The topic — now known as the Mandela Effect — emerged in a Dragon Con conversation 2009.
I’m Fiona Broome, and I’m the person who popularized the phrase and created the first Mandela Effect website.
Here’s what I said in 2009, and information that I added as more people shared their memories.
I thought Nelson Mandela died in prison in the late 20th century. I thought I remembered it clearly, complete with news clips of his funeral, the mourning in South Africa, some rioting in cities, and the heartfelt speech by his widow.
Then, I found out he was still alive.
At the time, my reaction was sensible. I thought, “Oh, I must have misunderstood something on the news.”
I didn’t think about it again for many years, until — in the VIP suite at Dragon Con — “Shadowe,” a member of the event’s Security team, casually mentioned that other people “remembered” when Nelson Mandela died in prison.
That caught my attention in a hurry.
Until then, I had NO idea anyone else had mistakenly thought Mandela died years earlier.
Almost immediately, I went back to my hotel room and — after talking with one of my editors — registered MandelaEffect.com.
In the weeks that followed, I shared my story at that website. And then I waited to see if anyone else remember the same events, or something that I might have mistaken for the three-day TV broadcast related to Mandela’s funeral.
One thing led to another, and — over the next year or so — I discovered a large community of people who remember the same Mandela history that I recall.
Weirder still, they were people I’d never met. Many were from countries far across the globe.
None of us could explain our misunderstanding, or why our memories were so similar.
And then site visitors started sharing their other, similar “false” memories. (I’m putting “false” in quotation marks because, no, they’re not all false memories.
Here’s my brief video about the Mandela Effect:
Mandela Effect: Billy Graham, too?
One of the next earliest conversations was about the death of Billy Graham. (He was alive at the time people started reporting that.)
Some claimed that people were confused, and actually recall Mr. Graham’s retirement announcement, or perhaps the televised funeral of Mr. Graham’s wife.
Those who clearly remembered the announcement and funeral coverage… Well, to put mildly, they disagreed heartily. (Billy Graham died in Feb 2018, long after his funeral was discussed on the Mandela Effect website.)
However, it’s not just deaths.
People have told me about a variety of odd conflicts between their vivid memories and the world they’re currently living in.
The “vanished” Star Trek episode… that never existed
During Dragon*Con 2010, someone insisted that he remembered a Star Trek episode that — according to one star of the show — was never even filmed.
(This is the Star Trek episode related to Chakotay, mentioned in one of my Mandela Effect videos at YouTube.)
The person who remembered the alternate episode wasn’t weird or wild-eyed… he was a very normal person, and only referenced that episode as part of a routine conversation.
However, I was there when he heard that the episode he recalled… it never existed. He was stunned, and quickly tried to find a logical explanation for his “faulty” memory.
Berenstein Bears, “Luke, I am your father,” and more
And then, when people discovered that there never were any “Berenstein Bears” books, and no movie included the line, “Luke, I am your father” … the Mandela Effect went viral.
These aren’t simple errors in memory; they seem to be fully-constructed incidents (or sequential events) from the past. To many of us, these seem to exceed the normal range of forgetfulness.
Even stranger, other people seem to have identical memories.
But what’s going on? And what’s causing it?
My favorite sci-fi explanations include the possibility of parallel realities, quantum science, real-life “Sliders” experiences, and alternate history.
But, of course, there is no one-size-fits-all answer to the Mandela Effect. Some — perhaps most — could be faulty memories. Some could be errors in news reports, and online pranks.
But others…?
Nobody knows, yet.
If you believed that Nelson Mandela died in prison — long before his passing (in this timestream) on 5 December 2013 — OR you have similar memories of a “different” past that’s baffling, you’re not alone.
It’s called the Mandela Effect, and you’ll find many fascinating, related reports, if you look for them.
Do you have a Mandela Effect memory? Here’s what to do, FIRST.
If you’d like to read ALL of the Mandela Effect conversation threads — hundreds of comments left by courageous people sharing some of the very earliest Mandela Effect memories — they’re in books. You can read many of them, free, in Kindle Unlimited.
This article – but not any related comments – is available for you to share with others, under a CC-BY-NC-ND license.
You can share this URL with others, too: MandelaEffectSite.com
To learn more about me, Fiona Broome, you can visit my personal website, or my ghost-related YouTube channel , or my ghost-related websites, including HollowHill.com and Ghosts101.com.
Mandela Effect 