I don’t usually indulge in clickbait, but this video got my attention, and I’m glad I watched it. This is a somewhat different spin on parallel realities and how they might work (or we might be able to navigate them).
I’m not sure that his advice will work, but his past experiences intrigued me. He clearly remembers sliding from one reality to another… and more than once.
What do we have in common?
I’ve always been interested in what connects those of us with Mandela Effect memories… if ANYthing does.
Sure, early in this research, I used comment IPs to see if there were any patterns to where reports were made.
I didn’t see many connections, but did research where some odd and alternate events took place. (For example, the coincidence of some odd Las Vegas events seemed outside the odds… no gambling-related pun intended.)
By 2015, I was checking locations again, this time for regional media influences. I wondered if any alternate memories reflected errors by local newspapers, magazines, and TV shows, that might have confused people.
I couldn’t find any consistencies there, either. For example, the Ghost Hunters / TAPS issue didn’t show many patterns. (I’m still amused, remembering how stern “Ghost Hunters” star Jason Hawes seemed, when I asked him about this. By contrast, his co-star Grant Wilson appeared intrigued.)
But anyway…
I’ve been thinking about how I recall Nelson Mandela’s 20th century funeral, with very visual references.
I also recall the Berenstein/Berenstain Bears topic in visual terms. That is, in my mind’s eye, I “see” the book covers saying “Berenstein.”
Do others recall things visually, as well? Or in different ways?
How do you recall your Mandela Effect memories? That is, do you have a visual memory, or do you revisit that memory and hear whatever-it-is said… or both, or is the content of your memory very different?
And are those sensory connections consistent across your Mandela Effect memories? Or, do you “hear” some and “see” others, and so on?
[Comments are now closed.]
This morning, catching up on Mandela Effect reports, I stumbled onto a series of Mandela Effects that fascinate me.
This resonated because I have a very visual memory.
For example, when I talk about the late 1980’s funeral I’d thought was Mandela’s, I usually describe:
So, when I discovered artist Jaime Leigh’s Mandela Effect posts, I was intrigued. Jaime has found multiple famous works of art that seem to have changed.
Take a look at them, and let me know what you recall about them… And any other artwork that’s seemed oddly different.
Overnight, revisiting the Mandela Effect and what happened to it when it went viral, led me to an “ah-HA!” moment.
Here’s what started this, yesterday:
In real life, I rarely mention the Mandela Effect to anyone. Even if I hear snippets of conversation about the topic, I don’t join in.
Why…? Because I’m so disappointed by the controversy created by those who want to label every bit of the Mandela Effect as “false memories.”
I miss the fun of our early conversations. Around 2012, when the topic went viral, and then mainstream…? Everything seemed to change.
The “what if…?” conversations started to diminish. Skeptics and trolls showed up.
By 2016, I had to close comments. After that, Mandela Effect conversations were so rampant on Reddit, etc., and often ridiculous, I started to lose interest.
Fast-forward to 2024, and now I’m seeing increasing interest in the Mandela Effect as supporting evidence for Many-Worlds theories.
Still, I’ve been afraid to even hope that this subject could become fun again, in the whimsical (but scientific) context where it had flourished in the early years.
Yesterday, I met Jessika, visiting nearby. On a whim, I asked her if she was familiar with the phrase “Mandela Effect.” I wanted to see if the topic had reached Canada.
After all, I’d recently seen articles about the Mandela Effect in the U.K., the Ukraine, and Germany… was it being discussed in Canada, too?
Jessika’s smile told me a lot. In fact, she seemed surprised that I’d even ask that question.
I got the idea that it may not be an everyday topic in Canada, but the Mandela Effect has certainly reached its borders.
That led me to start thinking about the recent positive comments I’ve seen on social media and in news reports, related to this topic.
So, I’m wondering…
As I’ve been dodging snarky criticism and (perhaps deliberate) misunderstandings about the topic, has this topic become fun again?
Maybe it has. If so, this site could be a place for discussions, once again. After all, this website’s archives are filled with fascinating speculation and insights. Lots of threads left to pull, and theories to explore.
Let me know how you view the Mandela Effect, and how people perceive it.
As I’d said in the very first Mandela Effect article, back in 2010, “This website explores the possibilities of parallel realities, quantum science, real-life “Sliders” experiences, and alternate history.”
Could this place become, once again, a home for future, fun discussions?
Leave a comment below!
Initially, this University of Chicago conversation, What makes something memorable (or forgettable?), intrigued me.
Of course, I raised an eyebrow at the title of the show, “Big Brains…” but I’m not sure everyone will understand that kind of humor… assuming it’s intended to be funny, of course.
