8 Chilling Real-Life Coincidences You Won’t Believe Are Actually True

1.MARK TWAIN AND HALLEY'S COMET

Mark Twain was born on the day of the appearance of Halley's Comet in 1835, and died on the day of its next appearance in 1910. He himself predicted this in 1909, when he said: "I came in with Halley's Comet in 1835. It is coming again next year, and I expect to go out with it."

2.A NOVEL THAT UNSUSPECTINGLY DESCRIBED THE SPY NEXT DOOR

"When Norman Mailer began his novel Barbary Shore, there was no plan to have a Russian spy as a character. As he worked on it, he introduced a Russian spy in the U.S. as a minor character. As the work progressed, the spy became the dominant character in the novel.

After the novel was completed, the U.S. Immigration Service arrested a man who lived just one floor above Mailer in the same apartment building. He was Colonel Rudolf Abel, alleged to be the top Russian spy working in the U.S. at that time."

3.TWO BROTHERS KILLED BY THE SAME TAXI DRIVER, ONE YEAR APART

"In 1975, while riding a moped in Bermuda, a man was accidentally struck and killed by a taxi. One year later, this man's bother was killed in the very same way. In fact, he was riding the very same moped. And to stretch the odds even further, he was struck by the very same taxi driven by the same driver and even carrying the very same passenger!

4.JAMES DEAN’S CAR CURSE

In September 1955, James Dean was killed in a horrific car accident whilst he was driving his Porsche sports car. After the crash the car was seen as very unlucky. Here's some reasons why:

When the car was towed away from accident scene and taken to a garage, the engine slipped out and fell onto a mechanic, shattering both of his legs.

Eventually the engine was bought by a doctor, who put it into his racing car and was killed shortly afterwards, during a race. Another racing driver, in the same race, was killed in his car, which had James Dean's drive shaft fitted to it.

When James Dean's Porsche was later repaired, the garage it was in was destroyed by fire.

Later the car was displayed in Sacramento, but it fell off it's mount and broke a teenager's hip.

In Oregon, the trailer that the car was mounted on slipped from it's tow bar and smashed through the front of a shop.

Finally, in 1959, the car mysteriously broke into 11 pieces while it was sitting on steel supports.

5.A BULLET THAT REACHED ITS DESTINY YEARS LATER

"Henry Ziegland thought he had dodged fate. In 1883, he broke off a relationship with his girlfriend who, out of distress, committed suicide. The girl's brother was so enraged that he hunted down Ziegland and shot him. The brother, believing he had killed Ziegland, then turned his gun on himself.

"But Ziegland had not been killed. The bullet, in fact, had only grazed his face and then lodged in a tree. Ziegland surely thought himself a lucky man. Some years later, however, Ziegland decided to cut down the large tree, which still had the bullet in it. The task seemed so formidable that he decided to blow it up with a few sticks of dynamite. The explosion propelled the bullet into Ziegland's head, killing him."

6.A NOVEL THAT PREDICTED THE TITANIC’S DESTINY, AND ANOTHER SHIP THAT ALMOST FOLLOWED

"Morgan Robertson, in 1898, wrote "Futility". It described the maiden voyage of a transatlantic luxury liner named the Titan. Although it was touted as being unsinkable, it strikes an iceberg and sinks with much loss of life. In 1912 the Titanic, a transatlantic luxury liner widely touted as unsinkable strikes an iceberg and sinks with great loss of life on her maiden voyage. In the Book, the Month of the Wreck was April, same as in the real event. There were 3,000 passengers on the book; in reality, 2,207. In the Book, there were 24 Lifeboats; in reality, 20.

"Months after the Titanic sank, a tramp steamer was traveling through the foggy Atlantic with only a young boy on watch. It came into his head that it had been thereabouts that the Titanic had sunk, and he was suddenly terrified by the thought of the name of his ship the Titanian. Panic-stricken, he sounded the warning. The ship stopped, just in time: a huge iceberg loomed out of the fog directly in their path. The Titanian was saved."

7.THE 21ST, A BAD DAY FOR KING LOUIS XVI

"When King Louis XVI of France was a child, he was warned by an astrologer to always be on his guard on the 21st day of each month. Louis ws so terrified by this that he never did business on this day. Unfortunately Louis was not always on his guard.

"On June 21st 1791, following the French revolution, Louis and his queen were arrested in Varennes, whist trying to escape France. On September 21st 1791, France abolished the institution of Royalty and proclaimed itself a republic. Finally on January 21st 1793, King Louis XVI was executed by guillotine."

8.POKER WINNINGS, TO THE UNSUSPECTED SON

"In 1858, Robert Fallon was shot dead, an act of vengeance by those with whom he was playing poker. Fallon, they claimed, had won the $600 pot through cheating. With Fallon's seat empty and none of the other players willing to take the now-unlucky $600, they found a new player to take Fallon's place and staked him with the dead man's $600.

"By the time the police had arrived to investigate the killing, the new player had turned the $600 into $2,200 in winnings. The police demanded the original $600 to pass on to Fallon's next of kin only to discover that the new player turned out to be Fallon's son, who had not seen his father in seven years!"