The Mandela Effect: False Memory

‘Myth #1: Milk makes an ideal food for cats​

The traditional image of a contented cat lapping from a bowl of milk is a misleading one. Cats are very fond of cream, which they value for its high fat content, and so they are especially attracted to milk that has come straight from the cow, especially after the cream has been allowed to rise to the top. However, the milk we now buy in supermarkets contains little fat, and while some cats may like it for its taste, many do not find it easy to digest.’

https://www.sciencefocus.com/nature/why-cant-cats-drink-milk-plus-6-other-feline-myths/
 
Next we'll be told that bears have an allergy to honey!

Sorry, but I seem to be on a roll with this Mandela thing at the moment. Here's another (this one suggested by All Time):

The Guido Fawkes mask based on the film V for Vendetta. This has become somewhat iconic of late owing to its use in civil liberty demonstrations and the like.

I'm not going to post an image of it because I don't want to prejudice your answer to the following question: what colour is it? Or, to put it another way - does it even have a colour?

If you're like me you will visualise it as being purely black and white - a white face with black eyebrows and moustache.

If you agree then go now and do an an image search on it - and prepare to get unnerved.

The mask `now` (or always had) features(d) a camp splash of pink on its cheeks and lips. It just looks so WRONG!

And in case you think that this could be a recent innovation - then, sorry, but the guy in the film (which I haven't seen) also ,it is said, likewise has rosy dabs on his lips and cheeks.
 
Zeke Newbold said:
Next we'll be told that bears have an allergy to honey!

Sorry, but I seem to be on a roll with this Mandela thing at the moment. Here's another (this one suggested by All Time):

The Guido Fawkes mask based on the film V for Vendetta. This has become somewhat iconic of late owing to its use in civil liberty demonstrations and the like.

I'm not going to post an image of it because I don't want to prejudice your answer to the following question: what colour is it? Or, to put it another way - does it even have a colour?

If you're like me you will visualise it as being purely black and white - a white face with black eyebrows and moustache.

If you agree then go now and do an an image search on it - and prepare to get unnerved.

The mask `now` (or always had) features(d) a camp splash of pink on its cheeks and lips. It just looks so WRONG!

And in case you think that this could be a recent innovation - then, sorry, but the guy in the film (which I haven't seen) also ,it is said, likewise has rosy dabs on his lips and cheeks.
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After the movie came out, there were a plethora of cheap Guy Fawkes V clone masks on sale.
My son bought one for a fancy dress party and it was definitely just black printed eyebrows and beard on pale cream-coloured plastic. I have seen some with the rosy cheeks and lips effect though which, I don't think, look as effective.
 
Zeke Newbold said:
Next we'll be told that bears have an allergy to honey!

Sorry, but I seem to be on a roll with this Mandela thing at the moment. Here's another (this one suggested by All Time):

The Guido Fawkes mask based on the film V for Vendetta. This has become somewhat iconic of late owing to its use in civil liberty demonstrations and the like.

I'm not going to post an image of it because I don't want to prejudice your answer to the following question: what colour is it? Or, to put it another way - does it even have a colour?

If you're like me you will visualise it as being purely black and white - a white face with black eyebrows and moustache.

If you agree then go now and do an an image search on it - and prepare to get unnerved.

The mask `now` (or always had) features(d) a camp splash of pink on its cheeks and lips. It just looks so WRONG!

And in case you think that this could be a recent innovation - then, sorry, but the guy in the film (which I haven't seen) also ,it is said, likewise has rosy dabs on his lips and cheeks.
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Always was this…
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Zeke Newbold said:
Here's a Mandela or Exploded Misconception...or whatever - of my own: it Being Wrong to Give Cats Milk.

I don't own a cat but my family owned one in the seventies/eighties and I'm pretty sure that we fed it with milk now and again - as a special treat.

I mean, dogs like bones and cats like milk, right? That's why we have phrases like `He looks like the cat that's got the cream`, etc.

