Mandela Effect

**Discussion begins at 4:20**

What is the most famous line in Star Wars? What if I told you that the line is actually, “No, I am your father” NOT “Luke, I am your father”?  What do you recall the monopoly man looking like?  What if I told you that he did not in fact wear a monocle?  Instead, these shared false memories are known as the Mandela effect. The term was created by Diona Broome, a paranormal researcher, in 2009. She was at a conference, telling people that she had remembered watching coverage of former South African President Nelson Mandelas death in prision in the 1980s. She was shocked to hear of his death in 2013, years after he had been released from prison. As she was telling people this story a number of them said “I also remember watching the coverage of his death in the 80s”. but how could that be? Nelson Mandela actually served 27 years in prison before being released. He went on to serve as president of South Africa from 1994-1999 and died in 2013. This shared false memory intrigued her and she created a website to research the affects further. There are hundreds of examples of this effect, but why does it happen? Are our memories really just unreliable? Or, are there multiple universes existing parallel to our own, and these inconsistencies, like the spelling of Oscar Meyer (it’s MAYER not MEYER) or the presence of a cornucopia in the fruit of the loom logo (there isn’t one) are examples of small changes caused by our timeline merging or branching off of another?

Transcript

Hey, guys.

How is it poppin?

What's crack-a-lackin, right?

Well, Colleen went shopping today.

Ooh, what did you get, Colleen?

I got, I did get mustard, a wide leg linen pant.

You were, I feel like, one of the old people I know who could rock those, that's such a color for Colleen.

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Just scroll on down, leave us a five-star review.

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So is it time for our drink check?

What do we have in the day, ladies?

A purple drink.

Purple drink?

Purple drink.

That's what we called it back in the day.

I wasn't there that day.

No, you weren't.

I wasn't there that decade.

Well, for people at home, we are having a Mandela effect.

This is a cocktail that I found on Reddit.

We've linked the ingredients on the website, but it's a Reddit user spin on an aviation.

And I gotta be honest, girls, I mean, this tastes pretty lethal.

It was a lot of liquor, but I made my own creme de butterfly liqueur using a butterfly pea flower.

And linked to how to do that also on the website.

And I kind of thought that was gonna make this taste a little too florally.

I don't like when my drinks taste like flowers, but I think that the maraschino cherry liquor kind of...

It breaks it.

Yeah.

And then Colleen was explaining to me the chemical reaction between the lemon juice and the creme de butterfly.

It's like I've had this drink or aspects of this drink before, this color changing.

My friend Adriana is a fantabulous bartender.

And it's all about the acidity.

Like you pour an acidic fluid into the drink and it turns from blue to pink.

But it is fun and it's very gin, tastes very gin.

I like it.

I'll have a good gin cocktail.

It's definitely Megan's favorite color.

It is my favorite color.

And I would like to say that Megan is a purple girl, guys.

Thank you.

Purple is my favorite color.

And then these girls were like...

These girls.

By these girls, I mean Colleen was like, purple is not your favorite color, Megan.

You don't give off purple.

You really don't give off purple energy.

Don't be telling me my favorite color.

Yeah.

So Colleen, you think you've had this drink before or have you?

Is it a false memory?

Is it the Mandela effect?

Kait, what is the most famous line in Star Wars?

May the force be with you.

Kait, what is the second most famous line in Star Wars?

Luke, I am your father.

What if I told you that the line is actually, no, I am your father, not Luke, I am your father.

I would say I've been lied to my whole life.

Yeah.

How about Colleen?

Can you describe for me what you recall the Monopoly man looking like?

A bald man with a monocle.

A monocle?

Are you talking about a monocle?

What if I told you that he did not in fact wear a monocle?

What?

That's bull.

That's absolute bull.

Yeah.

Instead, these shared false memories are known as the Mandela Effect.

The one that gets me is the hems.

There's no cornucopia.

That's fruit of the loom you're talking about, Kait.

Oh yeah.

Yeah.

Instead, these shared false memories are known as the Mandela Effect.

The term was created by Diona Broome, a paranormal research in 2009.

She was at a conference telling people that she had remembered watching coverage of former South African president Nelson Mandela's death in prison in the 1980s.

She was shocked to hear of his death in 2013, years later.

So she's telling people this story.

A number of them said, I also remember watching coverage of his death in the 80s.

But how could that be?

Nelson Mandela actually served 27 years in prison before being released.

He went on to serve as president of South Africa from 1994 to 1999 before dying in 2013.

The shared false memory intrigued her, and she created a website to research the effects further.