(Otherwise, it’s like people boasting that they’re in Mensa. Or whatever super-high score they got on standardized tests. Sure, I understand dropping those kinds of hints if someone deliberately insults one’s intelligence, but not leading with it in a conversation.)
Then I narrowed my eyes further, as – from the start – the Mandela Effect was labeled a “false memory.”
Did the audience notice that biased, contextual nudge? In audio, it’s easy to miss something that subtle. (For those interested in this topic, this Reddit post is the tip of the iceberg.)
Despite that, one point interested me: “Surprisingly, what’s memorable is not that intuitive. So we’ve actually run experiments, testing people’s intuitions, having them guess what’s memorable, and they do very bad at guessing what they will remember…” [emphasis added]
That actually made me question how much to trust memories that I’m certain of.
But, of course, that may be exactly what was intended by that reference. Clever! (Even when I heartily disagree with someone, I’ll give a nod to subtle cues and manipulation.)
But then, where I feel that conversation really went off the rails was this, “Some of the first work on the Mandela Effect was on looking at conspiracy theories. Many people online think that the Mandela Effect is a sign that we’ve jumped dimensions…”
How are speculative theories about quantum science “conspiracy theories?” I mean, okay, if you want to label the Mandela Effect as a “false memory” issue, that’s a little annoying. But calling it a “conspiracy theory” goes far beyond the pale, as far as I’m concerned.
Oh, that’s not a new label in related, skeptical discourse.
With just a little research, you’ll see widespread designation of the Mandela Effect as a conspiracy theory.
(My personal comment: Wow. These people really don’t understand our conversations, and our very speculative context when we’re discussing what causes the Mandela Effect.)
(Let’s not tell these people about papers such as Fathoming the Mandela Effect: Deploying Reinforcement Learning to Untangle the Multiverse. It might be more than they can handle. LOL )
However, I did see a glimmer of hope for these skeptics, whether or not they’re deliberately misunderstanding the Mandela Effect.
Near the end of the show, Bainbridge said, “So another famous Mandela Effect is the Fruit of the Loom logo. One common false memory is that there’s a big cornucopia holding all of the fruits. And a lot of people have this strong false memory, even though cornucopias are very rare in real life, and when you see cornucopias, they’re usually with fall vegetables like squashes. This is an example where it’s unlikely people are just filling in from their own previous experiences with fruits.” [emphasis added]
In other words, while it’s possible (perhaps likely?) she’s suggesting contagion of false memories, it might also be an admission that – in some cases – there are no logical explanations for the Mandela Effect.
And, for now, we may have to be content with that admission.
What are your thoughts about this? Comments will be open for about a week, unless the numbers are overwhelming (or, I suppose, underwhelming).
And tell your friends, the Mandela Effect site is back, at least for now!
Yes, the Mandela Effect site is reopening, at least for now.
Here’s what’s in progress.
About a month ago, we moved the Mandela Effect archives – almost all posts and comments from before 2018 – to this hosting.
So far, it appears that there’s still interest in this topic and its origins.
Now, we’ve arranged for Premium hosting, which means this site can handle more traffic… for now.
I remember the Brazilian flag having black or at least very dark letters! I remember thinking there is an aesthetic quality to the contrast between the brighter green, yellow and blue on the one hand and the blackness of the letters saying “ordem e progresso” on the other.
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Niklas, I thought it had dark letters, too. However, since only a few friends were from Brazil, and I also had friends from Venezuela, Argentina, etc., I could be mistaken. Either way, I’ll admit that the Brazilian flag looks odd to me. https://youtu.be/IHphorzhSEw?feature=shared
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The topic — now known as the Mandela Effect — emerged in a 2009 Dragon Con conversation.
I’m Fiona Broome, and I’m the person who popularized the phrase and created the first Mandela Effect website.
Here’s what I said in my earliest posts, and the information that I added as more people shared their memories.
I thought Nelson Mandela died in prison in the late 20th century. I thought I remembered it clearly, complete with news clips of his funeral, the mourning in South Africa, some rioting in cities, and the heartfelt speech by his widow.
Then, I found out he was still alive.
At the time, my reaction was sensible. I thought, “Oh, I must have misunderstood something on the news.”
I didn’t think about it again for many years, until — in the VIP suite at Dragon Con 2009 — “Shadowe,” a member of the event’s Security team, casually mentioned that other people “remembered” when Nelson Mandela died in prison.
That caught my attention in a hurry.
Until then, I had NO idea anyone else had mistakenly thought Mandela died years earlier.
