While psychologists and scientists keep insisting on referring to this phenomena as false memory, Broome posits that such a collective false memory is improbable.
She believes that she really did see Nelson Mandela’s funeral in the 1980s AND that he also died in 2013.
And, the reason so many people remember that funeral is that they existed in a universe where Nelson Mandela really did die in the 1980s.
Then, at some point, she and everybody who claims to remember Mandela’s 1980s funeral “slid” into or woke up in this universe…where he was still alive but died in 2013.
Perhaps you recall a television show where such a thing occurred on the reg:
Photo Credit: Pinterest/Universal TV
…All kinds of alternate realities, and the Mandela Effect is the crack in the system, the anomaly.
Still others, like Fred Alan Wolf…aka Dr. Quantum:
Photo Credit: Dr. Quantum
…believe it’s more like a glitch in the Matrix, or the holodeck for fans of Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Like, maybe we’re all experiencing an artificially created reality which is bound to have glitches.
Essentially, Darth Vader said both “Luke” and “No.” But, both of those lines either happened in a manufactured reality or happened simultaneously in parallel universes, depending on which of the above theories you’re into.
But, there is also a group of rationalists out there who believe that the reality where Nelson Mandela died in the 1980s simply doesn’t exist; that Darth Vader ONLY said, “No, I am your father.”
They believe “Luke” is just an easy mistake.
Taken out of the context of the scene, it’s easy to see how someone would say, “Luke,” so we know what movie the quote is from.
But, thousands or even millions of people making an easy mistake will never make it true.
Unless you’re Sinbad:
Okay for all you people who think I did a genie movie.. well haven’t done one YET , but I am going to do one so we can close this chapter
— Sinbad (@sinbadbad) December 23, 2016
Sinbad has never played a genie in a film.
Photo Credit: Oh My Disney/Buena Vista
That’s Shaq. That is NOT Sinbad.
Shaq was in a movie called Kazaam.
Sinbad has never played a Genie in a film, but he did once host a night of old Sinbad films dressed in a turban:
@hapotter solved the sinbad genie mystery. I hosted an afternoon of sinbad movies o 1994 (sinbad the sailor movies) pic.twitter.com/yCE65Q3aK5
— Sinbad (@sinbadbad) October 3, 2016
Despite all evidence to the contrary, people keep insisting that they saw Sinbad play a genie in a movie called Shazaam.
Yet none of them seem to remember that, like Abe Vigoda, he was totally in the Good Burger movie:
Photo Credit: Paramount
Now THERE’S your conspiracy theory!
I digress.
Let’s put a bow on this.
For now, since facts are kind of our thing, and as long as evidence is how we determine validity, I’m going to side with the rationalists.
These rationalists know how to read an IMDB page, and they believe there was never a Shazaam movie.
I agree.
Because, there is ZERO evidence of it ever existing beyond the people who swear they’ve seen it.
These pragmatists/rationalists like cognitive scientist Daniel Schachter and other of his ilk, (people who are into proof and whatnot), take the Occam’s Razor approach to the Mandela Effect.
Essentially, they believe science has proven on multiple occasions that your memory is fallible.
It is far from perfect.
It breaks down over time, and it wasn’t 100% correct to begin with.
The fact that memory can be so unreliable is one of the first things every college freshman learns about memory in Psych 101.
But, I get it.
Maybe it’s both cooler and reassuring to think that our memory is infallible and that the reason we (myself included) remember “Berenstein” instead of “Berenstain,” is because we’re either living in the Matrix or sliding between parallel universes.
It couldn’t possibly be that you and I thought it was spelled “-stein” because that’s the suffix we see the most often, and we probably haven’t actually seen the cover of one of those books in decades, could it?
I mean, it could, but where’s the magic in that?
