If you haven’t heard of the Mandela Effect, it’s time to jump on the bandwagon. According to Fiona Broome (who coined the phrase “The Mandela Effect” and started a website about the phenomenon): “The “Mandela Effect” is what happens when someone has a clear, personal memory of something that never happened in this reality”. It’s called the Mandela Effect because a whole lot of people remember Nelson Mandela dying in prison the 1980’s – even to the point of seeing the funeral on TV and reading news articles about it. That sounds familiar to me as well, but… no. He didn’t die until 2013, which is when a bunch of people went “huh”?
I didn’t find out about the Mandela Effect until a couple of years ago, and here’s how.
Berenstein Bears
I’m leaving the heading spelled that way, because that’s how I remember it being spelled. When I was little I used to read a bedtime story to my parents instead of the other way around. They were big on having their kids read early and so when I started kindergarten I could read books already. I distinctly remember talking to my dad about how this was pronounced because of the spelling.
I also distinctly remember seeing the title of a video recording my husband had put on our little home digital server for our kids. When I saw that he had labeled it as Berenstain Bears, I thought to myself “Pft! He spelled it wrong”. Several years later when I watched a YouTube video where they mentioned the discrepancy, and that it was actually Berenstain Bears I kinda freaked out. I ran to our bookshelf where we keep the kids books and pulled out a Berenstain Bears book. It was not spelled the way I remembered growing up. I actually started to cry! It was like losing a piece of my childhood. Too strange.
New Zealand
As I’ve mentioned in a previous post, I’ve been following a YouTube channel called Suspicious Observers because he puts out a short little video every morning to let us know how our star is doing and what space weather to expect. He also does a quick weather around the globe to close. So for years I’ve watched the various weather maps. One morning as I was watching, when they switched to the view of Australia, I remember saying out loud “what the heck happened to New Zealand”? It was like the map was distorted and it had been stretched and moved south. I blew it off as a computer or video glitch. Until I found out about the Mandela Effect and that so many other people remember New Zealand being in a different place. I remember it smaller and rounder as well. Not sure if others do because I haven’t really researched it.
Kennedy Shooting
This one I just recently heard about. The odd part to me is that now there were apparently six people in the car during the shooting and three rows of seats. I don’t ever ever EVER remember there being three rows of seats or another woman in the car at the time of the shooting. It’s just so completely weird. What’s next?
Is the Babushka Lady suddenly going to cease to exist?
Odds and Ends
There are so, so many other Mandela Effect examples out there. But many of them revolve around product names or song lyrics or movie quotes. I can see how these can have logical reasons. Like the song lyrics being different in Annie (“tomorrow, tomorrow, I love ya, tomorrow you’re only/always a day away”). Or Darth Vader’s famous line in Star Wars (“Luke, I am your father”/”No, I am your father”). I can see how these can be distorted over time by comedians, or changes in production, or lyrics being one way in one part of a song, but a different way in another part.
I personally remember Reese’s being spelled Reece’s. I only realized the discrepancy when my 5 year old said he knew how to spell it and I started to correct him and then saw the wrapper. I’m sorry to admit that I had a Reese’s every single day of my junior high school life because it took too long to go through the actual food line in the cafeteria. So a Reese’s and a Coke were my lunch every day. Maybe I’m just remembering it wrong. Maybe somehow I’ve gotten it mixed up with something else. I can’t imagine what. I’ve never been the best speller in the world though. And now I really want a Reese’s and a Coke.
But I just can’t get around the whole Berenstain Bears thing. Or New Zealand. Too strange. I invite you to check out the myriad of posts and videos on this topic. Pretty interesting if you wanna go down the rabbit hole.
Let me know what you find!
Header Photo by Patrick McManaman on Unsplash
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