But now I hear from cat owners that one shouldn't give cats milk. There is even an air of moral righteousness in their insistence that on no account should a cat be given milk - because - because....whatever.

One cat owner I know never gives his cat anything to drink - it just subsists on rain water found in his garden, apparently.

So, when did the `science change` on this - and why? C'mon cat owners - fess up!
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Most animals past the baby stages (and, indeed, most humans too) lack the gene to digest lactose. Cats most definitely do, but as they would tend to...errr....manefest the symptoms outside and bury it, we wouldn't necessarily know.
 
catseye said:
Most animals past the baby stages (and, indeed, most humans too) lack the gene to digest lactose. Cats most definitely do, but as they would tend to...errr....manefest the symptoms outside and bury it, we wouldn't necessarily know.
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Although a lot of cars go in litter trays so you’d certainly know there. Surely people would have noticed. I wouldn’t call it a Mandela effect that people realised milk can give cats the squits.

I do wonder if cats continue to consume milk after kittenhood if they would keep the enzymes to break the sugars down, like a lot of humans. It still seems odd that no one seemed to notice it before the past 20 odd years.
 
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MorningAngel said:
Although a lot of cars go in litter trays so you’d certainly know there. Surely people would have noticed. I wouldn’t call it a Mandela effect that people realised milk can give cats the squits.

I do wonder if cats continue to consume milk after kittenhood if they would keep the enzymes to break the sugars down, like a lot of humans. It still seems odd that no one seemed to notice it before the past 20 odd years.
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You might notice it, but would you associate it with milk? Might you just think the cat had an upset stomach from....amything? Cats can be a bit prone to random squits.

And no, there's a genetic mutation that causes lactose to be digestible. You can't 'get' the mutation just by drinking milk, it doesn't take long for the gene to mutate (well, a few thousand years) but it's not overnight.

And we did know more than 20 years ago, but it wasn't widely advertised. So many people left a saucer of milk out for the cat on the doorstep, I think it was probably only in veterinary and specialist circles that people really took notice. It's like bread and milk used to be the 'go to' for feeding hedgehogs - hedgehogs have NEVER been able to digest bread and milk.
 
catseye said:
You might notice it, but would you associate it with milk? Might you just think the cat had an upset stomach from....amything? Cats can be a bit prone to random squits.

And no, there's a genetic mutation that causes lactose to be digestible. You can't 'get' the mutation just by drinking milk, it doesn't take long for the gene to mutate (well, a few thousand years) but it's not overnight.

And we did know more than 20 years ago, but it wasn't widely advertised. So many people left a saucer of milk out for the cat on the doorstep, I think it was probably only in veterinary and specialist circles that people really took notice. It's like bread and milk used to be the 'go to' for feeding hedgehogs - hedgehogs have NEVER been able to digest bread and milk.
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Surely you’d notice if your cat always has the squits as they would if they continually would if they kept drinking milk.

And it’s not all black and white. Some can tolerate it.

‘Cats and Dairy Fact 2: Many Cats Can Drink Milk​

Most of us have probably given our cats a bit of milk and never noticed a problem. That’s because some cats tolerate milk just fine, Wynn tells WebMD.

How can you tell? Try offering your cat a tablespoon or two of milk. If you don’t see symptoms within a day, chances are good your cat will do fine with milk as an occasional treat.

Still, most veterinarians don't recommend it. Cats don’t need milk, and the potential problems outweigh the potential benefits.’

https://pets.webmd.com/cats/guide/cats-and-dairy-get-the-facts
 
A cat may be lactose intolerance (as they are) but not get the squits. There may be other effect, bloating, abdominal pain, that aren't obvious. I wouldn't have thought a tablespoon of milk would do much harm, but it's generally not advised to give them milk in any quantity.
 
I believe dogs are allergic to milk too. I knew someone who would always give his dog milk with a meal, and after years of this, one day doggy started looking ill. Turned out all that milk had seriously damaged its insides (liver, I think?).
 
