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a video explaining the mandela effect

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The Mandela Effect | Examples & Possible Explanation | Documentary

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The Mysterious Stardust Ranch | Aliens, UFOs & Paranormal Activity | Documentary ►► https://goo.gl/l48sjQ ____________________________________________________________________ The Mandela has been all the talk lately, and it's one of those things that at first seem silly, but as you dive into things, it can get a little strange.

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2. The show isn't called Sex in the City.

kkaaaryyy / HBO / Via Twitter: @kkaaaryyy

It's Sex and the City, but many people insist they remember it being "in the" at some point. Some people have even posted pictures of old memorabilia they have that supports their false memory.

3. "We Are the Champions" by Queen ends differently than many recall.

5. The tip of Pikachu's tail isn't black.

People remember there being a black mark on Pikachu's tail, but if you take a look at Pikachu now, you'll see nothing there. How so many people can remember an aspect of this character's appearance that doesn't actually exist, the world may never know.

9. Darth Vader doesn't say, "Luke, I am your father."

11. Mister Rogers' theme song opening line is different than people remember.

17. Interview With the Vampire isn't called Interview With a Vampire.

18. The Queen in Snow White never said, "Mirror, mirror on the wall."

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20 Examples Of The Mandela Effect That'll Make You Believe You're In A Parallel Universe

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3. "We Are the Champions" by Queen ends differently than many recall. 9. Darth Vader doesn't say, "Luke, I am your father." 11. Mister Rogers' theme song opening line is different than people remember. 17. Interview With the Vampire isn't called Interview With a Vampire. 18.

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examples

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"LUKE, I am your father."

If you asked someone to quote any line from the Star Wars series, that's the main one you'd hear in response. Hell, it's one of the most iconic lines in film history.

But here's an earth-shattering fact: that line was never uttered in any of the movies. The quote is actually, " No, I am your father."

Feel free to frantically Google that for a moment. We'll wait.

Have you ever innately believed something so much that - when told otherwise - you couldn't bring yourself to accept the alternative version, even if it was proven?

There's a whole bunch of quotes, symbols, titles and historical events like these which have prompted the same bizarre, holy-crap-I'm-now-questioning-the-entire-universe response.

In recent years it's been deemed the "Mandela Effect", and a growing cult of believers on the internet have taken the phenomenon a step further.
WHAT IS THE 'MANDELA EFFECT'?
In 2010, a paranormal enthusiast named Fiona Broome claimed she remembered the news coverage of Nelson Mandela's tragic death in a South African prison during the 1980s.

When she shared this thought with a group of people, many of them said they remembered this event taking place, or learnt about it in school.

Only that never happened. Mandela was alive at the time they apparently vividly recalled this. He died in December 2013, three years after Broome first voiced her theory, while suffering from a prolonged respiratory infection at his home in Houghton, Johannesburg.

But Broome's justification is even more out-there than her initial thoughts - she argues these "shared memories" that have no present evidence of ever occurring could be due to the existence of parallel universes that intertwine and collide.

While this theory may sound ridiculous, she's gained a solid online cult following, writing articles, books and giving speeches on related subjects.

Let's cut to some eerie examples people have brought up online.

Growing up, you probably watched the Looney Toons on a Saturday morning right? Bugs Bunny? Daffy Duck?

Many people could probably recall a scene or two, and visualise the "LOONEY TOONS" logo perfectly in their head:

Plot twist: it's actually spelt "Looney Tunes". And always has been. It never changed, there's zero evidence to suggest it was spelt any other way, and yet people vehemently believe it's written as the former.

Same story with the Ford logo. Look carefully - did the 'F' always have this little tail on the end?

Yep. It's always had that damn pig's tail. Since 1912, when Ford was first established, the "F" has had that damn pig's tail. But something about it may look ... out of place.

When Broome started publicising this weird memory-tricking phenomenon online, a cult of believers formed and grew, trying to work out which experiences they were so sure of were apparently falsehoods.

One of the most prominent examples is that of the Berenstain Bears, a children's book series created in the 1960s.

