BrainStuff Classics: What Is the Mandela Effect?

When many people share a false memory, that's the Mandela Effect in action -- but how does it happen? Learn how our individual brains misremember stuff and how false memories can spread in this classic episode of BrainStuff.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey brain Stuff,
Lauren vogelbaumb here with a classic for you from the vault.
In this one, we talk about the Mandela effect, that
strange phenomenon where lots of people misremember the same thing
in the same way. I probably don't say it enough

(00:22):
on this show given the show's name, but brains are weird.
Hey brain Stuff, Lauren vogelbomb here. Accountless humans have watched
the Star Wars movies.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
And most of them will tell you that the bumbling
droid named C Threepo is gold all over. But did
you know that C three Po actually has one silver leg?
And what's that immortal line Darth Vader utters in the
movie The Empire strikes back. It's not Luke, I am
your father. He actually says, no, I am your father.

(00:53):
Both of these are pop culture examples of what's called
the Mandela effect, which are false memories shared among a
large popular of people, a collective misremembering of sorts. The
phrase was coined around two thousand and nine by self
described paranormal consultant Fiona Broome, who used it to explain
the phenomenon where many people around the world believed that
the South African leader Nelson Mandela died in prison in

(01:15):
the nineteen eighties, but he was released in nineteen ninety
later served as president of the country, and died in
twenty thirteen at the age of ninety five. Broome's theory
is that at all times, there are multiple realities of
each universe sometimes called the multiverse, and that within each
universe there are variations or iterations of objects, people, and events. So,

(01:37):
according to this theory, memories of these incorrect shared moments
are not really false. There are just instances where parallel
universes crossed paths for an instant. The multiverse theory is
also applied to various concepts in physics and spider man
a science has other explanations for how the Mandela effect happens.
Much of it boils down to the fact that human

(01:58):
memory is notoriously unreliable. In this our age of digital technologies,
we often equate our brains with computer hard drives, as
though our experiences are typed up and filed away in
our own organic storage. However, our prefrontal cortices, where many
memories are stored, don't work with the same precision as
a hard drive. We spoke via email with Caitlin Amote, ACLA,

(02:21):
PhD candidate in neuroscience. She says that based on what
we know about the brain, we can make inferences about
what contributes to the Mandela effect. Quote. Memories are organized
in the brain so that similar memories are stored in
nearby neurons. When a memory is recalled, those cells are
able to change their connections, which allows for the addition
of new information. But because neurons that fire together wired together,

(02:44):
sometimes false memories can emerge from erroneous connections. While we
might think of recalling memories as solidifying them in our brains,
science seems to suggest otherwise. Recalling a memory often triggers
other memories in the process, often intertwining varies, scenarios, and
people in new ways, a sort of reconsolidating of the
information in our brains. Human beings are also vulnerable to

(03:08):
the concept of confabulation, which is an error or misinterpretation
regarding a memory without a conscious attempt to mislead ourselves
or others. Confabulation occurs when the brain is attempting to
fill in the blanks for incomplete memories. A speaker may
mix and match similar experiences and information in order to
complete a story in their mind, complete with details and

(03:28):
emotional responses, certain that the tale is true. This kind
of behavior happens more frequently in people coping with neurological
issues such as brain damage or Alzheimer's, but healthy individuals
confabulate too. Okay, so that might explain how one person
misremembers something, But why would lots of people misremember the
same facts. Emote points to a twenty sixteen psychology study

(03:53):
showing that eighty eight percent of people in an online
survey incorrectly picked Alexander Hamilton as a US president from
a list of possible cause candidates. Hamilton's recognition rate was
much higher than that of some actual presidents like Franklin
Pierce and Chester Arthur. Hamilton was actually the first Secretary
of Treasury, but since he's associated with many early US

(04:13):
presidents and has a hit Broadway show with his name
in the title, one or many could be forgiven for
mistaking him for a former commander in chief. Amote also
notes the power of suggestion. She said, suggestibility is the
tendency to believe what others suggest to be true. This
is why lawyers are prohibited from asking witnesses leading questions

(04:33):
that suggest a specific answer. These days, there's also the
viral power of the Internet and its ability to magnify
human error, suggestibility, and gullibility. Just for example, if one
person should vociferously claim that the actor Sinbad starred in
a nineties movie about a genie called Shazam and could
pro offer plot details that strike a chord with other readers,

(04:56):
this could generate a false narrative that many people might
believe to be true or even claim to remember themselves
in actuality. The actor in the nineties movie about a
genie was Shaquille O'Neil and the film was called Kazam.
Experiments continually demonstrate just how flawed human memory can be.
In one test, about thirty percent of subjects confirmed they

(05:16):
had viewed video footage of United Flight ninety three, which
crashed as part of these September eleventh terrorist attacks. No
such footage exists. Even twenty percent of people with highly
superior autobiographical memory, that is incredibly accurate memories reported viewing
the non existent video and outside of the lab, examples
of the Mandela effect are pretty common. Are the popular

(05:39):
cartoon bears called the barn Steinbars or the barn Stain Bears.
It's the latter something that shocks many people who remember
reading these books as children. And do you remember a
famous portrait of England's King Henry the Eighth grasping a
turkey leg? So do a lot of other people, but
it never existed.

Speaker 1 (06:03):
Today's episode is based on the article the Mandela Effect
Why so many recall events that never occurred? On how
stuffworks dot com Written by Nathan Chandler. Brain Stuff is
production by Heart Radio in partnership with HowStuffWorks dot Com
and is produced by Tyler Klang. Four more podcasts from
my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.