_Sometimes, the stars align and you find yourself in exactly the right place at the right time. Coincidences are one thing, but events that have a one in a million chance of happening are another. _
People took to Reddit to share their unlikeliest moments, and they're both mind-blowing and hilarious!
[Source listed at the end of the article.]
Is This Some Kind Of Sick Yoke?
“In the middle of making an omelette I answered the door while holding a whole egg. It turned out to be my new neighbor asking if she could borrow an egg. The look of confusion on her face when I produced one on the spot was only matched by my own. She took it and left without saying a word. It was super weird.”
The Guardian Angel
“I’m French. I went South Korea on an island where no one (or barely anyone) could speak english.
I forgot a small bag in the bus while going from north to south of the island – a 1.5 hour bus ride. This bag contained my passport, credit cards, driver license, cash (around 600€ + the same in korean won) and my flight tickets to go back to Seoul, and later to Japan.
I was in a complete panic and already envisioning calling the embassy to have them pick me up and send me back to France, as I couldn’t find a single employee or local who could understand any english.
Out of nowhere, a 5’1 Korean woman in her early fifties patted my shoulder and introduced herself in clear and perfect french: ‘Hello, I am a fluent french speaker. I’ve been married to a French-Canadian guy for 20 years. It seems you’re in trouble, maybe I can help?’
She stayed with me, listened to my stories, rushed to a 7/11 to borrow their phone, called the bus company, called the police, and explained the situation. I ended up in the local police station where I stayed for 3 hours. The Korean woman was there, giving me thumbs up and saying, ‘It’s all ok, fine, don’t worry,’ and smiling at me. I was still in complete distress.
Then out of nowhere came a bus. The driver left the vehicle, and walked toward the police station with a small black bag. My bag. Everything was still there, from papers to money. After the Korean woman called the bus company and the police, they actually managed to identify the bus I was in based on the time I had arrived, located my bag, then exchanged it from bus to bus until it was in the hand of a driver coming to my destination.
After a check, the police brought me back to my hostel. Later that day, I called the woman (she had given me her phone number) and invited her to a restaurant to thank her for her incredible kindness. She giggled calling herself my ‘guardian angel.’ She now lives in Australia and we speak approximately every 6 months. She still say she’s my guardian angel.
It was 4 years ago, and I still think finding a French-speaking native Korean woman in that context, being in urgent and desperate need of a translator on a remote Korean island, and then actually getting my bag back the same day was the most statistically unlikely event that happened to me.”
The ATM Read My Mind
“I lost my ATM card, and went to the bank to have it replaced. I told them what I wanted the PIN to be, and they told me that the PIN would be randomly assigned and mailed separately, and once I received both I could then change the PIN to what I wanted it to be.
The randomly assigned PIN was the one that I wanted.”
Wanna Share A Cake?
“I was traveling for work and ended up nearly halfway around the world. As I arrive, I am greeted by my host for the week. We get to talking and he tells me he was looking forward to this because when he was first told about it, he noticed we have the same initials. (Drastically different names, but the same initials.) We talk further and find out we also have the same birthday (different years).
We get to the job site and go to meet the project manager. After talking business for a bit, we mention the conversation we had earlier about sharing a birthday. He asks what it is and we tell him. He smiles and then proceeds to take out his ID and show it to us, he also has the same birthday.
So three people, from different places on the planet, all meet together on a project on the same day and share the same birthday.”
Never Too Late To Say Sorry
“When I was 16, I stole a cool army knife from an Apache helicopter that landed at my school. I got caught, and the knife was returned to the school later in the day. I never got the chance to apologize to the pilots. It’s the only time I ever stole something and I’ve never stopped feeling bad about it. I would often wished I could find the pilots to apologize.
6 years ago (I was 32 at the time), I was interviewing for a new job. I got the job because one guy who I’d be working with took a liking to me and went to bat for me with my future boss. I ended up getting the job. Three months later, I found out the guy who went to bat for me was one of the pilots I stole the knife from. He didn’t know who I was, but I finally got the chance to apologize. When I apologized he told me the other pilot that was on the Apache that day 16 years previous also worked for the same company now, so I got to apologize to him too.
