Wednesday, August 5, 2015

Effective Mandela Theory


There are at least hundreds of thousands (or even millions) of people around the world who were shocked to hear that Nelson Mandela died recently.  Their shock wasn't that a world-famous civil rights advocate had passed away.  They were shocked because they thought
the man had died thirty years ago!

According to an impressively large number of people, Nelson Mandela originally died back in the 80s when he was in prison.  They remember seeing it on the news and hearing about riots that broke out all across South Africa.  It's a very specific memory, and a lot of people share it.  It didn't happen (apparently, anyway), but thousands and thousands of people insist on remembering Mandela's death in prison and the resultant riots, and their accounts are fairly uniform (as uniform as memories ever are, anyway).

Now, people misremember things all the time.  And usually, people can be pretty stubborn about what they remember, especially when it's two memories against each other.  But when presented with something like every single newspaper ever printed that contradicts their claims, most people relent and admit that they're wrong.  With Nelson Mandela's death, the people who swear he died earlier believe this memory so strongly that they will not let go of it, despite being contradicted by every relevant fact in existence.  It isn't because they're just that stubborn, or that stupid.  The memory has a certain quality to it.  For whatever reason, their brain refuses to discard it.

This sort of phenomenon has become known (for better or worse) as the Mandela Effect.  It is when a large number of people share and insist on a fairly cohesive counterfactual memory.


There are a number of examples of counterfactual memories.

Some people remember a show called Taps about ghost hunters, which apparently never existed; the actual show was called Ghost Hunters.

Others remember New Zealand being located north of Australia; really, it's south.

Some people remember a portrait of King Henry VIII where he is standing in royal regalia, fluffy shoulder pads and all, about quarter turned, with a turkey leg in his hand; such a portrait has never existed (there aren't even pictures on the internet meeting that exact description).

A lot of people remember the word "dilemna", spelled with an "n"; it is actually spelled "dilemma", with two "m"s.

Some people say chartreuse used to be dark red: it's really a yellowish green or greenish yellow (think lemon-lime soda: that's chartreuse).

And of course, at least half a million people (that I know of) remember the Berenstein Bears, when really they're the Berenstain Bears, with an "a".

Do you (mis)remember any of those?

One of the factors of the Mandela Effect is that people are able to anchor the memories to specific interactions that they had.  As an example, one person reported a memory of being at Thanksgiving dinner as a child when he held up a turkey leg in one hand and posed; his family all joked that he was just like King Henry VIII.  But... King Henry VIII never posed with a turkey leg... so... why the comment?  Another example, lots of people remember being confused about whether to pronounce "Bear-in-STEEN" or "Bear-in-STINE"... but... it's spelled "stAin" so... why the ambiguity?

The attachment to the counterfactual memories is so strong that many of these people have proposed an explanation in terms of alternate universes.   The Mandela Effect people believe they have somehow transferred over to a parallel reality where things did not happen as they remember them happening.  They didn't misremember, it's just that they correctly remember the wrong universe! 

I am, of course, guilty of this.

I had never heard of the Mandela Effect, but I somehow stumbled upon a similar idea: The bears were called the Berenstein Bears; I didn't misremember, but I woke up in an alternate universe.  Heck, someone else even thought of it two years before I did.  I'd imagine even more people have had the same idea: things here aren't how I remember, I must be in a parallel universe.

Now, this right here points to something that I think is relevant to the Mandela Effect.  A bunch of people who never talked to one another all somehow get the same idea about parallel universes when they misremember things.  Somehow, this option readily lends itself to the imagination.

The reason is, of course, because science fiction stories abound with this idea of an alternate reality where things are only just different enough to be worrisome.  Things are spelled kind of off, your parents are a little bit more successful, some huge world event didn't happen.  We have stories of people time traveling and changing the past, or waking up day as their teenage selves, or cutting holes with a sub-Planck-length blade in the fabric of reality and traversing to another universal state in the multiversal quantum superposition.  One of the most beloved children's books of the last century, spawning its own sub-genre, was the Chronicles of Narnia, about children who travel to a parallel universe full of talking animals.  Also, alternate history, and especially the steam punk genre, are very popular, exploring the concept of how the world would be if, for example, the computer had developed in the steam age.

There's all of this cultural information floating around about alternate realities and parallel universes and how things might have been if they'd just been a little bit different.  We are used to connecting the ideas of slight differences in things to parallel universes.  So when you detect something about the world doesn't correspond with how you know it to be, parallel universes would be an idea that immediately suggests itself.

The original artist on reddit
apologizes for the
awful photoshop job
Now think of this in terms of the portrait of King Henry VIII (which I swear I remember seeing a hundred times in my life).  Why do we all remember King Henry VIII with a turkey leg?  Because we popularly imagine him as a bloated glutton.  We connect gluttony and kingly feasts with people tearing at roast birds with their hands.  King Henry has been portrayed this way before in movies (and in the Simpsons), and that led to most modern depictions of him having a turkey leg.  We all remember the classic portrait of him (which looks just like my description in an earlier paragraph, sans turkey leg), and we back-associate the modern images with that image, so that what we believe the portrait was King Henry VIII with a turkey leg in his hand.

Now, this is a very rational explanation, but... no, I saw him with that flippin' turkey leg in his hand!  I can even picture it!  I know he was holding it in that portrait.

But again, that's how the Mandela Effect works.  The memories formed aren't the kind that sufferers are able to let go of, even when they accept the reasonability of perfectly rational explanations.  Hearing even my own explanation, I feel like someone is trying to brainwash me, or is otherwise playing with me, as though in some sort of psychological experiment.

Read reports from people who actually were brainwashed into holding false memories.  My experience in coming to accept the BerenstAin Bears as the way they were always spelled all along feels (to me) very similar to their experience in accepting the false memories.

The Mandela Effect has started gaining some popularity on the internet, or at least some notice.  What I want to provide here is something like a rational critique of the idea.  It would be very easy to offer a dismissive and skeptical critique of it that just shrugs it off as craziness.  I don't want to do that.  I want to really stare this proposal right in the face, taking it seriously, to see if any amount of sense can be made of it.

And I have some questions.

My first question is: How many universes are there?  Do all of the people who remember Mandela dying in the 80's come from the same universe?  What about Steve, who remembers Mandela dying in the 80s and the BerenstEin Bears, versus: me, who remembers the BerenstEin Bears, but also that Morgan Freeman actually hung out with Mandela prior to his role in the movie.  Are Steve and I from the same universe?  If we are, then one of us must have just misremembered.  So right here we have four universes.  We have:
  1. The universe where Mandela died in the 80's and the BerenstEin Bears.
  2. The universe where Mandela died in the 80's and the BerenstAin Bears.
  3. The universe where Mandela died in the 10's and the BerenstEin Bears.
  4. The universe where Mandela died in the 10's and the BerenstAin Bears.
That's four, but we're only considering two possibilities.  What if we consider Joey, who remembers Mandela died in the 80's, BerenstEin Bears, and also New Zealand was north of Australia?  Steve remembers it south, and I remember it south.  So now we're at 8 universes.

Since it seems like the universes bifurcate at these counterfactual memories, and since it seems like the counterfactual memories are all independent of each other, then there are 2^N universes out there, where N is the number of what I will call "Mandela events": that is, events that are different between the various universes.

The next question, then, is: How many Mandela events are there?  Is it the case that every single time someone "misremembers" something, it's because they are actually correctly remembering an alternate universe?  When my girlfriend complains that I left the toilet seat up, when I remember putting it down, is it the case that I did put it down, in another universe?  At what point do we just tell people, "no, you're wrong"?

From the Mandela Effect website, and from the comments of Fiona Broome (the idea's originator), it seems there's a kind of a "don't disagree" policy.  If someone says something used to be some other way, you have to believe it was in their original universe.  So how many Mandela events are there?  As many as there are people willing to insist things used to be different.  That suggests a top cap at around 7 billion Mandela events (corresponding to each person having their own personal native universe that no one else is from), but the actual number is probably much less than that.

Another question: why are the Mandela events all seemingly independent?  Why do Steve and I disagree about Mandela's date of death, yet agree about the BerenstEin Bears?  Are there any reported counterfactual memories that are always correlated -- that is, where every one who remembers event X also remembers event Y?  If not, then why not?   You would expect more things to change between each universe than just a letter here, a Nobel laureate civil rights activist there.

Which raises another question: What else is different between this current universe and the universe where Mandela died?  According to this counterfactual memory, there were riots across South Africa.  What happened in the riots?

Did people die?  The people who died: are they still dead in this world?  And what universe do those people remember?  Do any of them remember dying, then suddenly waking up twenty years later with their whole life having moved on?

Were stores destroyed in the riots?  Were there fires?  Did the fires release CO2 and Carbon Monoxide into the air, and did it damage the environment just that much more?  Could the people from the universe where Nelson Mandela died in the 80's have detected a slight decrease in the global temperature if they had been paying attention at the time of the shift?

It seems that Mandela's death, despite being related to riots across an entire country, didn't actually leave any tangible mark on reality.  And this is avery crucial point.  The people who believed Mandela died back in the 80s tend to be Americans who only remember it as a news event.  It was a thing they saw on TV.  So far (to my knowledge anyway) no one who actually lived (or died) through the riots has come forward.