Believers familiar with the books claim it was spelt Berenst e in Bears, despite the fact that the creator's son himself said it was always the former.

People went as far as to scour through the internet for proof, find alternative spellings in old newspaper clippings (most likely just typos) and post them as evidence of colliding realities at play.

No misprinted versions of the books have ever been created, let alone distributed, but people still insist they can visualise the logo with the "e".

Another common example is of "Tank Man", one of the most iconic symbols of the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989.

Many theorists claim the protester who stood in front of the tanks was run over by them. They insist they were taught this in school, saw it in textbooks, watched the footage and can still visualise it perfectly according to their memory.

Yet the man was never run over. While it's unknown whether he went into hiding or was executed by authorities in the aftermath of the protest, he was definitely not run over by the tanks themselves.

There are plenty more examples that have people scratching their heads.

Kit Kat doesn't have a dash in its logo. Never has and never will.

Curious George has never had a tail.

Oh, and what about this popular sugary breakfast cereal below? Which version is real, and which is Photoshopped?

The version on the left is fake.

And in Silence Of The Lambs, Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins) never actually says "Hello, Clarice," even though it's one of the movie's most "iconic" lines.
SO WHAT'S THE EXPLANATION?
Some of the examples above have a more logical explanation.

For example, "Luke, I am your father," is frequently quoted in popular culture. Even if you haven't watched the Star Wars series, you still know that quote.

It's been pointed out that people would have substituted "No" with "Luke" in order to keep the context in place when quoting it. If you just went around saying, "No, I am your father," you'd potentially sound like a bloody weirdo, or a runaway guest from The Maury Povich Show.

Similarly, a misconception that the United States has 52 states has been likened to the Mandela Effect. This more likely stems from the mistaken belief that Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia are additional states.

When it comes to symbols, like the "F" in "Ford" or the Fruit Loops logo, the most likely explanation is that our brains don't always register tinier details in everyday objects.

Therefore, we can't remember when said detail is pointed out to us, and we assume it must have never existed in the first place.

In 1978, a famous psychologist named Elizabeth Loftus conducted "The Misinformation Effect", a study which found one's recollection of memories can be distorted by subsequent information.

Loftus said: "The misinformation effect refers to the impairment in memory for the past that arises after exposure to misleading information."

In other words, if someone says or implies that something looks a certain way, there's a natural tendency to believe them if you've never paid close attention to it.

In some cases, the misleading information can actually overwrite one's original memory, if it's presented in a way that makes it seem more plausible.

Well, that or Broome is correct, and we're all part of a complex colliding time travel loop.

Be afraid of that. Be very afraid.

Follow @GavinDFernando

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Does this picture look a bit off to you?

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"LUKE, I am your father." If you asked someone to quote any line from the Star Wars series, that's the main one you'd hear in response. Hell, it's one of the most iconic lines in film history. But here's an earth-shattering fact: that line was never uttered in any of the movies.

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By Beth Hyduke

"The Mandela Effect" is the name given to apparent anomalies in which people's memories of some particular historical fact, person(s), event, or occurrence corroborate with each other but diverge from reality. In an attempt to explain this phenomena, writer and "paranormal consultant" Fiona Broome coined the term which refers to a false memory of a group of people who insist that they vividly remember Nelson Mandela dying in a prison cell in the 1980's. (Mandela actually died in 2013 at his home in Johannesburg.) Broome theorizes that such anomalies are evidence that alternate, parallel universes exist in a state of continuous flux, frequently causing our timeline and reality to converge with alternate timelines and realities. The Mandela Effect hypothesizes that whenever a significant number of people all share a similar false memory it indicates that the event is "related to alternate history and parallel realities."

One anomaly Broome lists on her website Mandelaeffect.com is that many people recall a series of children's books called "The Berenstein Bears," and are disturbed to learn that the Bear Family is not "The Beren steins" as they seem to remember, but instead "The Beren stains." Because so many people remember the Berenstein Bears but few remember the alternative spelling of their names as Berenstain, Broome's theory hypothesizes that the discrepancy is proof of an alternate reality in which the Berenstain Bears have replaced the former Berenstein Bears that most of us knew and loved.