I was out playing pool last night with a close friend. We were in a large pool hall and on the table next to us were two girls and a guy. My friend moved out of the way so that one of the girls could play her shot and she gave him a lovely wide smile. She had braces on her teeth. My friend smiled back and once she had taken her shot he came over to me and said "That was just like that Bond film where Dolly smiles at Jaws".

Recognising in a flash what he was on about, I asked him to carefully explain the exact scene. His description was the usual - she gives him a smile (showing her braces) and he smiles back (showing his metal teeth). She recognises him not as a monster but as someone who also has metal in their mouth. They fall in love.

When I told him about the Mandela Effect thing he was shocked. The interesting thing is this guy used to work on Bond films. He worked on two Pierce Brosnan movies and is also a huge Bond fan.
 
Ringo said:
I was out playing pool last night with a close friend. We were in a large pool hall and on the table next to us were two girls and a guy. My friend moved out of the way so that one of the girls could play her shot and she gave him a lovely wide smile. She had braces on her teeth. My friend smiled back and once she had taken her shot he came over to me and said "That was just like that Bond film where Dolly smiles at Jaws".

Recognising in a flash what he was on about, I asked him to carefully explain the exact scene. His description was the usual - she gives him a smile (showing her braces) and he smiles back (showing his metal teeth). She recognises him not as a monster but as someone who also has metal in their mouth. They fall in love.

When I told him about the Mandela Effect thing he was shocked. The interesting thing is this guy used to work on Bond films. He worked on two Pierce Brosnan movies and is also a huge Bond fan.
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This issue has it's own thread. It might be better off there :

https://forums.forteana.org/index.php?threads/moonrakers-dolly—braces-or-not.61527/

Trivial as it may seem, this one seems to me to be one of the sturdiest examples of the (badly named) `Mandela effect`. All too many of them would fall under the understandable misremembering of difficultly worded brand names or of common misconceptions. Here though we have large swathes of people - many of them attentive Bond fans - confabulating a whole sequence from a film.

I think there's a case to answer here although I still doubt it concerns parallel time lines and such like. The answer may still lie in (para)psychology, but taking place on a mass level - something like Jung's Collective Unconscious.
 
Another explanation for some Mandelas (although probably not the above one) is simply in The Power of Suggetion.

By this I mean that it is very easy to implant an image in someone's mind, merely by suggesting it. (Stop thinking about bananas!)

An example of this comes from this thread. Someone above mentioned that they remembered victorious football teams forming human pyramids when presented with a cup. Now I am not at all a football fan and couldn't be expected to know about such things - but as soon as I read about it up popped an image in my mind of footballers (in those longer shorts they used to wear) forming human pyramids and brandishing a cup. And, yet, apparently this never happened. In my case it wasn't a memory - just a plausible image that had been suggested to me.

Another one. The supposed Mandela about the `lost` picture of Henry VIII brandishing a haunch of venison or chicken leg or whatever. I used to be adamant that I was one of the people that `remembered` that (nonexistent) portrait. And yet I'm now beginning to wonder if I really do. It might have been the case that the idea was suggested to me - and the image being one which fits what we know about that King -my mind duly supplied an image of it.

So it would go like this:
(a) Someone (with a deluded memory) says: `Do you remember when...`.
(b) The other person doesn't, but what the speaker says sounds plausible, so a suitable image is duly supplied in the listeners mind.
(c) This image then gets misattributed to being a `memory`.
(d) And lo! - a Mandela is born! Someone has an apparent `memory` of something which didn't really happen or exist.
(e) Convinced of it, they then go and tell other people about this `memory` - some of whom then have the `memory` likewise implanted in them...and so on it goes.
 
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Zeke Newbold said:
Another explanation for some Mandelas (although probably not the above one) is simply in The Power of Suggetion.

By this I mean that it is very easy to implant an image in someone's mind, merely by suggesting it. (Stop thinking about bananas!)