The same goes for pretty much all of the Mandela events.  They are related to things that people saw on TV or in a book.  Steve saw Mandela's death on the news and heard there were riots, but Steve wasn't in the riots.  Joey saw New Zealand on a map and it was north of Australia, but Joey is not from the area.  Sally saw a show called Taps about ghost hunters, but Sally was a passive audience of the show on TV.  I read a children's book called the BerenstEin Bears, but I didn't actually know the authors.

Further question: Why is it only humans and their minds who can shift?  This reeks of anthropocentrism.  That is, the Mandela events are focused entirely on the things that humans focus on, and not on the things that the universes focuses on: things like energy, entropy, and the interactions of matter.

Why didn't any of the books from my childhood (the actual books, not their stAined copies) transfer over with me?  Not even one book with the spelling "BerenstEin" has shifted to this reality.  Why not?  Especially given the amount of non-official writing with "BerenstEin" on it that has shifted over.

What about the maps showing New Zealand north of Australia?  Why didn't any of these maps shift over with us?

What about that portrait of Henry VIII.  I'm sure it was in a social studies book I read in high school, or something.  Why didn't even one of those books transfer over?  Or any copy of it, really.  Why did no copy transfer over?

Howabout the buildings destroyed in the Mandela riots.  Are there any stores in South Africa that suddenly and inexplicably found themselves in a demolished state around 2005 (when the Mandela Effect was first postulated), just on and off, because these buildings shifted over to this universe from the universe where they had been burnt down in the riots twenty years prior?  Why are't there any newspaper articles from the 80s reporting on Mandela's death, or on the resultant riots?  I know, it didn't happen in this universe; why didn't the newspaper archives shift over here when we did?  Not even one little clipping about it.

And so now I have to ask: Why are there parallel universes in the first place?  And why do we swap?

This question doesn't seem to get asked a lot, when really it should probably be the first one we ask.  Why should there be a universe where Mandela lives, and another where Mandela dies?  I'm not merely asking why there are Mandela events, but I'm also asking where all of these universes came from.  Why more than one?

I know that the word "multiverse" is one that people are used to seeing on PBS specials.  So it seems that scientists have proven - through quantum mechanics or string theory or the Big Bang - that there truly are more than one universe.

Many-Worlds Interpretation of Schrodinger's Cat
Artisic depiction of Bubble Universes
I've been wanting to write more about this, because few people seem to pick up that there are multiple different theories about multiverses, and that these theories are all distinct and even contradictory in terms of what specifically they say of the existence of many worlds and in term of what specific problem the multiverse is supposed to address.  Everett's Many-Worlds Hypothesis - the theory that the universe splits whenever a measurement occurs - deals with superpositions of quantum wave functions, and is meant to restore determinism to quantum mechanics and avoid the problem of wave-function collapse.  The Bubble-Universe theory posits that ours is just one in a huge sea of other universes, like bubbles in a bath tub, where the exact form of physical equations and constants varies just a little bit in each, and this is meant to avoid theism when accounting for the apparent fine-tuning of the universe.  These are just two of maybe half a dozen multiverse models.  The "universes" of Everett's theory are mathematical terms in a giant superposition that specify the quantum state of every particle in the universe-proper, and arise because of measurements at the quantum level.  The "universes" of the Bubble-Universe theory are pockets of vacuum energy, and are NOT descriptions of quantum particles, and do NOT arise because of measurements at the quantum level.

All this to say, when we want to talk about parallel universes, we need to be more specific about what it is we're even talking about.  The notion of a "parallel universe" isn't even a universally agreed-upon one.  (Max Tegmark puts them in four categories.)

So within the Mandela Effect, what are the parallel universes exactly?  Why do they exist?

These can't be the Bubble Universes, because the laws of physics in the world where Mandela died in the 80's are the same as the laws of physics in the world where Mandela died in the 10's.

As it is popularly understood, Everett's model seems more like what the Mandela Effect is describing.  They both revolve around these worlds of counterfactuals.  However, at a deeper level, Everett's model isn't like the Mandela Effect at all.  Everett's model deals with quantum mechanical events.  The death of Nelson Mandela is not a quantum event, and seeing his death on TV is not a quantum observation.  The numbers are also hugely different.  The Mandela Effect's universes focus on some specific key memories; they don't even realize the entire space of anthropocentric counterfactuals (where is the universe where Plato never met Socrates?), but just a few specific Mandela events.  On the other hand, Everett's universe splitting occurs essentially every time two or more particles are made to interact to a certain extent; this is way, way, way massively more universes than we can even begin to really fathom.

So the Mandela Effect is not drawing on the Many-Worlds Hypothesis from quantum mechanics.  Therefore, we need to find an independent answer to the question of why these universes exist and where they come from, in order to make the Mandela Effect theory work.

The theory that most people involved with the Mandela Effect seem to prefer is related to time travel and the popular notion of alternate timelines.  Something to do with time machines which are able to change the past, and we faintly remember the events as they occurred in the original timeline.

If you've read A Sound of Thunder by Ray Bradbury, there is the scene at the end where they return to their original time, but the words are just slightly misspelled.  The two main characters remember the world that used to be, and are broken up.  This seems to be the closest to how most of the Mandela Effect people understand things.

Of course, this can't be exactly what happens, because the man in the changed shop when they return doesn't notice anything strange at all.  No one seems to know that anything changed -- only the travelers are able to recall the way things used to be.

Which then brings us to the notion of Alter-vús, a notion apparently invented by self-avowed time-traveler John Titor.  It is that some non-travelers can remember how things used to be and so maintain two sets of memories after things are changed in the past.

My biggest objection to this idea of time travel is that, to be perfectly honest, it doesn't really make any sense.

What is an alternate timeline?  It's something like a second copy of our universe where things go largely the same, up to the point where the time-traveler from the future arrives.

Where do the alternate timelines come from?  As near as I can tell, they are created by the time machine.  Which... think about that.  The time machine has to be able to create an entire universe.  Do you have any idea how much energy that takes?  I do.   It takes about the total energy output of every sun in the entire universe.

I usually just dismiss the alternate timeline idea out-of-hand, but here I'm not: I'm saying that interpreted in the way that makes the most sense, the alternate timeline theory requires a time machine to effectively destroy this entire universe in order to power the machine.  Sorry John Titor, no government on Earth is going to invent that in the next few decades.  (There are of course other, more precise ways to envision time travel, but they don't lead to these paradoxes.)

Further, let's think about Alter-vús.  What does it mean for me to remember how things were before the time traveler changed things?  What does before mean here?  If the traveler goes from 2036 to the 1890's and changes Mike Berenstain's great-grandfather's last name at Ellis Island, then in 2037 the only before the change is 1889.  When the traveler returns to the future, he's returning to the future of a different timeline, and in this timeline they never were the Berenstein Bears to begin with.  So how could anyone from this timeline remember anything different?

After much deliberation with a friend of mine in nuclear engineering, we were able to come up with a rough draft of an experimental model.  The intention of this model isn't to propose any actual study, or provide any kind of credence to the alternate universe theory.  It is instead mostly meant to put people in the right direction in thinking about the problems inherent in these ideas of true memories of alternate histories.

Let's settle on N as the total number of Mandela events.  This leads to something like 2^N universes.  We could take these N Mandela events and make a survey that we send to some suitably large sample of the world's population (say... everyone).  In the survey, we ask people how they remember the various N Mandela events.  Based on how they remember the various Mandela events unfolding, this separates out the sample population into bins, where all of the people in each bin are natives to the same universe.

Very important here is going to be the number of natives to this universe.  How many people remember that Mandela survived the 80s, that they were the BerenstAin Bears, that New Zealand is south of Australia, that King Henry VIII was never portrayed with a turkey leg, etc. etc.?  That is, in a scenario where people can slide in and out of parallel universe, how many people do we expect to not slide?

Very simply, what we have at the moment is something resembling a multivariate hypergeometric distribution.  That's a big word, but it describes a really simple concept:  You have a jar full of blue, green, red, and black marbles; if you draw out 10 marbles, what's the probability of drawing 7 red marbles?  This isn't really exactly what we have, but it's fairly close.

The point isn't the exact statistical model, the point is that sorting things into bins is the kind of thing we can model with statistics.  We could model this statistically, and then test if our actual collected data is anywhere near what the model looks like.

To model this better, we need some more specifics.

First we need to know, does it become less likely to swap with a universe that is more different than yours?

Let me name eight universes:
  • 000 - Mandela survived the 80s, BerenstAin, New Zealand SOUTH
  • 001 - Mandela survived the 80s, BerenstAin, New Zealand NORTH
  • 010 - Mandela survived the 80s, BerenstEin, New Zealand SOUTH
  • 011 - Mandela survived the 80s, BerenstEin, New Zealand NORTH
  • 100 - Mandela died in the 80s, BerenstAin, New Zealand SOUTH
... and on like that.  Obviously Universe-000 is where we live right now.  I'm pretty sure I'm from Universe-010.  Steve (from earlier in this increasingly too-long essay) claims he's from Universe-110.

I differ from Universe-000 in just a single Mandela event.

Steve differs from Universe-000 in two Mandela events.

Is it more likely to swap from 010 to 000 (my "native" universe to current) than to swap from 110 to 000 (Steve's "native" universe to current)?  Or are the two equally likely?  How do these probabilities decrease as we look at increasingly different universes?

This makes a difference in how we model this situation, so we have to know.


Next, are there people who have swapped more than once?  And is swapping an on-going event?  This is important, as it determines whether we need some sort of balance equation for this system of interacting universes.