There are hundreds of examples of this effect, but why does it happen?

Are our memories really just unreliable?

Or are there multiple universes existing parallel to our own and these inconsistencies, like the spelling of Oscar Mayer, because guys, it's M-A-Y-E-R, not M-E-Y-E-R.

No.

Or the presence of a cornucopia and the Fruit of the Loom logo, because like Kait pointed out, there isn't one.

Are examples of small changes caused by our timeline merging or branching off of another?

Yes.

So, let's talk about it.

Yes, I believe it.

I so badly want to believe this.

I want to believe that there was at one point two, like, cause the thought process, that the idea behind the Mandela effect is that, like, we had parallel universes and they merged.

And like 50% of the people, like, went to the other universe and 50% stayed here.

And then, like, that's why half of the world remembers things that the other half doesn't.

Or, like, swears it wasn't a part of.

Like, that's the whole thought process.

If, like, at some point there was a merging and nobody knew where they ended up, I think that would be so cool.

It makes me think of, like, every time I make some, like, vital decision, that I'm like, there's a universe out there where I didn't make that decision.

And I 100% believe that there's another world where my life is different because of that.

So yeah.

So, like, every decision you make, if it's like, every decision you make branches off another part of the timeline.

Do you understand, like, how many timelines?

Like, Loki?

Well, it's not like, that's not Loki, actually.

No, that's actually not Loki.

I wouldn't know because I tried to, I was like, I'm gonna watch Loki, and Kait was like, don't do it.

Guys, guys, audience, listen up.

Megan was like, I'll watch Loki, to somewhat understand Colleen and Kate's references, but that's where she was going to start.

Yeah, you can't just start at Loki.

You can't even, you have to start at where Loki was.

But I can't, it's one thing to be like, okay, I'm gonna try to watch these two seasons of Loki.

It's another to be like, I'm going to spend hundreds of hours on the Marvel Universe.

I don't understand why you don't want to commit to the Marvel Universe.

Why wouldn't you want to do that?

There's a lot of hotness.

There's so much, the Marvel Universe has enhanced my life so much.

I'm not a sci-fi girl.

Again, I was trying to understand where you were coming from, but that's just too big of a commitment for me.

I would not say MCU is sci-fi.

I would say it's...

You think it's sci-fi?

No.

No, I think Star Wars is like sci-fi.

Star Trek is sci-fi.

Are there not alien creatures in the MCU?

Yeah, but it's different.

No, it's not.

It's like fantastical.

Guardians of the Galaxy is very similar vibes.

I have watched all the Guardians of the Galaxy movies.

Yeah, how could you watch Guardians and nothing else?

I didn't know that Guardians of the Galaxy was in any way related to the Marvel Universe.

Megan, Guardians is part of like phase two or whatever.

You can't watch Loki.

I will just like-

I'm not going to watch Loki, but I also think I'm just not going to watch any of them.

So there was a brief moment in time.

Actually, I think what happened is then Kait texted and she goes, no, if you're going to watch Loki, you can't start there.

You got to start a Captain America or Winter Soldier.

No, I didn't.

You actually should not start at Winter Soldier.

I think that's the one Megan would like.

If Winter Soldier will catch you, then you'll get into it.

So then I typed that into Roku and I was like, yeah, it's available.

And so I clicked it and then it was like error.

And I was like, I feel like this is just fate telling me, it's really good.

It's so good.

I'm not going to go down the Marvel rabbit hole.

But you have to appreciate the work Sebastian Stan put in.

More about Sebby.

We talked about Sebastian Stan for like 15 minutes in a previous episode.

I love him.

So back on track.

So you guys really want to believe it's like timeline issue.

Yes, I wanted to believe in the time space continuum and how every world is like layered on top of each other.

And at some point they like may cross.

I think that would be so cool.

I think this episode, this research just opened my eyes to the fact that our memories are so fallible.

No, I disagree because people are saying memories are fallible, also have fallible memories.

Well, let me tell you about some of the studies out there.

So first, I've got some examples here.

Now they're like literally hundreds.

Berenstain Bears.

Berenstain Bears is the big one.

Yes.

So was it Berenstain or Berenstein?

I mean, I definitely thought they were the Jewish bears.

So Berenstein.

So we all remember it being Berenstein, B-E-R-E-N-S-T-E-I-S, right?

Spelled that way.

Well, the authors' names were actually Stan and Jan Berenstain.

What?

Where this may have come from, the two official TV adaptation series used a pronunciation of Berenstain.

