This story a part of the True Ghost Stories page on Obiwan's UFO-Free Paranormal Page. Please do not copy or distribute without permission from Obiwan and/or the original author!
From: brischmitt@nospam.net (Brian Schmitt)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.ghost-stories
Subject: Weird Occurence of Sychronicity?
Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 06:13:29 GMT
The story I am about to tell is absolutely true although you will probably not believe it. It is the closest thing to 'paranormal' I have ever experienced although I have no idea how to catagorize it.
I lived in a small apartment with a buddy of mine when I was 17. We had both taken jobs at the local newspaper loading bundles of newspapers off the presses onto wooden palettes. We often had friends over since we were the only people in our group of friends with our own place. Many times these get-togethers spilled out into the parking lot of the apartment complex due to the sheer number of people.
It was probably in the middle of July when we decided to have a party to end all parties (we actually planned this one and called people a week or so earlier...usually these parties occured spontaneously) after work one evening. We had even gone out-of-state to buy copeous amounts of alcohol (We lived in Fort Collins, Colorado, about 40 miles south of Cheyenne Wyoming were you could purchase alcohol at 18 years of age).
I finished my shift on time but the shift manager asked my buddy Troy if he could stay about 40 minutes late to bundle inserts for that weekends paper. He said he could after consulting me and finding a ride home with one of the party-goers from work (we usually carpooled since we lived together and usually worked the same shift). A friend who worked at the paper would give him a ride home on his motorcycle after they had finished since he was coming to the party anyway.
Cut to about 2.5 hours later....
People are starting to arrive and my girlfriend asks where Troy is, he should have been here more than an hour ago? I said I didn't know but I thought everything was ok so I decided to blow it off. About another hour passed without Troy showing up so I started to get a little worried and called the paper to see if he had left yet. After talking to someone at the paper who said he had left a few hours ago I started getting thinking about how dangerous motor- cycles can be and decided he had probably gotten in some kind of an accident. He wouldn't miss this party unless he were in coma, I kept thinking to myself.
My girlfriend decided to call the hospital to see if they had a Troy Smith there. They said he had been admitted a few hours earlier after being in a motorcycle accident! I couldn't believe it so I asked my girlfriend to ask about a middle name just to be sure. She asked if the person they admitted was a Troy William Smith, they said the man they had was named Troy William Smith. I was in total shock and took the phone and asked what condition he was in. "I'm sorry but we're not allowed to release that information." is what I was told.
My girlfriend and I decided we had to go to the hospital and see Troy so we told our guests that we were leaving to see Troy and to enjoy party but we may not be back for several hours. Upon walking to the car Troy and my friend pull up on my friends motorcyle obviously in too 'undamaged' a state to have been in an accident. I asked him where he had been and he replied that he and my friend had decided to visit another party on the way to ours. My head was spinning. I told Troy what had transpired in the last hour and we were both a little unsure of what was going on.
A few days later we found out that another Troy William Smith (a person we both knew and went to high-school with) had been the one in the accident. To this day I keep wondering if this has any paranormal significance or it is just an incredible circumstance.
By the way I have changed Troys name for the story... but ONLY his last name. His first name is Troy and his middle name is William, not exactly the most common combination of names. This story is %100 true.
Brian Schmitt
brischmitt@nospam.net (replace 'nospam' with 'earthlink' to reply)