At first glance, it doesn't appear that anyone swaps more than once.  If they did (and if there were a balance), then they'd have to eventually swap back to their original universe.  I'd have to eventually get back to Universe E, where the books of my childhood were the BerenstEin Bears.

Consider this.  Mary begins in Universe-010.  Then she swaps to Universe-011.  Then to Universe-111.  Can she swap to Universe-110?  That is, can she get back to a universe where New Zealand is SOUTH of Australia

If she can, can she also make the next step back to Universe-010?

No one has yet reported anything like this.  There are lots of false memories listed on the Mandela Effect page, but no one (yet) has a false memory of having a false memory.

This breaks anything like detailed balance in our model.  The swaps can only go one way, and can never be reversed.  Given this strange situation with swaps, it seems more plausible to me (given people's experiences) that people swap universes only once.

A simplified path, swapping one bit at a time, where the slider arrives at his original universe.
Something like this should be possible if swapping can occur multiple times.

If people only swap once, this greatly reduces the complexity of things because we don't need to use Markov chains.

Supposing we had concluded whether it's more likely to swap to a more similar universe (and what that probability is), and that you only swap once.  Suppose we also know there are N Mandela events and 2^N universes.  Then we can use all of this to predict how many people we expect for their to be from each universe.

If the number of people we find in our bins after the survey, resembles the number of people we predict from each universe, then we have produced at least something in the way of evidence for people swapping between multiple universes.

Now we come to a problem of interpreting the evidence.  Assuming we had made reasonable assumptions for all of the above and produced actual numerical predictions, collected actual data, and found a close match.  The question is: are we really modeling people swapping from parallel universes, or are we just modeling people misremembering things?

Apparently, the data could be pointing to either one.

To distinguish these two theories, we need to make a second model.  This is the model of what we would expect the bins to look like assuming that people simply misremembered, no universes involved.  Then we make predictions for the bins with the universe-swapping model and the memories-are-fallible model, and compare.  The prediction that matches closest to the survey results is the best model of what is happening with the Mandela Effect.

And here's is the supreme problem.

How do we model people simply misremembering things?

How do we find out how likely someone is to misremember an event of history as separate and distinct from the Mandela Effect?

What measurement could we perform to assess people's rate of misremembering, and in any meaningful way separate it from people swapping parallel universes in such a way as to use it to compare the two?

I have no idea.  If you have any ideas, feel free to share.

Since there is no way to distinguish the models on the basis of their measured predictions, the issue of whether people are just misremembering things or if they are sliding to parallel worlds is (sadly but unsurprisingly) an untestable, non-falsifiable theory.

Now, falsifiability isn't everything, but it is what distinguishes and sets apart modern science. So, at least at this point, there's pretty much no chance of the Mandela Effect ever being taken seriously on any kind of scientific level.

Even when wrapped in terminology about the Many-Worlds hypothesis, Bubble Universes, quantum mechanics, wave function collapse, etc., the Mandela theory doesn't gain any scientific credibility, because it still remains unfalsifiable and indistinguishable from non-supernatural explanations.  Thus it still remains unscientific.  (Again, that doesn't make it false, it just puts it outside the realm of modern science.)

I apologize for the length of this post, but I had many ideas and I wanted to get them all out in one post.  I hope you enjoyed reading, and if you have any ideas for improving the model, please let me know in the comments below.

88 comments:

Don said...

I'm so glad I found your site. I would say that I am a member of universe E, but I may have been born too late for that. I was born in the late 80's, so I would have never seen anything related to the Mandela death. However, I was surprised to hear that he died later in life. I thought that I was simply mistaken as his death happened before my time in my memory.
I would say that maybe I am from a different universe, one of the others that exist. There is so much in this reality that does not make sense to me but makes sense to many others of equal or greater intelligence.
Not to brag, I am of above average intelligence. My school transcripts still confirm that it is true... Many people would just say that individuals like us are stupid.
The way I arrived at your website was through the chance encounter of a post about the Berenst#in Bears. Since then I have read many of your posts as well as other posts throughout the internet.
I just wanted to post on one of your articles! Have a great day!

Anonymous said...

Pardon the much less intelligently worded response, but:
Considering the lack of differing memories from those close to the events, I'd like to propose that if time travel were the underlying cause of these differing recollections, keeping in mind your statement about time machine power sources, perhaps the machine can *fix* or truly *change* the timeline, but only within a certain radius. The rest of us keep going, then are surprised at the change. Perhaps there are others in other parts of the world that will one day scratch their head and say, "Obama got elected? I thought he didn't," while we, within the affected area, notice no difference at all. But I write fiction, so my job is to make things up, not account for scientific accuracy or plausibility. :)

Anonymous said...

So I was lead to this website by the Berestein Bear conundrum. Although I remember it with an e I was never a great speller, nor a big fan of the Berestein Bears. But I am in amazement of finding out today that New Zealand is south of Australia. I have always been a very visual person and a huge fan of Maps. I had a large map on the side of my wall and distinctly remember New Zealand north of Australia. Mind has been blown. I wish we could conduct more research and figure out when the timeline might have changed, whether it depended on region or an action taken by a group. As an example maybe everybody who remembers New Zealand North has traveled to the same location at some point in their life, and at that location the shift happened.

Unknown said...

Just an idea but what if you never move from one universe to another but instead there is a "Bleed over" effect in which events/experiences from "you" in universe B are recorded in the memories of you in universe A.
Consciousness is still poorly understood and perhaps there is some link between my consciousness and the consciousness of alternate me.
Picture it like this. Say you are recording radio station 99.5 new york and 99% of the time there is no interference from the other 99.5's in neighboring areas but on extremely rare occurrences conditions in the ionosphere cause 99.5 Boston to be picked up by your radio and onto your recording. If memories are essentially recordings of consciousness perhaps in extremely rare occurrences unknown conditions cause my brain to record info coming from alternate me's consciousness and winds up being indistinguishable from memories recorded normally from my consciousness. Perhaps that can explain why only certain things/events have this Mandela effect and how things like the effect being regional (most people who remember Mandela dieing in the 80's were in America) The rare conditions that cause the effect only happen in certain places at certain times. It will also explain why you can never "go back" to a universe where things are how you remember them because in fact you never left and never actually experienced the alternate event it's only illusion caused by the bleed over recording. It also eliminates the need for 2^N universes because you could be apart of the region time the experiences one bleed over but not be present for other bleed overs.

If this is a real effect and not misremembering the "Bleed over" idea to me seems to explain it the observations pretty well without the need for time travel, paradoxs, or billions of alternate universes.

I'm not sure if you read these comments but Thanks for the excellent post really got my brain going :)

Unknown said...

After rereading there are a few typos in there but I think you'll get the gist. Kinda just flowed as ideas came.

Anonymous said...

Wow. That was a little intense. I'm so glad I'm not the only one who remembers the Bernstein Bears. Not entirely off topic, I've been doing a bit of research into reincarnation, I recommend you check out Edgar Cayce. Religious beliefs or none, his story and readings are amazing. Another person of interest for me is Eduard "Billy" Meier, he has spoken with beings from light years and dimensions away.

Emily said...

Great post! I just heard of this Berenstein-Mandela phenomenon yesterday and it's pretty fascinating-- though as a case for psychology, not cosmology.

It does strike me as suspicious that Mandela Effect memories are generally of things learned or experienced second-hand, usually through textbooks or media. Nobody remembers attending Mandela's or Billy Graham's funeral (or even knowing someone who did); nobody remembers traveling on a north-bound boat or plane from Australia to New Zealand. That, or the "timeline" differences are fairly trivial, like alternate spellings or at most a nonexistent picture not too dissimilar from existing ones. Nobody remembers an alternate reality where grass is purple, or ducks have teeth, or Earth has two moons along with the more complex ocean tides that would entail. As you note these memories all seem to feature only a single changed event and not its consequences.

I think there may be something to the multiverse theory, but lapses in memory prove only the fallibility of the human brain.

Reece said...

"Nobody remembers an alternate reality where... ducks have teeth"

... do I dare?

Anonymous said...

Swapping CAN occur multiple times. I have at least two instances of doing so in memory. That said, I'm uncertain if it is possible to recognize your "home" universe upon re-arrival.

Each universe seems to overwrite our memories through associative experiences; which are different to reconcile beyond mastery of instanced memories. Dissociatives help, but they are just a temporary relief from the stimuluses.

Silent-Hunter said...

Holy crap this is actually brilliant!

RyanKW said...

Okay. I get Mandela effect thing. The elephant in the room, with the people who remember him dying...do they remember him getting out of prison and subsequently becoming President of South Africa in 1994? That was as big or bigger of a news cycle than his eventual 2013 death. Were those people in an alternate universe until after that? (he was President until 1999).

RyanKW said...

I've seen a lot about the New Zealand/Australia thing, and I have some thoughts on this that may seem dismissive, but this is not my intent.

I think that, even if this is a case of slipping dimensions in the case of Berenstain/stein or Mandela's death, that the cases concerning New Zealand's placement are just faulty memory.

Here's why. It doesn't take much of a shift in a timeline for Berenstein to become Berenstain. Different spelling at Ellis Island perhaps. New Zealand being in an entire different location, however, would require a fundamentally different planet, on a physical level, that STARTED being different at least over a billion years ago. It probably wouldn't very closely resemble our current world in form or function. Heck, humans might not even exist in a world where New Zealand is north of Australia.