So it was still called Berenstain, but the pronunciation on the TV cartoons was Berenstein.

So like they mispronounced it.

Maybe that's why our memory is that way.

I don't remember watching the TV show, though.

I remember they had a really fun intro.

Okay, so in Snow White, what does the evil queen say to the mirror?

Mirror, mirror.

Mirror, mirror on the wall.

You both are wrong.

The line is magic mirror on the wall, who's the fairest of them all.

Now, where this one could have come from, they said the original Grimm Brothers' fairy tale in the text, they say mirror, mirror on the wall.

But like, I definitely didn't read that, right?

What do they say in Shrek?

Lord Farquaad asks the magic mirror the question mirror, mirror on the wall.

Is this not the most perfect kingdom of them all?

Tell me another one.

Okay.

Do you guys remember a movie in the 1990s starring Sinbad called Shazam?

And what was Sinbad?

A Genie.

Yeah.

Guess what?

Never happened.

Never happened.

This film does not exist.

Kate's face right now.

No.

No.

Look it up.

No.

Everybody has this memory of this movie that was in the 90s, and Sinbad starred, and he was a Genie.

Wait a second.

I watched that movie.

Here's the thought.

They think that Sinbad did star in other movies in the 90s.

That was his peak time, right?

And he was in a movie poster for the film House Guest, in which he was coming out of the mailbox, so he could have sort of looked like a Genie, and maybe that's why we have this association with the movie Shazam.

He also dressed up like a Genie for an event that he hosted in the 90s, but he never played a Genie, and this film never existed, but everybody has this memory of this movie.

Okay, wait a second.

No, I am on IMDB right now, and there are so many people on this.

So it's not the Mandela effect.

So we all did see this movie.

Did someone try and hide this movie or something?

I'm losing my mind over this.

I remembered scenes and lines from the movie, yet everyone is telling me it's not real.

Is there another movie that's similar?

That's the only thing I can think of outside of a massive conspiracy theory, or that I did in fact actually end up in a different universe.

Sinbad himself has been like, I was not in that movie.

And then people are like, even if you're arguing there's some big cover up, how many people does it take to make a film?

You think they just got thousands of people to just pretend that they didn't spend this year of their life making this film?

It just doesn't make sense that they would cover it up.

I swear I watched it on the Disney Channel.

I'm having FOMO.

So I just googled Shazam movie Sinbad and it says, actor and comedian Sinbad who's denied ever starring in a 90's dada dada dada.

However, many people falsely remember the movie possibly due to misremembering Kazam.

And then I googled Kazam movie.

It's a movie called Kazam that Shaq stars in.

Yes, I remember this.

Is he a genie?

And he's a genie.

Yes, he's a genie.

He's a genie.

You guys are just racist.

All right, listeners.

Jordan, our new research assistant, has researched.

Better than Megan.

There we go.

There we go.

I'm just going to lose my mind over this.

All came from Kazam starring...

Who'd you say?

Shaq?

Kazam starring Shaq, not Shazam starring Simbad.

Megan, did you have that?

Did you have that memory?

My brother did, because he actually meant when they were like, what's your episode?

I was like, oh, Mandela effect.

And my brother was like, oh, my God, you know what the craziest one is?

Shazam.

And I was like, oh, yeah, it's on my list.

And he's like, I know I watched that movie.

Kait, you might...

This one means nothing to me, but as someone with Pokemon interest within their family, you might know this, okay?

What does Pikachu's tail look like?

A lightning bolt.

It's a lightning bolt.

It's got black on the top.

It's like...

It's yellow with black on the top.

It is not.

What?

Google it.

You have to put my card right now.

Kate's face right now.

People think that it has a black tip because Pikachu's ears have black tips, but Pikachu's tail is just yellow.

Look it up.

Are you Googling it?

Oh, my gosh.

Did Mickey Mouse wear suspenders or not?

No, no, but he has buttons on his pants.

I think that's where it comes from, because I think like, why does he have these two random buttons?

They should be like what's securing his suspenders.

Most people remember him having suspenders.

Did he have a tail or not?

Yeah, I feel like Steamboat Willie had a tail.

Okay, he did have a tail.

Most people don't remember Mickey having a tail.

So people are like he had suspenders and no tail, when in fact he had no suspenders and a tail.

And honestly, I would have probably said no, except that I did crochet a Mickey Mouse for Celia, for my friend's daughter.

So people on Reddit were like, I remember not only the suspenders, but the suspenders snapped.

Yeah, Kate's literally across from me right now doing the Mickey Mouse dance.

