In statistics, a spurious relationship (not to be confused with spurious correlation) is a mathematical relationship in which two events or variables have no direct causal connection, yet it may be wrongly inferred that they do, due to either coincidence or the presence of a certain third, unseen factor (referred to as a "common response variable", "confounding factor", or "lurking variable"). Suppose there is found to be a correlation between A and B. Aside from coincidence, there are three possible relationships: