Original Mandela Effect article
Nelson Mandela died in prison on December 5, 2013, long before his loss.
Many - perhaps thousands - believe so.
This is the name of the incident - and the original website, The Mandela Effect - came from.
I'm the person who first popularized that phrase, and here's what I said, back in 2009, a little updated with new information.
Look, I thought Nelson Mandela had died in prison. I thought I remember it clearly, news clips of his funeral, mourning in South Africa, some riots in cities, and heartfelt speeches by his widow.
Then, I find out that she is still alive.
My response was sensible, "Oh, I must have misunderstood something on the news."
I didn't think about it again for many years, until one member of the security ("Shadow") casually mentioned that many people "miss" Nelson's Mandela - in Dragon * Con's VIP Suite. The death took place in jail.
He caught my attention in a hurry.
One thing inspired another, and I discovered a large community of people who remember the same Mandela history that I remember.
Others have similar "false" memories. One of the next opening conversations was about the death of Billy Graham. (He was alive when people started reporting.)
Some claimed that people were confused, and actually missed the announcement of Mr. Graham's retirement, or perhaps the funeral of Mr. Graham's wife on TV.
Those who clearly remember the announcement and the coverage of the funeral ... they heartily disagree. (Billy Graham died in February 2018, when his funeral was discussed on the Mandela Effect website.)
However, it is not just deaths.
People have told me about different kinds of odd conflicts between their vivid memories and the world they are currently living in.
for example...
During Dragon * Con 2010, someone insisted that they had missed a Star Trek episode that - according to a star on the show - was never filmed.
The person who remembered the alternate episode was not weird or wild-eyed ... he was a very normal person, and only referred to the episode as part of a regular conversation.
I was there when he heard that this episode never existed. He was stunned, and quickly tried to find a logical explanation for his "flawed" memory.
And then, when people found out that there were never any "Berenstein beer" books, and the line in any movie, "Luke, I'm not your father" ... the Mandela effect went viral.
These are not simple errors in memory; They appear to be purely constructed events (or sequential events) from the past. For many of us, this seems to be more than the normal limit of forgetting.
Even strangers, other people seem to have similar memories.
But what is happening? And what is the reason for this?
My favorite sci-fi explanations include parallel realities, quantum science, real-life "sliders" experiences and the possibility of alternative history.
But, of course, there is no one-size-fits-all answer to the Mandela effect. There may be some faulty memories. Some news reports, and online pranks may contain errors. But others ...? Nobody knows, yet.
If you believe that Nelson Mandela died in prison - before his demise on 5 December 2013 (in this time) - or you have similar memories of a "different" past, you are not alone.
This is called the Mandela effect, and if you look at them, you will get a lot of fascinating reports about it.
Fiona Broome is the person who popularized the term "Mandela Effect", beginning in 2009. You can learn more about MandelaAffect.com and Fiona's books in this topic - free to read in Kindle Unlimited. Those books contain even more information and conversations from the original website.