Sometimes real life doesn’t seem like real life.”
They Couldn’t Stay Apart
“I went from a middle-of-nowhere public school in one state to a very small (200 students) college prep program in another state.
A girl in my class there was from South America and friends with my roommate. She was always around. I had a huge crush on her for the entire 2 years, but was too clueless to do anything about it.
After 2 years, we graduated. I went to college in a pretty large city in the US. She went back to college in her home country.
2 years later, I get a phone call. Her family had moved to that same city 2 months prior, and she had found out from a school newsletter the week prior that I was in the same city.
We’ve been married for about 20 years now.”
Too Much Of A Good Thing
“I went to a trade show, and a lot of the companies had bowls with ‘Drop in your business card to win…’
At the end of the day they gathered us all together to draw the prizes… and I won a laptop, an iPhone, a weekend in a resort, a year’s subscription to a tech magazine, and a carton of wine.
After the first two wins people thought it was funny… then there was playful teasing… but for the last couple I just got booed and people groaned a lot.
A few people called out ‘Rigged!’ etc… but as the announcer explained it was multiple bowls from multiple companies… all brimming with business cards.
It totally freaked me out… it felt like the Twilight Zone.”
Don’t Be Jealous
“I did marketing work for a golf tournament hosted by my company (This was back in the 1980s). On the day of the tournament I played golf, which automatically entered me into the drawing to come later.
The prizes were awarded at intervals during the dinner and were absolutely randomly drawn.
In the first draw, I won a big-screen TV. ‘Okay,’ I thought, ‘That works for me.’
In the second draw I won another smaller TV and a VCR, which instead of being excited made me a little uncomfortable, as of course I didn’t need it and some of the other guests were looking at me suspiciously.
In the third draw, I won an all-expense paid trip to Disneyland.
The evening ended amicably (most people were friendly and let it go), but there was a certain tension in the air, and I knew that I’d hear about it on Monday.
My boss had been in charge of the draw and he knew the spot I’d been put in. I told him that I decided to keep the smaller TV and VCR, donate the large-screen TV to the next event and offer a couple who had just gotten married the trip to Disneyland.
My boss heaved a sigh of relief.”
I’ll Take That
“I recovered my stolen bike in very unlikely circumstances.
My first day at a new apartment, I was tired from moving and just locked my bike up outside. I found the lock cut off and the bike gone the next day.
Two days later I walked down to the police station to file a report. I waited that long because I knew they would never find it so I didn’t think it was important. I brought all my ownership papers and receipts I had saved since I had bought it new. The station was a few miles from home, so within walking distance.
On the way back, I’m walking when I see someone ride past me on MY BIKE in one of those real life in slow-motion experiences. I was super lucky because he stopped and went into a store a block later, so I could call the cops. Since I had just filed the report, they had a record of the theft, and I had the papers on me which the cop verified with the serial number on the bike. He said this was the most unlikely situation he had ever seen. They recover bikes almost never, thieves usually aren’t dumb enough to sell the bike close to where they steal it, and he’d never heard of someone having concrete proof of ownership on them at the scene of the arrest.”
Nice Catch!
“When I was about 8 years old I was in the backyard playing Frisbee with my older brother, my stepdad, and my grandpa. We were positioned like the corners of a square and just passing the Frisbee to the person to our right. My stepdad was passing to me, me to my brother, my brother to my grandpa, and grandpa to stepdad. It was a fairly large back yard with no trees except around the edges.
My stepdad told me to go long and threw the Frisbee as hard as he could at me, but above my head so I wouldn’t get hurt. I was running backwards looking at the Frisbee as it approached, and right as it flew over my head I jumped up with all the might my little body could muster. I grabbed the Frisbee and landed on my back. I was so thrilled I managed to catch it! I shouted out ‘I got it!’ triumphantly, only to realize the Frisbee wasn’t in my hand, but something else.
My hand was fully clenched, so I sat up and opened up my hand. It was a bird dropping. I literally caught a bird dropping out of mid-air in an open field. I cried, but everyone else thought it was hilarious. After the embarrassment faded I found it comical too. My family still brings it up at family functions.”
