Do you remember the cute family of bears that appeared in
children’s books and on their own television show in the 80’s, usually teaching
their audience moral lessons. The Berenstein Bears, right? A growing number of
people believe we as a population somehow slipped through a glitch in the
matrix into a parallel dimension, with small changes to reality being apparent. One such change is the cute family of bears,
whom current history shows were called the BerenSTAIN Bears. I know one letter isn’t that much of a
difference, but in this case it completely changes the pronunciation of the
name. Growing up my brother and I were Berenstain
Bear fans, regularly watching the cartoon, and owning several books. I even had the little action figures and the
house they lived in. I was an avid
reader, and cannot imagine how I read all those books and never noticed I, along
with everyone I knew, was pronouncing the name wrong.
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| Seems The Simpsons folks remember Berenstein Bears as well |
This mispronunciation was brought to my attention by my
brother, who learned of it while reading about the Mandela Effect. Have you ever heard a news report of some
public figure’s death, only to think, ‘hmmm, I thought they had died years ago,’?
Online forums on sites such as Reddit.com are filled with comments from users
who were bewildered to learn of Nelson Mandela’s passing in 2013, because they
clearly remembered him dying while he was imprisoned in South Africa decades
ago. Some fringe believers assert that our timestream has somehow blended into
another, perhaps of a parallel dimension similar to our own, resulting in the
occasional glitch where histories don’t match up.
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| Mandela in prison |
Another oft cited example of the phenomena is the outcome of
the ‘Tank Man’ incident in Tiananmen Square, China. The iconic photo below is known the world
over, but what happened to the brave guy who stood up to the tanks? The answer
from the timestream that I’m familiar with is that no one actually knows what
happened to him, but that he walked away from the standoff. It seems, however, that a large number of
people recall seeing video footage of the tanks rolling over the protestor and
killing him gruesomely. The graphic
images made for vivid memories for those who swear they saw the footage.
The phenomena referred to as the Mandela Effect was a theory
brought forth by writer Fiona Broome. Discussing her memory of Mandela dying
decades ago with others backstage at DragonCon, Broome realized she was not
alone in those memories. Her website features discussions on numerous examples of real-life alternate
histories.
I’m sure by now you’ve thought, ‘these people just
remembered these things wrong.’ The
human memory is a tricky thing, with complex chemical processes involved in
storing information in the brain. It is
odd, however, that so many people have the exact same ‘false memories.’ We
could almost chalk the whole Mandela Effect theory up to tinfoil hat
enthusiasts having a little fun, if it wasn’t for the Berenstain Bear
thing. I’m positive the books I read
were Berenstein, and that glitch makes me wonder if somehow these people who
remember historic events differently may have experienced some sort of
timeslip.
Most of us believe Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed in
1968 outside a hotel in Memphis, TN.
Part of the population may have caught a glimpse of a parallel world
with an alternate timeline, because they remember him being shot by a handgun
at close range. King was actually killed
by a sniper shot by James Earl Ray, or so they would have us believe
(another conspiracy for another blog).
The Mandela Effect is not limited to historical events. There are many people who remember being
taught to spell the word ‘dilemma’ with a N: dilemna. ‘Definitely’ is another such word, with many
folks remembering an A in the middle, ‘Definately,' and ‘Parmesan’ as ‘Parmesean’
(which includes me).
As a matter of fact, all areas of memory are subject to the
Mandela Effect. When I heard ‘chartreuse’
a dark maroon color came to mind.
Imagine my surprise when I found out it is actually a bright neon
green. It seems I wasn’t alone in
thinking of a maroon color, as many users commented on a thread about the
subject. Some neighsayers wanted to
point to word association, saying we were confusing chartreuse with chardonnay,
which is a deep red, but I can attest that wasn’t the case. Then there is the paradox argument of how do
we know colors look the same to other people, but that’s a whole other
tangent.
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| Maroon and actual Chartreuse |
There are entire websites dedicated to humorous
misunderstood song lyrics; a lot of people think Jimi Hendrix said, “Excuse me
while I kiss this guy,” in "Purple Haze."
That’s not the case with Outkast’s “Ms. Jackson.” While reading about the Mandela Effect I
learned the song says, “I apologize a trillion times.” I remember jamming out to this song back in
college and singing “I apologize a THOUSAND times.” Apparently so did many others reddit
users. It would seem that sometime since
the song was on the Top 40 charts, a timeslip occurred or we meshed with
another parallel reality where Andre 3000 and Big Boi apologized a trillion
times. I had to go back and listen to
this song to believe they didn’t say a thousand times, like I remembered.
This phenomena is also known as the “Alive Again Effect,”
with people clearly remembering the deaths of people, to find out later they
are alive or learn years later they have actually died (again?). There are people who remember Henry Winkler passing
away while Happy Days was still being filmed and the show dealing with the loss
of the Fonz. Neil Armstrong, Jane
Goodall, Ed Asner, and Mohammed Ali are among those still living that many
people have memories of reports of their deaths. Some people remember the
televised funeral of the Reverend Billy Graham, although he’s still among us
today. A lot of people were shocked to learn of the
death of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, because they were sure he had already been
dead for years. The same was true with Bea
Arthur, Walter Cronkite, Jack Palance, and Larry Hagman. Instead of remembering a false death, it
seems that several people remember Patrick Swayze making a full recovery in
2009 after battling cancer. In our
current timestream, he passed away.
A strange example of the Mandela Effect we found on forums
is a large number of people who remember the Syfy show Ghost Hunters originally being called TAPS. The acronym TAPS is
the name of the group featured on the show, The Atlantic Paranormal Society. All evidence (in this timestream) says the
show was never called TAPS, although
one user even recalled the lead investigators Jason Hawes and Grant Wilson
having a conversation during an early episode about the name change.
The pop star we know as Katy Perry seems to have chosen the
stage name Kate Perry in an alternate dimension, that some people must have
slipped into. Forum users were visibly
shocked to learn that early in her career Katy didn’t use the name Kate, as
they clearly remember reading and hearing.
A very large number of people recall a portrait of Henry
VIII in textbooks and on documentaries, featuring him holding a turkey leg in
his hand. Skeptics argue they have
confused the well-known portrait below with a caricature in an early cartoon,
but believers do not accept that. There
does seem to be something clutched in his hand, but it’s obviously not the
turkey leg that I, too, recall seeing.
Another aspect of the Mandela Effect has more geographical
implications on different timestreams.
The locations and size of Scotland and Wells are remembered differently
than they appear on our current maps.
New Zealand is also often remembered as having a significantly different
location.
Is the Mandela Effect simply a lot of false memories getting
together on the internet, or something more? String Theory, with its
multiverses, could explain how one reality could slip into another. Actually,
String Theory and M-Theory could possibly explain away every paranormal event
ever described, but that’s another blog as well (or perhaps a book one
day). If the universe is vibrating,
perhaps examples of the Mandela Effect are some kind of cosmic feedback. We would write all these examples and the
many others out there off as false memories, if it weren’t for the Berenstain
Bears. I was always big on spelling and
grammar, and I am sure I would have noticed the difference at some point. If you have experienced any of these types of
memories, or have your own examples, please let us know!
Links of Interest:
Buzzfeed article on Mandela Effect with a lot of examples
