The Mandela Effect

by April Ironside

The Mandela effect is a term for where a group of people all mis-remember the same event, detail or physicality. It gets its name from an instance where a large group of people all shared the same memory that former South African President Nelson Mandela died prior to his actual death, in 2013. They actually believed that he passed away sometime in the 1980s. The memories from the people about Mandela dying years before he really did included media coverage, South Africa mourning and even a broadcast speech from the late president’s wife.

It intrigued me from the start and I soon found that there were plenty of other instances that people have believed that something had happened/was a certain way and eventually, it turned out that it wasn’t actually the way that they so believed. There are plenty of examples of The Mandela Effect in films and lines that different characters say. One famous line – from Snow White and the Seven Dwarves is when the Queen says “Mirror, mirror on the wall…” – this is a line that people, including myself have known that way for a long time – however it turns that  the Queen in that movie actually said “Magic mirror on the wall…”

Some people believe that The Mandela Effect contributes proof towards the conspiracy theory that we are all living in a parallel universe and others believe it is just proof that misleading information can actually overwrite someone’s memory – however I believe that’s quite a boring way to look at it!