Before we even get to moral ramifications of multiple, parallel universes (covered here in GQ's article"What Is the Multiverse Theory?"), common sense should raise some red flags with Broome's theories on alternate memories being apparent indicators of alternate realities. There are, in fact, many reasonable explanations for the phenomena of groups of people mistakenly remembering something a certain way only to later learn that the reality is different from what they remembered. Exposed to interfering or conflicting information, memories can change or become distorted over time. Understanding this, police and prosecutors go to great lengths to keep the integrity of a witness' testimony intact and free from corruption and influence by outside reports, information, and speculation.

One of the inherent flaws of the Mandela Effect is that information passed on by other human beings, whether it's seen or read or told to us, is not always true, factual, or credible. In fact, it frequently isn't. A few weeks ago, I was watching the 5 o'clock news on our local news station which was following a breaking story about a police officer who had been injured in the line of duty. Eager to disseminate the details, the local station first reported that though he had been shot at while questioning a suspect, the officer was alive and being treated for minor injuries at the hospital. During the 6 o'clock news, the story had changed to report that the officer had, in fact, been shot multiple times while serving a warrant and was in critical condition. Later that evening, when the chief of police gave his press briefing at 8 pm, the accurate details finally and tragically emerged. The police officer had been shot twice as he was in pursuit of a suspect, and he had succumbed to his injuries and died at the scene.

The Mandela Effect is proof that human spread misinformation, not that we live in a multiverse.

If someone had tuned in at 5 o'clock and only caught the first round of reporting on this story, they would have come away assuming a very different (and happier) outcome than the person who followed the story through its third revision. Both of these viewers would have a very different memory of the same event in reality, not because the reality was tampered with but because the handling and coverage of it contained conflicting inaccuracies. In this instance, there were multiple versions of a story that purported all along to be factual and credible, but there was only one account that actually was factual and credible. Five o'clock viewers, basing their information on the only report they saw, would collectively and legitimately recall that the officer survived his injuries while 8 o'clock viewers would collectively and legitimately recall that he had died from them. But conflicting memories of this single event from a significant number of viewers do not indicate the existence of alternate histories and parallel realities as Broome has suggested. What it indicates is bad reporting.

Sometimes we're given information that is incorrect or inaccurate. At the time, we might assume that it is true. If it turns out later that what we thought we knew was true isn't true at all, and if enough people have received the same misinformation, it is possible that multiple people would be quite flabbergasted upon learning that a memory - even a long-held memory, even a cherished childhood memory - could be entirely fictitious.

In the case of the Berenstein - I mean Beren stain Bears - a plausible explanation is as simple as common word association and spelling conventions. Berenstain is an unusual and awkward name, whereas a child's mind would immediately gravitate towards Berenstein, associating it with other common and familiar "stein" names like Einstein, Ben Stein, and Frankenstein. Additionally, in my experience, teachers, librarians, and parents around the world tend to universally pronounce the name incorrectly, and that mispronunciation by trusted authority figures reinforces the mistaken belief that the Bears are eins not ains. Furthermore, as adults, we tend to autocorrect words we interpret as misspelled. Cognitive neuroscientists studying how we interpret written words have found that it doesn't matter what order letters take within a given word as long as the first and last letter of the word remain intact and in the respective places. So, in our minds, as we read a bedtime story, Berenstain gets autocorrected to the preferable, and more familiar, Berenstein before we even notice the spelling discrepancy, and so until someone points it out, the error is perpetuated. Consequently, it is a perfectly reasonable assumption to suggest that the Bears have been The Berenstains since 1962 when Stan and Jan Berenstain created them, and that our umbrage is simply a product of the firing and misfiring of our finite brains, our incomplete know ledge, and memories which are faulty and prone to inaccuracy. In the end analysis, the Mandela Effect is proof not that other realities exist but that in our reality, we would often prefer to believe that the entire universe must be wrong rather than admit that we ourselves are massively capable of, and prone to, error.

