Another Whiff of Coincidence

The aftermath of the superstorm prediction

A whiff of coincidence was in the air. Perhaps it was more than that. And I took notice. In the Autumn of 2008, the time-prompt phenomenon haunted me for weeks. On the Internet, people wrote about similar experiences. As a result, I became preoccupied with numbers for a while, most notably double-digit numbers and multiples of eleven. For instance, in December 2008, we passed a gas station in Sneek. There was a billboard indicating prices. One number was flashing, indicating a price of 1.199. 11 and 99 were both multiples of 11. And I noticed it because of my preoccupation. And so, eleven and some other numbers, for instance, the emergency services telephone numbers 112 and 911, play a significant role in the following report. Some of these stories might be lame, while others could make you wonder.

Also in December 2008, I predicted that a superstorm would strike the Netherlands on 9 February 2009, the birthday of the Lady from the dormitory. The storm came, but it was less severe and hit Northern France rather than the Netherlands. Charles de Gaulle International Airport of Paris had to be closed that day. You can read more about that here:

Psychics, mediums, and premonition

Like psychics and mediums, we can sometimes have accurate premonitions. My personal experience may tell a lot about why that is so.

Read More

The superstorm prediction story came with a peculiar sequel. On 1 June 2009, Air France flight 447 disappeared above the Atlantic Ocean. The incident involved an Airbus 330 with manufacturer serial number 660.1 Both are multiples of 11, referring to 11:11. Flight AF447 and the 9 February 2009 superstorm relate to the Charles de Gaulle International Airport in Paris. It happened 112 days after 9 February 2009, while 112 is the European emergency services telephone number.

At first, I did not consider a relationship between the Air France AF447 flight disappearance and the superstorm. The next day, a helicopter crashed on Ameland.2 We were about to spend our holidays there, and there already had been a few coincidences related to Ameland. That attracted my attention, but I did not think much of it. The next day, my son Rob was watching the news. Suddenly he came to me yelling: ‘Guess what, the plane that crashed was due to arrive at 11:11 AM in Paris.’ That was incorrect. The plane was due to arrive at 11:10 AM. But Rob’s remark made me investigate the incident.

On 30 June 2009, Flight IY626 crashed in the Indian Ocean near Comoros,3 29 days after Flight AF447 disappeared above the Atlantic Ocean. AF447 was destined for the Charles de Gaulle International Airport in Paris. IY626 had departed from this airport. There are 29 days between 1 June 2009, the day flight AF447 disappeared and 30 June 2009, the day flight IY626 crashed, while 2/9 refers to 9 February (American notation).

The church tower in the pond at the university campus of Enschede played a central role in the circumstances that made me make the superstorm prediction. And university campus of Enschede was where I met the Lady. The artwork refers to flooded land. Enschede has area code 53. The last major flooding disaster in the Netherlands happened in 1953. This event is known as the February Storm of 53. The Dutch film De Storm about the 1953 flooding disaster came out in 2009.4

The premiere of the film, which lasts 110 minutes, was on 11 September 2009 (9/11, while 9+1+1=11 and 2+0+0+9 =11, making a reference to 11:11) at the 11th Festival Film by the Sea in Vlissingen.4 Vlissingen was the destination of our summer holidays in the four previous years. Enschede turns up in several spooky coincidences, so it is noteworthy that Enschede has a sorority named Spooky.5

Exactly three years after a blogger from Sargasso.nl posted the story about the fictional superstorm with a flooding disaster hitting the Netherlands on 9 February 2009, the presentation of the World Risk Index of the United Nations University was held on 2 September 2011. The Netherlands had the highest risk of flooding disasters in the European Union. The Netherlands is ranked number 69 worldwide,6 a peculiar ‘position’.

FC Twente becoming Dutch soccer champion

In 2010, FC Twente from Enschede became champion of the Dutch soccer Premier League for the first time ever. In 2009, AZ from Alkmaar had been champion. A is the first letter of the alphabet, while Z is the last. In Greek, that is Alpha Omega. On 21 December 2012, the day the Mayan calendar supposedly ended, there was one match in the Dutch soccer Premier League: AZ – FC Twente. In the years before 2009, PSV Eindhoven was the champion. Eindhoven means Final Gardens, a reference to Paradise. It is where the Lady from the dormitory currently lives.

