I just stumbled upon this conspiracy and I can’t believe I didn’t find it sooner because it’s a good one. The Mandela Effect is a term given to a recent revelation by people that their memories are not correct…at least not in this timeline. The term comes from researcher Fiona Broome who discovered this situation when she was at a conference and talking to friends–all of which had the same memory that Nelson Mandela had died in prison in the 80’s. Yet in this timeline Mandela died on December 5th, 2013.
I have been really enthralled reading people’s personal comments about their memories of these events. So in this post I want to share comments from people on how and why they are certain they are not mis-remembering events. The evidence is compelling.
First some comments on Mandela’s death (but don’t worry there are so many more amazing examples of this anomaly)….From Fiona’s blog on the Mandela Effect.
“Both my wife and I remember Nelson Mandela dying in prison. Included in this memory are the funeral snippets on TV and a legal flap over book rights involving his Widow.”
And this one from someone else,
“I could not remember the time period, but do remember my Dad and I watching the evening news when it was reporting on Mandela’s death. I remember it because I remember my Dad’s opinion of him, that he was not a great man, but a communist. My Dad kept up on things.”
And this guy even had a current events school report that he wrote about Mandela’s death.
“I haven’t thought about this in a while , but last week I was going through some boxes @ my Dads home and found some of my old notebooks and it contains a copy of the current event that I turned in the week ending on March 11 , 1983 . My report was only detailed about his death in prison and that he had been sick for a while . It focused on how the country of South Africa was pulled together due to his passing . I did not write the Actual date of his death , but I assume it was earlier that week . We had to turn a current event summary in Every Friday about something that happened that week for my Economics class”.
I remember currents events! I had to do do those reports too in the 80s in elementary school.
And another…
“I was in grade 4 in 1997 when I learned nelson Mandela was dead. It was black history month.
My confusion later in life when I heard about him in the news, I was baffled that I believed for so long and so surely he already died”.
And another….
“The same exact thing happened to me! It was black history month in middle school several of my classmates covered Mandela however one even brought in old laminated news clippings that their parents had saved, I was able to read these with my own two eyes…”
These comments are addicting. They go on and on. I mean it’s not like it was just some passing thing, these people connected the memory of his death with something very personal and it’s hard to imagine this many people are this deluded about their past.
Ok, so more on Mandela later, but let’s talk about some other examples.
Personally, I was shocked when a few years ago I saw a design show talking about the color chartreuse and showing it as a greenish-yellow color. I was blown away because I have always known chartreuse as a maroonish color.
At the time I just wrote it off without an explanation. Other strange revelations followed. For example the word dilemma. I always had a hard time spelling this word so I had to teach myself the word by saying it phonetically because I learned it as being spelled “dilemna”. I was shocked recently when spell check kept correcting “dilemna” and spelling it “dilemma”. Same with the word “definitely”.
I learned that word was “definately” with an “a” and had a very hard term getting it right. So I did the same thing…started pronouncing it in my head as “defi-NATE-ly”.
Shocked again when semi-recently spell check was correcting me.
Now I know people will say “you just learned it wrong”, but this means my elementary, Junior High AND High School were all teaching these words wrong.
So anyhow I have been noticing weird anomalies like this for years but never connected them. When I stumbled upon the other examples I flipped.
This should really be called the “WHAAT THE ,WHAAT THE, WHAAT??!! effect.”
Here is a list of some of them.
1. 51 or 52 United States — I distinctly remember being taught that it was either Alaska or Hawaii that became the 51st state and the explanation in school was…there were 50 states for a very long time until the 1950s when we added them. I don’t recall the order that Hawaii and Alaska became states, I just recall that they pushed us over the 50 states number.
2. Berenstain Bears or Berenstein Bears – WHAAAT??!!!
Here is an interesting comment from someone,
“I am still struck by the coincidence of a Dr. David Berenstein, he is a Columbian theoretical physics professor. He is a co-author of the “Matrix Theory”. He teaches at University of California Santa Barbara. In my search for “answers” to whatever “this” or “it” is over the years, and do believe something is going on, his name has come up a couple of times. Very interesting person, coincidence? I do not know, check out his Wikipedia page though. Mike”
3. Billy Graham’s funeral on TV. I distinctly remember Billy Graham dying and the news interviewing his son about his father’s legacy, but as of 2016, he’s still alive at the age of 97!!!.
