• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.

The Mandela Effect: False Memory

Maybe not so much a Mandela Effect but more a lot of people not being able to spell or understand what they are reading? As a lot of the Mandela Effect seems to be.
 
I didn't realize there were so many Sally Fields printed typos in the wild. I've certainly heard it spoken far too often, Julia Childs, too.
And what's the story on Keith Richard? Seems like I always see the name as Keith Richards now, but I have a stack of old vinyl that credits Keith Richard on the jackets and labels, so that's the name I still think of.
 
With most "Mandela effect" examples it seems to me pretty obvious that its a case of people suggesting somethng was a particular way and you being able to visualise it that way in response. You then confuse being able to imagine with being able to remember.

However I've just had my own major experience of an historical ME.

Watching the engrossing Netflix documentary series on the case of John Demjanjuk, the American citizen extradited to Israel in the mid 80s to be tried as a nazi war criminal (recommend watching it - it has more twists and turns int he court case than any episode of Perry Mason. You'll be left none the wiser whether he was the right man or not!)..and as it progressed i felt like i'd entered a parallel universe. I remember his original trial as a current news event and I would have sworn on a stack of bibles that he was hanged or at the very least was sentenced to life.

Yet here I was yesterday watching it being overturned on appeal, him going home to America, living freely for the next 25 years and being tried again in Germany just a few years ago. When the **** did all that happen? Not in my life's memories it didn't. This is not the history that I recall and lived through.

But, apparently, it was :dunno:
 
Came across this and thought it might he of interest..

50 Mandela Effect Examples That Are Seriously Mind-Bending

https://www.rd.com/culture/mandela-effect/page/2/

Quite a few of those - such as the Star Wars and Snow White ones - are simply a case of misinformation, along the same lines as "Elementary, my Dear Watson".

One that struck me, though, was being taught America had 52 states. I have no recollection of explicitly being told this, but I do recall - a few years ago - being stunned to learn that there were only 50.
 
One that struck me, though, was being taught America had 52 states. I have no recollection of explicitly being told this, but I do recall - a few years ago - being stunned to learn that there were only 50.
I imagine its just the brain muddling up the awarenes of there being 50 states on the one hand and the separate awareness of there being 2 separate/additional/last states - Alaska and Hawaii. The two numbers relating to the number of states - 50 and 2 - have left an impression on the brain of the number 52.
 
... One that struck me, though, was being taught America had 52 states. I have no recollection of explicitly being told this, but I do recall - a few years ago - being stunned to learn that there were only 50.

It's not unusual for newscasters to casually encompass the most populous American lands as (e.g.) "The fifty states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico", for a total of 52 enumerated jurisdictions. D.C. is a federal district rather than a state per se, and Puerto Rico is the largest and best known American territory.
 
I've just been Mariah Carey mandela-ed. For years, I've lamented that we never hear the original, classic "All I Want For Christmas is You" since that warbling witch did her version. This time, having just heard Merry Mariah on the radio for the thousandth time this fortnight, I thought I'd google that original song and see whether it's on the tubes. THERE WAS NEVER AN ORIGINAL, CLASSIC!!!! Mariah Carey's is the "original, classic". Somehow I feel even more sorry for that old song now I know that it never existed. Especially as I so well remember the haunting opening sang plainly without Mariah's nonsense. It was beautiful!
 
I've just been Mariah Carey mandela-ed. For years, I've lamented that we never hear the original, classic "All I Want For Christmas is You" since that warbling witch did her version. This time, having just heard Merry Mariah on the radio for the thousandth time this fortnight, I thought I'd google that original song and see whether it's on the tubes. THERE WAS NEVER AN ORIGINAL, CLASSIC!!!! Mariah Carey's is the "original, classic". Somehow I feel even more sorry for that old song now I know that it never existed. Especially as I so well remember the haunting opening sang plainly without Mariah's nonsense. It was beautiful!
Could it have been a retro styled cover version so you'd thought it was an older version thinking back on it?

edit: I can't find one, just this .. you may have a good point sir ..

 
Last edited:
Could it have been a retro styled cover version so you'd thought it was an older version thinking back on it?
Not as far as I can tell. I'm not the only one suffering this mandelaism looking at the Internet. If I were, I suppose it wouldn't be a mandela, it would just be me making a mistake. I think the song itself is a retro style (apart from the warbling, which I've just discovered is called 'melismatic').
 
Not as far as I can tell. I'm not the only one suffering this mandelaism looking at the Internet. If I were, I suppose it wouldn't be a mandela, it would just be me making a mistake. I think the song itself is a retro style (apart from the warbling, which I've just discovered is called 'melismatic').
Unless it's the power house Queen Aretha Franklin, all the other warblers can sit back down. I blame Whitney.
 