On 2 May 2010, we went with my parents, my sister and brother-in-law and their children to an indoor playground in Almelo to celebrate my mother’s 65th birthday. It was the day FC Twente became champion. A screen played Disney XD channel for children. I was watching it. Three American football players appeared. One of them had shirt number 19, and another had 53. Then, the football players with numbers 19 and 53 stood side by side and began jumping, making the number 1953 noticed. It was the year of the flooding disaster, and it linked to Enschede because of the area code 53 and the church tower in the pond, and it happened on the day FC Twente from Enschede became champion.

In the years that followed, Ajax Amsterdam became champion. The Ajax team is nicknamed Sons of God, and Amsterdam is often abbreviated to Adam. Adam is the Son of God (Luke 3:38). Johan Cruijff, the most famous Ajax football player in history, has the initials JC like Jesus Christ. His nicknames were Number 14, The Skinny One and The Oracle. Number 14 was his shirt number. And that number refers to the initials of the Lady. I was a skinny person employed as an Oracle developer and database administrator. Cruijff also became the trainer for FC Barcelona in Spain. According to persistent rumours in the Dutch press, people in Barcelona called him The Saviour.

2 September 2011 is a curious date (2/9/11 or 2/9/2011 while 20=9+11), making multiple combinations of elevens. That day, the Dutch national soccer team, nicknamed the Dutch Eleven, won their Euro 2012 qualifying match against San Marino in Eindhoven. The score was 11-0, surpassing their previous 9-0 record score.7 This is a 9:11 reference. Soccer is played by two teams of 11 players, and 11:11-reference.

And on 2 September 2011 was the farewell party of star soccer player Ruiz of FC Twente, who played a crucial role in the championship of FC Twente in 2010.8 In his new team Fulham, Ruiz had number 11. His first match for his new team was on 11 September 2011. Remarkably, FC Twente played its next contest in group K of the Europa League on 15 September 2011 against Fulham, Ruiz’s new team. K is the eleventh letter of the alphabet, while the match result was 1-1. The return match was on 1 December 2011. 1 December is 1/12 (European notation), while 112 is the European emergency telephone number.

A peculiar set of plane crashes

On 15 September 2012, a small plane crashed in a field near Den Helder in the Netherlands. At the same time, there was an air show in Den Helder, but the accident was not related to the air show.9 That evening, another small plane crashed in the Netherlands in a field in Valkenswaard near Eindhoven. This plane had taken part in the Den Helder airshow earlier that day.10

On the same date, a small plane flying for the Dutch KLM Flight Academy was found crashed in a canyon in the mountains east of Phoenix, Arizona. Three people died on the crash site.11 Three weeks later, on 6 October 2012, another small aircraft flying for the KLM Flight Academy crashed into another small plane. Both managed to make an emergency landing, and nobody was injured.12 There had never been any accidents involving the KLM Flight Academy before.

The following related incident pairs can be identified: two planes crashing on the same day in the Netherlands and two aircraft of the KLM Flight Academy crashing, linked by the Netherlands and the date 15 September 2012. The number three occurred three times. Three planes were in the news on 15 September 2012, and three people were killed. And there were three weeks between the accidents.

And so, I pondered on 10 October 2012 whether or not the number three was part of this scheme. A few hours later, the news reported that three people had killed themselves in a rare triple suicide in Utrecht. Among the dead were two twin brothers aged 33.13 That made it even more bizarre. According to the report, police entered the apartment after the family had received farewell letters.

On 17 July 2014, Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 (MH17) was shot down in Ukrainian airspace. The plane was a Boeing 777-200. The incident happened four months after Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 (MH370) went missing on 8 March 2014. The aircraft is still missing, which makes its disappearance particularly mysterious. That plane also was a Boeing 777-200, and the 404th plane of that type produced while 404 is the number associated with missing (not found) web pages.

The Flight 17 plane first flew on 17 July 1997, exactly 17 years before the accident.14 That was exactly one year after the crash of Trans World Airlines Flight 800 on 17 July 1996.15 It crashed 777 days before Swissair Flight 111.16 That is peculiar because of the numbers 777 and 111. Exactly 7 years, 7 months, and 7 days after Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 (MH17) was shot down in Ukrainian airspace, Putin started the Ukraine war. Did he count the days? Probably not.