And you're kind of looking like you could have some suspenders happening, you know?

No, I mean, that was the tail.

You're doing a lot of shoulder shaking for a tail.

Okay.

Do you guys remember, this is actually before any of us were born, but it's a famous clip.

Sally Field's Oscar speech when she says, you love me, you really love me.

Remember that?

No.

The Oscar speech, her like, she, so she wins.

I don't know.

She wins her Oscar.

I think I've seen SNL skits making fun of it.

Yeah.

So I think that that's probably, that's probably where a lot of this comes from.

So the speech was, she said, I can't deny the fact that you like me right now, you like me.

But then other movies or like SNL skits came out.

SNL is a big one, by the way, responsible for screwing up a lot of our memories.

But for example, like in The Mask, he says, you love me, you really love me.

So is that why our memory is so distorted about what Sally Field actually said?

And then another big one in Field of Dreams.

So we think the line is, if you build it, they will come.

That's not the line.

The line is, if you build it, he will come.

Because he's talking about his dead dad.

You know, you believed it was they will come.

Yeah.

So did I.

Out of context, very creepy.

I don't want to get to into the SNL, I don't want to get political here, but just because you mentioned SNL skits.

Sarah Palin.

I can do her accent.

First of all, you know that people did it.

They did like polls and people out of like a photo lineup, people picked Tina Fey.

Yeah, people thought Tina Fey was.

90% of the time.

But also, Sarah Palin never said, I can see Russia from my window.

So everyone thought that's something she said, and it was all from an SNL skit.

It's like kind of terrifying how SNL can just like fuck our memories up and then we're like, oh yeah, this idiot said this thing that like she never actually said.

Okay, Looney Tunes.

How would you guys spell Looney Tunes?

T-O-O-N-S.

I think it's spelled T-U-N-E-S.

Kait is right on this one.

I don't like that.

Because it was actually created as a companion to Merry Melodies.

Interesting.

Like a musical show, and then it went on to become Tiny Tune Adventures.

Curious George.

Did Curious George have a tail?

No, yes.

Curious George should not have a tail.

But monkeys are supposed to have a tail, so it would make sense for him to have a tail.

So a lot of us have just like in our minds, yeah, Curious George had a tail.

I swear he had a tail.

Did not have a tail.

What a tail.

Okay, here's one for you, Kait.

Here's a Star Wars one.

C-3PO.

What color was his leg?

His whole body is gold.

This is like me cheating because I've seen this one.

His leg is silver.

He had a silver right leg.

Why?

But if I had not seen that, I would have said he's all gold.

Why is his leg silver?

Well, I'm not sure about why it was silver, but as far as why maybe we don't remember, probably because the original Star Wars, the film quality was pretty poor, and so maybe it was less obvious.

I don't think he's in...

Now I want to know what he looks like in Disney World.

I gotta pay attention.

Here's one, Casablanca.

The most famous line in Casablanca is allegedly, play it again, Sam.

Ingrid Bergman said that.

Really, what she says is, play it once, Sam.

And then in the 70s, Woody Allen made a film about a film critic who was obsessed with Casablanca.

And that movie was called, play it again, Sam.

So people think that that has confused us all.

And now we all think the original line was, play it again, Sam.

That is so weird.

We all have these experiences.

And a lot of your examples all have to do with either like social media marketing people born in like 1805.

What would their Mandela effect be?

You know what I mean?

Like is it only because we have shared experiences through the internet that we have these experiences?

Well, I don't know because a lot of these for Kait and I, I mean, it's media, but we didn't have social media growing up.

So the fact that we all have this recollection of like Shazam in the 90s, we can't say like, oh, it's because of Tik Tok or whatever, because that wasn't around.

What was it that Mr.

Rogers used to say in every episode?

Welcome to the neighborhood.

Kait?

It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood.

Nope.

He said, it's a beautiful day in this neighborhood.

The 2019 film that came out with, wasn't it Tom Hanks who played him?

Yeah.

That movie was called Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, which is again, not what the line is.

But maybe the editor didn't know.

But that's only a couple years ago.

It also says that Daniel Tiger, I don't know, maybe the mother in this group can weigh in, but I guess Daniel Tiger uses the same theme song, and they say, it's a beautiful day in the neighborhood, which is more likely what's impacting our memories.

Daniel Tiger, everybody was like, all the kids was obsessed with Daniel Tiger, and my kids did not like Daniel Tiger.

I love Daniel Tiger.

