In 1954, in Haneda airport, Tokyo, Japan, a French-speaking man, approached the passport desk with papers that were unfamiliar to the airport officials. He claimed to come from a country named Taured, apparently becoming very distressed when he couldn't find it on a map.
He had an unfamiliar passport, although it had stamps from countries all over the world, officials did not know of the country the man claimed to come from. In the end, they put him up in a hotel by the airport, till they could figure out what to do with him.
The next morning, when they went to check on him, the guards, who had been outside the room all night, opened the door, to find him gone. No trace was found of him, and till this day, remains a mystery.
Some people have linked the mysterious incident to the Mandela Effect, the phenomenon that some people claim to experience.
The Mandela Effect is a parallel universe theory, in which sufferers say, that for some reason, they are transitioning from one reality to another. They claim that their evidence for this, is placed in the memories of popular events.
In fact, the Mandela Effect is so-called, because a lady named Fiona Broome, who calls herself a, psychic consultant, discovered that there were other people in the world, who shared a particular memory with her.
Broome, and thousands of others, claim they remember Nelson Mandela, the former South African, political prisoner, and eventually president, dying in prison in the 1980s. So then how was it, that on February the 11th, he was able to be released, to ultimately form a new government?
Playing With Rabbits
In my unfinished sci-fi series; Asimov's Ghost, I play around with the concept of the Mandela Effect. One of the main protagonists, K-Rox, has discovered that his archenemy, Malcraft, has disappeared in a game called Empires, in the virtual world of the quantum blockchain.
However in real life, it is much more than a game to tens of thousands of people, who claim to be victim to the Mandela Effect. They say it is at once, both distressing, and disorientating, to find out that familiar events in the past, have been subtly changed.
One of the most popular Mandela Effects, is in the popular 1970s film Star Wars, the gold robot C-3p0, was not in fact all gold. The effeminate metal, mechanoid, did in fact have a silver, lower-right leg.
Whaaa???
Many millions of people have seen that film, and its remakes, and reboots, many millions of times. However hundreds of thousands of them, do not remember this glaring detail.
Perhaps a more popular Mandela Effect from Star Wars, is when Darth Vader utters the immortal line; "Luke, I am your father."
Which in this reality, is actually;
"No, I am your father."
Even the actor who played the voice of Vader, James Earl Jones, remembers the Luke version...
Deeper, and deeper we go.
The Everyday Effect
It isn't just popular culture whereby the Mandela Effect is prevalent; we see it expressed in the mundanity of everyday life.
For instance, the Laughing Cow, cheese brand (pictured above), many people remember the cow with a nose ring. However the manufacturers claim to have never drawn the character in that way.
Or even a famous symbol that a lot of people see every day; the Volvo symbol; how do you remember it?
Like this?
Or like this?
The second one is correct; well, at least in this reality it is.
However it is not just with famous signs, and symbols that we experience the Mandela Effect. How many times have you argued with a friend or family member about an event in the past; whereby both of you remember it differently?
If we take a look at the justice system, we hear witnesses give conflicting accounts about important incidents. We can take out those who are deliberately lying, either to hide guilt, or trying to implicate others in a crime. Those left, are well-meaning witnesses, who simply cannot agree on how a particular incident played out.
The Effect is not always restrained to situations where others are involved. How many times, for instance, have you put your keys, wallet, or phone down in a particular place, only for it to pop up hours, or even days later somewhere else? Or even more disturbingly, in a place that you know, that you have looked in several times?
Do these examples all represent, glitches in the matrix? Are they indications of parallel universes, or proof that we are in fact living in a vast, and complex simulation?
A Case For Reality
So, did our mysterious traveller from Taured, really disappear, after travelling from an alternate dimension, all those years ago? Is that really the only evidence we need, when trying to assess the possibility of alternate realities?
Well it turns out there is a perfectly reasonable explanation for the man from Taured. You see, as explained before, the man flew into Tokyo's Haneda airport, and pointed at a country on the map that was not Taured, but Andorra.
He spoke a language that was at first thought to be French, and had an unfamiliar passport, after 12 hours of being put up in a hotel, he disappeared. So what could possibly explain such a strange set of events; which wouldn't seem out of place in a Stephen King novel?
First thing to consider, is that this was 1950s Japan, unlike today, the country had not seen as many foreigners, and thus airport officials rarely, if ever, dealt with citizens of small municipal, prinicipalities.