Speak Of The Devil
“I played volleyball across town (I live in a metropolitan area) with some friends. There was a guy there that some people knew, but me and the people I went with didn’t. He was a total jerk all day. A few weeks later, me and the friends I went with went to a restaurant closer to my side of the city. We were sitting outside, eating, and I was like, ‘You guys remember that jerk from volleyball, Will?’ We all started complaining about him.
All of a sudden one of my buddies was like, ‘Woah, is that him?’ Sure as daylight, he was walking past the restaurant at that very moment. There’s an estimated 1.75 million people in my metropolitan area. Literally the 2 times I saw a specific person were at volleyball and then at a restaurant 3 weeks later, as we started to talk about him.’
Fancy Meeting You Here
“About 8 years ago, I was in a car crash in the remote bush of Zambia.
An amazing man and his wife (thanks, Clive) helped us fix up the worst of our injuries and towed our wrecked car over 160 km back to the nearest town for us.
After we’d got out of the hospital (figuring we’d be safer sorting our wounds ourselves than trust the hygiene of this place) we wound up at a local bar next to the hostel we’d been recommended and were discussing the crash.
This was a place over 100 km from where we were meant to be, somewhere none of us had ever been before. We were the only tourists we had seen in the town up to that point.
At around 9 pm, a middle-aged couple come into the bar. The lady sees me, stops dead. She looks at me and walks over, reading the embroidery on my polo shirt which was from a golf club I used to go to with my Dad, back in the country he lived in.
‘It is you! [Shouting my entire name], in the flesh!’ she says.
‘What?!’ I stutter.
‘I’m Sue, this is David. We’re your godparents.’
‘…Whoa.’
So, my godparents, who hadn’t seen me since I was six months old, as they had moved to the Caribbean, were out on Safari in Malawi, and their truck broke down. They’d been towed by someone to the nearest town to get parts, which was just over the border in Zambia. They’d sorted their car, but the border crossing closed for the evening, so they had to spend the night in town, and their hotel recommended this bar as the only place serving decent food on a Monday.
‘How did you recognize me?’ I asked, still shocked. ‘Well, you look almost exactly like your father at his age, have the same voice, and the shirt just clinched it. I knew you guys lived there a few years ago.’
Just unbelievable.”
It Came Down To The Wire
“The neighborhood I grew up in was a cul-du-sac with a big, empty field behind it with a forest at the far end of the field. The field had to have been at least 150 – 200 yards from the nearest house. The house furthest at the end of the cul-du-sac had an outdoor playground for their kids, along with a cable wire that ran along the inside of the fence line. Overlooking this playground was a huge window that looked in to their kitchen.
Well one day I was practicing my golf swing with a friend. I wasn’t aiming towards the houses at all, but when I really connected during one shot, it sliced leftwards directly towards the giant window of the house. I just stared, mortified, as the ball seemed to speed up directly towards the center of the window. Then… seemingly out of nowhere, the ball seemed to just drop out of thin air mere feet away from the window.
It was unlike anything I had ever seen. So I come closer to retrieve the ball, which was lying perfectly about a foot into the field from the fence line. It was then that I looked up at the cable wire.
From about 150 yards away, my golf ball hit a cable wire that was no more than an inch in diameter, thankfully saving their giant window and a hearty reprimand from them and my parents.”
Fore!
“Last May I went for a walk on the golf course near my house with my girlfriend and our dog. It was a sunny, beautiful day.
About one mile into it, we heard a bunch of loud cracking sounds – almost like gunshots. This being a rural suburb, we looked around for construction or an old car or something responsible for the sound.
What we saw was a 60-ft tall oak tree on the golf course tip to the side slightly, and then completely just fall over. ‘Someone was cutting it down’ was our first thought.
But no one was there. No tools, no saw, no ropes, nothing. This was a 50-year old tree that just randomly fell over one day. The leaves were still green, and when we walked up to the cracked and splintered trunk, it was literally pouring sap from it like a faucet.
We couldn’t get too close, as the tree was still cracking and splitting when we found the base of it. But we’re still amazed at the fact that we were the only three witnesses to a tree falling in the middle of a huge field. And yes, it did make a sound.”
These comments have been edited for clarity.