I have learned from personal experience that ME can be laughed at and "easily explained" until it happens to you... and then it just leaves you flabbergasted. It is something really personal and I cannot explain it. Just leaves you questioning everything else.

I just hope it is false memory or lack of education...
 
Could it have been a retro styled cover version so you'd thought it was an older version thinking back on it?

edit: I can't find one, just this .. you may have a good point sir ..

Lyrics by Mariah Carey and another person. Giving her a good Christmas Bonus for the rest of her life. Even better than Clark Griswold's Xmas bonus.
 
edit: I can't find one, just this .. you may have a good point sir ..

Owch! Most disturbing thing I've seen in a while.

I have learned from personal experience that ME can be laughed at and "easily explained" until it happens to you... and then it just leaves you flabbergasted. It is something really personal and I cannot explain it. Just leaves you questioning everything else.

I just hope it is false memory or lack of education...
Truly, most supposed MEs leave me fairly unimpressed. I already know my awareness for movie lines, product name spellings, dates and the health or lack thereof of celebrities is poor. But this is a memory I still have, even though I now know it never happened, of the opening and vaguely the rest of an original version of this song which is distinct from the only actual version. My flabber is gasted.
 
Not as far as I can tell. I'm not the only one suffering this mandelaism looking at the Internet. If I were, I suppose it wouldn't be a mandela, it would just be me making a mistake. I think the song itself is a retro style (apart from the warbling, which I've just discovered is called 'melismatic').

Well well well. It's all true. Carey bloody wrote it.

I was also convinced that it was an old Motown number. Consider me Mandela-d.
 
This popped up in Quora today.

Someone swears blind that the famous cartoon series Looney Tunes use to be called "Looney Toons" .
The glitch in the matrix that sneakily changed the spelling seems to be rendering him quite loony!
 
This is an interesting topic, even though most of the ME stuff Youtube keeps shoving at me is rubbish. That's to be expected, I suppose, since well over 90% of what's on Youtube is rubbish of one sort or another. What I don't understand is the idea that being wrong about remembered events and such is something new. Is it the phone-addicted clueless that are just figuring out they are not always right that is driving it? Surely that group is responsible for most of the noise.

I've had my own frustrating searches for remembered music and songs. I hunted for years for a version of Rivers of Babylon by Linda Ronstadt and/or Emmylou Harris. I distinctly recalled a stunning a cappella version from my youth, but after hunting down every version of the song I could find by anyone at all, it appears it never existed. Not that there is a lack of superb recordings of the song, including a few by the above mentioned women. It's just that the one I "remember" is nowhere to be found. It's right up there with Amazing Grace sung by Aretha. Her version exists (thankfully!) in crystalline perfection while everyone else's, no matter how good or wonderful, is just less moving to me.

I don't have any problem with the idea that we weave in and out of various alternate realities as we go through our days, months, or lives. Maybe I did hear that song I remember, back in the 70s. I do have a problem with people trying to "prove" it with old TV Guides and human memories. Their time would be better spent in studying normal human perceptions, the ways our memories work and don't work, and such things that have been studied for generations. They might make a bit less idiotic noise that way.
 
Curiously, the ME by which I'm most baffled is the one after which it's named. I'd never heard anyone say they'd thought Nelson Mandela had died in prison decades ago. The only time I've heard reference to this is in relation to all this mandela effect stuff.
 
It's just that the one I "remember" is nowhere to be found.

Yup, I was convinced for years I'd seen a film of the awesome Phoebe Snow singing 'Stay With Me (Baby)', possibly in the epic TV series All You Need Is Love.
Once the internet was invented I was able to discover that it was actually the sublime Ruby Turner. Who is black, whereas Phoebe Snow was white. I s'pose I just somehow mixed the names up as back then I didn't know anything about either singer.
 
... Someone swears blind that the famous cartoon series Looney Tunes use to be called "Looney Toons" .
The glitch in the matrix that sneakily changed the spelling seems to be rendering him quite loony!

Nope ... As a kid (1950's / early 1960's) I watched the original Warner Bros. cartoons in their original form, and it was always "Tunes."

In the 1930's there were 4 ongoing series of animated shorts produced for distribution to movie theaters:

- Silly Symphony / Silly Symphonies (Disney; the earliest such series and the one the others copied)
- Happy Harmonies (MGM)
- Looney Tunes (Warner Bros.)
- Merry Melodies (Warner Bros.)

All were titled so as to allude to music. This was because the dominant motif for these early shorts was animation providing visual glosses atop, or story lines reflecting, a musical soundtrack. The shorts' thematic foundation was the music (symphonies, harmonies, tunes, melodies) and the (silly, happy, looney, merry) animated visuals served as overlays.

The only use of "toon" as slang for "cartoon" I recall from that golden era was the name of the Terrytoons studio.

