Mandela Effect

The Mandela Effect is the phenomenon of many people sharing the same false memory. The classic examples, which are cited in nearly every description of the phenomenon, are memories of watching news reports of the death of Nelson Mandela in the 1980s, long before the South African leader's actual death in 2013, and that the children’s book and television characters were originally spelled Berenstein Bears rather than the actual name, Berenstain Bears.

The fact that many people share such false memories has led some to believe that the phenomenon is evidence for the existence of a parallel universe (or universes) that we only get glimpses of. False memories are extremely common, and while shared false memories may raise eyebrows, prosaic explanations for them are available with no need to resort to the paranormal. For instance, many of those who remember Mandela dying in the 1980s may be conflating Mandela with anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko, who died in 1977 while in the custody of South African police. And because the spelling -stein is far more common that -stain, people naturally read -stein when they see -stain. (The 2010 US Census lists 128 instances of Berenstein and 17,916 for Bernstein, while Berenstain and Bernstain appear less than 100 times. The Census does not call out names that appear less than 100 times.)

The earliest example of the phrase Mandela Effect that I have been able find is in the blog The Wood Between Worlds on 23 June 2012, written by Reece:

Plenty of people have brought up the Mandela Effect. Depending on your take on things, this is when huge groups of people all have similar false memories. Alternately, this is when some people shift to a different timeline and notice that their transplanted memories no longer accord with official history. The name comes from an apparently widespread belief that Nelson Mandela died in the 80’s, which resulted in massive riots throughout Africa.

The Berenstein/Berenstain confusion is included on their list of common memories. Also included are things like a portrait of Henry VIII eating a turkey leg, or New Zealand once being located north of Australia.

Reece also claims to have originated the parallel universe explanation (they were taking a class on quantum field theory when they discovered that the name was actually Berenstain), although their parallel universe explanation was just idle musing not an actual belief.

Various online blogs and websites picked up on Reece’s use, and Mandela Effect appears with some frequency on the internet in subsequent years.

The earliest example of the name that I have found in legacy media is a 17 August 2015 article in Toronto’s Globe and Mail newspaper:

Most of the articles claimed that there are several such widely held historical false memories. They refer to something supposedly called the Mandela Effect: This theory has it that many people believe that Nelson Mandela died in prison in the 1980s. There are conspiracy-theory websites claiming that if so many people have such a false memory, then this un-fact could also have existed in a parallel universe that we somehow got a glimpse of.

Some news articles credit a Fiona Broome, a “paranormal researcher,” with coining the phrase and inventing the parallel universe theory, but there is no evidence that she originated either one.

Sources:

Reece. “On the Berenstein Bears Switcheroo.” The Wood Between Worlds (blog), 23 June 2014.

Smith, Russell. “A Case of Schrodinger’s Nostalgia.” Globe and Mail (Toronto), 17 August 2015, L3/1–2. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

US Census Bureau. “Frequently Occurring Surnames from the 2010 Census—File B: Surnames Occurring 100 or More Times.” Census.gov. Page last revised on 8 October 2021.

Photo credit: John Mathew Smith, 1994. Wikimedia Commons. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.