We talked about Monopoly in the introduction, having a monocle, but he doesn't have a monocle.

But Jim Carrey, in Ace Ventura 2, he points to a monocled man and says, oh, look, it's the Monopoly guy, which came first.

Did he do that, and that's why now our memories are altered?

No, I'm sure what happened is Jim Carrey was ad-living, and he probably had the shared experience of the guy having a monocle.

The Monopoly guy?

Was it the peanut guy?

Isn't there one about the peanut guy?

One of the theories is that the peanut guy has a monocle and a top hat, and he Monopoly.

So are we kind of in our brains finding these two characters?

Okay, this is probably pre-Colleen's era, and Kait was probably too serious to be watching trash like TRL.

But do you remember the Britney Spears, oops, I did it again music video in which Britney is wearing her red latex bodysuit?

Yes.

Wrong.

No, that's not wrong.

No, she definitely was wearing red.

She's wearing a body suit.

Was she wearing a microphone?

Oh, I've seen that.

Yeah, she does it live with a microphone.

No, she's not wearing a microphone.

So she is not wearing a microphone, but everyone I remember having a microphone.

It's because of that when she leaves her concert, she like ended her concert and she's going up the stairs and she turns back and like smiles at everybody and looks around.

She's wearing a microphone there.

So that's one of the theories is that like because she wore it in the performances, are we confusing it?

And also that she used to release these dolls, Britney Spears dolls, and they would have like they had the microphone.

Okay, but for the we do have a lot of Bravo fans.

By the way, guys, why we didn't announce to the listeners that we're from the Levadies now.

We have had two experiences since this podcast came out.

One, Vita Tequila, owned by Lisa Barlow, shared us to their story.

And then most recently, Bravo's most famous conspiracy theorist, Craig Conover, liked our story.

We love that.

This is going to be...

And I just like, I just like text Kait and Colleen, and I'm like, this doesn't mean anything to you.

And I just want to share this with some Bravo loving fans.

But we digress because in a very famous episode of Real Housewives of New York, Ramona Singer shows up dressed as Britney Spears in the Oops I Did It Again music video.

With a microphone.

She's got a microphone.

So I'm like, I don't think that's where our memories came from.

I think she also clearly shared the same false memory that we shared.

So a couple of...

Let me just give you a couple of things about...

If you believe the science behind the explanation of the scientists and the government telling us that there is one dimension, here's the rationale.

So let's think about this.

We know Alexander Hamilton, because we are big Hamilton fans.

Alexander Hamilton.

We know that Alexander Hamilton was not a president.

No.

He was never president.

No.

But he's frequently confused.

But as a president, people often think he was a president.

Yes.

But the point is that when our memories, like all of the history that we learn, maybe not this group, but the history that people learn in general, like our information, maybe like the president's is stored kind of very close to like the history of our founding fathers, right?

So like, is that why in our minds it's getting confused just because it's like so similar and it's stored in such like in the same area?

And so when you access that memory, it sets off neurons and close connection to each other to bring you that memory.

So it's like a recall issue.

So like our memories are all appropriate, but our recall is the issue.

And when memories are recalled, we're either remembering them perfectly, they're influenced to the point that they can eventually become incorrect.

So again, perhaps our memory is not as reliable.

There's also confabulations.

So confabulation is like when our brain, we're not, it's not lies, but it's like you have gaps in your memory.

And so your brain just like makes up details to fill in those gaps.

And the older you get, the more confabulation occurs.

So it's definitely age related.

Okay.

And then on top of that, you remember remembering something repeatedly, like it causes us to build confidence in that memory.

But actually every time you recall the memory, it becomes less and less accurate.

So you're having this like simultaneous increase in confidence, but like decrease in accuracy of your memory.

So that's kind of dangerous.

There's also like misleading post-event information.

So information you can learn after an event will change your memory of the event.

Priming is like what we see in all the police or true crime documentaries.

Like if someone's like, did you see that black car?

Somebody's like filling that gap into your brain.

Like if you just said like, did you see a car?

What did it look like?

As opposed to like, did you see the black car?

They're like, oh my God, yes, I saw the black car.

And they really think they saw the black car.

So again, that's terrifying related to law and order.

There was a study that found 76% of people made some type of mistake when asked to recall information.

But again, we're so confident in our memories.

Like we will, I mean, Kait and I will like fight about, because that's our personality type, right?

Who was right about what happened?

We're probably both wrong.

Colleen's just like, maybe we're all right, guys.

Colleen is just like the peacekeeper.