David A. Blair (DAB) said...

Thank you for your Blog. I am like you, from Universe 010, but I strongly suspect there are others. I have had numerous moments in my life where I have mentioned memories to people and they don't know what I am talking about. Am I delusional then? I doubt it. Mine is a mind of clarity and health. Thought processes are grounded and aligned with logic. But imagination is strong, as is intuition. Deja vu probably plays a part too. But I am still gathering ideas on this.

At any rate, keep up the fascinating insights!

Cheers.

Anonymous said...

Million dollar question!

"Sex IN the city" or "Sex AND the city"?

Hahahaha

Someone left some clues when they patched earth 2.0 engine.

Unknown said...

I think I am on to something that maybe you can help with.

Basically I feel there are many dimensions of our universe. There are good ones and bad ones. Or good possibilities and bad possibilities. If we are "good" or "become good" we get "drafted" into the better realities. And the person who was in the good reality (who is different then us), must have been bad, and were transferred to the worse reality. So if I'm correct we are now in the good reality! How crazy does that sound!?!?

I have seen my other realities in dreams before but I didn't know that is what they were! I have these dreams about once a year or so and see myself in the mirror and I look the same but I am sort of a bad person in then or I look more evilish... Very freaky!

I used to be so pessimistic but I'm super optimistic now because I think this is a higher level or even the highest level dimension of good possibility! It is basically a heavenly realm compared to a hellish realm. There may be many realities rather then just two or there could only be two.

But it must be true that all realities effect the others but the highest sets the tone for the lower ones. We can effect the lower ones more then the lower ones can affect the higher ones basically.

I feel like I am a lower level possibility of myself who has risen to the higher level of possibility. I come from a lower dimension but have finally risen to the highest possibility basically. Something like this.

In my memory he 100% said "Luke, I am your father." And In my memory it is 100% Berenstein. And only 1 1/2 years ago I specifically remember seeing a map of New Zealand that was NorthEast of Austrailia. I don't remember the Mandela part, but some part of me believes that he died in the 80s.

Ok new subject going on.

Dimensional Soul Mate Theory

I believe we do indeed have soul mates, but they are our dimensional soul mates. So at one time we could meet our soul mate and fall head over heels and be in paradise and then somehow one person or the other is "transfered" into another dimensional reality and then the two are no longer in love because the true dimensional soul mate is gone and another has taken their place. That's pretty deep. I think it is true for my parents... I also think I may have recently found my true dimensional soul mate which is pretty cool :)

Someone responded to the above post with this:

"Actually, that's pretty relevant to some things I've been thinking about after seeing all these weird timeline threads over the past few days. I'll share my experience, especially related to your dimensional soul mate theory.

So, my boyfriend and I have been together 10 years. We're both conspiratards, though a lot of the theories he's into are a bit 'out there' for my taste. Last month, I had to leave our home and move 2000 miles to stay with family temporarily for the next 6 months (for family reasons, not because our relationship was on the rocks).

So, I stumbled onto this timeline oddity stuff a couple of days ago. A lot of the examples blew my mind. I was telling my boyfriend about them over the phone, and he just thinks it's a bunch of hooey. ....Which is odd because he dabbles in the most outlandish CTs out there (hollow earth, expanding earth, haunted earth, and others). By comparison, this stuff should not be outside his realm of consideration. But, he completely, uncharacteristically, shot every example down, gave alternate explanations for why people are misremembering, and completely discounted the idea of multiple timelines. Again, oddly out of character for him.

So, I wonder, is it possible that I shifted timelines and he didn't? Or is the "him" in this timeline I shifted to just not compatible with me?

I know, probably seems like I'm really reaching here. Or maybe I have an overactive imagination (which could currently be contributed to sheer boredom). Interesting stuff to ponder, though…"

Unknown said...

Addition to above:

I responded back:

This is a perfect example of a dimensional soul mate transfer... The same thing occurred to me yesterday when I brought this timeline shift theory (without the soul mate addition) to my father and brother. They go so defensive it was unbelievable!

But I brought it up to this new girl I met (the one I think or now know is my true dimensional soul mate) and she completely believes me because we have felt a deeper truth within each other. Even though we have only known each other for a very short time!

More or less, there is a very targeted effort to try and "kill her" but not physically, just to transfer her away from her as together we are literally and unbeatable combination of happiness and spirituality.

She has been fighting so hard against this and is on the complete opposite side of the world as we were successfully programmed to separate two weeks ago. Now that we know this, we can continue on and use our long distance physically, short distance dimensionally "love" for each other as a guide to keep us together and in this dimension. Love is the key.

If either one of us stops loving each other, it means that one of us has transferred. Both of us were on the verge of separation until we figured this all out. Now we are stronger then ever because we know this to be true.

Movie Business Theory:

I believe the movie business was entirely created in order to teach us about these alternate universes. It is literally one of the only ways to prove it, by having alternate versions of movie memories in some of the population and not.

At first yesterday my brother was like "no possible way" but today he wants to explore it more and this is huge as my brother is not a CT type of guy.

When we were young we were literally connected at the hip. Such a deep connection, and around 10 years ago, we lost the connection but have still been close, but it's all been different.

My theory is that one of us transferred. Here is the scary thing... The more we dive into it, the greater chance that one of us (probably him) will transfer again and we will be re connected, but his current version will be transferred, but even if this current version is transferred, he will bring this knowledge with him to the other dimension when he goes.

Same with my father. I think the "good" version of my father was here until I was young, maybe 3-5 years old, but then the bad version came from say when I was 5-28 and now for the past three years a better version of him has transferred here because we now have a pretty good connection although it's not his best version I feel.

He looks and acts 10 times more pleasant then from most of my life, but he still thinks this theory is hogwash and was so defensive when I tried to mention it to him.

I told my girl about all this and it brought us so close together even though we were just communicating online. We both reasserted our love for each other and we promised each other that we would both be faithful for the first time... She was so close to being transferred but she realized that she was changing and was having evil thoughts and now she has been pulled back!

Anyways, I look forward to hearing all of your responses to this!

Anonymous said...

What about Sex IN the city - which is now Sex AND the city. One can find proof of the first still on internet (remnants of .....???)
http://acronyms.thefreedictionary.com/Sex+in+the+City
http://www.celebquote.com/tv/sex-in-the-city
http://www.amazon.com/Sex-In-The-City-Parfum/dp/B000UOKXTY

Dozens of cities around the word have so-called Sex IN the city evenings.

So, no, we who remember things differently are not idiots

Marc said...

I'm not sure about the whole disappearing soulmates thing. I think our consciousness would exist in all universes but adjusted to the difference in reality.

Silkfever said...

I have found a couple more things that are different. I distinctly remember that the actress who played the girlfriend in Back to the Future had died. I can see the article in my head.

Also Xander from Buffy I remember being the oldest actor in the Scooby gang.
I can remember reading an article about older actors playing teenagers with examples and he was on of the oldest at mid 30s to early 40s.

Recently there was an article about his recent legal troubles and people were saying he aged poorly and I'm like what are you talking about he's in his 50s. I wasn't alone in this, but there seemed to be equal amounts of people who remembered each way.

The same with the actress from BttF dying. I'm also from the E universe btw! I have found it interesting that the people who tend to remeber the same things I do are all roughly in their mid 30s.

Anonymous said...

I have a couple young kids and they are learning reading. They were both (as well as myself) taught the circular little 'a', not the upside down 'e' that little a's look like in print to them...I'm sure this adds to the memory of the Berenstein spelling...

Anonymous said...

I think a fun thing to imagine is this: In some alternate universe where it is spelled -ein this post exists exactly as is-- except you^N is convinced that it's spelled -ain, and always has been.

Anonymous said...

Reba McIntyre is now Reba McEntire. Seriously, REBA McENTIRE.

Bartholomew Klick said...

Berenstein / Berenstain spillover comment. So sorry.

I'm in love with the idea that our universe somehow spiraled through time like a berserk, high-English cue ball into a slightly different set of past effects that nudged spelling into a different mode. I'm not sure if that's what you meant, but I'm still in love with it.

Sadly, I can't remember how I remember seeing the spelling of the books. I must regretfully assume that my incredibly young self at that time did not care about spelling very much.

Great blog! Glad I found it.

Bartholomew Klick said...

Berenstein / Berenstain spillover comment. So sorry.

I'm in love with the idea that our universe somehow spiraled through time like a berserk, high-English cue ball into a slightly different set of past effects that nudged spelling into a different mode. I'm not sure if that's what you meant, but I'm still in love with it.

Sadly, I can't remember how I remember seeing the spelling of the books. I must regretfully assume that my incredibly young self at that time did not care about spelling very much.

Great blog! Glad I found it.

Aaron said...

So, in your original post about the Berenst_in Bears from 2012 you cited a reddit blog from 2014. How the f*** did that happen?

Nicki said...

On the subject of the bear-books, I have a memory I'd like to share. I've managed to date this memory to the late summer of 1987 because my mom had a newly-completed set of the first string of Hardee's California Raisins figurines... but I'll come back to this in a moment.