Looking at the numbers

Again in December 2008, we took a trip to Amsterdam by train. Rob and I had been noticing 11 related coincidences all day. In the evening, we were on the train destined for Sneek and sat down. Rob then said: ‘The number of this train unit has nothing to do with eleven.’ He was mistaken. The number was 242 or 2 * 11 * 11. And I took notice.

In January 2009 after work, I sat down in train unit 306. I realised that 306 is not a multiple of 11. My calculation was 330 – 306 = 14. It demonstrated that 306 was not divisible by 11. So this was not spooky. Then I looked to the left. On the track next to me was train unit 234. This number was not a multiple of 11 either as 234 – 220 = 14 also. Then I found myself contemplating whether or not the number 14 turning up was a coincidence. I looked to the right just when bus 14 was entering the bus station. 14 translated into letters is AD, the initials of the Lady. If you turn that number upside down, you get ‘hi’.

My lucky number was 26 because I was born on 26 November. As I remember it, the Lady was born on 9 February (9/2 European notation). That links the number 92 to Her. Now it happens to be that 92 is 26 upside down. And probably we were both born in 1968. We crossed each other’s path in 1989, while 89 is 68 upside down. That makes it a pair of related coincidences like 11:11. Also, 1968 and 1989 were revolutionary years. If this is not a mere coincidence, then some thinking has gone into this.

Numbers do not have any meaning except their value, and coincidences can happen by chance. Thinking of myself as rational, I once tried to debunk these suggestions as irrational. When commuting home from work on the train, I tried to convince myself that number coincidences are selective remembrance. If you focus on something, for instance, a specific number, you notice it more often. Upon nearing train station Sneek North, I told myself, ‘Let’s focus on 86, a number that has no meaning to me, and I will start to see it.’ And indeed, the following number I saw was 86 on the licence plate of a car parked at the station. Did that prove my point, or was Someone poking fun at me?

At the time, most Dutch licence plates had the following formats: AA-AA-99, 99-AA-AA, and 99-AAA-9 (A is a letter, and 9 is a number). The chance of a two-digit number like 86 on the first licence plate was close to one per cent. One year later, this incident came to my mind again. When parking my bike at work, I thought of it for no apparent reason. Then I walked down the parking lot and noticed the licence plates. Among the eight licence plates I saw, three had an 86, one had a 68, two had an 11, which might refer to 11:11, and two were unrelated to the incident, a pretty impressive score.

On 17 March 2012, the number 26 popped up conspicuously often. It never happened like that. As it is my lucky number, I would have noticed that. That afternoon Ingrid, Rob, and I were biking. The number 26 kept coming up, for instance, on licence plates. I began wondering what kind of luck was waiting for us. Rob wanted to go to the restaurant named Het Paviljoen near the lake. It was closed in March, so I warned him it would be closed. Rob wanted to go there anyway. The restaurant turned out to be open unofficially. The owner was waiting for a supply truck. It was late, and it arrived when we were there. After we left, the restaurant closed.

I also noticed the number 92. For a while, it appeared that when I left a building, the first car to pass often had the number 92 on its licence plate, perhaps, about one in three to five times, while once in a hundred was to be expected. Once, I tried to cross a road. The first car passing had a licence plate number with a 92. The second car also had 92 in its licence plate number. And so did the third. Only these three cars passed before I could cross. It was a temporary phase, and selective remembrance played a role, but it did not seem entirely coincidental.

A small white car with licence plate number 9-GXD-2 was parked in Leeuwarden on a parking lot near the train station nearly every morning for years. The letter O is not on Dutch car licence plates, so I imagined the X could represent an O linking God to 9 February (9-GOD-2). I also found this car parked 100 metres from my home in Sneek a few times. That may seem insignificant, but a related incident makes it noteworthy.

I own a green Opel Astra with licence plate TZ-GT-18. Once when we were on holiday in Zeeland, I noticed another green Opel Astra with licence plate TZ-GT-54. That attracted my attention. Later, I found it parked in Sneek near my home several times. It was in the same parking place where the car with licence plate 09-GXD-2 had also been. The distance between Zeeland and Sneek is 300 kilometres. That combination of peculiar events is like seeing 11:11.

