The First And Last Soldiers Killed Coincidence

Saint Symphorien Military Cemetery
In the beautiful Saint Symphorien Cemetery near Mons in Belgium lie two men linked by a sad coincidence.

The military cemetery is dedicated to the fallen of the First World War which was said, at the time, to have been the war to end all wars. At rest are 284 German and 229 British soldiers - though this includes Irish and Canadian soldiers.

Two memorial stones face each other, perhaps just a few yards apart, separated by a strip of grass. At rest are Private John Parr, from Finchley, London and Private George Edwin Ellison from Leeds. Both were of the Royal Irish Lancers.

The two soldiers are the first and last British soldiers to be killed in WW1. Pte. Parr died August 21, 1914 and Pte. Ellison was killed on the morning of November 11, 1918. Both lost their lives within two miles of the cemetery.

It might be thought that the two soldiers were placed opposite each other because of their significance or symbolism, but this turns out not to be the case. Where they lie happened purely by 'coincidence'.

The Independent newspaper made enquiries about the positions of the memorial stones with the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

Peter Francis, spokesman for the Commission said, "It is a pure coincidence. John Parr's body was placed where it is now by the Germans in 1914.

George Ellison's body was brought to the Saint Symphorien cemetery from a temporary burial place after the war.

Our records suggest that Pte. Ellison was simply buried in the next available space. It was not then realised that he was the last British soldier to die in combat. Nor was the fact that Pte. Parr was the first British soldier to die established until later."

It is believed that well over 800,000 British soldiers were killed in World War I and fate has put the first and last of these opposite each other in a cemetery in Belgium.

Further Reading:
Coincidences Which Solved Mystery Of WW2 Giant
By Coincidence Man Stumbles On Missing WW2 Grave
General Montgomery's Double

67 Not Out Readers Coincidences - 4

A few more 67 Not Out readers coincidence stories as received either by email or in post comments. My thanks to all contributors.

The Birthday Phone Call Coincidence

I have a friend from college, we were very close at school in Virginia but she moved to California and I moved to New York where constant communication is extremely difficult, and a 3 hour time difference didn't help.

For some reason her birthday was always hard for me to remember, I could never remember if it was the 20th, 21st, 22nd, or 23rd of July.

The first year out of school, I forgot it completely and sent flowers the following day to apologize.

This year, (second year out) I again forgot her birthday.

I went on with my day as normal - walked to work, got a coffee, started up the computer.

At about 11am my time, 8am her time, I received a text message from her saying "Thank you for the birthday call, sorry I missed it!"

I had absolutely not called her that morning, I was sure of it. I thought she had to have been mistaken, I almost even responded saying she was, but at least I was reminded of her birthday and I looked like the good guy! Before I did respond though, I looked through my phone just to check and see - so I could know if she responded with "Wrong number" about her last text.

Sure enough my phone had dialed her number while in my bag on my walk to work - 8AM our time, 5AM her time! I ALWAYS put my phone on lock so that it can't butt dial - but thank God I forgot that morning!

- Wishes to remain anonymous

The following was a comment from terripatrick following the post Law Of Attraction Powered By Visualisation in which there was a story about Anne who attracted a piano by visualisation.

"My sister did something similar. While dreaming to someday have a piano of her own, she visited the local piano store daily to play her favorites. The staff was happy to let her do so because she was very good and it was a nice benefit to have customers hear live piano music while they shopped.

Eventually an old piano arrived, donated from an estate. The exterior condition needed a lot of care but the quality was good. My sister fell in love the character and sound of that piano and was saving a few dollars a week in hope of buying it. Within only a few months the store needed to clear inventory and instead delivered it to her home for free.

She was able to use the cash she'd saved to get it tuned. She worked at improving the exterior condition for years and eventually her finances improved enough to have it professionally restored to museum standards. She still plays it today."

The Roofing Coincidence

I want to start off by saying I Stumbled onto your site/blog and I love it. Also I had a small coincidence today I thought I'd share with you.

I was going to pay my insurance, and hadn't deposited the money into the bank as usual, so I had to go to the company to pay it. While driving there I thought about a friend and remembered that last week he was working on a roof somewhere. I thought how great it would be if he were working on the insurance co. roof, which I knew he wouldn't be.

When I pulled into the small company's parking lot there was a company there working on their roof. Despite the fact that it wasn't him I still found it coincidental, since in the three years I've been doing business there no other company has been there doing anything to the premises.

Thank you for taking the time to read my message.

- Amber

This is in response to the post Eggs On To Be A Coincidence in which I mentioned how someone had found a full pack of supermarket eggs with double yolks

My dad recently had a full dozen double yolk eggs in a box. He didn't open them all at once, so he doesn't have a picture of all them. But he eats two eggs for breakfast everyday, and for almost a week, he had 4 yolks every morning.

- Ryan

Angel Prayer Coincidence

Hi, I had a strange coincidence when I was in my car and I prayed for angels to be with me through out the day. Once I had prayed, my radio - which was broken - worked perfectly. Music flowed beautifully on each channel. The strange thing was, when the music came through the song played was 'In the Arms of an Angel.'

- Georgina

If you have a coincidence suitable for publishing please send use the Contact button at the top of 67 Not Out. Thanks - Mike.

Further Reading:
67 Not Out Readers Coincidences - 3
67 Not Out Readers Coincidences - 1
10 Coincidence Or Synchronicity Examples

The Red Balloon Coincidence Update

An update on the post The Red Balloon Coincidence.

You may remember that this is a coincidence about a small girl, Laura Buxton, who released a balloon which was subsequently picked up by a girl, of exactly the same name and age and sharing many other similarities.

The small girl is now grown up and here's a note I received from Dawn, who is Laura's mother:

Hi,

I don't usually do this kind of thing but feel I have to!

Laura Buxton that released the balloon is my daughter and she is now 19 years old.

The balloon did deflate and was found in the garden hedge.

The girls are still very good friends and meet up as and when time and commitments allow them - in fact, they are meeting again at the end of September before they both go back to University.

There have been many things written and many questions asked - we have no idea why this happened but it did and out of it has come a wonderful friendship.

Dawn

The reference to the balloon deflating is because, in my original post, I didn't make it clear that this had happened. To clarify, the balloon was released and then landed in a hedge 140 miles away.

What is good to hear is that the girls are still 'wonderful friends' some ten years after the amazing coincidence happened.

Further Reading:
The Red Balloon Coincidence

The Cornish Mystery Of Morgawr Monster Of The Seas

Since pre-Biblical times sailors have told tales of sea monsters and serpents and they have also been spotted at inland lakes and lochs, as in the case of the Loch Ness Monster.

Not to be outdone though, here in Cornwall we have our very own monster, the mysterious Morgawr!

Here's such a tale, taken from A Memorable Night At Sea:

"... suddenly the black sea parted some ten to twelve feet in front of Percy's face, off the starboard side. A three to four foot diameter object with a ball like head came straight out of the water and rose to a height of some twelve feet above the water's surface. The deck that I was standing on was four feet off the water, I was about five and a half feet and was looking slightly up at it.

'Cor, hell!' exclaimed Percy as he reeled back from the rail throwing his hands in front of his face, "what is it ?" I looked back at the others by the wheelhouse, they were staring at this thing with their mouths open. That vision still remains with me. Three seasoned seamen staring at this thing with their mouths open! I turned to look at this "thing", momentarily poised on the sea. It gave a breathing sound, "Aaggh, Haaggh", before slipping vertically down the way it had come. A stunned silence for a few seconds before excited conversation broke out as the four fishermen compared sightings. A tubular form with globular head seen from the bow and the stern. Not a whale nor a submarine periscope or snorkel. Whatever it was, they had never seen nor read about anything like this. I remained holding onto the foremast feeling cold, clammy and decidedly scared. I do not remember what we did after that, I think the idea of looking for more pilchard was abandoned and we returned to harbour."

Not convinced? Well what about if I show you a photo which was published in a local paper, the Falmouth Packet:


Okay, not the clearest of pictures but this is what the lady, Mary, who sent in the photo said of the sighting:

"... it looked like an elephant waving its trunk, but the trunk was a long neck with a small head at the end, like a snake's head. It had humps on its back which moved in a funny way... the animal frightened me. I would not like to see it any closer. I do not like the way it moved when swimming."

A Mr. Holmes purports to have taken a video of Morgawr, see the BBC website - which states that a forensic scientist has viewed the video and 'has confirmed that it is 100% genuine.' Only trouble with this is that the actual video isn't anywhere on the Internet.

But there have been many other sightings.