I was with my mom at Hy-Vee (a regional grocery store in the midwest). While Mom was at the checkout, I was a few yards away, browsing a spindle-display of kids' books. Though I was only five at the time, I could already read (thanks, in part, to a Fischer-Price tape player and a vast collection of read-along books, including some of the controversial bear-books). On the spindle were several of the bear-books. One of which was 'New Baby', which had the E spelling. Just below it was 'No Girls Allowed', which had the A spelling. I grabbed one of each to ask Mom why they were spelled differently, but Mom was in a hurry and told me to put them back. When we got out to the car, Mom found that someone had broken into the car to steal her raisins figurines off the dash. Needless to say, she was far too angry about that to listen to me ask why the books had different spellings. After getting home, I asked Dad about it, and he explained to me what typos were. I didn't really think about it again for the next ten years - all my bear-books at home had the E spelling.

Then, my older sister had kids. By this time, we'd moved, and in the move, most of the picture books I'd once owned were lost. But I recalled the bear-books most fondly, and set about finding a couple of them when my sister's kids were about two and three years old. Lo and behold, when I found them, they all had the A-spelling (this was only seven or eight years after the incident at Hy-Vee). I was a little confused, but ultimately decided I had to be misremembering the issue. "It was probably the E that was a typo," I told myself, and left it at that until I found out last year that I wasn't the only one who seemed to recall the books having been spelled with an E instead of an A.

Maybe my five year old self managed to catch the 'switch' in action. Perhaps, back in the E universe, Mom's raisin figurines were never stolen.

-Nicki V.

Unknown said...

I remember Bernstein, but am a terrible speller, I thought New Zealand was north, Like way north. Think Canada. But I thought I remember Mandela dying during the Clinton administration, like 1995 or something even though I also remember my wife talking about a sign language screw up with Obama attending. So oh well.

Unknown said...

I remember Bernstein, but am a terrible speller, I thought New Zealand was north, Like way north. Think Canada. But I thought I remember Mandela dying during the Clinton administration, like 1995 or something even though I also remember my wife talking about a sign language screw up with Obama attending. So oh well.

Unknown said...

I don't mean to pretend to understand everything. That being said, if every one of us has real free will and can change our own lives. Then we are constantly creating new multi-verses with our thoughts. The reason we are in this one is because this one worked out. There are most likely other multi-verses out there where there was world wars and no one survives. There are also most likely better ones than ours. Life is what you make it basically, if we really have free will. Religion teaches God knows what we are going to do before we do it so that contradicts free will. I'm not sure if we do or not but for certain people in war torn and impoverished countries they don't have as many choices as us here in the U.S. That's just one example I can think of many more.

Unknown said...

Ahh! I hate cunts like this? Any one eles hate cunts like this? They object and scandalize before attempting to take any consideration into the matter. I'm not STUPID I graduated at 16, study beyond my level, have an above average memory, and will gladly admit when I'm wrong. I have learned about the Mandela effect only a couple mounths ago although I have discussed it on multiple occasions with family and friends. For example,one day I woke up and found out that the titanium man witch I know as Tank man is alive. The wierd thing being when I was in the 7th grade I wrote a 12 pg. report on how his death impacted the world. The day I heard he was alive my fathed and I where in shocked. We had the paper I wrote for years. Although, when we looked for the paper in a folder of my best work (witch my parents started after THIS paper) it was simply gone. We have a picture of me besides the fridge with the paper on it, the paper was no longer there but replaced with a different paper....about parallel universes.

Unknown said...

Ahh! I hate cunts like this? Any one eles hate cunts like this? They object and scandalize before attempting to take any consideration into the matter. I'm not STUPID I graduated at 16, study beyond my level, have an above average memory, and will gladly admit when I'm wrong. I have learned about the Mandela effect only a couple mounths ago although I have discussed it on multiple occasions with family and friends. For example,one day I woke up and found out that the titanium man witch I know as Tank man is alive. The wierd thing being when I was in the 7th grade I wrote a 12 pg. report on how his death impacted the world. The day I heard he was alive my fathed and I where in shocked. We had the paper I wrote for years. Although, when we looked for the paper in a folder of my best work (witch my parents started after THIS paper) it was simply gone. We have a picture of me besides the fridge with the paper on it, the paper was no longer there but replaced with a different paper....about parallel universes.

Unknown said...

Not sure if anybody mentioned this, but Sandy Island has disappeared from the planet apparently.. It was charted on many old maps, but has vanished at some point without any explanation.. Also I am a very firm believer in Berenstein being spelled with an E. I grew up with these books when I was a kid, and also there was an amusement park ride named after this stories family at the Valley Fair amusement park, Minnesota, where I spent most of my life. And also, I've had a subtle form of OCD since I was a child that involves breaking down and/or adding words that I see and hear in order to make them equal numbers, and because of that I have become an exceptional speller, and why this whole controversy is so interesting to me..

ronym said...

john titor said in his patent ... that his time machine only need initial power from batteries
from my perspective of electronics hobbyst... this is odd
the power amount that needed by this kind of machine must be in order of more than 100 watts
thats more than 10 Amps for 12 volt system
but when i read about Tesla... then monopole capacitor from hiddink... then flying machine owned by Grebennikov
my mind change
the machine sustain initial energy
same as other free energy machine
.
and when i read john titor mentioned that in his era gravity distortion machine also have other function... electric generator
.
later i read that hawking have same idea
although he propose that we cannot contain even microsingularities
so we need to build it on sky

ronym said...

john titor also said in his patent ( we can download it on johntitor.net )
that his machine use minimum mass to create somekind of gravity field.
so his machine is not depend on the emission of matter to create trust to take advantages of time dilation
rather, create a change in the curvature of space time
in accordance with general relativity
this allows travel across topologies
by warping space-time
to produce a topology change
from one spacelike boundary to the other
in accordance with Geroch's theorem
.
he mention einstein formula E=mc2
but he mentioned minimum quantity of mass ( mq)
mq=h/c2
taking this minimal mass, it is possible to show that the formation of all matter
the forces of nature
and indeed space-time itself
derive from this single quintessential quantity
.
at first i thought like your thought
to create somekind of blackhole
we need machine the size of LHC owned by CERN
and we need massive mass and massive energy to break atom
.
but when i read john titor explaination
i thought he is right
what is the diffrence with mass of single hydrogen atom
compared to mass of sun
if both are rotated in speed of light
.
and by the way... what is "mass"
according to string theory
particle is not even exist in solid form
its just different freq of wave
.
just like electron rotating around proton and neutron
while "space" between them is "empty"?
.
so we have empty space in atom
just like empty space between planet and sun in galaxy
.
and if we dig deeper in sub atomic level
we thought... oh my god...
so electron it self,
have many many tiny small dot,
with empty space between them?
.
at first i thought atom from solid matter like iron is also solid
but when study atom
everything change

Unknown said...

I'm from New Zealand and often flew to Brisbane from Auckland. To my knowledge, it was a straight shot across the Tasman Sea for the flight, but looking at the map, its now a NW flight...I do not remember being aligned with Tasmania at all, I remember being directly East of Brisbane, maybe slightly North...But I also remember EIN not AIN and I also distinctly remember Luke I am your father, not No, I am your father...also since when did Mongolia start fighting wars as allies of the west?? Them and Tonga fought in the Iraq wars of 2003-2007, that is news to me.

Unknown said...

I clearly remember China a lot bigger and bordering Russia. To my surprise today after looking at a world Atlas Mongolia is smack in between the 2 wtf?!?! If it's one thing I remember about maps it's that China shares a huge border with Russia and Mongolia was not a country.. I also don't remember Australia being so close to se Asia? I remember it being in the middle of the ocean surrounded by lots of water.

One thing I was actually thinking is if things like the geography can change what of the people we have in our lives? Actually to come to think of it a few of my really close friends act different now. One used to be more quiet and is now sort of a smart ass always making smart ass remarks and such and thinking he is right all the time. Never used to be like this at all. Maybe got switched with another version of himself? Lol.. Just a thought.

Anonymous said...

I kinda think its more like ripples in reality. I remember all the same things you all do. I remember watching a science show explaining how a change in the space-time continuum could create ripples through out time getting stronger the closer you get to "ground zero" or the anomaly event like things or maybe memories being distorted. thinking of this in mind and i could be wrong for assuming this but it seems the awareness to the mandela effect events are becoming more and more frequently. I don't think the time travel theory fits with whats going on because why just a few remember if they themselfves didn't travel back to change the event. and the multiple worlds theory would fit better but still has inconstancies in it. My thought is that time itself isn't linear but more like a branches and what we maybe experiencing is us getting closer to a fix point that coincides with another time line. A singularity like event in the continuum weather man made or otherwise. And the Mandela effect is more like time residue that is radiating from the other time lines i am pretty sure i am slaughtering what i actually am trying to say i am probaly just thinking way to in to this but if true i expect to see a wide range of interesting unexplainable events to unfold in the next couple of decades. Maybe a rift, contacts, radio signals, or gravitation waves. who really knows right. I also feel this may not be the first time this has happened before but its just a thought so I figured i share it. Also maybe only a not all people experience the mandela effect because some of us are more sensitive to the time continuum. kinda like that hum that only 2% of the population can hear or how some people can actually she colors different than others.

Unknown said...

No NO no no! A time machine doesn't "create" new universes. All possible universes EXIST, already. You just move in and out of them.
You hop over into the nearest timeline which is generally very similar which is why it's closer (causality).
Even John Titor explains it this way. It's very, very simple and no "power of every sun in the universe" is necessary.

