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40 One-In-A-Million Coincidences That Are Hard To Believe Actually Happened, Shared In An Online Thread
Let’s see a show of hands—how many of you Pandas believe in fate and luck? That’s quite a few of you! We’ll let you in on a little secret, we sometimes think that there’s ample proof that both are real forces working their magic on the universe. Whether for good or for ill. Oh, we might be the masters of our own destinies (or we like to think we are), but there’s no doubting the fact that some people are simply born (un)luckier than others.
The folks over on r/AskReddit shared their most jaw-droppingly impressive stories about their ‘one-in-a-million’ experiences. From surviving horrible accidents and finding their stolen things to winning the genetic lottery and living to tell the tale after successive lightning strikes, these people are some of the luckiest folks to ever walk on God’s green earth. (Or unluckiest if you take a slightly different perspective.)
Scroll down for some unbelievable yet completely true stories and remember to share the ones you liked best with all of your friends. Fortunate and Tyche, the goddesses of luck, must really love these people. Oh, and before we forget, we’d absolutely love to read all about the luckiest things that have ever happened to you, Pandas. Tell us all about it in the comments.
Suzanne Degges-White, a Licensed Counselor, Professor, and Chair at the Department of Counseling and Higher Education at Northern Illinois University, was kind enough to share her insights into the psychology behind believing in fate, good and bad luck with Bored Panda. She also explained how life has a way of confirming our self-biases and why believing in luck too much means that we give up our sense of control and ownership of our actions.
"As long as there have been humans, there has been a desire to imagine that somewhere some thing or some being or some force is helping direct us along our paths to a positive destination," she said. "Many people want to believe in luck because that gives us hope that one day maybe it will be 'our turn' to win the lottery, find true love, be at the right place at the right moment."
According to Suzanne, believing in luck can help us handle disappointments in life and help keep our hopes up for a better future. In other words, we apply the thinking that it's not us at fault, we're just victims of 'bad luck.' You'll find the rest of our exclusive interview with Suzanne as you scroll down, Pandas.
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
Way back in college, my car got stolen. It was a crappy bright green Ford Pinto (yeah, that far back) but it was mine, and I needed it for classes and getting to work.
Later that day a friend gives me a ride to the police station to make a report. We stop at a light, and my Pinto pulls up right next to us! I look at her, she looks at me, when the light changes we follow the car.
The car goes about three blocks and pulls into a liquor store. Guy gets out, leaves the car running for the a/c. She pulls up, I get out, open the Pinto's door and drive my stolen car home.
Never even made the police report.
Suzanne, from Northern Illinois University, told Bored Panda that "life has a funny way of confirming our self-biases." What we believe tends to come true. It's a type of self-fulfilling prophecy.
"If we believe we're going to fail at something, we've already set ourselves up for failure. Believing that we carry bad luck around like a cloud gives us a reason not to do our best, not to try our hardest, and to make it 'okay' to fail. While we'd think that a strong belief in good luck would work totally in our favor, there are drawbacks to this belief, too," she said that it is vital to take responsibility for our actions.
#2
My father and I went to a casino for the first time. I had $50 in my pocket, with the intention of that being the only money we'd spend. We played roulette and quickly lost 45 bucks. As I had a $5 chip, I placed it on the number 5. The ball started spinning and actually landed on that number. We cheered. I decided to leave the whole bet on 5 again. Rinse and repeat. The ball fell on number 5 FOUR times in a row. We walked out with almost $43,000 in the bag after taxes. Never went in a casino again in my life
#3
My dad's cousin was an activist in the '80s against the neo-Nazis. One night he was in bed, but a family member had a bad feeling and decided to call him to see if he was okay. He got up to answer the phone, which was in the kitchen, and while he was on the call, a bomb went off in his bedroom. That phone call saved his life
"When we don't take ownership of our good choices, our effective actions, or our hard work, we are selling ourselves short. It's true that sometimes circumstances can 'work in our favor,' or we can meet the right person at the right time, but we still need to recognize our own part in taking advantage of positive circumstances or setting things up so that we can succeed."