Image Credit: James Morrison;"Cameo Mirrors"; Creative Commons

Tags: Controversial-Issues | False-Teaching | Science-Creation

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By Beth Hyduke "The Mandela Effect" is the name given to apparent anomalies in which people's memories of some particular historical fact, person(s), event, or occurrence corroborate with each other but diverge from reality.

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explains the parallel universe theory

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how the popularity has increased

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proof of the show being called something else

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an example of how people remember the spelling being different

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-provides multiple theories on what it is

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The Mandela effect is the pseudoscientific belief that some differences between one's memories and the real world are caused by changes to past events in the timeline. Many Mandela effect believers believe it is caused by accidental travel between alternate universes, although some others propose that history has been deliberately altered after the fact by malicious extradimensional beings within the same timeline.

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-what the mandela effect is
-scientific explanations

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Human memory is a peculiar thing, at once astonishing in its scope and power and dismaying in its fallibility. There's much we don't know about how memory works, but suffice it to say it isn't perfect. Particularly vexing is the phenomenon of false memories, erroneous or unconsciously fabricated recollections of past events that feel so real and true that people who experience them refuse to accept evidence to the contrary.

Psychologists call the phenomenon confabulation. The term is used clinically to refer to memory defects experienced by patients with brain damage, and also to describe everyday phenomena like embellishing the truth when recounting events and inventing facts on the fly to fill in gaps in memory. We've all done these things at one time or another, though we're rarely conscious of it when we do.
When Did Nelson Mandela Die?
One type of memory glitch that has generated a lot of Internet buzz in recent years is called the "Mandela Effect." In simplest terms, the Mandela Effect is an instance of collective misremembering. Examples include lines from famous movies that everyone gets wrong (e.g., Humphrey Bogart's saying "Play it again, Sam" in Casablanca), erroneous dates and numbers (apparently many people answer "52" when asked how many states there are in the U.S.), and historical misconceptions (are you among those who recall learning in school that cotton gin inventor Eli Whitney was black?).

The term "Mandela Effect" was coined by self-described "paranormal consultant" Fiona Broome, who has written on her web site that she first became aware of the phenomenon after discovering that she shared a particular false memory - that South African human rights activist and president Nelson Mandela died in prison during the 1980s (he actually died in 2013) - with many other people. Then she began noticing other examples:

One of the most recent and prevalent is the death of Billy Graham. Though some claim that people are confusing that with Mr. Graham's retirement, or perhaps the televised funeral of Mr. Graham's wife, those who clearly remember the events disagree heartily.

Many people recall a painted portrait of Henry VIII holding a turkey leg in one hand.

It's among my memories, too. It was a classic painting of Henry VIII, in the Holbein style (at right), but Henry is shown enjoying a hearty meal. I recall something that looked like a turkey leg in one hand. (I thought it was his left hand - on the right side of the canvas - but I may be wrong.)

... Apparently, the "turkey leg" portrait doesn't exist. It never did... not in this timestream, anyway.

Do you recall the fast food chain as McDonald's or MacDonald's?

This is an especially odd alternate memory, since the "golden arches" are such a familiar symbol, most Americans can describe the brand icon, Ronald McDonald, without having to look him up, online, and so on.

History in this reality: The original restaurant was started in 1940 by Dick and "Mac" McDonald. The restaurant was always McDonald's.

"These aren't simple errors in memory," Broome observed (rightly or wrongly). "They exceed the normal range of forgetfulness. Even stranger, other people seem to have identical memories. "
The Berenstain/Berenstein Bears
No single example of the Mandela Effect has generated more online buzz than that of the children's book series and animated TV show The Berenstain Bears. Quite a few people who grew up with the series, it turns out, remember the title being The Berenstein Bears,with the name ending in "ein" instead of "ain" (with some even going to go so far as to maintain that the fictional bears' surname was changed along the way to make it "less Jewish"):

A page on Broome's web site cites a number of testimonials:

I too clearly remember it as 'Berenstein' even though I never read the books. Why would anyone change that? Seems irrelevant.

Does anyone remember the Berenstein Bears? I do. Although somewhere along the line the name has changed to the Berenstain Bears. No record of "stein" which is definitely how it was when i was younger. No question about it.