Examples
July 1976: 25 miles south of Lizard Point. Fishermen John Cock and George Vinnicombe claim to have seen a creature whose neck reared 4 feet up in the water. They estimated the animal's length at 22 feet.

August 1985: Gerran's Bay. Christopher and Susan Waldron of King's Stanley, Gloucestershire spotted the creature whilst on holiday. Susan was watching her husband swimming in the sea, when she noticed a large silhouette under the surface behind him. The shape was described to be that of a large, long necked creature.

But sightings go back to 1876 when fisherman, again at Gerran's Bay, supposedly caught a serpent in their fishing nets. There are dozens of other sightings of Morgawr but, as with the Loch Ness Monster, and some would say with UFOs as well, there are no clear photos.

When I walk the cliffs of Cornwall I have may camera at the ready but nothing seen other than harmless basking sharks, seals and dolphins in the distance - one day, perhaps.

Further Reading:
The Cornish Mystery Of The Men-an-Tol Stones

Precognitions: Seeing Into The Future

This is an old story from my collection of cuttings and is about the precognitions of London telephone engineer Alan Hencher.

Alan had, what he classed as, visions from childhood but it was only when he reached his mid forties that these became more dramatic and significant.

The first was in October of 1967 while he was working on a telephone switchboard and, in his words, "I felt dizzy, then came pain, almost unbearable pain. When it cleared I could see a black, heaving, mass and lots of small children. There was a mountain too, but I don't know where."

His premonition turned out to be the Aberfan disaster which I have written about previously in the post Dreams and Precognitions of Aberfan.

Following this Alan started to have a series of predictions. Most, unfortunately, were ones featuring disasters. He kept a note of his precognitions:

23 March 1967
Vivid images of an aircraft going down in flames. Impression of newspaper headlines saying '126 Die'.

Fact: One month later a Brittania airliner crashed into flames at Nicosia Airport after two attempts to land. 126 people lost their lives - see Wikipedia 1967 Nicosia Britannia disaster.

13 May 1967
Vision of another aircrash. Premonitions that 160 will die and eleven will be saved. The images are confused. Conflicting details are present. This does not appear to be a precognition of a single disaster.

Fact: Four weeks later there were crashes on successive days, the 3rd and 4th of June 1967. The first happened at Stockport in England and the second was at Perpignan in France.

There were seventy-two lives lost in Stockport and eighty-eight fatalities in Perpignan, the total death roll being 160. There were twelve survivors (as against eleven seen in Alan's vision).

These two crashes were severe enough to be mentioned in the UK Parliament at the time, and is therefore recorded in Hansard - which lists every word spoken in the British Parliament.

Alan Hencher always had severe head pains prior to his precognitions. He put these down to a head injury he had while serving in the RAF (Royal Air Force). I remember reading also that the Dutch clairvoyant, Peter Hurkos (aka Pieter van der Hurk), commenced his visions after a head injury following a fall from of a ladder. A coincidence?

I'd better add that Hurkos was a controversial figure, and some say his psychic talents weren't as great as claimed. But that's pretty normal, many will never believe such things - at least not for a while.

Further Reading:
10 Coincidence Or Synchronicity Examples

The Psychic Power Of Dogs

I'm an animal lover and a vegetarian, though I'm not out to convert the world. This short letter from Paul Geldard from Merseyside suggests the almost psychic sensitivity of dogs.

"My father was a mild, kind gentleman who spent his working life in a slaughterhouse. He never liked the job. He believed the animals were aware of their impending doom. I took this with a pinch of salt until I observed how my Welsh collie behaved.

Though father would have washed and changed before he returned home from work, if the dog encountered him he would shake with fear. We would try to console him, but it would take quite some time to calm him down.

What frightened the dog?

My father said it wasn't him in particular or the smell of blood because dogs are carnivorous. It was the smell of fear."

Anyone who has ever had a dog within their family knows how sensitive, and protective, they can be.

We had a wonderful border collie, Toby, who was everyone's best friend unless, that is, he became ill at ease. He only bit someone once.

Toby didn't like 'someone' we invited into our home one evening. His lip turned up and he bared his teeth. We had to be firm, but loving, with him to make him behave. He sulked away but our visitor wouldn't let things stand, he was determined to stroke our dog. We were firm with him too and told him not to touch Toby.