Suzanne told Bored Panda that someone who believes that luck dictates how their efforts turn out gives up their sense of control over making things happen in their own lives. "If we have an internal locus of control, we see ourselves as agentic in our world—we know that we can make things happen and we take ownership of both our good decisions and our poor decisions. But this lets us learn from our decisions—how to continue to do things that work out for us and how to avoid things that do not. An external locus of control sets us up to be 'victims' of life or luck," she said.
#4
I was at a gas station two Christmas seasons ago. My kids were in the car. A cop car was there and two cops were standing outside the car. As I was pumping gas, they are just watching me. Finally, one says something to the other and the other cop comes walking over to me. I am like "Sh*t, they saw my expired tag!" The cop peers into the window, waves to my kids and then comes over to me and hands me $100. He says they decided to help a family out for Christmas and they saw my minivan with three kids inside and guessed I could use a little financial assistance. I was flabbergasted and gave them a hug and had a smile on my face the rest of the day. I never have luck like that!
#5
My now-husband was in a terrible car accident as a teen. He was found dead on the scene but was revived. His sister was the random EMT who was called, the defibrillator that was used to revive him was recently donated by the company his mom worked for, and a doctor who heard the car accident from his house and came to assist was the obstetrician who delivered him when he was born. So freaky
DeadLetterOffice 2 years ago
This is when you just shut up, call it good and sit in a lawn chair for the rest of your life.
#6
My family and I live in Canada. When I was a child, we went to Disneyland, and I somehow got separated from my parents in the theme park. Panicked, I started to look around for them and couldn’t believe that our next-door neighbors (from Canada!) were sitting on the bench right in front of me!!! I was able to sit with them until my parents found me. Talk about a weird coincidence
"Research suggests that the people who have 'good luck' are just being more aware of their surroundings, making smart decisions based on current conditions, and actually 'believe' that good things will happen for them. That's a positive bias in our favor—we look for the good, so we're more likely to see it."
Financial expert Sam Dogen, the founder of Financial Samurai, previously explained to Bored Panda what to do if you happen to luck out and win the lottery.
“Everybody has either a money problem or a money desire. If the winner doesn’t magnanimously share their winnings with family members and friends, they will be seen as selfish and greedy,” he told us that the people closest to the winner can end up pestering them for cash.
#7
I grew up in Luxembourg, Europe. When I was seven years old, I had a neighbor named Will. He and I were best friends until one day his family moved. He told me he was moving to the US, but I was too young to understand what that really meant and we ended up losing touch pretty fast.
Roughly 9-10 years later, I'm 17 and I go to a theatre camp in the states. There are 20 students for a 5 week intensive theatre program. There were only four other guys in the program and one of them was named Brandon. We started casually talking/hanging out until I added him on Facebook and realized we had one mutual friend, my old neighbor, Will. I thought this was crazy and when I asked him about it, he said: "Dude, Will's my neighbor."
So somehow, when I was 7 years old, my neighbor Will moved to the states, became this kid Brandon's neighbor, and 10 years down the road, I happen to meet Brandon independently of Will. This was without a doubt the smallest world moment I've ever experienced. The likelihood of me running into Brandon and having that mutual connection just felt like one-in-a-million. I mean how many different houses/cities/neighbors/streets are there in the US. The likelihood of Will moving next door to Brandon, and Brandon and I meeting 10 years down the line seems very very very very slim. I'm 23 now and Brandon and I are best friends.
#8
I have the rarest type of synesthesia, which means I can actually taste words. It's called lexical-gustatory, and less than .2% of the population has it. I have to physically say the words out loud to taste them (so reading silently to myself won't do it). When I was younger, I'd always repeat words that tasted good in my head, and I'd avoid saying words that tasted bad. Now I can mostly ignore it. It only happens if I speak, so I don't taste from other people during conversations. For example, 'Sam' tastes like lemon juice mixed with salt, almost like a chili-lime flavor without the spiciness; 'Jon' tastes like raisins; and 'Noah' tastes like avocado.