Featured image: Poster for the film The Storm. Universal Studios (2009). [copyright info]

1. Air France Flight 447. Wikipedia. [link]
2. Helikopter stort neer boven Ameland. Volkskrant (2 June 2009). [link]
3. Yemenia Flight 626. Wikipedia. [link]
4. Stormachtige start voor 11e Film by the Sea. Trouw (9 September 2009). [link]
5. Lesleden dispuut Spooky doen graag uit de doeken wie ze zijn. Huis Aan Huis Enschede (4 May 2018). [link]
6. Nederland heeft grootste kans op natuurramp in Europa. Nu.nl (2 September 2011). [link]
7. San Marino on the end of record Netherlands win. UEFA (2 September 2011).
8. Verdrietige Ruiz verlaat Twente met pijn in het hart. Trouw (2 September 2011). [link]
9. Een gewonde bij vliegtuigcrash Den Helder. RTL Nieuws (15 September 2012). [link]
10. Straalvliegtuig gecrasht in Valkenswaard. Nu.nl (15 September 2012). [link]
11. 3 found dead after small plane crashes in Ariz. Fox News (15 September 2012). [link]
12. Weer ongeluk lesvliegtuig KLM. Trouw (6 October 2012). [link]
13. Drievoudige zelfmoord in Utrechtse studentenflat. Nu.nl (10 October 2012). [link]
14. Malaysia Airlines Flight 17. Wikipedia. [link]
15. TWA Flight 800. Wikipedia. [link]
16. Swissair Flight 111. Wikipedia. [link]

The nature of reality


We live inside a simulation created by an advanced post-human civilisation. An individual can’t build this universe alone or write the script in detail. That requires a civilisation. Science has established several laws of reality, or natural laws, with a sufficient degree of certainty. Therefore, if breaches of these laws occur, this world is fake. There is enough evidence of breaches. And so, the argument is:

  • Science has sufficiently established specific laws of reality.
  • Breaches of these laws prove that this world is a simulation.
  • There is sufficient evidence of breaches in these laws.
  • Hence, we live in a simulation.

We like to think we are unique and superb creatures, the apex of all that roams this planet, so we attach great value to our inner selves. And the consumerist society teaches us that we are also very deserving, and that only three people are of importance: me, myself, and I. So, if we have the technology, we would build personal virtual realities that allow us to fulfil our every desire. Because we think we are so wonderful, we probably won’t alter our human essence when we can, so post-humans likely have similar motivations to us.

These post-humans could run simulations of human civilisations for entertainment and research. If the technology becomes cheap, the number of simulations for amusement likely vastly outstrips those for research. Our purpose is probably entertainment, and breaches of the laws of reality suggest so. Simulations run for research are more likely to be realistic. Signs of a script indicate that our universe is not a game, but rather someone’s imaginary world. Someone could own this world, and we might call that someone God. God may use avatars in this simulation to play the role of an ordinary human being.

Coincidences, such as the licence plate number of Franz Ferdinand’s car, indicate that there is a script, meaning a computer generates all our thoughts and actions. We aren’t sentient beings. We don’t think for ourselves. We have no intrinsic value to our creators, so God can let us suffer and kill us without remorse. The strength of the evidence outweighs the issues, such as the lack of scientific evidence for the paranormal, the limitations of the human mind, including our tendency to seek causes when randomness applies or to see meaning where there is none, the hindsight bias, and the difficulties in establishing probabilities. In other words, we can know beyond a reasonable doubt that we live in a scripted virtual reality. That is a remarkable conclusion, and it would be even more astounding if we identified some of God’s avatars to gain better insight into the purpose of this universe.

What if God was one of us?
Just a slob like one of us
Just a stranger on the bus

Joan Osborn, One of Us

Latest revision: 24 July 2025

My Guide Plausibility

Plausible means that it can be true, but what we think is plausible depends on what we believe, and that often depends on the information we have. Humans are imaginative beings who invent stories, such as religions, but there is only one truth. The truth doesn’t depend on what you or I believe. An advanced post-human civilisation may have created us for the personal amusement of one of its members, who is God to us. That has remained hidden behind some of the world’s religions. The evidence suggests that God is a woman who assumes the role of an ordinary human in this world to pass the time.

