they were visiting CA and planned to come to San Diego later in the week, but neither sibling knew that the other was planning to take their family to Disneyland that particular day."
32."I live in a town with another woman who has the same first, middle, and last name as me. She goes to three of the same doctors that I am also a patient of, and she was born in the same month. It has caused lots of confusion over the years. I finally met her once, and she is an absolute delight."
33."My husband and I had a genealogy-themed wall at our wedding. One of the pieces showed how many generations back our family roots go in the state we live in. One of my husband’s groomsmen came up to me and said, 'I noticed up there that your great-grandfather, grandfather, and father are all from [small town with a population of 150 people]. I thought that was weird because that’s where my grandma lives. So, I called her. She said she used to be your dad’s schoolteacher.' Months later, I went back home to that tiny town for our family’s annual family reunion. I told some of my great-aunts and uncles about what the groomsman said. Turns out, not only was she my dad and all of his siblings’ schoolteacher, her late husband was also their school bus driver."
"ALSO, my grandfather and the woman's husband were well known in the community for working in the cotton gin together. They had a reputation for being the two 'toughest' men there because they would compete flipping 50-pound cotton bags over. Unbelievable!"
34.And: "I met a gal named Joan while she was visiting a friend in Atlanta. Two years later, I moved to D.C. and ran into Joan at the Mall. She and her partner became good friends with my partner and me, and we played tennis and went out to dinners. She was new at real estate and when I didn't hire her to list our D.C. house, our relationship ended. We built a house in Dallas on a cul-de-sac with four other houses, and the next year I found out she bought the house next door. We became fast friends again!"
Dang!! Wild how the world works. Do you have any wild coincidences or "one in a million" stories you'd like to share? Tell us in the comments!
Note: Submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.
