Strange or Coincidental Events

Lightening Never Strikes a 3^rd Time

In the Same Place

Right?

OK so we all know that “strange” is a term often used when folks describe me but if the sun should rise in the west tomorrow, well that would not only be “strange” but an also would qualify as a “strange event”.

A coincidence is not necessarily strange but for those of us who are a bit dull; not so sharp; or a little slow in contemplation, here’s the typical definition of “coincidental”, borrowed from a free on-line dictionary.

co·in·ci·den·tal  … Adjective

1. Occurring as or resulting from coincidence.

2. Happening or existing at the same time.

Occasionally, both terms (coincidence & strange) are justifiably used in the same sentence.  Think strange coincidences never really happen? The following events support this line of thought, so think again!

Back in 1899 a lightning strike or bolt killed a man as he was standing in his backyard in Taranto, Italy.  Thirty years had passed when his son was killed in the same way and in the same place. As fate would have it, on October 8, 1949, Rolla Primarda, the grandson of the first victim and the son of the second, became the third casualty of a lightning strike.

Mark Twain was born on the day of the emergence of Halley's Comet in 1835 (Nov. 30).   Twain vowed in 1909, a year before his death that he would not depart the living until the famous comet appeared again. On the day before he died, Halley's Comet passed over. He died on April 10th, 1910 at 6:30 p.m.  

In 1979, a German magazine publication, the Das Besteran, sponsored a writing competition for the public. Readers were asked to submit unusual stories, but they had to be based on factual events. The winner, Walter Kellner of Munich, Germany was named winner and had his story published. He wrote about the time when he was flying a Cessna 421 between Sardinia (an Italian island in the Mediterranean Sea) and Sicily (the largest Mediterranean island). He described encountering engine trouble at sea, landing in the water, and spending some time in a small emergency boat before he was then rescued.

Among many others I’m sure, the story was read by an Austrian, also named Walter Kellner, who said that the German Kellner had plagiarized the story. The Austrian Kellner said that he had flown a Cessna 421 over the same sea, experienced engine trouble and was forced to land on the island of Sardinia. It was basically the same story, with a slightly different ending. The magazine resolved the issue by checking each story; both turned out to be true.

A British officer, Major Summerford, while fighting in the fields of WW-I Flanders, Belgium in February 1918 was knocked off his horse by a flash of lightning; he was paralyzed from the waist down. Summerford retired and there after moved to Vancouver, British Columbia or Canada.   In 1924, as he was fishing alongside a river, lightning hit the tree he was sitting beneath and paralyzed the balance of his right side.

Two years later Summerford had maliciously recovered enough so that he was able to take short trips via his wheel chair in a local park. While wheeling along there one summer day in 1930 a lightning bolt smashed into him, permanently paralyzing his entire body; mercifully he died two years later. But a lightning strike sought him out one last time. Four years after his burial, during a raging storm, lightning struck a cemetery and destroyed a grave yard headstone. As you might have already guessed, the deceased buried here was none other than Major Summerford.

Sources …                                                            http://www.thefreedictionary.com/coincidental                                    http://www.2spare.com/item_51964.aspx

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