During the evening the person went to Toby, when we were briefly otherwise occupied, and sure enough, as he tried to touch him, Toby snapped and bit our guest's finger drawing blood.

We were immensely embarrassed but, without going into details, I'll just say that it later proved that Toby's judgement was exactly right.

Toby eventually grew very old and was unable to walk. The vet could do no more for him so we had to agree to have him put to sleep. It was so sad but I sat on the floor next to his basket and he looked up at me, closed his eyes and leant his head on my arm.

I feel certain that Toby knew exactly what was about to happen and accepted this because he trusted me.

We lost a wonderful member of the family.

If we observe animals closely we can learn a lot.

Further Reading:
Pea Horsley The Woman Who Talks To Animals
The Goats In Trees Coincidence
Meeting Three Young Birds In One Day

John Lennon's UFO Sighting And Abduction

I was reading an article by Shelley Germeaux, a big Beatles fan, and she mentions an interview she did with John Lennon's companion May Pang. In this May describes how the couple both saw a UFO while in New York.

This is how May Pang described the experience to Shelley (you can see the full article here):

'John shouted, "May!! Get out here now!!”

So hearing this urgency, I drop the clothes and now I’m nude (laughs) and running out there.

"What is it?" I say.

He’s looking up and there’s this thing hanging over our heads! It moves slowly down the East River.

I said, "What the heck? What is it, a blimp?" Even though we knew what it was.

He said, "My God, it’s a f***ing UFO!"

I’m screaming at the top of my lungs and I look around and all the apartment lights around us are black. No one is home. Mind you, it’s Friday night - a hot, summer night, everyone is out. I’m screaming, like a wild woman, and he’s calm. No one hears us or comes out.'

In another interview May describes the UFO's appearance:

'It was shaped like a flattened cone, and on top was a large, brilliant red light, not pulsating as on any of the aircraft we'd see heading for a landing at Newark Airport. When it came a little closer, we could make out a row or circle of white lights that ran around the entire rim of the craft - these were also flashing on and off. There was no noise to be heard.

It actually flew sideways and dipped behind a building, then it came out again! You could have pitched a baseball at it. You could even see the wavy air around it from the heat. It was flying below rooftops!'

After a little research I found that this isn't the only reference to John Lennon and UFOs, though most still come via May Pang. Here's what she told Larry Warren, for example, when he asked her if John had seen any UFOs prior the the one previously mentioned, which happened in 1974:

'Oh no, 74 wasn’t John’s first sighting. In fact he told me that more than once he suspected he had been abducted as a child back in Liverpool . And he felt that experience was responsible for making him feel different from other people for the rest of his life.'

Larry tried to enlarge on what she had said and asked her if she meant that John had been abducted by aliens.

May would only answer, 'Yes, but John didn’t go into detail about it.'

Phsycic Uri Geller told a story of how John Lennon had revealed to him about an encounter with aliens. Take his story as you will

'One night he (John) was lying in his bed in the Dakota building where he lived in New York and suddenly noticed an extremely bright light pouring in from around the edges of the bedroom door. It was so powerful, he thought it was someone aiming a searchlight through his apartment.

He got up, crossed to the door and flung it open. The next thing he could remember were four thin-looking figures. He said that the figures came over to him as he just stood there.

Two of them held his hands and the other two gently pushed his legs and he was gently guided into this tunnel of light. He was shown all of his life, just like watching a movie, and he told me it was the most outstandingly beautiful thing he'd ever seen.

John recalled something being given to him. That was all he remembered, but when he opened his hand there was this odd-looking, not quite egg-shaped, ball of metal - very smooth and very heavy, about an inch or so wide.

I was astounded. I said it sounded like an alien encounter and he seemed to agree and said that he couldn't think of another explanation himself. He was very serious about the incident but also funny about it. Then he put his hand in his pocket, pulled out the object the aliens had given him and gave it to me.

When I touched it I felt a deep sadness - I don't know why - it was like a loneliness. Maybe it was a premonition about his murder, but anyway, that was John's alien story and it happened in the middle of New York.

He gave the object to me and I didn't want to accept it. I have had this since the day he gave it to me. I really cherish it.'

So UFO and alien doubters: If John's seen them they must be true - right?

Further Reading:
John Lennon Photo Predicts His Death
Photos Of The UFO Clouds
An Alien Encounter
King Arthur, Excalibur And Cornish UFOs