The airport employees were Japanese and did not understand French well and had almost certainly, never heard of Andorra or the Catalan language. So the man probably said; ‘Terre d’Andorra’, which makes sense, seeing as he was in fact pointing at Andorra on the map.
The Japanese officials then repeated it later as Taured. For anybody who has learned a foreign language before, you will be able to empathise with hearing a new word and mispronouncing it.
As for his disappearance from the hotel room; it is just as likely that he either found a Japanese person near by who was fluent in French. Or simply left the hotel and found some more competent officials to help him find his way.
Of course later, as the story was recanted time after time, by people who were there, and people who weren't. The narrative changed subtly, and insignificant details were raised to that of significant, and yet more details were brought into existence.
The Camera Never Lies But The Brain Does
In a now famous study In 1974, Elizabeth Loftus and John Palmer carried out an investigation as to the effects of language on the development of false memory. The experiment involved two separate studies.
In the first test, 45 participants were randomly assigned to watch different videos of a car accident, in which separate videos had shown collisions at 20, 30, and 40 miles per hour. After which, they were invited to fill out a witness report.
The people taking part all estimated collisions speeds between 35 and 40 mph. What was remarkable about the results, is that, it was the word being used to describe the collision that determined how high a person's estimate was.
So everyone who had been asked to assess a smash between two vehicles, estimated higher speeds, than those who were asked to assess a bump or collision.
The second experiment also showed participants videos of a car accident, 150 participants were randomly assigned to three conditions. Those in the first condition were asked the same question as the first study using the verb "smashed".
The second group was asked the same question as the first study, replacing "smashed" with "hit".
The final group was the control group, as they were not asked about the speed of the crashed cars. The researchers then asked the participants if they had seen any broken glass, knowing that there was no broken glass in the video.
The responses to this question had shown that the difference between whether broken glass was recalled or not heavily depended on the verb used. A larger sum of participants in the "smashed" group declared that there was indeed broken glass. In fact, more than the other two groups combined.
The two things exposed by this; and many other similar studies; are that our recollection of an incident, is heavily influenced by the words used, when being asked to remember. Secondly, by phrasing a question a certain way, details can be manufactured in the witnesses mind.
This is why a good lawyer, will object to leading questions, in court, or will make use of cleverly worded questions to get a witness to answer in a particular way.
The Strange Case Of Confabulation
So is that it? The Mandela Effect is simply a case of false memories on a mass scale? I'm afraid so, in fact this phenomena, has a name, it is called confabulation.
This is simply whereby our memories get subtly changed over time, the change is so slight, that our brains do not recognise it. In other words, a false memory, is indistinguishable from a real one.
False memories also get strengthened by paraphrasing, passing itself off as quoting. For instance, Darth Vader saying; "Luke, I am your Father", is not a direct quote. However it has passed itself off as one, due to popular culture.
So much so, that even the actor who played Vader, believes that this is what he said; supporters of the Mandela Effect might argue that, because he's the actor, he would remember his own lines.
However that is ignoring two glaring facts; the first being, that the interview that is often quoted, whereby Jones quotes the incorrect line. Was shot roughly 35 years after he filmed those scenes, as a voiceover artist.
Secondly, it is that the line does not make sense when taking the preceding lines into consideration.
Darth Vader: If you only knew the power of The Dark Side! Obi-Wan never told you what happened >to your father.
Luke Skywalker: He told me enough! He told me you killed him!
Darth Vader: No. I am your father.
Luke Skywalker: NOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooo!!!!
As you can see, the actual line, fits much better than the remembered one, it is the same with another famous paraphrase;
"If you build it, they will come." From Kevin Costner's; Field Of Dreams; however the actual line is;
"If you build it, he will come."
A lot of people swear blind, that they saw the film, and remember it as; they will come, again though, this is missing the fact that the film was about trying to coax, some old ghost of a baseball player out of limbo, thus the line makes perfect sense.
So in conclusion, the Mandela Effect, is simply a case of false memory, or confabulation, of course it can't be proven 100%. However common sense must come into play; is it more likely that the past is being edited; or that some people simply remember things differently to how they actually happened?
In my next article in the series I will be asking the question; Living In A Sim - Are Any Of Our Memories Real?
SO WHAT DO YOU THINK, IS IT LIKE I'VE SUGGESTED OR IS THE MANDELA EFFECT REAL? WHAT EVIDENCE DO YOU THINK EXISTS? HAVE YOU HAD PERSONAL EXPERIENCE WITH THE EFFECT? AS EVER, LET ME KNOW BELOW!
Cryptogee