But I think just like, just like thinking this and about how like every time we, how easily our brains are manipulated.

And now we think about like the internet.

That just kind of scares me even more.

Because now we just are like perpetuating the misconceptions and falsehoods and yet they become truth, right?

Like we talked about that when we talked about Gabriella Jimenez.

The model.

A large study of over 100,000 news stories discussed across Twitter conducted over a period of 10 years showed that hoaxes and rumors won out over the truth every time by about 70%.

So this wasn't again the result of like bots or like China manipulating.

This was like real verified accounts of real people.

And it's just like someone shares something, you share it, you share it.

And then all of a sudden, we're so far from the truth.

A long game of telephone.

And then they also did some studies where they looked at people.

So for example, the Pikachu thing, right?

So they would show, they'd be like, hey, have you heard of Pikachu?

I'm like, no, I have no idea.

I don't know Pokemon.

And then they show a picture of Pikachu.

And then they say, okay, now draw Pikachu from that memory.

And they would like put the black tip on the tail, even though there's no black tip on the tail.

So because they didn't even know who Pokemon was until they, or Pikachu was until they saw this picture, you can't really argue like, oh, well, 20 years ago, they went this way on this line instead of this way.

And that's why the memory is false, right?

So then I reached out to Dr.

Emily about this as well, before we recorded, because, you know, she's got a doctorate in psychology.

And she was like, you need to look into Elizabeth Loftus.

So I looked her up.

She's a cognitive psychologist that's assisted with a lot of criminal cases that are very high profile, like OJ, Ted Bundy, Michael Jackson, Robert Durst, Harvey Weinstein.

In Loftus' own words, one of the things that I and other people who do similar work have shown is that once you have an experience and you record it in memory, it doesn't just stick there in some pristine form, you know, waiting to be played back like a recording device.

But rather, new information, new ideas, new thoughts, suggestive information, misinformation can enter people's conscious awareness and cause a contamination, a distortion, an alteration of memory.

And that's the kind of thing that I've been studying for the past many decades.

They can be manipulated when people talk to each other after, let's say, some crime is over, they may have both witnessed.

They can be manipulated when they are interrogated by an investigator who maybe has an agenda or has a hypothesis about what probably happened and communicates that to the witness even inadvertently.

People can be manipulated when they see media coverage about an event.

Let's say it's a high publicity event that is talked about a lot on television or newspapers.

In all these cases, the opportunity is there for new information, not necessarily accurate information, to contaminate a person's memory.

So she got into this pretty much because the Department of Transportation was offering funding for research into car crashes.

And so she did these experiments where she showed 45 students videos of car crashes, and then she would use like different terminology for questions.

She'd be like, how fast do you think those cars were going when they collided?

Or how fast were they going when they hit each other?

Or how fast were they going when they smashed into each other?

And the different like terminology impacted the speed, like the response they got.

That's an interesting research.

So she had a student also who, he gave his younger brother three stories of actual events from his childhood, and then a false story about the brother being lost in the mall.

And so he tells his brother, like, these things happened, do you remember?

And he's like, oh my god, I do remember.

And the younger brother is like giving facts, like details about these stories.

And then in the end, they're like, you were never lost in the mall.

And so it's interesting because Elizabeth Loftus, she was doing all of this for like decades.

She was testifying about, you know, the fallibility of memory.

And then her mother had died in the backyard swimming pool, and she had been nowhere near there when this happened.

And so in 1988, her uncle is like, don't you remember you were the one who found your mom in the swimming pool?

And she was like, what?

And then she claims that all of a sudden everything came back to her, like the sights and the sounds.

And she was like, I remember I found her.

She was in her nightgown.

She was face down.

I was screaming.

The police came.

And then three days later, her uncle's like, I'm sorry I was wrong.

You like actually are not the one who found her.

And then her relatives are like, no, it was your aunt who found your mom.

So the point is her initial memory was like, I was nowhere near this body.

Someone said, what?

You're the one who found your mom.

Suddenly she is like, I have these vivid memories of it happening.

But in fact, she really never found her mom.

So kind of just interesting about, I think, how we are so confident in our memories, but how easily they can be manipulated even unintentionally.

OK, so that's all I have on kind of what we know about our memories and how our memories can be impacted.

If we want to take this back to kind of the theory that Kait presented at the beginning of the episode.

So there's this large Hadrian Collider.

It's a particle accelerator at the European Organization for Nuclear Research in Switzerland.

And it was activated in 2008, and people theorize that when it was activated, it opened this portal to a different dimension.

This is like how Barry Allen came to exist.

