Mandela Effect
The Mandela Effect refers to a phenomenon in which a large number of people share false memories of past events, referred to as confabulation in psychiatry. Some have speculated that the memories are caused by parallel universes spilling into our own, while others explain the phenomenon as a failure of collective memory.
Origin
In 2010, blogger Fiona Broome coined the term “Mandela Effect” to describe a collective false memory she discovered at the Dragon Con convention, where many others believed that former South African President Nelson Mandela died during his imprisonment in the 1980s. That year, Broome launched the site MandelaEffect.com to document various examples of the phenomenon. See, I thought Nelson Mandela died in prison. I thought I remembered it clearly, complete with news clips of his funeral, the mourning in South Africa, some rioting in cities, and the heartfelt speech by his widow. Then, I found out he was still alive.
Additionally, Broome described other widely held false memories, including various nonexistent Star Trek episodes and the death of the Reverend Billy Graham.
VHS Evidence
On August 5th, 2016, Redditor diamondashtry submitted a post titled “Holy shit – found Berenstein evidence while packing,” claiming to have discovered a Berentstein Bears VHS tape with the names “Berenstein” and “Berenstain” appearing on the official label (shown below). Within 72 hours, the post gained more than 340 votes (93% upvoted) and 180 comments on the /r/MandelaEffect subreddit.
“Luke, I Am Your Father”
Many falsely remember the villain Darth Vader uttering the line “Luke, I am your father” during a fight with the protagonist Luke Skywalker in the 1980 science fiction film Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back.
Have You Experienced The Mandela Effect?