#9
In college (1965-ish), my dad worked at a liquor store. He was supposed to work that Friday night, but his girlfriend (now-wife/my mom) insisted he take her to some event, so he switched shifts with a coworker. That night the store was robbed, and the guy who took my dad’s shift was shot five times and died. My dad has major survivor's guilt to this day and will rarely talk about it, but it’s so wild because if he had gone to work, I wouldn't be alive
June’s Very Own 2 years ago
It’s sad that your dad has survivors guilt when he has no clue that something was gonna happen, nevertheless I’m glad he is ok.
“I’m all about Stealth Wealth. If you win the lottery, do your best to keep it a secret. Furthermore, if you win the lottery at work or in your investments, never brag about how much you make either. Instead, try to blend in as much as possible. You can always then be more generous with your money if you wish, without expectations,” Sam stressed that subtlety and humility are the best ways forward.
“The first thing to do is sit on your winnings for at least three months and live your life as usual. During this time, read as much financial literature online from sources who have no interest in your money. For example, you can come to Financial Samurai to learn about a proper net worth asset allocation to help ensure your wealth lasts longer,” he said that you shouldn’t be making any major moves
“Once you get educated and have formulated a good idea of what you want to do, you can then seek professional advice from a fee-based financial advisor. Or, you can implement your capital allocation yourself. Take your time! There is no rush. You just won the lottery!”
#10
I worked in a contact center in Wisconsin, which had about 40 of us working at any given time. I was helping a woman place an order, and when I took down her address, I realized she lived in the same exact house I did when I was 10...in Texas...1,320 miles away
Sue Hazlewood 2 years ago
I once added a person to the payroll and realised she now owned the house I grew up in.
#11
I was cutting vegetables in my kitchen, and a fly was buzzing around my head, so I swung around with the knife in my hand and somehow managed to slice the fly clean in half.
#12
The first time I ever went gambling in Niagara Falls, I was trying all the penny slots and just losing everything. I was down to my last quarter and used it to play a machine with these rubber duckies on top and won the $400 jackpot! The ducks were all quacking and the lights were binging and making a ruckus - it was quite overstimulating. Then the next day before we left I put a quarter in the same machine and won another $400 jackpot! I haven't gambled since, because I feel like I've used up all the "gambling luck" I've been allotted in this life.
June’s Very Own 2 years ago
If I were you, I would by a small duck toy and keep it with me as token of good luck :)
On the flip side, life might deal you some very bad cards from the moment you’re born. You might fall victim to unfortunate accidents and traumatic events.
"As human beings, we have a desire for certainty and routine that keeps us feeling safe and able to plan what lies ahead in an organized manner. When unpredictable situations or accidents impact us, it can be traumatic, and we will likely feel a sense of disappointment, frustration, and loss," psychologist Lee Chambers explained to Bored Panda earlier.
"It is important however that we embrace the fact that the world can be unpredictable and uncertain, and become more tolerant of this being a reality. Understanding that things are sometimes out of our control helps us to accept that not everything goes to plan, and accept when things happen to us that are negative,” he said.
#13
My mom has been struck by lightning. Twice. She was INSIDE her house both times and in two different houses!
#14
I'm allergic to the cold. Like, literally. I get intense hives and swelling, I pass out, and I throw up. It doesn’t even have to be freezing. If it's below 45 degrees Fahrenheit and I'm without a jacket, I can’t do it. I have to carry an EpiPen with me in the event that I drink something too cold or have a severe reaction
DeadLetterOffice 2 years ago
I developed this after having a bad case of mono when I was a teen. I was chewing ice from my drink and my tongue swelled up and almost killed me. Still have reactions to the cold to this day—but usually it’s only when I’m also sick with a cold or flu.
#15
In 2016, my family and I went on a small excursion of fewer than 15 people to a village in Portugal called Nazaré. We ended up meeting and having lunch with a man who was on the excursion by himself. We parted ways when the bus dropped us off, and that was that. A year later, our family was traveling out of state in our country (Brazil). We were checking in at our hotel when I saw someone in line who looked awfully familiar. Well, it was the man from the excursion! We randomly met again, unplanned, on a whole different continent, a year later!
“This acceptance allows us to embrace the change and difference, and manage our expectations so we can become more resilient to the ups and downs that all our lives lead,” the mental health expert told us.