An example of this comes from this thread. Someone above mentioned that they remembered victorious football teams forming human pyramids when presented with a cup. Now I am not at all a football fan and couldn't be expected to know about such things - but as soon as I read about it up popped an image in my mind of footballers (in those longer shorts they used to wear) forming human pyramids and brandishing a cup. And, yet, apparently this never happened. In my case it wasn't a memory - just a plausible image that had been suggested to me.

Another one. The supposed Mandela about the `lost` picture of Henry VIII brandishing a haunch of venison or chicken leg or whatever. I used to be adamant that I was one of the people that `remembered` that (nonexistent) portrait. And yet I'm now beginning to wonder if I really do. It might have been the case that the idea was suggested to me - and the image being one which fits what we know about that King -my mind duly supplied an image of it.

So it would go like this:
(a) Someone (with a deluded memory) says: `Do you remember when...`.
(b) The other person doesn't, but what the speaker says sounds plausible, so a suitable image is duly supplied in the listeners mind.
(c) This image then gets misattributed to being a `memory`.
(d) And lo! - a Mandela is born! Someone has an apparent `memory` of something which didn't really happen or exist.
(e) Convinced of it, they then go and tell other people about this `memory` - some of whom then have the `memory` likewise implanted in them...and so on it goes.
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The psychologist Elizabeth Loftus' famous 'meeting Bugs Bunny at Disneyland' experiment was about that. A minority of participants were successfully induced to 'remember' this impossible event with a little coaxing.

One of Ghislaine Maxwell's attempts at a defence was that her victims had false memories. In this cause she engaged Loftus, whom the journalist John Sweeney called the 'professor of Bugs Bunnyology'.

Sweeney points out that 1. A majority did not believe they'd seen Bugs Bunny at Disneyland and 2. In Loftus' follow-up study her attempts to give participants an unpleasant memory were unsuccessful.

Loftus' research, if it proved anything, appeared to show that how likely people are to falsely remember an incident or image depends on several factors, including how pleasant or important the 'memory' is. Happy though trivial memories of Disneyland can be interfered with whereas traumatic ones are more reliable.

So the false human pyramid and Henry VIII memories stick because they are of relatively unimportant images. Nobody remembers the human pyramid toppling over and causing horrific injuries or a Henry VIII portrait featuring him holding aloft the freshly-severed head of Anne Boleyn.
 
I was playing through a lot of Lana del Rey's songs on Youtube, I finally came to Summertime Sadness. I'm pretty sure a mixed version called Summertime Madness was released by Cedric Gervais in 2012 or 2013. I remember this version well since it become very popular and was played often on MTV Dance and had its own music video.

Only place I could find it was here.

The Gervais version is now listed as "Summertime Sadness Remix" for some reason.

 
The thing with the Henry VIII portrait with a chicken leg is odd. Most royal portraits were painted back then to make the King (or queen, Elizabeth did it too and probably so did Mary) look as royal as possible. Think Henry poised with his hands on his hips standing all square and uncompromising and 'I'm the ruler here, sunshine.' Showing off all their symbolic jewellery and clothing, posed to make them look as unlike the hoi polloi as possible.

So it would be highly unlikely that a king would be painted whilst in the act of eating anyway, certainly in the Tudor period. It would make them look less 'appointed by God' and more 'sponsored by KFC'.
 
catseye said:
The thing with the Henry VIII portrait with a chicken leg is odd.
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It's the memory of Charles Laughton in The Private Life of Henry VIII.

Even if people have not seen the 1930s film, stills from it have been used to represent the monarch for decades!

His scene of slovenly-eating, tearing at a large fowl with his bare hands, shocked audiences conditioned to expect refinement from their betters! :oops:
 
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JamesWhitehead said:
It's the memory of Charles Laughton in The Private Life of Henry VIII.

Even if people have not seen the 1930s film, stills from it have been used to represent the monarch for decades!

His scene of slovenly-eating, tearing at a large fowl with his bare hands, shocked audiences accustomed to expecting refinement from their betters! :oops:
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That would make sense. The image had to come from somewhere, even if it is an improbable one.
 
