[lingoberry]

A little bit more likely than it first would seem. The balloon didn't land on Laura Buxton, but on a farmer who knew someone named Laura Buxton, which depending on how common that name is and how many people the farmer knew is not extremely unlikely. After the girls met they were already primed for looking for resemblances because of the identical name. All in all, it's a very unlikely event but not as unlikely as you might think.

[oneeyedpigeon]

Plus, many similar meetups have occurred between people who didn't share similarities, but we don't hear about those because they're unremarkable. There are many motivations for believing events such as this are more than just a coincidence. It's also very difficult to comprehend the sheer number of human beings living on this planet when each of us has relationships with such a minuscule percentage of them.