Almost immediately, I went back to my hotel room and — after talking with one of my editors — started working on what would become MandelaEffect.com.
In the weeks that followed, I shared my story at my website. And then I waited to see if anyone else remember the same events, or something that I might have mistaken for the three-day TV broadcast related to Mandela’s funeral.
One thing led to another, and — over the next year or so — I discovered a large community of people who remember the same Mandela history that I recall.
Weirder still, they were people I’d never met. Many were from countries far across the globe.
None of us could explain our misunderstanding, or why our memories were so similar.
In August 2010, I registered and formally launched MandelaEffect.com… and conversations really erupted. Almost instantly, the topic was in the wild.
After that, site visitors started sharing their other, similar “false” memories. (I’m putting “false” in quotation marks because, no, they’re not all false memories.)
Here’s my brief video about the Mandela Effect:
One of the next earliest conversations was about the death of Billy Graham. (He was alive at the time people started reporting that.)
Some claimed that people were confused, and actually recall Mr. Graham’s retirement announcement, or perhaps the televised funeral of Mr. Graham’s wife.
Those who clearly remembered the announcement and funeral coverage… Well, to put mildly, they disagreed heartily. (Billy Graham died in Feb 2018, long after his funeral was discussed on the Mandela Effect website.)
However, it’s not just deaths.
People have told me about a variety of odd conflicts between their vivid memories and the world they’re currently living in.
During Dragon*Con 2010, someone insisted that he remembered a Star Trek episode that — according to one star of the show — was never even filmed.
(This is the Star Trek episode related to Chakotay, mentioned in one of my Mandela Effect videos at YouTube.)
The person who remembered the alternate episode wasn’t weird or wild-eyed… he was a very normal person, and only referenced that episode as part of a routine conversation.
However, I was there when he heard that the episode he recalled… it never existed. He was stunned, and quickly tried to find a logical explanation for his “faulty” memory.
And then, when people discovered that there never were any “Berenstein Bears” books, and no movie included the line, “Luke, I am your father” … the Mandela Effect went viral.
These aren’t simple errors in memory; they seem to be fully-constructed incidents (or sequential events) from the past. To many of us, these seem to exceed the normal range of forgetfulness.
Even stranger, other people seem to have identical memories.
My favorite sci-fi explanations include the possibility of parallel realities, quantum science, real-life “Sliders” experiences, and alternate history.
But, of course, there is no one-size-fits-all answer to the Mandela Effect. Some — perhaps most — could be faulty memories. Some could be errors in news reports, and online pranks.
But others…?
Nobody knows, yet.
If you believed that Nelson Mandela died in prison — long before his passing (in this timestream) on 5 December 2013 — OR you have similar memories of a “different” past that’s baffling, you’re not alone.
It’s called the Mandela Effect, and you’ll find many fascinating, related reports, if you look for them.
If you’d like to read ALL of the Mandela Effect conversation threads — hundreds of comments left by courageous people sharing some of the very earliest Mandela Effect memories — they’re in books. You can read many of them, in Kindle Unlimited.
This article – but not any related comments – is available for you to share with others, under a CC-BY-NC-ND license.
You can share this URL with others, too: MandelaEffect.com
To learn more about me, Fiona Broome, you can visit my personal website, or my ghost-related YouTube channel , my Mandela Effect YouTube channel, or my ghost-related website, HollowHill.com .
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Also, if you’d rather NOT scroll through pages of comments, but just want to know how people explain the Mandela Effect, this book – a collection of ALL the related theories comments – is free to read in Kindle Unlimited.
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MOST OF THIS WEBSITE IS A 2018 CLONE OF MY MANDELA EFFECT WEBSITE, INCLUDING OVER 10,000 COMMENTS.
Yes, I’m being flippant about the Memorex reference (from an old commercial) but this headline truly worries me: Study suggests memories can be lies.
It’s not that I doubt the study or its importance. We do need to know more about how memories work.
However, I’m worried about the social cue that headline conveys.
I’m concerned that it’s compounding the “you can’t trust your memories” messages I’ve been seeing in recent years.
Psychologically speaking, internalizing that message can be tremendously destabilizing.
I hope people don’t take that study as the final word in this field. After all, doctors and scientists have gone back & forth about memories – including young children’s memories – for decades. This is just the latest breakthrough, and its relevance will be proved over time. For now, it’s startling, so it’s in national (USA) news.
And lf course, the Mandela Effect is a sub-sub-category of memories, in general. They’re anomalies we don’t fully understand… yet.