4. Richard Chamberlain is still alive!!!!
I vividly remember the entertainment media covering his death like this person….
“I still think it’s weird that I was over at my parents house sometime in the last 5 or 6 years and watched coverage of Richard Chamberlain’s funeral, with all the talk about “Thorn Birds” etc., when most people who remember him dying remember it the 80’s. Yet I don’t remember seeing any image of him as an older man when I watched it. And that afternoon is so strangely clear in my head – hyper-realistic – I was aware of the sunshine in the room and of being alive – it’s hard to explain – yet my mom who was watching with me doesn’t remember it.”
Here is a comment from the Reddit thread,
“I was reading elsewhere online about glitchy happenings and saw Richard Chamberlain was still living, much to the surprise of a few people in the discussion including myself. I very distinctly remember him dying a few years ago, because like a lot of women her age my mom was a big fan of him and the miniseries The Thorn Birds. I was also a fan of that movie and a couple of other things he’d been in. The man was absolutely dead. I’d swear it. But no, according to countless sources I’ve checked, he’s still very much alive and kicking.”
5. Jif or Jiffy Peanut Butter – Jif peanut butter was never called “Jiffy,” in this time stream. I for sure remember Jiffy.
6. Mother Teresa – A sainthood. A lot of people are certain on this one as well. It was a big deal because she was sainted before death. Numerous people recall her canonization in the 1990s and that her name was spelled “Theresa.”
Here is an interesting comment on her,
“I can say without a shadow of a doubt that she was sainted years ago.
I’m a young guy who grew up in a staunchly catholic country (Ireland) and many times I heard about “Saint Mother Theresa”, and it was Theresa not Teresa.
As other people have said, it was a big deal because she was alive at the time.
This phenomenon is really picking up pace!”
7. New Zealand’s location, relative to Australia.
8. Red/blue – Pepsi logo changes, Chevron logo changes, and other color swaps.
9. Tiananmen Square – Memories of a young man being run over by a tank.
10. The Volvo symbol has changed. This one is especially bizarre. Here’s a good comment explaining it,
“I’ve always been the car guy. I do all my own maintenance. I’ve rebuilt motors. I’m doing a motor swap. I’ve never owned a vehicle that wasn’t quickly modified for performance. My daily driver does 12s in the quarter mile. I’m been an active member on probably 20 different car forums. I know cars.
I’ve always been a fan of German cars, including Volvos, and I’ve helped my buddies mod them. I lowered my friends s40 in my back driveway. I’ve always given the german car people a little shit for “bad wiring”, but then dropped that german car makers have the best emblem designs. Specifically, that they all have perfect circular badges that look awesome.
And now, I find out that Volvos symbol is not a perfect circle with a bar inside – but a freaking male gender symbol. And despite many questions out there on the internet asking why they changed it – it’s actually been that way for 85 years. +1 ME for me.
Somehow, I’ve missed that fact for the past 30+ years and I could have been giving my volvo friends some good natured ribbing that whole time.”
And somehow Volvo was never a German car. It was always Swedish. This is the sort of thing car buffs would remember.
“My german-car buddy is fucking speechless today! We had a conversation just last week about how his Volvos “german rack-and-pinion” steering was the best steering setup he’s ever had, and how even his C7 doesn’t compare…”
Good Lord, if this had always been the Volvo symbol wouldn’t there have been a million jokes about it? I would definitely remember seeing this symbol.
11. Country singer Reba Mcintyre is now Reba Mcentire
12. Forrest Gump said “Life is like a box of chocolates”. Now he says, “Life WAS like a box of chocolates”.
13. Star Wars – The Empire Strikes Back. Darth Vader: “Luke I am your Father” has become, “No, I am your father”.
What the hell is going on? Are the nerds at CERN on bath salts?
Just for the record I do not consent to anyone messing with my timeline or memories.
I will add to this list.