There are coincidences. Then there are coincidences.

You know what we mean.

We’ve occasionally cited extraordinary cases of what some call “Godincidences”: happence that seems orchestrated.

The big question with many is not whether they are against the odds (as they obviously are), but why and how, for what reason.

Of late an item from Fox News:

“A family’s unusual discovery in a rental home that left some TikTok viewers shocked finally has an explanation. Libby Birrell and Aubrey Birrell, two sisters from Utah, recently went viral on social media after checking into an Airbnb rental and recognizing members of their own family in a framed beach photo hanging on the wall.”

The sisters said going into a house they had never been in before, one owned by someone they had never met, made them extremely “creeped out.”

Anyone would be taken aback, entering a stranger’s house, only to see a photograph on the wall that had you and memebers of your family in it.

Here’s the girls and the photo:

It was when they zoomed in that they saw their family and—unmistakably—their swimsuits. It was taken ten years ago at either Mission Beach or Imperial Beach by a photographer who took candid aerial beach shots, enlarged them, and sold them to Airbnbs as artwork.

They were at the rental home in San Diego celebrating their grandfather’s eightieth birthday earlier this month when they spotted the photo.

When they took to social media with it, “A lot of people also shared similar experiences, like seeing themselves in a picture frame at a store or spotting themselves on a pamphlet in another state. It was kind of cool to hear those stories.”

Other such cases we found:

Aileen and Bill Turnbull married in Aberdeen, Scotland, in 1967. A colleague filmed the ceremony, something still unusual for an ordinary wedding at the time. They watched the three-minute film once using a borrowed projector—and then the reel disappeared. Fifty-seven years later, Aileen was scrolling through a local Facebook group when she suddenly recognized a still image from her own wedding.

After actress and television host Ricki Lake lost her home and possessions in a California fire, she believed treasured family photographs were gone permanently. Then artist Patty Scanlon bought a random box of old photographs for about twenty dollars at a Pasadena flea market. Looking through them at home, she realized the woman holding a baby in several pictures was Ricki Lake. Scanlon posted the photographs online. Someone connected to Lake saw the post, and the images were eventually returned.

Anishma Nair had created a scrapbook containing childhood photographs, school memories, and keepsakes involving family members—including grandparents who had since died. After several moves, the scrapbook disappeared and eventually faded from her memory. Years later, a stranger shopping at Goodwill purchased it for eighty-five cents and posted a TikTok video asking whether anyone could identify the child in the photographs. The video received more than a million views. Eventually someone sent Nair a Facebook message asking, in effect, “Is this you?”It was.

In those kind of cases, one can certainly sense Who was behind it.

[resources: Lying Wonders, Strangest Things]