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Alternate universe or false memories?
BY AVERY BOALS ‘19
Do you remember the series of children’s books filled with a friendly family of bears who helped parents teach their children to have proper morals and manners named The Berenstein Bears? Well, if you go online to search this family of bears, their name is actually The Berenstain Bears. Although this may seem very unimportant, it is only the start to a large conspiracy theory called the Mandela Effect. The Mandela Effect, put in simple terms, consists of a large group of people in the world who remember events from the past that never actually happened. This conspiracy theory could potentially help prove the existence of alternate universes or time travel; people believe that once you have entered an alternate universe, there are slight changes throughout the world, but large groups of people still remember the past universe. Also, for those who have seen the Back to the Future movies, it would be like Marty McFly travelling back in time in the DeLorean and accidentally changing an aspect of the past, ultimately changing the future. For example, in the first movie, Marty accidentally goes back in time to when his parents are teenagers and ends up having to make them fall in love again. After these events, the future changes, and the villain of the movie, Biff, ends up working for the McFly family, rather than the other way around. Although this theory sounds unrealistic, multiple examples help to make more sense of it all. To begin, the whole theory started when Fiona Broome, a blogger, was at a convention discussing the death of Nelson Mandela. She vividly remembered Mandela’s death in prison in the 80’s, but others contradicted her, proving that he died at the end of 2013. In our universe, Nelson Mandela died in 2013 from a respiratory infection, but some remember otherwise. The blogger claims to remember news articles about his death, videos of his funeral, and a speech from his widow, but
none of them exist. The more interesting part is that a multitude of people agree with Broome, remembering his death in the 80’s, thus resulting in the new conspiracy theory. To continue, another example would be Tank Man, the unidentified protestor who stood in front of a line of military tanks in 1989, after the Chinese military ended the Tiananmen Square protests by force. Now in the videos of Tank Man, he continually moves, blocking the tanks from moving around him and also climbing on top of the first tank. By the end of the video, men are showed pulling him away from the tanks and into the crowd, but no one is positive
to “mirror, mirror” including the original Brothers Grimm story and The Red Fairy Book. In addition, do you remember the television show with the infamous Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Tweety and more animated characters? Well, if you do, is the spelling Looney Tunes or Looney Toons? If you look it up now, the correct name is Looney Tunes. Many people who grew up in the 70’s and 80’s remember it as Looney Toons. Referring back to the Berenstain Bears, a journalist from Vice, Mack Lamoureux, even emailed the publishers of the books, Random House, asking about the spelling of the name; their reply Photo by Avery Boals ‘19 wouldn’t even answer the question. Others have found Berenstain Bears books in their houses with the spelling Berenstein. Some think that the publishers could have misspelled the name in the beginning, so at some point they changed it to the correct name, but there is no proof of the name change. Also, since the publishers have not addressed the situation, it gives people all the more reason to believe in the conspiracy theory. to who did so. The only thing wrong is So, you may be asking yourself, could that many people remember the outcome time travel and alternate universes really differently: Tank Man was killed after the exist or are these people just remembering tanks ran over him. Some people remember everything wrong? This is a possibility; watching the video live on the television, false memories, or memory distortions, showing him being killed. So, what really are memories that are remembered happened? wrong or memories that were altered Other examples may actually have you by association with something else. questioning your childhood; everyone There is also something called memory remembers the Evil Queen in Snow White confabulation in which a completely new and the Seven Dwarfs and her magic mirror memory is created by your mind on its on the wall, but do you the most famous own. According to Erika Hayasaki from line in this movie correctly? While the The Atlantic, memories that are attached Evil Queen is asking her mirror who is the to strong emotions are the ones everyone fairest of them all, does she say, “magic remembers more distinctly, but that does mirror on the wall…” or, “mirror mirror not necessarily mean that these emotional on the wall…”? Surprisingly, the correct memories cannot be altered. Also, in On phrase is, “magic mirror on the wall…” the Origin of Stories by Bryan Boyd, he although the many stories Disney based says that memories do not just record this movie on have the direct translation information and peoples experiences, but