The emergence of "toon" as a term for a cartoon and / or a cartoon character occurred in the wake of Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (1988) - a half-century after those 4 classic animated short series. Since then, it's been relatively common to see writers, bloggers, advertisers, etc., slyly refer to items from the Looney Tunes catalog as "looney toons."

The only formal media issuance I know of that's titled "Looney Toons" is a 1992 promotional-only video from Epic / Columbia records.

https://www.discogs.com/Various-Looney-Toons/release/12010029

This video's cover (front and back) blatantly riffs off (rips off?) Looney Tunes elements, including Bugs Bunny himself.
 
This popped up in Quora today.

Someone swears blind that the famous cartoon series Looney Tunes use to be called "Looney Toons" .
The glitch in the matrix that sneakily changed the spelling seems to be rendering him quite loony!

There was a popular 90s TV cartoon based on Looney Tunes called Tiny Toon Adventures, maybe there's been a mix-up with that?
 
I imagine its just the brain muddling up the awarenes of there being 50 states on the one hand and the separate awareness of there being 2 separate/additional/last states - Alaska and Hawaii. The two numbers relating to the number of states - 50 and 2 - have left an impression on the brain of the number 52.

Good point - I hadn't considered the influence of those two exclaves.

It's not unusual for newscasters to casually encompass the most populous American lands as (e.g.) "The fifty states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico", for a total of 52 enumerated jurisdictions. D.C. is a federal district rather than a state per se, and Puerto Rico is the largest and best known American territory.

I don't remember Puerto Rico ever featuring. Again, I was surprised to learn as an adult that it's technically part of America.
 
I have learned from personal experience that ME can be laughed at and "easily explained" until it happens to you... and then it just leaves you flabbergasted. It is something really personal and I cannot explain it. Just leaves you questioning everything else.

I just hope it is false memory or lack of education...

At first I thought you were talking about Chronic Fatigue Syndrome :Givingup:
 
There was a popular 90s TV cartoon based on Looney Tunes called Tiny Toon Adventures, maybe there's been a mix-up with that?

Which pretty well sums up the whole ME thing.
It's just about mix-ups and mistaken memories.
 
It is easy to say its all false memories and/or mix-ups, but as the whole premise revolves around the idea of different universes/realities then by its very nature it cannot really be proven.

Say for example someone believes X to be the case, but now all-of-a-sudden it is Y. They can try to tell other people until they're green in the face that it was always X for them, but if they have shifted into a dimension where it is Y then all the evidence around them will be Y and all the people around them, who have always 'lived' in this dimension will be correct in saying it has always been Y. Because it has... for them.

But that doesn't necessarily mean that the person experiencing the effect is wrong.

:)



Disclaimer: I can't say there's many Mandela effects that I 'believe in' (if that's the term) (there is one or two I'm curious about) but having experienced personal glitches I strongly believe something is going on/is capable of happening and therefore I don't like to discount people's Mandela experiences out-of-hand.

Except for the Queen 'We Are The Champions' one.

Cos they're just plain wrong on that.

:D
 
My colleague on the desk next to me just mentioned the old Hovis advert "with the Yorkshire voiceover" .
He didn't believe me when I told him it was a West Country (Cornish I believe) accent and he had to go and look it up.
I told him this was one of the staples of the Mandela Effect. He hadn't heard of that either, but is now Googling it. I suspect he will be registering on this forum shortly!
 
My colleague on the desk next to me just mentioned the old Hovis advert "with the Yorkshire voiceover" .
He didn't believe me when I told him it was a West Country (Cornish I believe) accent and he had to go and look it up.
I told him this was one of the staples of the Mandela Effect. He hadn't heard of that either, but is now Googling it. I suspect he will be registering on this forum shortly!

I just checked that! I did remember it as a south-western accent but the brass band music suggests Yorkshire.
When the advert was new people thought it was set in Yorkshire.
 
My colleague on the desk next to me just mentioned the old Hovis advert "with the Yorkshire voiceover" .
He didn't believe me when I told him it was a West Country (Cornish I believe) accent and he had to go and look it up.
I told him this was one of the staples of the Mandela Effect. He hadn't heard of that either, but is now Googling it. I suspect he will be registering on this forum shortly!
Whaaaaaaa????? I've just looked it up too and it is indeed west country, but not only do i remember it as a northern accent, i remember it being a very particular voice. The actor Joe Gladwin who played Wally, Nora Batty's husband in Last of the Summer Wine was in my timeline (as the mandelistas like to say) always the voice of the hovis ads. Or someone doing a damn good impression of him.

The only rational explanation i can think of is that he must have done the voice in a parody ad on a comedy sketch show as I would swear on anything it was him.
 
Back
Top