"Post-traumatic growth isn't always simple to explain or utilize, but often the adversity we face can create a precedent for what we can overcome, help us to see what we need to be grateful for, and give us an understanding of the support we do have,” he noted that not everyone grows resilient when they’re confronted with bad luck.
“A big part of opening the door to grow from our struggles is finding acceptance and taking ownership over what you can control and finding healthy ways to express the negative emotion that comes with challenges that test us.”
#16
My cancer was one in 5 million according to my doctor, I'm somewhat of a celebrity among ocular melanoma specialists because of my weird cancer and weirder complications. I'd much rather be boring, however.
#17
My husband was grilling outside and cut into the meat to check if it was done. The knife slipped out of his hand and hit the cement right on its rubber handle. The darn thing somehow bounced all the way back up, and the blade hit my husband in the eyeglasses. He became white as a ghost and showed me his glasses (which he never wears but needed to because he'd JUST run out of contact lenses), and they had a big, deep scratch on them. Had he been wearing his contacts like normal, he would have lost his eye! Scary stuff!
#18
I turn 18 in a couple of days so I signed up to vote (UK election coming up) last week and this morning I got a letter saying I have been randomly selected for jury duty. F*ck my life.
Psychologist Lee explained that people are incredibly resilient and can learn to overcome all odds. For instance, he himself had to learn to walk again.
"Using journaling and talking about how I felt played a significant part in my recovery when I had to learn to walk again, and gave me the space to grow to become mentally stronger as a result,” he shared what helped him back then.
“It is also important to reflect on all the hurdles you've overcome, so you can see what skills and lessons you've learned to apply in the future, and adversity often helps us to see what really matters, and gets us closer to knowing our values and purpose."
#19
I stuck my hand out the window for half a second to see if it was still raining, and a bird shat right on it. What the hell are the chances? Never doing that again.
#20
Meeting my wife. We've been married for almost 15 years and I feel like I've won the lottery every time I wake up next to her.
#21
I was talking with a girl on Tinder when I was out of town for a baseball trip. When I asked for her number, she responded with my number, except a different area code. I thought maybe she Facebook stalked me and got my phone number from there and was just messing with me, but nope. She had the same phone number as me, just different area code.
TonyTee 2 years ago (edited)
I had this happen to me too, in Brooklyn. No lie. I feel bad though, because I thought she was either stalking me, playing some kind of a game with me, or that I was talking to a damn robot the whole time altogether, so I ended up blocking her account just as we started getting close like an idiot 🤦🏻♂️😂 This was on a now-defunct app called Moonit btw
#22
When my nana was just a teen, she escaped a Satanic cult and rescued four teen girls who'd been kidnapped and were being hidden in the attic.
#23
I once caught a housefly with a pair of chopsticks like Daniel-San.
My friend was there & was the only one that saw it. I've told the story many times to lots of people over the last couple of decades since it happened, but I usually get the same, dismissive "Oh, really? Wow, cool."
But screw em. I did it. And it was bad-a*s.
Sarah Matt 2 years ago
I HAVE DONE THIS TOO! in my dorm room in college, only 2 chairs and 2 twin beds in the place. 6 of us chatting and eating Chinese takeout. This fly is buzzing around for awhile, everyone is aware of it but in their own convos. I snapped my chopsticks when it buzzed me like "get out of here" caught it by 1 wing . I was super new at chopsticks then too. Whole room went silent. Bizarre. Like time stopped for a second.
#24
Cheated on my diet with a buscuit and ended up winning a chick-fil-a tailgate sweep stakes. $2,500 tv, 4 tickets for a football game, $250 in gift cards, and a $1,000 grill.
#25
I was kidnapped while leaving work one day and was held captive for 18 months, along with two other girls. The guy who took us claimed himself to be an 'ineffable lower god,' and he used cult tactics, manipulation, and control to have us be his family. I was allowed to leave to go to the grocery store as an errand, but I knew if I didn’t come back, the others would receive my punishment. I finally got away by stabbing my captor when I believed he was going to kill me
#26
I survived a 'nonsurvivable' plane crash. I was on an old Po-2 (famous for being very safe and uncrashable) on a tour of the desert in western China when I was 7. My father’s friend who piloted the plane didn’t survive, but somehow I got out with only a concussion. I apparently passed out for almost a day in the wreckage on the edge of the desert, 50 kilometers from the town/airport. The people who found me were some tree planters. (They plant greens in the desert to protect towns from sandstorms — a lot of people who live in these desert towns in China do this.) They found me while they were picking up a shipment, and the only reason they looked was that they were making a bet to see how quickly an egg could cook in the sand, and they went off the road to test it.