I’m posting this because it may be important to compartmentalize memories by categories. I don’t mean just two bins: the Mandela Effect, and Everything Else.
Instead, I’m talking about the myriad kinds of memories we have – how strong they are, when and where we acquired them, how they connect to one another, and so on.
Too often, I read comments and emails from people with one or two Mandela Effect memories, and they regularly close with a line like, “Am I losing my mind?” or “Am I going crazy?”
It worries me that they may be serious about those concerns: They’re worried that the memories they feel certain of… may be false, and – to them – that becomes a systemic concern. They awfulize. They wonder, “Okay, what else am I wrong about…?”
That’s not something anyone can evaluate, online. Not even me. (Yes, I’m being flippant; obviously, I’m not a mental health expert. But, I am absolutely serious about my concerns when I read news headlines that could tilt the scales dangerously, among people who are already feeling troubled.)
So, my post today is to assure you that this latest study doesn’t mean all – or any – of your memories are dangerously flawed.
I’ve already talked about the importance of fact-checking memories that don’t quite fit the world we’re in. That’s in my video, shown below.
But, having ruled out confusion, etc., I think it’s important not to internalize news stories that could be destabilizing.
Sure, if you need to talk with a professional – a doctor, for example – please do that for your peace of mind.
Meanwhile, I still say “trust your memories.” Whether their factual content is accurate or not, they came from somewhere. And that “somewhere” may have been mistaken.
If so, that’s human error. It doesn’t mean you’re losing your mind… it just means you heard whatever-it-was from someone who misspoke, or was working with flawed information (possibly through no fault of their own).
Or, yes, it could be the Mandela Effect.
Some Mandela Effect experiences might be linked to time travel.
How would that work…?
Well, you might have gone forward in time – a day, a year, or another short leap that wouldn’t seem obviously out-of-sync with present time.
Let’s say that’s what happened to those of us who remembered Nelson Mandela dying before 2013.
Maybe, staring at the TV back in 1988 (or whenever), we “slid” forward to 2013 and saw Mandela’s funeral on TV.
A blink (perhaps literally) later, we were whisked back to 1988… and went out to the kitchen for a snack from the refrigerator.
In our minds, Mandela had died. We felt sad, but knew his health had been shaky after a hunger strike in prison.
After that, each of us got caught up in school or work or other daily activities. We didn’t think anything about the funeral… until, one day, Nelson Mandela was on the TV. And he wasn’t dead.
It seemed like a “what the ____?” moment, but we figured we must have been mistaken. (That didn’t make sense, because the memory was so clear, but… well, what other explanation could there be?)
And then, in 2009 or so, we discovered that others remembered Mandela’s earlier death. Many of them remembered the exact same details as we did, too. (Cue the “Twilight Zone” music? That’s how it felt, to me.)
And sure, you could use this same scenario for memories like the Berenstain/Berenstein Bears, Jif/Jiffy peanut butter, the number of US states, and so on.
All of them could be explained as time travel so brief, we didn’t even notice it. (Okay, some alternate history memories fit that concept better than others. I still resist the idea that the Mandela Effect has a one-size-fits-all explanation.)
Anyway… today, I was reading a Higgypop article about serious scientists working on time travel. It’s fascinating. For me, one quote from Professor Tamara Davis stood out:
Tamara told the BBC, “something out there is having an anti-gravity effect, it’s pushing rather than pulling. We don’t know what that is, but it makes up most of the Universe. We call it dark energy.”
“By understanding this mysterious energy, we could be a step closer to time travel. It’s thought that dark energy may be the key to manipulating a wormhole and taking advantage of its route to another point in time.”
I was also intrigued by a reference by Johannes Handsteiner, talking about quantum entanglement.
Einstein, who hated the notion, called this “spooky action at a distance” and defined it as two particles behaving as one no matter how far apart they are.
Those are just a few interesting tidbits from that article. As a Mandela Effect researcher – and, like you, someone fascinated by possible explanations – I recommend reading it.
If you’re a time travel enthusiast, watch this short video. (If you’re confused, don’t worry. I kept pausing it and rewinding it, saying, “Wait, what…?” LOL)
In general, I haven’t a clue what’s causing the Mandela Effect. Time travel is as good a guess as any, and it’s among my favorites. (You may have better explanations. I’m constantly impressed by the theories that readers suggest.)
The Higgypop article sparked my interest, as some of its ideas were new to me.
Especially since the recent X-Files episode about the Mandela Effect, many people have asked me just what it is.
I hope this video explains the important points – what it is, where the phrase started, and what makes the Mandela Effect different, compared with other paranormal topics.
Mandela Effect 
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