It affects the smallest things, from the last location of the remote control to the bus stop, through the email password and the pocket where the keys were left. It also reaches the popular, including song lyrics and dialogue from certain movies. Finally, it can place people in places they never visited, develop events that never happened... and bury famous people before their time. The concept of 'false memories' has already been covered here, but when its scale changes, the world gives it another name: The Mandela Effect
Nelson Mandela died on December 5, 2013, at the age of 95. The South African government declared ten days of mourning, and at least 80 heads of state paid their respects at the funeral. This is a fact. We can easily find additional material, and many still remember the scandal related to the 'impostor' who translated into sign language. However, a huge number of people were convinced that Nelson Mandela had died in prison several years earlier (the most common reference is 'in the ‘80s'), and that they even saw the news on television. A collective false memory installed among us for decades, and which probably took millions of people by surprise.
The Mandela Effect received its name from the 'paranormal consultant' Fiona Broome in 2010, and as an explanation she suggested the possibility of alternate realities and parallel universes in which effectively, false memories are real. Today, it is believed that we are facing a combination of 'reinforcement and social validation', information bias, fake news, misleading content (for example, doctored photographs), the hippocampus playing a trick on us, and time. Does it go beyond Nelson Mandela? The answer is a resounding yes, and this time I would like to review some of the most striking cases. Let's see:
"Luke, I Am Your Father"
I must have seen The Empire Strikes Back dozens of times, either the original version or one of George Lucas's 'editions'. I daresay I know the dialogue by heart in certain passages of the movie, and I am convinced that many fans can recite the entire script, but the famous "Luke, I am your father" that has been repeated ad nauseam and even ended up printed on t-shirts... is an invention. The blame lies with the Dark Side. (?)
"The Tank Man"
Without a doubt, it is one of the images that defined the 20th century: A single man, dressed in a white shirt, stands in front of a formation of tanks during the protests in Tiananmen Square in 1989. Do you remember what happened to him? On one side, there are those who claim he was crushed. Blood, guts, all the details. On the other, there are people convinced that he was shot and fell dead. In reality, the man came out alive. At least four people approach him (one of them on a bicycle), and they quickly remove him. His identity or the fate of that name could never be confirmed, but the Chinese government insists that it neither detained him, nor executed him, nor knows where he is.
"Mirror, Mirror"
This false memory has the particularity of having spread beyond its original language, and technically presents itself as one of the most complex. For a large number of English speakers, the Queen's expression was 'mirror mirror', which later had its translation as 'mirror mirror'. If we limit ourselves to the Disney movie, it is an error in both languages. The correct phrase is 'magic mirror on the wall', while the Iberian dub says "magic mirror, tell me one thing". However, when reviewing the first translations of the story written by the Brothers Grimm, we discover that they effectively used the phrase 'mirror mirror' (spieglein, spieglein). So, we could say that there is a 'half' Mandela effect here…
Henry VIII painted holding a turkey leg, the '51 or 52 states' in the United States, the scene of Tom Cruise dancing in glasses in Risky Business, and a certain embarrassing moment experienced by Ricky Martin also appear on the list, but at this point we must invite our readers to participate with their own examples of Mandela effect in the comments. What other collective false memories do you remember? Share!
