Tinker Bell and the Mandela Effect
In my blog “Memories” I recalled an incident from my childhood that I had believed my whole life, only to find out it never happened. This made me think about the Mandela Effect. The Mandela Effect is a phenomenon in which large groups of people remember something specific about a fact of history, a person, the way something was spelled or a detail about a TV show or movie. Others remember it in a different way, and often the documented facts prove one or the other to be wrong.
The Mandela Effect was named after South African President Nelson Mandela. There are people who remember hearing that he died in prison. One of them is Dr. Joseph P. Farrell, who is a very well educated student of history. He says he vividly remembers hearing about Mandela’s death in prison. Others remember that he was released from prison, ended Apartheid and became the President of South Africa. This is the version that history records. It is also the version that I remember.
A Google search for the Mandela Effect brings up more than two million results. One of the sites claims to have 100 examples of the Mandela Effect. I have no desire to go through all of these. The few that affect me personally are disturbing enough.
If you are interested in the phenomenon you may want to check out the many videos on YouTube about the Mandela Effect. I forced myself to watch one video. Quite frankly, while some of the cases mentioned were of no interest to me; others confirmed my own memory of the event. The “truth” of each case was examined and often the conclusion found reasonable explanations for people whole have the false memories – often as simple as the fact that childhood memories can be quite fickle!
And yet . . . there were other instances where my own memory differed from what they demonstrated was verifiable fact. As in the case I explored in my blog on memories, the discrepancies were unnerving.
I jokingly suggested that perhaps I had slipped into another dimension.
I was only halfway joking. Alternate dimensions are often presented as explanations for the Mandela Effect. I can’t completely stand behind it though. But one has to wonder . . . .
Here are three examples from the video I watched that I could relate to.
The first comes right out of the world of Disney. In all Disney movies the opening animation shows a dot or star tracing the arch over the castle. But some people (like me) distinctly remember that it was Tinker Bell who traced the arch with her wand. I KNOW it was Tinker Bell. I saw it every week on my TV.
I was distressed about this for several days. Then I went back and rewatched the video and read some of the comments. In the paragraph above I said I saw Tinker Bell every week on my TV. But read more closely. Did you miss the detail I missed? It said “Disney MOVIES” and accurately declares that Tinker Bell was not depicted in the movie opening. I was also correct – I loved watching Tinker Bell in the opening animation of television’s Wonderful World of Disney, and sure enough there she was.
I rest easier now.
Remember John Denver? He died in his experimental airplane. But do you remember him dying over Monterey Bay or over the mountains he loved so much?
I would have said he died in the mountains, but the truth is he crashed into the ocean. This one didn’t disturb me as much as the previous example. I always assumed it was over mountains because of his song “Rocky Mountain High.” I also believe the bio movie that appeared on TV many years ago showed him flying over the mountains. This could have created the false memories. I’m fine with that. Still love his music.
Many of the other examples all over the internet probably have innocent explanations, too.
But not all . . .
This last one I want to focus on also goes back to my childhood. I grew up thinking my heart was on the left side of my body. If you’re a baby boomer, you probably learned that to be true as well. It makes sense. We put our hand on the left side of our chest to pledge allegiance. And we see people on TV or in the movies clutching at the left side of their chest when they have a heart attack.
For quite a few years I’ve been noticing that when police or the bad guy shot someone in the chest (on TV of course) the bullet hole and blood was in the center of the chest. This mystified me. Why the center of the chest rather than the left side where the heart was?
The reason is that the heart is not on the left, but in the center of the chest. Is this something new? Why do they tell us that pain down the LEFT arm is a symptom of a heart attack? Have our hearts moved? I can feel my heartbeat on the left side of my body much stronger than on the right. Was everything we were taught in school wrong? Or is my memory once again playing tricks on me?
Fortunately when it comes to our Christian lives, we find our memories are more reliable. Of course in this case we have help.
“But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you.” John 14:26 (NKJV)
The Lord is the same yesterday, today and forever, and His Word endures forever. The best way to counter the false memories of things that in the realm of eternity are unimportant – (I mean really – is Tinker Bell in the Disney opening a matter of life and death? Of course not) – is to hide the Word of God in our hearts. “That I might not sin against God” – Psalm 119:11.
Don’t sweat the Mandelas. Just keep your eyes on the Lord.
Have you found memories, like my childhood memory of my Dad being lost in the woods that now seem to be untrue? Are there other Mandela Effects that you’ve noticed?