I would like to say that I VERY CLEARLY remember "Berenstain Bears" being Berenstein Bears. I very specifically remember it being pronounced "STEIN" on the show.

Didn't it used to be the Berenstein Bears? Now, suddenly it's the Berenstain bears? Is this some sort of anti-semitic cover-up? Or have those of us who grew up in the 1980's been misinformed, misread, and mispronounced?

Clearly, something of interest is going on here, but what? How to explain the fact that many different people can share the same false memory? This, unfortunately, is where much of the Internet discussion on the topic veers into woo-woo territory.
Parallel Universes and Virtual Realities
One theory based on principles of quantum mechanics holds that people who experience the Mandela Effect may have "slid" between parallel realities (à la the science fiction TV series ). After growing up in a universe where it was "Berenstein" Bears, for example, some people one day woke up to find themselves in an alternate universe with "Berenstain" Bears.

Another theory posits that unbeknownst to ourselves, we all exist within something resembling a " holodeck" (a device in the world of the Star Trek series that creates a virtual reality experience for recreational purposes). On this model, apparent memory glitches are actually software glitches that cause inconsistencies in our perception of reality. Can you prove this isn't the case?

There's nothing inherently wrong with this sort of speculation - it's fun, in fact - but it yields no practical explanation or testable hypotheses. Nor is it necessary. We don't have to conduct thought experiments about the ultimate nature of reality to explain why we misremember things - or even why we misremember some of the same things the same way.
The Glitch Is in Your Memory, Not the Matrix
A leading psychological theory holds that memory is constructive, not reproductive - i.e., the brain builds memories out of various bits and pieces of information on the fly as opposed to playing them back like a recording. Memories aren't pure. They can be distorted by any number of factors, including bias, association, imagination, and peer pressure.

Getting back to the Berenstain vs. Berenstein quandary, one explanation for the variant spelling is that names ending in "stein" are far more common than those ending in "stain." People's recollections are distorted by prior associations and expectations.

Why do some people remember Nelson Mandela dying 30 years before he did? Perhaps it's simply a case of two isolated bits of knowledge - that Nelson Mandela spent a long time in prison and that he's dead - being pieced together into a false memory in the absence of an actual recollection of the announcement of his death.

Memory is fallible - have we said this enough? The list of psychological and social factors that can disrupt and distort recollection is very long indeed. It's to these we should look first for an explanation of the Mandela Effect.

For more, see " The Seven Sins of Memory" by cognitive scientist Daniel Schachter and the list of common explanations for the Mandela Effect on the Debunking Mandela Effects web site.

Beck, Taylor. "Making Sense of Memory."
Harvard Gazette. 16 August 2012.

Broome, Fiona. "Nelson Mandela Died in Prison?"
Mandela Effect. 9 September 2010.

Broome, Fiona. "Theories."
Mandela Effect.

"Common Explanations."
Debunking Mandela Effects.

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Human memory is a peculiar thing, at once astonishing in its scope and power and dismaying in its fallibility. There's much we don't know about how memory works, but suffice it to say it isn't perfect.

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-what the mandela effect is
- theories on what could be causing it

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The Mandela Effect is evidence that you may have experienced events from a different reality. Finding others with similar memories can affirm that.

This website is where those conversations started.

Since that start in 2009, the Mandela Effect community has grown to hundreds of thousands of people.

We may have many differences - and different opinions - but what connects us are those extraordinary memories. I believe they're something to embrace and celebrate.

The "Mandela Effect" is what happens when someone has a clear memory of something that never happened in this reality.

Many of us - mostly total strangers - remember the exact same events with the exact same details. However, our memories are different from what's in history books, newspaper archives, and so on.

This isn't a conspiracy, and we're not talking about "false memories." Many of us speculate that parallel realities exist, and - until now - we've been "sliding" between them without realizing it.

(Others favor the idea that we're each enjoying holodeck experiences, possibly with some programming glitches. In my opinion, these aren't mutually exclusive.)

This website is about real, alternate history and possible explanations for this phenomenon.

