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Patterns of Prophecy – Alan Vaughan

I once wrote Kurt Vonnegut to ask where he got the idea of people being linked by meaningful coincidences. Was there any connection with ESP I wondered. His reply was startling.

I have had one very flashy experience with telepathy or whatever, and my wife got the signals, too. They were evidently from my brother-in-law, who was being killed in a railroad train which had gone off an open drawbridge in New Jersey at the time. He died about 10:30 in the morning on a work day. . . .
I suddenly left my study that morning, went the length of the house to the phone in the kitchen, put in a long distance call [from Massachusetts] to my brother-in-law.
I had never telephoned him before, had no reason to call then. I telephoned him at his office, which he would never reach. There was a news flash over the radio about the railroad accident, without any details.
I knew my brother- in-law had been on the train, though he had never taken the train before. I was on a plane within an hour, and had taken charge of his home and four children before the sun went down.
My sister was a terminal cancer patient in a hospital at the time. She died the next day. My wife and I have since adopted and raised their children.
Vonnegut added that about two weeks before the incident, his wife kept coming up with the odd notion:
"The refugees are coming, the refugees are coming."
They came.