This also happens when you die.
How do I know?
Because I've had 4 NDEs and there are huge Mandela Effects surrounding each of them.
It's really not that complicated.

Unknown said...

I'm so beyond flabbergasted by any and all theories on the subject. I honestly was not even aware of these issues until literally today when I saw a video on Facebook regarding the "Berenstain Bears". I was thoroughly confused and watched it a couple of times and read some comments before I even understood what was going on because it has ALWAYS been BERENSTEIN. I thought it was some kind of joke.

And now I'm hearing that the line is "No, I am your father"??? I watched the Star Wars trilogy countless times as a child and NO that was never what he said??

I feel as if life has been turned upside down. I'm with you, the probability of the universe changing is absurd when thinking logically. The specifics of the theories involved here are far beyond what I can fully comprehend (my mind doesn't work that way, at all). But at the same time this is very concerning.

I read all three of your articles (ok this one I skimmed, I'm not going to lie. It's 3 in the morning). Your writing is extremely compelling and at times hilarious, so it's been enjoyable to hear an actually intelligent yet realistic standpoint on the issue.

Jeff Childers said...

yes bro me also, I have collected links showing that proof still remains online

fu police said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
fu police said...

They are back dating webpages and have access to the waybackmachine.org. Fione Broome and Reece are the same person. They called it the mandela effect to take the attention off CERN. It all began around 9/23/15
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dujiXW5DlYU

Anonymous said...

There is plenty of proof and they are trying to cover it up as soon as it is pointed out. The mandela effect was coined by Reece/Fiona Broome to take the attention off of CERN. there is a website with a video on top with evidence with the CERN scientists talking about it at reaperishere.weebly.com then go to the top left video

Danny G said...

If in your universe you're the ”world's worst scientist" as per your title, strap yourself in because after reading this, I'd say you're pretty much a Rhode's Scholar compared to most of this universe's inhabitants.

Anonymous said...

I live in Germany where TV never said Mandela had died back then, so what if in other regions and countries was shown in TV that he died, so of course we all remember something else, no one of us knows him personally so we just remember what they reported then or now.

Caty C.P. said...

Thanks for creating this interesting and comprehensive site. I feel a bit relieved that there are so many others out here with similar experiences.

Here's one that's been maddening to me for years.... I understand that there are spelling changes (non-mandela-effect changes) that just happen in conversions from, say, Arabic or Russian to English, etc., and sometimes change organically over time. But I near lost my mind when Muammar Gaddafi was all over the news following the Arab Spring. Listen, I swear to you, when I was growing up in the '80s and early '90s, it was spelled Qaddafi absolutely everywhere that the name appeared. And I do mean everywhere. Never, ever, ever spelled with a 'G' as it is nowadays. But, I know people from my same classes in school who swear it has always been 'G', and others who swear by the 'Q'. (This particular political figure was discussed heavily in my classes for some reason, otherwise I don't know if I'd remember it at all.)

Drives me bananas. The internet of today does not seem to back up my very specific 'Q' recollection. Of course, I may just be plain wrong, but I'd swear up and down that my memory is not confused here.

I know there's another reported mandela effect regarding the date and circumstance of (Q)Gaddafi's death. But I honestly don't know much about that one, and will be curious to read further.

Anyway, thanks for reading. Godspeed :)




Caty C.P. said...

Sorry, I mistyped when saying 'very specific 'Q' recollection'. I meant to say 'Q'-ONLY recollection or perhaps 'Q'-EXCLUSIVE recollection. Upon reading I realized that makes a difference, fwiw.

Michael Sherwin said...

The Tower of Babel Theory

At the Tower of Babel the collective consciousness of the people was so great that there was not anything that they would not be able to do. So God scattered them. There are ~7.5 Billion people on this world today. So why would we not be in the same or worse situation today. We would be but we are not. It appears that God had a solution to this that we may not be aware of. I suggest that the solution was to make multiple earths along with earth's environs. He populated the earths with soulless doppelgangers of everyone. Then he dispersed people's souls to all the earths. That means that some people on each earth had souls but most were automatons simulating the real person. Given this it can be understood how a soul consciousness can jump from one earth to another and retain memories of the former. This model seems to explain the Mandela effect.

Now we must consider the reasons for such a transfer of souls. On an individual basis it could just be that God deems it better for an individual to be on a different earth. Or if a person dies and it was not really their time. On a planetary scale it could be that their earth was destroyed. The "vacuum bubble of death" theory says at some time the bubble wall will arrive at each system at the speed of light at which time everything in that system will be dissolved. If one searches the word dissolve in the KJV a description of what happens can be found. Just a week ago I was not on this earth. The reason I know this is because a week ago on my earth barely anyone knew of the Mandela effect, it did not have a name and the were no internet articles or video about it.I know this because I am one that remembers Mandela dying in prison and the TV coverage about it so I often googled Mandela to see if anyone was talking about him dying. There was nothing on it till a week ago then it was magically everywhere. Given that possibly millions are now experiencing the effect there seems to be two possibilities. One possibility is that an earth or more have been destroyed recently and there are many new arrivals. The other possibility is that it is the time of the end and all must be gathered to one earth and when that is complete the change from the old to the new will occur.

Paranoid Factoid said...

Assuming this is a physical effect and not psychological... and I have to say that I've found several memories that diverge from current history. 'Mirror mirror on the wall', which is now recorded as 'Magic mirror on the wall,' for example. I could list others.

There are two aspects of this. First, geographic - that is, changes appear to be specific to certain geographies or populations of people. Second, most of them appear to be minor events with little impact of major historical circumstance, yet the frequency of changes appears to be increasing over time.

So, whatever is the cause, changes diverge by population or geographic boundaries. Changes are mostly minute. And density of changes appears to be increasing over time.

A lot of people are pointing their fingers at CERN's LHC. But folks have been tracking these changes since at least the late 1990s. And LHC construction wasn't finished back then. Also, it's unclear how high energy particle collisions could create these partial historical transformations. Especially considering that high energy particle collisions happen by cosmic rays to the upper atmosphere on a regular basis. If that's the cause, wouldn't a background of natural occurrences be noise against the signal of unnatural changes by colliders?

However, if you accept the many worlds hypothesis, there has been a new science which _might_ explain these events. Tests of quantum superposition and collapse have been ongoing since the 1960s. In the late 1980s, tests for quantum cryptography were done across small distances where data - the cryptographic key - was stored in a superposition state. Where was that data held? In 'another universe'. And what happened to that universe and ours when the superposition state was collapsed to return the key state? Who knows.

Interestingly, the signaling length for quantum cryptography has increased from tens of centimeters during testing to thousands of kilometers in production. These days, quantum cryptographic telephony systems are in widespread use. What's interesting here is that it diverges geographically those areas contained in the system across the telephony line (or satellite signal) and those outside its boundary. Which rather mimics the experience of divergent memories by population.

In addition, within the last ten years or so we've seen increasing data density stored in quantum superposition states with quantum computers. What were in testing only a few qbits stored, now are 512 and soon 1024 qbits of superposition data. So, a good question would be, are there increasing changes of historical significance proportional to the size of qbits in deployed quantum computer systems?

It's a good question. If you believe in the many worlds hypothesis. And if you don't, just how the hell are those quantum computers working anyway? Where does all that superposition data go?

One possible method of action might be, in a parallel universe, someone else is running a quantum computer (or quantum encryption system). Who collapses the wave function first? What happens if a race condition occurs where both pop the wave function simultaneously?

I don't think anyone has seriously thought through these potential outcomes.



JoeMo said...

First of all, amazing analysis. Thank you for doing it.

I wanted to just address one issue you brought up, the anthropocentrism of only human memories being changed and nothing in the physical world being affected. Have you ever considered any/all of this from a position that there's really no such thing as time? From what (very little) I know about it, I understand that there is zero physical evidence of time as an actual physical phenomenon. There are no "time particles" etc. It's possible that time itself is a uniquely human (or uniquely Earth-ian) phenomenon, the only way our primitive brains could make sense of the universe enough to thrive. Much like there is not an actual third dimension in a drawing of a cube on a piece of paper, a perception of time may just be the way our brain interprets and organizes the universe swirling around it.

If you assume that time is not really real and that time itself is an anthropocentric phenomenon, how would that change your views and analysis of the Mandela Effect?

Thanks again for sharing your thoughts with us on this.

laura.crean said...

I hate that people immediately think you are an idiot and misremembering or a conspiracy theorist or just gullible. It especially hurts when it is family and the younger ones just don't understand because they were'nt alive in the 80s and a lot of my alternate memories seem to be about things in that era. I KNOW what I remember and I don't care what anybody says - things (lots of things) are different!

Unknown said...

I agree and actually thought that myself when I fist startest to experience the mandela effect. I also postulated that perhaps if there WAS movement between two or more universes maybe each copy of "you" is simply meshed together which would explain "dual memories".....just a thought :)

dinodanthetrainman said...

Is it not obvious we are all being gaslighted, one way or another?

Anonymous said...

Sex And the City! WTF?! I read the first reply mentioning Sex in the City vs. Sex and the City and thought, that's a cute example, but it's definitely Sex in the City. I watched and loved this show as a young woman with my mother. It was one of our girl's night activities. Such a small thing, but it was Sex in the City. I like to distance myself from these things, thinking everyone else here is a little cracked, but now I'm questioning myself.

yanus said...