Related pages: Memories - Theories - FAQs - Sitemap

Fiona Broome (that's me) began this website in 2009. Our original conversations were in that grey area between speculation and sci-fi. It was fun. We were talking in "what if...?" terms.

Then, new comments cast the Mandela Effect in a slightly different light. It became more serious.

From there, the topic has taken on a life of its own. You'll find it discussed at Reddit, YouTube, on TV and radio shows, and across the Internet.
Timeline
2009: Encouraged by one of my book editors, I started this website. A few people commented. Others emailed me with their insights. Most of the conversations were light, and related to sci-fi concepts and unusual memories.

2010 - 2014: People began reporting memories other than Nelson Mandela's death in the 20th century. Visitors shared anecdotes and informal theories. Generally, we didn't take ourselves too seriously.

2015: This topic abruptly reached critical mass. The Berenstein/Berenstain subject went viral, followed by other widespread alternate memories.

Visitors were astonished to learn about others' memories with astonishingly similar details and points of reference by multiple, unconnected people.

However, a few trolls and spammers joined the discussions. When that was clear, I usually deleted their comments. (Sometimes, I replied, making it clear that I was not amused by their efforts.)

Mostly, I encouraged people to share their own memories and theories. I've never felt equipped to decide if someone's reported memories were true, confusions, or something else.

I'm sure that some "fake" comments appear on this site. That was inevitable, once the topic began to trend.

2016: By mid-2016, moderating comments required six or more hours per day. I didn't have that kind of free time. (I still don't.) So, I closed this site to new comments, except for immediate replies to the very newest articles.

Since then, some great websites have provided forums for related discussions. Mandela Effect discussions are in the wild.

2018: I've been exploring patterns in the earliest Mandela Effect reports, and - so far - the scant credible (and consistent) data isn't producing enough useful conclusions. In addition, my professional studies relate to other fields, and occupy most of my workday.

I encourage others to compare notes and see if they find more (and better) Mandela Effect synchronicities and patterns than I have. If you do, please share them with others. This community have a wealth of unanswered questions about this topic.
A little more background
Many years ago, I was one of the people who coined the phrase "Mandela Effect" during a fun, slighly frivolous conversation in Dragon Con 's "green room."

("Shadow," a Dragon Con security manager, was also part of the conversation. I have no idea which of us started using the phrase, first. And, it's possible that my husband actually came up with the phrase.)

As an aside, Shadow mentioned that - like me - other people remembered Nelson Mandela's tragic death in a South African prison, prior to late 2009. (In this reality, Mandela died in 2013.)

Suddenly, several others in the green room joined the conversation. It was a fascinating discussion that spun into weird and hilarious tangents.

After I returned home, one of my book editors encouraged me to start a website about the Mandela Effect, to measure public interest in it.

Since then, this topic has turned into something much bigger. I'm still astonished by that.

Here's my brief bio...

Fiona Broome is intrigued by unexplained phenomena in everyday life. She uses books, videos, podcasts, and websites to share ways you can encounter "the unknown" on your own, and with others who share your enthusiasm.

Fiona has been researching - and writing about - paranormal phenomena since the early 1980s. In the 1990s, her ghost-related website, HollowHill.com, was one of the first online resources for new and experienced ghost hunters.

In late 2017, Fiona started Hallowfields.com, where she's updating her free ghost hunting course, and plans to add more as time permits. She's also expanding her Fiona Broome YouTube Channel.

Ms. Broome has written over 1,000 articles for magazines and websites, describing baffling anomalies, patterns, and mysteries. Discussing paranormal topics, she's been a guest on many radio and TV shows.

For many years, Fiona has been a speaker at international events including Dragon Con, the New England Ghost Conference, GhoStock, Central Texas Paranormal Conference, and Canada's annual G.H.O.S.T.S. conferences.

Today, Fiona is semi-retired. She continues to enjoy research & writing, as well as her hobbies... including the Mandela Effect.

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The Mandela Effect is evidence that you may have experienced events from a different reality. Finding others with similar memories can affirm that. This website is where those conversations started. Since that start in 2009, the Mandela Effect community has grown to hundreds of thousands of people.