"According to my dads, I survived because the plane was mostly made out of fabrics and wood, so when the plane crashed, the front half collapsed and took the majority of the impact. I was knocked out and was luckily covered under the wreckage and in the shade, so that cooled me off enough to survive for a day or so
#27
I was in the car listening to a Backstreet Boys cd and I stopped the cd to switch to the radio. The radio was playing the song at the exact spot I stopped the cd
#28
Worked at the World Trade Center and missed both the '93 bombing and the 9/11 attacks because I happened to be out of the building.
TonyTee 2 years ago
I can't remember anything from that day other than most of the tv channels acting up, including Nickelodeon, which is what I was watching; mom tried to distract me from everything that was going on. From stories, I know that everyone was panicking over our next door neighbor Michelle. She worked at the WTC. She literally lived right next door to us, with her mom sister brother and baby niece. It was a family complex; Michelle woke up feeling sick that morning but she was determined to go to work anyway. She got halfway there, and ended up going to a payphone to call one of her best friends who lived 20 minutes away, wanting to know if he can come pick her up and bring her back to his place so she can rest. He took her to the doctor's instead. She never made it to the WTC that day. But, unfortunately, she called her other best friend who had the day off, asking her if she can fill in.... So, she went. And she never made it back... Michelle lived with that guilt for a long time.
#29
Not quite one in a million but I came up as a match for bone marrow donation back in 2008.
#30
I didn't meet my husband until we worked together just a few cubicles apart as adults. It turned out we actually grew up one street away from each other, only we hadn't met because he went to the public elementary school and I went to a private one. I'd trick-or-treated at his house and even rode my bike by it a million times as a kid, but we never knew each other
Snowfoxrox 2 years ago
I left my husband for a myraid of reasons, even a catholic priest urged me to get out. I moved back to my parents to regroup. I was dead set against another relationship and was very happy with my new found freedom. A few months later, I was sleeping and began to have what I thought was a lucid dream. In the dream I felt/was told that someone needed help and I needed to find them/help them. I pondered how to find someone at that hour and Facebook popped into my head...I logged in and remember thinking, who was in need of help? and "J" names kept popping up in my head and settled on Jonathans in my city...There were a LOT of them...As I was scrolling through all of the profiles, I began to doze off when a pair of eyes caught my attention. I felt a slap upside the back of my head that this guy needed help. I shrugged and sent off a friend request. I woke up hours later and thought, " Wow, that was a weird drea...." 11 years together this year..still madly in love.
#31
I hit the recessive gene lottery. both of my parents have dark brown eyes and dark brown hair. i came out with light blue eyes and blonde/reddish hair and some freckles. i also got some other genetic features that require two recessive genes to pair up. on top of that i inheirited a nuerological disorder that results in slight deformities to the toes. also yes, i know my parents are genetically my parents. none of these are rare on their own, but to see them all in one person is pretty uncommon.
#32
I went to a Chinese restaurant and got a fortune cookie, but it didn't have a fortune in it, I thought that was kind of a ripoff so I asked the waitress for another cookie. She gave me a new one and it had two fortunes in it.
#33
I always like the fact that when you shuffle a deck of cards, you create a sequence that has never existed before and almost certainly never will again. A shuffled deck is, to all intents and purposes, mathematically unique. So, something incredibly statistically tiny has happened to anyone who has ever shuffled a deck of cards.
Draaideur 2 years ago
To give some context to the debate in the comments. The possible amount combinations with a deck of cards is 52! or 52 factorial which means 52*51*50 etc.. This equals to a 68 digit number: 80.658.175.170.943.878.571.660.636.856.403.766.975.289.505.440.883.277.824.000.000.000.000 (whatever looks big). For some context of the size of this number, if you have 10 billion people shuffle cards every second for a million years on a million different planets at the same time, the chance that your deck was shuffled before is still 0. -37 zeros here- 4%
#34
I was in a car accident as a 2 year old. The doctors told my parents I was never going to be able to read or write. Here I am.