Is that a...

A particle accelerator.

Yeah, so is that a Marvel thing?

Yeah, the Flash.

Not Marvel, DC.

The Flash.

I cannot even keep up with the Marvel characters, and now you're throwing DC characters at me, but OK.

So anyway, one of the physicists who works there, the certain particle physicist, Laura Nellis, she actually has come out on TikTok, specifically to talk about this theory about the Oreo double stuff.

Is the Oreo double stuff or double stuffed?

Oh, double stuffed.

ED at the end.

Stuff.

No, it's double stuff.

S-T-U-F.

So this physicist comes out on TikTok, and she's like, there are much higher energy particle collisions happening in our atmosphere all the time.

I can promise you, we are not going around changing the labels on your food.

So kind of like we have bigger issues.

You really think we have the time to be like, let's just fuck with the people and, you know.

That's how it starts.

Well, like there's this idea out there that like multiple, I was talking about this earlier, like multiple universes exist on a plane.

So if every universe is like one plane, it's like the idea that like every universe is parallel from each other and parallel lines aren't supposed to cross, right?

But if at some point they become folded, at that point, the universes can become, they can merge.

So like, are you with me?

You guys are not with me.

I think so, but I'm just thinking like, is there a Kait in the other universe and there's a Kait in this universe?

There are two Kates.

So it's like there's a different, like this is Earth one, and there are an infinite amount of Earths.

And like Kait on one Earth could be living a completely different life than me based on different decisions that I have made.

That's like the idea behind multiple universes, like your decisions sort of reflect your life, right?

Universe, again, exists on a plane stacked on top of each other, where all of them are like parallel to each other.

And parallel lines, like the definition is like they never cross, right?

That's why they're parallel.

The idea is that if at some point you can bend one of the universes, then they would intersect with the others at a certain point of time.

So the argument would be that Shazam like existed on a parallel universe.

So the whole idea behind the Mandela effect is that people think that another universe crossed ours, and where one of our universes like ended, another universe began.

So like whoever existed in that universe when it intersected with ours, those are the people that remember the things that they swear they remember.

Like the fruit of the loom had a cornucopia because in their universe it did.

In their universe, Pikachu had a black tip on his tail.

So their universe intersects with ours, but then again, what happened?

How did it get into my head?

Are there duplicate people?

Well, I guess you're saying that if Colleen, you were previously in a different one, and now you're in this timeline.

Yeah, the idea is that you intersect at a point and then you never intersect again.

So some people stayed behind, and some people went into the other universe.

But again, what if Kait stayed behind?

Maybe I got a doppelganger out there.

Does the Mandela effect play into doppelgangers at all?

Because people swear they have doppelgangers out there too.

And the people that are like, you have a familiar face, I swear I've met you before.

Yeah, like Deja Vu.

And maybe the creator of double stuffed Oreos in a different timeline.

Or just people that remember double stuffed with ED.

They're just from a different timeline.

That's the whole point.

Like Mandela died in the other universe, which is where it all starts.

That's what people say.

That's the Mandela effect.

That's what people say.

At some point, another universe crossed with ours, and whoever remembered their past life with that universe carries on the memories that were part of that universe.

So that's why their memories are different than ours.

But I guess I just can't...

But you have no rec...

Yeah, it's so confusing.

It freaks me out.

How would you know?

You don't know?

You don't know?

You're not like, oh, this is weird because like...

No, why would you know?

You don't know.

We don't know.

We don't know anything.

You just all of a sudden showed up to school one day.

And like...

Because it's the same.

But it's obviously not the same if there was double stuffed in another dimension.

Or...

That it's so close.

That's the thought process.

I'm not saying I believe it.

Two universes collided.

Part of the people were from the other universe that remember all of these things and part of the people are not.

Part of the people are like, no, Fruit of the Loom is just fruit.

There's no cornucopia.

When you go online, people are like, oh, I know that there was a cornucopia, and I have checked everybody's closet at every house I have gone into, and I have found two t-shirts with the cornucopia logo or whatever.

And I think a lot of those have been disproven, but could you be arguing then that, like, someone entered this timeline in a t-shirt with the cornucopia?

Yeah, that would be how it works.

Yeah, that is, like, really making my head hurt thinking about.

I mean, I just think about the human body as such a complicated system, and it's more likely that we just have false confidence in the function of our brain.

I mean, I just want to know where memory is stored.

Like, I just want to understand memory in general.

Yeah, we tend to this war too, right?

Yeah, like, it doesn't make sense to me.

