Magnified: The Mandela Effect
There are many mysteries in this universe. From the formation of everything to the death of stars. The human mind is a big mystery on its own; memories, social events, people, objects. A human’s mind can hold almost everything, but what about those thoughts that got away? Maybe a change in the spelling of a common name, the way a word is pronounced or maybe even the date a person died. And what if this ‘forgotten thought’ has not only affected you, but many people throughout the world? I would say it’s part of the Mandela Effect.
Introduction:
The Mandela Effect is the small changes that occur throughout time and general mis rememberings for many people of a certain thing or event. There are different perspectives on the causes of this effect.
The main claim of cosmologists is that we have shifted into a parallel universe. This is claimed to be the cause of our intuitions, the placebo effect (getting cured through mental health rather than medicine) and spontaneous remission in patients. Cosmologist Laura Mersini-Houghton found some cosmic background radiation data that was collected by the European Space Agency’s Planck Telescope. This is the first ‘hard evidence’ that we have found on this topic. This data indicates the presence of other universes along with ours during the moment of the Big Bang. Switching to a parallel universe has caused the mind wobbling changes that we see today.
The Proof:
When there is a bold claim, it must be supported with some bold evidence. Why not start it off with the famous inspiration to this theory? Nelson Mandela. This theory dates back to the late 1900’s. The activist went to jail in 1964 for standing up against a government that was discriminating against South Africans. People claim that he was released in 1990, but old reports have been found saying otherwise. On July 23, 1991 there were reports of Nelson Mandela having died in jail. Many people vividly remember discussing his death in class, seeing TV specials covering his death and reading news articles. This event was even stated in the book, English Alive, published in 1991.
But did Mandela really die though? Two years ago, everyone was surprised to see the news broadcasting Mandela’s death. On December 5, 2013 news reports suggested that he had died from respiratory infections.
This news confused many people around the world who remember Mandela dying in 1991. Let’s say it was all fake. The snippet from the book, the news reports, the TV specials. Why would thousands of people have an exact memory of the same event in history? Why would they remember talking about it to classmates or to others?
In order to give some more evidence of this phenomena, let’s all look back into our childhoods. You may remember reading or watching the famous series, The Berenstain Bears. The grizzly bears who taught us a thing or two about morals and common courtesy. Let’s take a closer look at the title. Do you remember it being The Berenstain Bears or The Berenstein Bears?
Now this may not look like a big change, but it has caused some controversy. Many people have called it ‘Berenstein’. The transfer of the letters ‘e’ and ‘a’ has confused me in the past until I stumbled upon this phenomena. I had asked my nine year old sister and she remembers it as ‘Berenstain’.
After some research. I found that a reddit user had a VHS tape of the ‘Berenstain Bears’ with both spellings, including ‘a’ and ‘e’. Another user had run the pictures through a basic analysis program to find that it didn’t have any traces of photo editing.
I realized as the generations go by, the changes become normal. I started questioning what else had changed over the years in order to prove this theory right.
The Mandela Effect is probably one of the conspiracy theories that has affected people personally, including myself. The changes just occur out of nowhere, leaving us to wonder whether we are going crazy. Now scientists have given us a scientific theory to support our common mis-rememberings: The shifting of parallel universes.
Senior Aparnna Manoj is the news editor and this is her third year on staff. She considers herself a realist and has a love of writing. She loves conspiracies...