Lisa Edwardsen 2 years ago
Hey, at age 4 I was also told I'd never read or write. I distinctly remember my mother asking the doctor if she could leave me there. Seriously. He said no. I went home and for the next year I started keeping track of every book I read along with the number of pages in each, just to prove the doctor wrong.
#35
A girl I was dating was going through high school photos when I turned up in two of them, from two separate locations. Which was strange, because at the time that those photos were taken, we lived on opposite sides of the country.
We apparently met twice in our freshman years of high school, before my family moved across the country and before her family moved to the same city across the state. She was on a choir trip for Disney when they stopped at a cafe that my friends and I hung out at. We ended up hanging out with the other kids and a few photos were taken. Second photo was from when my mom and I went to visit my soon to be step dad. I went to the mall with my soon to be cousins and we were messing around in Hot Topic when future girlfriend and her friends came in. They were taking pictures and they caught me in one photobombing them. It didn't end "happily ever after", but it's still a weird coincidence I like to have.
#36
I went on a trip to Europe by myself during college. While there, I ran into my high school crush. She sat down next to me for a concert in a cathedral - and from there we toured together.
#37
In my astronomy course we were reviewing sig figs as an introductory topic. Our instructor brought out these models to help us grasp just how big 1 million was.
These models were plastic tubs (think UTZ cheese balls, but smaller diameter) filled with 1 million microbeads of assorted colors. I don't remember exactly how many of each color there were, so the math is most likely not going to add up.
Anyways there were something along the lines of 250k red beads, 100k green beads, 50k blue, 10k teal, 5k yellow, etc, and a singular black bead. Ms. Instructor told us that nobody in her classes had ever found the black dot.
I looked over at it scanned it for a few seconds, and found the black bead, stuck to the wall of the just by static electricity. My lab partner was in disbelief, so he shook it up and started looking again.
I found it a second time. So I suppose it was a one in a trillion. Regardless I bought a bunch of lottery tickets that day at the recommendation of my astronomy instructor.
TL;DR Playing with jugs that had 999,999 colored microbeads and a singular black bead. Found black bead twice.
#38
One time I was playing "hackey-marker" (basically playing hackey sack with a marker) with some friends of mine in high school while another friend of ours was on the computer. I kicked the marker and it flew into her hand, ready to write.
We lost it when that happened.
#39
I actually met two people online who I knew in real life. (They were twins)
Instead of telling them who I was and have a good laugh about this coincidence I decided to tell them general information about themselves to freak them out.
It worked and before I could tell them who I was they left.
I am a bad person.
Mud spider 2 years ago
My friends think I’m a stalker because at sports games and stuff their parents tell me embarrassing stories about them, they don’t know they tell me, a couple weeks later, I ask if they remember, they freak out. It’s the best
#40
I started balding like an old man as a teenager and kept teenage acne skin past 30. Killer combo, one in a million probably.
Carol Emory 2 years ago
No..my husband had the same issue. Grew a full beard and mustache in the 7th grade at the same time he was starting to go bald.
What do you think ?
UpQuarkDownQuark 2 years ago
Once in junior high school, my friend and I were walking to his house and he asked when I was going to pay him back the $5 I owed him. At that moment I spotted a $5 bill on the ground, handed it to him, and said, “Right now!”
Leah Copes 2 years ago
There’s normally no new BP posts on saturdays, right? Did something change or am I just losing my mind
Chancey 2 years ago
Never was before but seems like there has been the last couple weekends.
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UpQuarkDownQuark 2 years ago
Once in junior high school, my friend and I were walking to his house and he asked when I was going to pay him back the $5 I owed him. At that moment I spotted a $5 bill on the ground, handed it to him, and said, “Right now!”
Leah Copes 2 years ago
There’s normally no new BP posts on saturdays, right? Did something change or am I just losing my mind
Chancey 2 years ago
Never was before but seems like there has been the last couple weekends.
Load More Replies... Related on Bored Panda