Like, we have a brain that remembers things, but, like, some things I remember, like, super vividly, and other things I, like, barely remember.

And why does it matter?

And why are some things so vividly remembered?

And, like, where does it all go?

Like, that's what freaks me out.

Like, what is memory?

Because you can't measure it.

People don't understand what it is.

We don't know.

I mean, we have technology to sort of, like, see where the different neurons, like, light up in our brain, but, like, we still can't explain it.

Like, that's, yeah.

So, I mean, it's very possible that, like, you just manipulate it in your head to make it make sense, because that's our whole point, right?

Everyone wants to make things make sense.

Mm-hmm.

So...

You got to pick one now for the poll.

So, which one are you, which one do you think is more likely?

I mean, I personally, like, don't believe that we intersected with another universe.

Like, I'm sorry.

You want to believe it, but you don't believe it.

Yeah, I would love to believe it.

But again, like, there's so many holes in that theory.

Like, like what you were saying, the questions you're asking.

Like, so there's just two Kates and, like, where's the other one?

And how do you know that that other one got off in the other universe?

Like, like, it would be cool, but I feel like we would know.

Like, there would be something because then there would be chaos, right?

That's what happens when you don't...

Why didn't two Kates show up to school one day?

Because they were living their life because everything's pretty much the same, right?

And then all of a sudden, if two of you end up in this same timeline, I feel like you would see each other at some point.

Or the universe...

Isn't there some theory about, like, the universes create more order?

Like, isn't that, like, a thing?

Like, the universe is consistently trying to create order.

And so, like, if two universes collided, there would be chaos.

Like, I swear, that's, like, a theory out there.

Mm-hmm.

So, like, yeah, we would recognize the chaos.

Colleen, what do you think?

I think conversations like this start making me question my own existence.

And I'm like, is it all just made up?

And then also, I feel like...

Yeah.

And then I'm like, I feel like I just need to learn more about how our brain processes things and processes experiences.

Well, I think that's Kate's knowing, is that nobody knows.

And it freaks me out because you can't study brain while it's alive.

You can't study brain when it's dead.

Yeah.

Or you have to wait, like, weeks for it to solidify.

But even still, what are you...

Just tissue.

There's no life in that brain.

Like, life is memory, right?

I mean, guys, what if we're all just, like, puppets?

Because when I was a kid, I had daydreaming issues, and I would dream that I was in a book.

And, like, every day was a page being flipped.

And I really, truly thought there was people reading my story.

And I would get stuck in the daydream, and it would scare me, and then I wouldn't sleep.

Colleen, I think about...

Insane daydreams.

Yeah, the Truman Show really blew my mind.

I always thought, like, yeah, am I just in a movie?

People are kind of the similar concept.

I'm in a movie that people are watching, and everyone around me is...

They tell me everything is not about me.

Yeah, what if everyone around me is just an actor playing a role to get me to respond in certain ways, and everyone else in the world is just watching me like I'm on the Truman Show?

Then I only feel good when I don't see people like that.

When I get in my headspace like that, I'm like, I'm just not going to experience things today.

You're like, I'm afraid Megan and Kait are going to come over and manipulate me, and so I need to just sit on my couch.

I've never had any of these, and I feel like I'm usually pretty on track with these things.

Having such access to social media and interactions with people, thousands at a time, I've just learned that I've just never had a unique experience in my life, and that also freaks me out.

Well, maybe that's part of the problem with social media in your generation.

I may just sound like an old curmudgeon, but all the ways social media is just messing up the brains of...

It's literally...

social media literally ruins social construct.

But guys, please follow us on Instagram, okay?

Yeah, we're okay with our media.

Okay, so our poll, Kait, what should our poll be?

Our poll is, we don't understand the brain, and the brain is filling in gaps for us.

And then number two is, no, at some point we collided with the universe.

I said it enough, the universe has collided.

All right, after this episode, what should the people do?

Scroll on down, leave us a five star review.

Share us with your friends, share us with your family, share us on your social media, send us an email, and yeah.

And guys, next week we are going to launch the season.

Colleen is going to start us off with, what are we talking about, Colleen?

We've got, drum roll please, next week we're going to start the season off, down under, deep in the water, with the eels.

The eels.

We've got some deep dark creatures coming up.

I'm going to be honest, I know nothing about where eels are going to go, so I hope it's not going to give me anxiety like the dolphins.

I hope you're not about to have another sea creature that terrifies me.

No, eels are so mysterious.

They're extremely mysterious.

See you next Tuesday.