When I was growing up, a pair of twin boys at my elementary school were the subject of a lot of strange rumors.    

Like most twins, the boys spent almost their time together. But some of the stories about their bond revealed an almost supernatural connection.  

When one fell and scraped his knee on the playground, the other complained that his hurt too.

Stories like this are surprisingly common around the world, and some connections go even further.

Creepy connections

One famous pair of Finnish twins made headlines around the world when they died just a kilometer from each other, only hours apart.

The first brother died while biking on a highway, when he was hit by a truck.

Hours later, his twin was biking the same route - oblivious of the accident - and was hit by another truck.

Then there was the famous case of the "Jim Twins," who were both raised apart since birth, and never knew they had a twin.

Both men grew up to marry women named Linda, then divorced and re-married to women named Betty.

They both liked drawing and carpentry, both loved math but hated spelling, both smoke and drank heavily, and both experienced headaches at the same time each day.

The truth is out there...

They sound like freaky coincidences, but a study shows that twins might actually share a supernatural connection.

An English research project asked pairs of twins and non-twins to guess what their partner was drawing without looking.

The twins scored twice as many correct answers as the non-twins.

So how does science explain this creepy connection?

While there's no shortage of stories about "twin telepathy" most researchers agree that the psychic link doesn't exist.

Twins are more common than most people realize, and one in 80 births in western countries are twin births.

There are more than 100 million twins - identical or fraternal - worldwide, and the sheer number could explain all the stories about strange coincidences.

What's really going on?

You can't deny that twins are closer to each other than most siblings, or even family members.

Twin researcher Dr. Nancy Segal says twins fight less than regular siblings, and when one twin dies the other twin's grief is usually as intense as a widowed spouse's feelings.

But Segal doesn't think twins have special powers. She explains that if you worry about someone dozens of times each day, eventually you'll be worrying about them when something goes wrong.

Stories of twins dying hours apart, or from the same disease, can also be explained because of their identical genetics.

The surprising truth is most twins say they feel anxious, because they don't share the famous "twin connection."

Do you know any twins who seem to share a supernatural bond?

[H/T: National Geographic, How Stuff Works, ABC News]