Beyond the Beyond: The Mandela Effect – Memory Mirage or Multiverse Revelation?

Beyond the Beyond: The Mandela Effect –
Memory Mirage or Multiverse Revelation?

In the tapestry of human memory lies a strange collection of both fact and fiction. A phenomenon so bizarre that it creates a paradox of sorts, and challenges our own beliefs about the fabric of reality. It peels the layers of the multiverse back and allows us to see that our own dimension is not as “real” as we perceive it to be.

Or maybe it’s just people with bad memories.

The Mandela Effect is named for Nelson Mandela, who many people seem to think died in a prison in the 1980s, but in reality he was released from prison in 1990 and lived until 2013. If you look to the internet, which I don’t always advise, you will find a large group of people who seem to remember parts of our collective past differently than others.  

For example, many people seem to remember a popular children’s book series called Berenstein Bears, when in fact it was always called Berenstain Bears.

In Disney’s Snow White, the Evil Queen is quoted as saying “Mirror, mirror, on the wall…” Right? In actuality, it is “Magic mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?”

Many say the famous Fruit of the Loom logo always had a cornucopia (a horn shaped basket), but it was never there.

Perhaps my favorite is from the end of The Empire Strikes Back. Surely Vader’s line is “Luke, I am your father.” Nope, it’s “No, I am your father.”

I’ve even had one myself. For my entire existence, I could have sworn that the Monopoly Man wears a monocle on one eye, when in fact he does not. No monocle. 

One internet theory posits that a European Organization for Nuclear Research is at fault. On Sep 10, 2008, CERN (Conseil européen pour la Recherche nucléaire) launched the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world’s largest and most powerful particle accelerator.

This machine boosts the same particles that make up the very fabric of the universe. While accelerating close to the speed of light, they collide with other protons, and these collisions produce massive particles, such as the Higgs boson or the top quark. Still with me? No?

Okay, imagine a big race track where all these particles zip around like really fast like cars. The scientists make them crash into each other, and they create even smaller particles. Studying these smaller particles allow scientists to better understand how our universe works at the quantum level. The small particles fit together like puzzle pieces, and can reveal some of the fundamental forces that hold the universe together.

In 2009, a woman named Fiona Broome stumbled onto the Mandela Effect when she was in a guest speaker’s lounge at Dragon Con. From there, she went home and started a now defunct website to see who else remembered the media coverage of Nelson Mandela’s funeral.

It spread across the internet, as ideas tend to do, by way of social media platforms and online forums. Some groups will always have individuals who are interested in questioning mainstream narratives and exploring unconventional ideas, and those groups tend to dig in deeper once they find other like minded individuals to bake in their own echo chamber with. This happens with political ideologies, religion, social issues, health and wellness and about a hundred other subjects you can find if you look hard enough. Groups focusing on disinformation and misinformation are no exception.

This seems to be the case with the Mandela Effect. Is it more likely that alterations in our collective memories are caused by subtle shifts between parallel dimensions or alternate realities, or that Gen X and Millennials are getting old and have bad recollections of what a family of bears were called when they were six years old?

Even though I was sure that C-3P0 never had that silver leg in the original trilogy, I’m not going to be able to blame this one on the Large Hadron Collider.

Have you had a sighting?  Message @beyondthebeyond1 on Instagram.

Tanner Rush

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Eastern Sierra Now. Readers are encouraged to conduct further research and consult with relevant experts or professionals before making any decisions or taking any actions based on the information provided in this article.

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Catch up on more “Beyond the Beyond” here.

Tanner Rush