This one will be meaningless to anyone who hasn't watched John Carpenter's The Thing loads of times. None of us so far remember seeing this hand mutation on the autopsied alien shot before despite the film being 40 years old now and hardcore fans re watching the film religiously.

amandellathing001.jpg


amandelathing002.jpg
 
Swifty said:
This one will be meaningless to anyone who hasn't watched John Carpenter's The Thing loads of times. None of us so far remember seeing this hand mutation on the autopsied alien shot before despite the film being 40 years old now and hardcore fans re watching the film religiously.

View attachment 51369

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I watched it recently and don't recall seeing that.
 
Mythopoeika said:
I watched it recently and don't recall seeing that.
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Another surprising thing about 'The Thing' is that Cooper's got a nose ring piercing. Fans don't think that's a Mandela effect thing, they reckon it's because we've all grown up watching crappy VHS copies of the film but now we can watch it in hi def instead .. still, why was a man in his late 50's wearing a nose ring in 1982? .. other than various tribes, I thought only punk rockers sometimes had pierced noses back then? .. obviously not it seems ..
acoopernose01.jpg

acoopernose02.jpg

acoopernose03.jpg
 
I was absolutely convinced that I’d seen a news item saying that actress Tyne Daly had died of cancer. This was shortly after the Cagney and Lacey TV series had ended , so late 1980s? I was never a great fan of the series but just noted that it was a shame. I even remember wondering where her career would have gone when watching The Enforcer” when it came on TV.

Then some years later I saw her being interviewed about a stage production she was in. I immediately thought it was “the other one” in Cagney and Lacey (Sharon Gless) but no, she is still around, in fact they both are with healthy careers, nor AFIK have either of them been reported as having major health scares.

Very odd. I can’t think of any news item that I could have misinterpreted unless she played a character with a terminal illness in some other production.
 
It was Lacey (Daly's character) who had a breast cancer scare. Daly didn't have cancer herself.

Daly was initially upset about her character being given cancer, but relented on the grounds it was useful to portray a women's problem that wasn't well understood or acknowledged at the time (Eighties). It's mentioned in these two online articles:

https://smashinginterviews.com/inte...ly-interview-in-depth-and-candid-conversation

https://mysteryscenemag.com/article/3594-cagney-a-lacey-30-years-later
 
There was an interview with Sharon Gless in the newspaper today, about the worst she had in real life was alcoholism, as her character Cagney suffered. I remember either Sharon or Tyne complaining they seemed to go through every woman's problem known to humanity on that show.
 
EnolaGaia said:
It was Lacey (Daly's character) who had a breast cancer scare. Daly didn't have cancer herself.

Daly was initially upset about her character being given cancer, but relented on the grounds it was useful to portray a women's problem that wasn't well understood or acknowledged at the time (Eighties). It's mentioned in these two online articles:

https://smashinginterviews.com/inte...ly-interview-in-depth-and-candid-conversation

https://mysteryscenemag.com/article/3594-cagney-a-lacey-30-years-later
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Thanks EnolaGaia, must have been a news item about the show, although where the dying from it came from I don't know. Phew! I'm only partly crazy.:crazy:
 
onetwothree said:
When I was young, I loved the Enid Blyton school story series. I was very scornful at a stage adaptation of one of them, called Malory Towers. "Huh, they can't even get the name right", I thought. It was only after doing a proper Abebooks search that I realised it's never been 'Mallory' Towers at all; it's only ever had one l. Made me feel very, very odd.
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As a child when I read these books the spelling 'Mallory' seemed more apt because the shape of the word suggested to me the structure of the school building itself.
I imagined it like a small castle with the M representing the facade and the repeated 'l' the two towers that could be seen from the front.
Being from a young age fascinated by the Tower of London, I probably slipped that into the mix somewhere.

Not as farfetched as it sounds: a suggested logo for Wembley Stadium years ago constituted a capital W that incorporated images of the building's two towers.
 
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