You can speculate too wildly or fail to see the bigger picture if you only accept what can be proven. I have tried to avoid those pitfalls. This account leaves no significant questions concerning the reason for our existence unanswered. It is a plausible overall explanation, but it doesn’t answer many of the irrelevant questions scholars are debating. And there is still the Great Unknown. We are inside the simulation and don’t know what’s outside, just like a Holodeck character doesn’t know it’s on the Starship Enterprise.

We all connect the dots in different ways. We can easily get lost as we are religious creatures who make up stories and believe them. The quest for truth is different. Using the available information, we can rule out options. Information affects probabilities, but the quality of information matters. The Bible is doubtful evidence. With the help of scholars’ work, we may make guesses about what happened, but it remains a leap to arrive at an account that explains it all. That still requires a clue. Apart from God being a woman from an advanced humanoid civilisation, there are other possibilities, such as:

  • This world is like a Big Brother house. Our creators entertain themselves with us. Mary Magdalene wasn’t God, but something made Jesus believe it.
  • There are no humans left. Artificial intelligence has completely taken over. It runs this script to keep itself busy. The AI may think of itself as a woman.
  • Or, I am the post-human who wrote this script for myself to become the hero who found it all out and finds the perfect love. I don’t think so, but it is possible.

These alternatives make sense. For one thing, if you walk around in a story you wrote, you have no freedom. You can’t do things you aren’t supposed to do, as that would derail the script. At best, you have a limited decision space that the AI can work around by isolating the consequences of your actions and managing them. So, if you are God, these limits might pin you down for thousands of years. And so, our situation looks like living inside a box, trying to guess what is outside based on the information we find inside.

The evidence ‘inside the box’ suggests God is a woman from an advanced humanoid civilisation. Each piece of evidence is insufficient on its own. Their validity lies in the combination. The findings answer several questions without resorting to religious dogma. To name a few. Why is Christianity about love? Why does this religion have such baffling teachings that differ from Judaism and Islam? Why did the Jewish God gather so many worshippers via Christianity and Islam? Why was Jesus the Son of God? Why was he the Bridegroom? And was Muhammad a prophet of God? We now have answers.

Latest revision: 10 April 2026

Eibergen

Near Enschede, in the east of the Netherlands, is a village called Eibergen. I was born there in Iepenstraat (Elm Street). Elm Street. Do I have your attention? Here we go. The assassination of US President Kennedy happened on Elm Street, and that event is part of a web of remarkable coincidences. A Nightmare on Elm Street is a horror film first released in the United States on 9 November 1984 (11/9) and in the Netherlands on 11 September 1986 (9/11), with 9/11 referring to the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, yet another event marked by a remarkable array of coincidences. Here begins a tale riddled with coincidences and a story inside a story.

Eibergen means egg mountains, a possible cryptic reference to fallopian tubes. The initials of my last name, KI, make the Dutch abbreviation for artificial insemination, a way to make a virgin give birth. It is also the Dutch abbreviation for artificial intelligence, and this world is likely AI-generated. The name of the nearby city, Enschede, is found to be referencing the female reproductive organ. And Vagina, you could make of it. The initials of my first and middle names, BH, make the Dutch abbreviation for a bra. The song ‘A Boy Named Sue’ by Johnny Cash is about names of this kind and the strong character they build. But Sue had it easy. His funny name was the only thing he had to deal with.

Until age four, I lived in Eibergen and recall a little of that time. Nothing unusual happened. You might expect more if you know the remainder of this story, but to my knowledge, there were no spectacular omens of any kind. Often, I went out on a tricycle to feed the sheep in the pasture at the end of the street. The clock on television instilled anxiety. If it appeared, I took cover behind the sofa until it was gone. Unlike the clock in the living room of the renowned traditional pendulum type with the well-known ‘Nu Elck Syn Sin’ (Now, let everyone have it their own way) lettering, that one had a second hand, which made it particularly intimidating. Time was ticking. Tic toc tic toc. That was most frightening indeed. I remember my mother being pregnant. She was ironing. My sister Anne Marie was born in 1971. I sang songs for the baby in the baby room while my mother changed nappies.