"Each universe seems to overwrite our memories through associative experiences" That's my experience as well, but I have a feeling we could reach a point where both memories are fully activated at the same time, at least I seem to slightly move in this direction, wondering about others?

yanus said...

I'm very curious about your "mirror dream" and I think it is extremely relevant. Parts, if not all, regarding the Mandela Effect, seems to be some sort of mirroring reflection causing a change, or a change setting off a mirroring reflection? JFK died at 46. Some people remember 4 people in the car (me), others 6 - anyway 4,6 - 46. In Jewish Gematria, Mandela sums up to 101 (the mirror and the binary code making up reel-eye-T)..

Unknown said...

I am from universe 010. I have a question..... I was wondering if maybe a bunch of us born in a certain set of years were all slammed into different universes. Such as , me, I was born in 75- I'm from universe 010 according to your list. Is it possible that we are in universes by groups? Does any of that make sense? Also....HOW DID THIS HAPPEN? I had dejuvu always during my childhood... but I truly remember everything starting to change in December 2015. My entire train of thought changed, my desires and dislikes changed .... gosh, does that make sense?

THANK YOU

Unknown said...

I am from universe 010. I have a question..... I was wondering if maybe a bunch of us born in a certain set of years were all slammed into different universes. Such as , me, I was born in 75- I'm from universe 010 according to your list. Is it possible that we are in universes by groups? Does any of that make sense? Also....HOW DID THIS HAPPEN? I had dejuvu always during my childhood... but I truly remember everything starting to change in December 2015. My entire train of thought changed, my desires and dislikes changed .... gosh, does that make sense?

THANK YOU

Anonymous said...

There's actually a movie based on Nelson Mandela's biography. When he was put into prison and released from prison, there was an uprising. I remember this, him being in prison, his wife becoming an activist and him being president after his release. I was born in early 1960's. I have no memories of any prior errors.

Anonymous said...

There's actually a movie based on Nelson Mandela's biography. When he was put into prison and released from prison, there was an uprising. I remember this, him being in prison, his wife becoming an activist and him being president after his release. I was born in early 1960's. I have no memories of any prior errors.

Anonymous said...

Let's put the Berenstain/stein issue to rest. I read that one of their publishers made a mistake at the printing press and they all decided to let it lie after that. No Mandela effect. The End. There are plenty of other glitches we could talk about though.

Unknown said...

Taps headquarters is located in front of my high school I went to as a child I remember ghost hunters since when and who says it never existed?

hmmmmm said...

my question is are there people who really ever remembered the anti-memories? Like IS there a group who remembers BerenstAin or sex AND the city or Froot Loops?????!!! Every where I read it's people fighting for their old memories not the new. Why? wouldn't that lead us to believe we are the ones paying attention and the others just don't care or never took time to notice? I DO like the tower of Babel theory probably the most but I JUST found out about this effect last week. I had started seeing it pop up on my youtube feed and finally clicked on it to check it.... I'm having a hard time wrapping my mind around it. I like everything to be in a nice neat package and this is MESSY! Another question is why are these so centralized to the US? Why are we not seeing this effect world wide or are we really just totally in the dark ages again because of censorship? oy vey.... blessings all:) thanks for the good time ;)

Anonymous said...

Hello, can I share my story.

About 2 months, I overheard my coworkers talking about the spelling of Berenst*in Bears. I did not pay attention to the details of their conversation, because I never really watched them as a child. I think I saw maybe 1 or 2 episodes. In other words, not enough to log the spelling of the name into my memory.

I have a little girl, and I am constantly looking for books or activities for her. About 1 month ago, Costco started to sell children's books in a set of 6 books, according to reading level. I bought the level 1 that included Pinkalicious and the Pink Parakeet on the top of the set. I looked at the binder section and saw that 1 of the 6 books was the Berenstein Bears and the Wishing Star. No, I did not misspelled that and I did not have a memory glitch. I was "E". I remembered "E" because I was planning to help settle my coworkers conversation. I was planning to take the book to work and show them that it was "E", and not "A". However, I forgot about my quest.

Last week, I was at Costco. Again, I walked by the section of where the books were displayed. I looked at the set again and remember telling myself to inform my coworkers that it was an "E", and not "A".

Last night, I was hanging out with my girlfriends. They introduced to me the term Mandela Effect. I was excited to tell them that I have a copy of the "E" version, and that Costco has hundreds of the "E" version as well. I texted my husband to find the book, take a pic of it, and text it to me. I thought I had a gold mine at my house. My husband could not find the book, for about 45 minutes. When he finally found it, I was flabbergasted to see the pic as "A". I know that my memory has not been the greatest, but not that poor. Unfortunately, my husband didn't paid attention to what it was before. So, I looked like a crazy lunatic to him.

After research, I found out that this "memory glitch" has been written around 2009. However, I didn't see the "A" until I learned about the "issue" or until I was within the circle of influence of those knowing about the "issue". What am I trying to say? I have no idea.

The Matrix glitch fits what I really experienced in life:
- If I knew to take a pic of the "E" before my mind sent the message that I knew about the "issue", I probably would have proof.
- Lesson learned. Don't speak it or text it. Else the proof will be erased for my vision too.

- Lang

Anonymous said...

I wonder what event triggered the bump to the alternate universe/consciousness shift/whatever this is? I wonder if this has been noticed by people in non-English speaking and non-European culture based societies? A lot of our examples are related to English language instances (e.g. the bear books, sex in the city, reba mcintyre even! etc...). I have heard from Canadian and Australian friends who remember the bears being Berenstein, as I do. Anyway, regarding the Event. Was it September 11th, 2001? A lot of things, and the whole vibe to so many things seemed to change after that, but perhaps it was just due to the trauma of it that got shoved on us by the media inundation... Is it indeed CERN? The Tower of Babel theory posited above is intriguing. Mind blowing...

Scyrene said...

I was going to ask this myself. Maybe American news feeds are less focused on Africa, but here in Britain, Mandela's release and presidency were probably known by most people (his imprisonment being a political issue in the 1980s here especially). Lots of famous people met him, too - like the Spice Girls, who weren't famous until long after he's meant to have died. Did nobody notice him being president? They only noticed when he died ('a second time'?). Bizarre.

Scyrene said...

Phonetically the two sound the same in casual speech ([sɛksnðǝsıti]), so it's not surprising people misheard or misunderstood it. It seems (from a lot of these other false recollections) that one part of one's senses and memory can affect another - so here the sound has affected the memory of the spelling. Incidentally, before I saw the show I too thought it was 'Sex *in* the City'. Perhaps also because that makes more sense grammatically a priori (or at least as much).

Scyrene said...

It is a fascinating - if somewhat disturbing - psychological phenomenon, that many people seem to prefer the far less likely scenario to the plausible one. Occam's Razor, yadda yadda, but really, that is a useful concept, especially here. Parsimony - preferring simple or likely explanations over complex or unlikely ones, when there is no further evidence - is essential if we are to better understand the nature of the universe, including human experiences.

I'd like all the commenters here, and especially on the Mandela website, to ask themselves - really, is it more plausible that you've slipped between realities (for which we currently have no evidence)/there's a big conspiracy/there are time travellers changing things but some people remember the way things were before *or* that your memory is at fault/that you misheard or misunderstood. We all know human memory is fallible. In criminal cases, witnesses often differ on what they think they saw. Even soon after an event, even when something ought to be burned into one's memory, people misremember - and it takes impartial observers like cameras, or other inanimate sensors, or documentary records to demonstrate the truth. Why then, if we know memory can be unreliable, do people assume that these fantastical things must be the truth, rather than the prosaic, parsimonious option that people aren't remembering things correctly?

I was also an avid map reader in my youth. And the world looked the way it does now. Some discrepancies can be explained by different map projections, inaccuracies in older/poorer quality maps, changes in convention (like whether Antarctica and some of the sub Arctic islands are depicted), but most, as I say, is down to the fallibility of human memory. That those people further from things seem more likely to misremember is key - however reliable you think your memory was, if you grew up in America or Britain, then your knowledge of where New Zealand was is far weaker than if you grew up down there, or in Aus (but that's not to say a New Zealander must be right).

People hate to feel they are capable of being wrong, but accepting our limitations and our mistakes is the only rational course, and the only one that will improve things in the long run. Down the other road lies conspiracy theories and crackpot ideas like a flat earth...

Ljubomir Gorscak said...

I enjoyed your article. RE: "Let's settle on N as the total number of Mandela events. This leads to something like 2^N universes"... Even with that many variations of memories, IMHO only two universes (to use the terminology in your article) would be required. Consider this... A physical matter 3D brain will hold one memory of an event. Suppose you have two timelines (universes) that are near identical with only the slightest variations e.g. Bernstein/Bernstain etc. If those two timelines merged, assuming they were very VERY similar, you would for the most part have no conflict in the memories. If however there was a difference, then the brain would have a duplicate at which point a de-duplication would occur where one of the two memories would be retained and the other discarded. Our pure conciousness (or higher self or whatever label you want) can experience N number timelines plus plus, but the physical 3D brain only remembers one. Therefore, even if one person does not remember Mandela dying in the 80's but remembers Bernstein, Vicks Vapo Rub, and Fabreeze and another same except remembers Vicks Vapor Rub and Fabreze - that can be explained more logically as a slight difference in the de-duplication process, rather than saying it's N number timeline/universes. Further, if there are a class of humans who've committed to mastering 3D time/space and hell-bent on keeping this knowledge from everyone else, then merging two timelines to create subtle confusion is a remarkable test and display of advanced knowledge (or at least advance compared with those who've never had access to that knowledge).

