Before I start, I want to be clear that I am not the world’s biggest skeptic. I believe in science and when I encounter facts, I am inclined to believe them too.

However, like many people, I also hold room for the inexplicable. The questionable happenings or coincidences that leave us wondering: Is the Universe telling me something?

The term is synchronicity — the coincidental happening of events that seem related but aren’t explained by definitions of reality. Simply put, synchronicity is when one thing happens and seems related to another completely different event.

Studies describing the rates of people experiencing synchronicity vary, but according to the National Library of Medicine, more than one in five people experience it at least once.

The earliest memory I have of synchronicity dates back to Oct. 8, 2017, the day the Tubbs Fire began. I was 12, dancing in the backyard with my mother while belting the lyrics to “Ring of Fire” by Johnny Cash as the sun went down.

It was an incredible day, sullied by a horrific night. My mother woke me up at 10:00 p.m., panicking and telling me we might have to evacuate. My dad had already evacuated, with other members of my family following suit.

Though we stayed home in the end, an underlying paranoia gripped us, largely because of the devastating wildfire that rendered California a state of total disarray, but partly because of the song we sang the day before.

Could our singing “Ring of Fire” mere hours before one of the most horrific fires in California’s history really be a coincidence?

The two events seem too terrifying to be unrelated. My mother and I are still superstitious about it; we haven’t sung the song out loud since that night. I might be crazy for saying this, but a thought always lurks in the back of my mind, telling me that song was a warning for what was to come.

Regardless of how this event affected my mental state, it led me down the rabbit hole of synchronicity, where I learned what I could until I reached Carl Jung, who discussed this concept in the late 1800s.

Jung, an esteemed Swiss psychologist, established much of modern psychology through his work studying the unconscious mind, as well as for developing the extrovert and introvert archetypes.

Lesser known are his deeper theories that influenced the concept of synchronicity, including the proposal that seemingly random coincidences may hold deeper meaning.

Mankind seeks to derive truths from nature, so using non-causal means of explanation to identify why something fantastical happens is logically sound, according to Jung.

Without delving too deeply into Jung’s work, I believe it’s important to view synchronicity from the standpoint of a psychologist. Jung’s ideas regarding hidden relationships between two different events are rooted in the Western paradigm.

When I first pitched this article, multiple members of the Oak Leaf staff seemed intrigued with the idea and lined up to relay personal experiences with synchronicity to me.

The first volunteer, A&E editor Natalie Emanuele, told me how she was eating pretzel sticks one day and sent a photo of them to her brother in New Jersey. Her brother was eating the same sticks at that very moment.

Synchronicity doesn’t just occur when eating salty snacks, though. Take my encounter with journalist Rhea Bath, who recently adopted a kitten named Mocha while reporting a No Kings protest. A couple near the event was seeking someone to be her new owner and Rhea adopted her in an instant.

As I told Rhea about my own attempts to get a cat, she told me about Mocha’s seven siblings who were still looking for permanent homes.

People love to joke about the “Cat Distribution System,” saying that the Universe has a habit of sending cats to people when they need one the most. I never bought into it much myself, until now.

Whether or not I end up adopting one of the kittens, I am left wondering about this coincidence. Is it a sign from the heavens? Has fate chosen me to receive a feline companion in these trying times?

Now, it is almost impossible for me to talk about synchronicity without delving into signs. I’m not talking about the No Left Turn signs I choose to ignore; I’m talking about the Universe physically reaching out to us to show us something we can’t ignore.

Anne Belden, the Oak Leaf’s adviser, lords over the newspaper from an office in the back of the class with a large window giving view to a luscious tree. That lovely tree has recently become the home to our fourth class mascot, a screech owl who we have aptly named Cronkite, after esteemed journalist Walter Cronkite.

Owls have spiritual meanings in different traditions. According to CountryLiving, seeing an owl can mean that a newfound wisdom is being brought into one’s life, or that one is about to shed light on a hidden truth — or in a darker context, that one’s imminent death is approaching.

Ancient Romans believed the yellow-eyed, head-spinning birds were bad omens, bringing death to those who viewed one.

Personally, I hope Cronkite bears a brighter message, seeing as I quite enjoy living.

People have reported seeing owls in conjunction with UFOs, according to Paranormal Casefiles, so maybe there’s a chance that one of the Oak Leaf staff is about to be abducted by aliens. Maybe we already have been abducted by aliens and the owl is trying to warn us.

Aside from Cronkite, just the other day I was walking to my weekly Dungeons & Dragons game while daydreaming about my latest crush, when I tripped on the sidewalk. As I stood up, I saw a car with an air freshener hanging off its rearview mirror that said “luv is in the air.”

That could not have been a mere coincidence; it had to have been a sign! The Universe was telling me to pursue love.

But maybe it’s telling me something more, trying to send me subliminal messages through seemingly random acts?

This all has to be connected in some way — it wouldn’t make sense if it wasn’t. Carl Jung believed this train of thought to be logically sound, so these connections and synchronicities have to be true.

That’s the only sane answer to this conversation. The little black bunny rabbit I found on my porch, the misprint on the back of my Snickers bar and that red stain on the top of my shirt — they all have to mean something.

Maybe the inexplicable is explicable, but only if we start reading into the strange doings of the Universe.