Our home was on a block of similar houses. Next door lived an elderly lady, probably in her sixties. She came from the former Dutch Indies and had a fish tank in the living room. On the other side was a young family with children like us. They had a daughter of my age and a younger son. I remember playing together with them. They told me that rabbits eat grass. I tried it as well, but not being a rabbit, I didn’t appreciate the taste. And I once electrocuted myself by putting the chain of the stopper of the kitchen sink into a wall outlet. Others later said I had used scissors, but I am sure it was the stopper’s chain, which my mother confirmed. It suggests most of my memories are of good quality.

My father usually went to work around 6 AM and returned around 9 PM. He loved his job. On Saturdays, he went out hunting with his friends. And so, I hardly saw him. At home, he caught up on his sleep on the couch to wake up when sports started on television. So, at age three, I once said to my mother, probably jokingly, ‘Who is that man sleeping on the couch?’ That is what my mother later told me. My father probably took the hint, as he all of a sudden took me out of bed every morning before he went to work and played with me for a few minutes for a few weeks, which I do remember.

At the age of three, I once fell on my teeth on the wooden table in the living room in a most brutal smash. A piece of the wood broke off. My front teeth turned black shortly after, until my permanent teeth came in, making me an ugly duckling for years to come. We also had a bicycle accident. My mother was bicycling, Anne Marie was in the front, I was in the back, and my mother had trouble handling the bags full of groceries on the handlebars. And then the bicycle fell over. In early 1973, we moved to Nijverdal, which means ‘industrious valley’. It suggests we left the mountains for a life in a valley, but the Dutch mountains are imaginary, and the name of a song by my favourite band, The Nits. The music you love may reveal your character. And that might be correct in my case.

I was standing in the valley of rock
Up to my belly in an early fog
I was looking for the road to a green painted house
In the Dutch mountains
In the Dutch mountains
Mountains

I met a woman in the valley of stone
She was painting roses on the walls of her home
And the moon is a coin with the head of the queen
Of the Dutch mountains
Mountains

The Nits, In the Dutch Mountains

Latest revision: 20 April 2026

Featured image: my mother, my younger sister, and I (in the foreground)

Shepherd and sheep in Saudi Arabia

Scheme of History

The Abrahamic religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam contradict each other on several issues, most of them minor, with the most important one being whether Jesus is merely human or the Son of God. In hindsight, it is possible to summarise the grand scheme of God’s plan via Biblical themes or historical developments.

Creation: God created the world and assigned humans as its caretakers. Humans are created in the image of God. Hence, God is somewhat like us, which aligns with us being simulations created by an advanced post-human civilisation.

Fall: Humanity’s disobedience brought evil into the world. Humans wished to know the truth themselves and become like God. Ambitions are humanity’s main problem. The Tower of Babel represents the collapse of advanced civilisation.

Covenant and Kingdom: God made covenants with Abraham, Moses, David, and also with Muhammad to establish Her people and rule. The spread of the Abrahamic religions is a prerequisite for the establishment of the Kingdom of God.

Messiah: By the Fall, humans set the path to the apocalypse in motion by acquiring knowledge. Averting it is a global collective-action problem that requires everyone to adhere to the same social contract. By his sacrifice, Jesus laid the groundwork.

Exile and Return: Israel’s exile to Babylon symbolises humanity’s exile from Eden, with the messiah providing the way back home. The simple life in Eden is the opposite of the advanced civilisation of Babylon, so Paradise is a return to nature.

Restoration: The final chapter of the biblical story promises a new heaven and a new earth, where God restores creation and dwells with Her people in the New Eden. The Quran stresses this particular interpretation.

Apart from these Biblical themes, there is a historical scheme. In short, it is:

  • Creating a tradition of monotheism out of Judaism with the help of Zoroastrianism.
  • Creating a tradition of reason and objective enquiry, starting with Greek philosophy.
  • God revealing Herself to Jesus, thereby contradicting the Jewish religion.
  • Resolving that confusion, turning Christianity into a baffling religion.
  • Making monotheism uncompromising and spreading it via Christianity and Islam.
  • Letting the Greek tradition of reason and objective enquiry revive in Europe.
  • That tradition came to include science and ideas of social progress.
  • It included ideologies and social experiments, giving us insights to build on.
  • The uncovering of the plot in which religion meets reason and objective enquiry.
  • Building a utopian society in which humanity survives with the help of a messiah.
  • Quite possibly, humankind lives happily ever after, like in a fairy tale.

Latest update: 15 May 2026