John said...

Yes, yes, yes, this. The Mandela Effect page on the actual Mandela thing is completely insane, because none of them actually agree either on when and how Mandela supposedly died, or on when they learned he was still alive. The idea that someone could have thought he died in the 80s, and then learned they were wrong when he was, you know, released from prison, negotiated the end of apartheid, and elected the first black president of South Africa is rather reasonable. But there's tons of people on there claiming that they though the had died in the 80s until hearing about his actual death in 2013.

To be fairly harsh about this, I don't actually believe these people. I think they are probably lying, or else so incapable of distinguishing reality from fantasy that nothing they say is worth taking seriously. (And I certainly don't believe they were living in an alternate universe)

Justin33714 said...

Well this is weird however my friend the other day ago I have been talking to for a week told me we had not talked in 2 months and does not remember us talking. Later that evening he said he called me and I didn't know what he was talking about so he jumped back to the other alternate dimension and back later its absolutely odd.

The DVM Podcast Empire said...

Look up FermiLab in Illinois and the experiments they were/are running in the center of America.

Unknown said...

What if the reason for people having only switched once is because there is a singular event that caused us to be randomly distributed throughout the universes? If it has only happened once, that would explain that. It could also be more likely that we all ended up in a universe similar to our own, with crazy people coming from less likely universes. Also, as far as we know, the event could have (will be?) caused by someone in the future, possessing technology we do not currently have, thus only humans are affected. But again, all of this is theory. ;)

Anonymous said...

Hi Reece I really enjoyed your article, I have been reading up on the Mandela effect for around a month now and it is very fascinating. I did some research and found some evidence of Berenstein bears books which look like they are original. I cant seem to upload the image from my computer, is there any other way of doing this, i cant seem to find the link to the photo anymore



Anonymous said...

I found this, looks original but cant be sure it hasnt been photoshoped
http://dsrandois.tumblr.com/post/104388380297/check-this-link

Itsall Tuna said...

intrnlcrossing.blogspot.com has some postings which can explain how the past might become altered without the necessity of time travel or intent.

Ursula said...

Absolutely the ME is real. My recognition is recent. What a "dilemna!" That South America is thousands of miles to the east is huge! That our anatomy has changed is more mond boggling. I have scoured the net and some folks do find bits and pieces of the older, incorrect logos and spellings, maps. We are in a glitch of sorts. Perhaps a wave that has jumbled some of the past. It seems many experienced this in 2015, another batch almost a year later, according to a study done by a phD. Very fascinating.

Anonymous said...

I came across something pretty interesting after reading about the Berenstein paradox.

https://www.reddit.com/r/GlitchInTheMatrix/comments/4g7425/batteries_still_not_included/#bottom-comments

Jules

Anonymous said...

Bad link. Something weird covers up the picture. I call photo shopped BS on it!

However I remember it being spelled Stein. THe link you posted is likely a government agent. Which government is the question.

Unknown said...

Lookup up antlatis endeavor connected to j Harry hillard Dec 21 2016. Lunology.4 th dimension. Each time traveled back, dimensions lay over one another but they didn't take into account how each layer has millions of spikes in it like a stem with thorns on it.

Anonymous said...

I mentioned this to my daughter, and she said his name was spelled with a "K", so I had to look it up. I had always seen it spelled Qaddafi and sure enough, most are spelling it with a G now. But I found a CBS news report where it was spelled with a Q, so we are right - it WAS spelled that way, even on the CBS evening news!

Brian Malbon said...

Here's a new one - thousands of people, myself included, recall a terrible '90s family comedy called Shazaam, an Armageddon/Dante's Peak-type companion to the terrible Shaquille O'Neal movie Kazam. Shazaam starred Sinbad as the title genie, but the movie never existed and even Sinbad insists it never happened. Obviously this presents a fifth universe swap!

Baylink said...

Two things:

In your discussions of the Mandela effect, here and on the second Berenstain post, you don't differentiate clearly between "remembering now that lots of people thought it then" and "lots of people remembering now that it was thought then"; this seems important.

And if you haven't already read it, let me commend to you James Hogan's _Thrice Upon A Time_, which, in-universe, does some in-depth thinking on alternative universes and comes up with an answer which (while it's only testable in-universe) makes logical sense out here in the real world as well, though it would have to occur for other reasons.

SortingHat said...

I don't think it has to do with time travel but a mass mind time travel to make you think it's switching universals but thinks like Google News Archives which are unusual cannot be touched.

In fact that may be why Google News Archive was mysteriously shut down with no explanation other then guesses by people who used the service and just went "awww shucks".

I believe it's a last gasp effort by the Jewish mind control to confirm their one world order part of them pitting the USA vs Muslims so they can keep people distracted while they set up a global grid.

War makes money. Peace does not but if things went nuclear unless it was all timed 100% correctly it would back fire on them and they would get residue and lose money quickly.

They cannot afford that scenario in their minds the extreme side of wars so they have to keep a lot of nonsense going.

Look up Project Blue Beam which a lot of the stuff is old articles I believe we are almost there and they are waiting for the right economic time to implant it all.

SortingHat said...

I remember the name Shazaam because I got it confused with a PC game Schizm Mysterious Journey and called it Shazaam by mistake when wanting to search it and even pronounced it as such.

I had Shazaam stuck in my mind for a long time too. Please don't get it going again! :)

SortingHat said...

This is likely the Jews last ditch effort for a one world bit coin system where we are all controlled. The socialists and other rebels that are not in the program are fighting back but the rich ones are all giving in to it and jumping ship to the globalist side.

Trump is a mystery ? mark who says the right things to want America out of the global one world elite system so we can be independent and strong but is a one man army with the corrupt paid media against him.

Anonymous said...

Let me introduce myself. I'm a (now retired) educator who worked with kindergarten children in 2001 and 2002 and took a job as an elementary librarian in 2008. I distinctly recall, when--as a librarian--I first handled books in the Berenst*in series, I did a second take. I remember thinking--"They've changed the spelling of Berenst*in!" I was too busy, then, to think much about it. But the befuddlement I felt at the time came back when I (recently) discovered that many other people remember the E version, just as I do. A search of Google Books brings up countless educational resources that cite the BerenSTEIN Bears (in bibliographies as well as the "texts" themselves). It's hard to imagine that so many editors would not catch the misspelling of the title (and authors' names) of such a popular and well-known children's series. I'll include some of the URLs so you can have a look for yourself. I don't have an explanation, but my "stumble" into this so-called Mandela effect (and a few others, including, for example, Sally Fields' 1985 Oscar acceptance speech, which I remember as "You like me; you really like me!") has, to say the least, shaken me up. (1) https://books.google.ca/books?id=jkEeAQAAMAAJ&dq=Learning+and+living+jacobs&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=berenstein (2) https://books.google.ca/books?id=eJ7MoxR2CdYC&pg=PA27&dq=our+trash&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjKhsmRoInTAhVM4GMKHd-VD9UQ6AEIHDAA#v=onepage&q=berenstein&f=false (3) https://books.google.ca/books?id=v9kW0Z5IJ9kC&printsec=frontcover&dq=building+blocks+foundations&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjk6PrvoInTAhVO9GMKHR8hB60Q6AEIHDAA#v=onepage&q=berenstein%20bears&f=false (There are countless others but your search engine needs to be set so that pre-2000 examples are included.)

Unknown said...

Ah, the Berenstain Bears problem. Some people remember it as Berenstain. Some remember it as Berenstein. And others, like myself, remember it as Bernstein. But WHY? Guys...there is no conspiracy, but there is an effect here. I suppose you COULD call it the Mandela Effect, since the name is already out there...but it isn't an effect caused by a merging of parallel universes.
It's just perception, and the brain's remarkable ability to create things that aren't there, to connect dots from two different things that are similar and turn them into the same thing, and to fill in information ahead of time in similar events...that last one is deja vu. That's right...your brain can and does create false memories. These things are so incredibly subtle it's astonishing. For one thing, many people will literally see "-stein" instead of "-stain" if it's in a name...like Einstein or Edelstein or Weinstein. So yeah, it's just a brain thing, and yes, it has naturally led to typos where people typed the wrong name and placed it on products. No big mystery there. Magicians have used the brain's remarkable ability to trick itself since the dawn of time.
However, identifying the biggest culprit for the different perceptions of Berenstain, Berenstein, and Bernstein is REALLY simple. Just use the clues they give you - Bernstein, bears, 1986ish - and you get Ewoks. Every person who was a kid in the eighties KNEW that Ewoks are really just teddy bears. That's the answer and the source, circa 1985 and '86, of all the hubbub. Peter Bernstein did the score for George Lucas' ABC movies 'Caravan of Courage: an Ewok Adventure' in 1985 and 'Ewoks: the Battle for Endor' in 1986. From then on, the kids of the time like myself who read the Berenstain Bears books and then were introduced to these movies grew up and the information was so very similar that our brains did what brains do - they combined the information all into one thing over time...except that I'm smarter than the average Joe and figured it our fairly easily after some initial confusion when I first learned about the Berenstain problem. So, mystery solved. That's all. "Berenstein" is what you get when you cross "Berenstain" with "Bernstein," thus making "Berenstein" the most common result that people remember.