The Mandela Effect

I am having a hard time remembering when the challenger blew up but I know I was young, hard for me to believe it was 86. That would make me 9 or 10. I know Reagan was POTUS, we watched him on tv later that day. I do remember it being Bernstein bears so that is weird. I am not sure what that means thou I remember mandella going to prison or getting out I dunno, I do not remember him dying, BUT I have a funny feeling when I am trying to remember like it is just blank which is odd because I am a history junky.. Mandella was never a focus of my interest thou. I think in my history he went to jail, got out became president of South Africa, and died in 2013. It is a interesting piece of conjecture.

The challenger date is hard for me to believe but I know it was close to the mid 80's so it probably was 86.

I also know in my timeline the Indians team in the MLB has never won a world series, the cubs have always pretty much sucked...

Meh people change things change, the world changes...

originally posted by: EternalSolace
Mandela Effect

Doesn't this 'effect' assume that 'history' is some static 'fact'?
Isn't such an assumption, shown by modern science, false?

originally posted by: iDope
a reply to: EternalSolace

I have talked to many people about 9/11 and nearly half remember seeing the first plane hit and then about an hour later seeing the second plane hit. Yet, there is no footage of the first plane hitting, and none of the people were in New York at the time, so they either imagined the entire event, or, timelines merged. Being affluent in Psychology, memory sucks, even around major events, let alone Berenstein Bears books.

I saw the first plane hit, I cheered. I saw the second plane hit, I didnt cheer as loudly--the realisation that this was a big arse bank-robbery hit in. They were going to rob us all I thought...

I was watching ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) and an episode of Lock Stock was just starting, then it cut to the first plane. The shot was not a hand-held camera, it was taken from a tripod--you could notice the adjustment of the pan. The colour depth to me suggested a 3CCD digital camera, not a single CCD one like my home video camera at the time.

Obviously that is all a false memory???.

I remember that it was Berenstain, always. I remember looking closely at the spelling when I was very little, and it stuck in my memory because the name was unfamiliar - names with "stein" at the end are more common. I remember correcting some of my playmates at recess when we talked of them. (the books, this was before the tv cartoon version).

So maybe those who remember "Berenstein" joined this particular universe or reality later? But apparently there were some kids that were present at that time, and just lazily misreading the authors name.

I'm not beyond having moments of creative thinking upon alternate realities, but taking them seriously afterwards is a bit hard for me to do.

I have come across millions of people who have slipped into this universe from another with false memories of Mandela. They're the ones that believe he was imprisoned for speaking out about apartheid and bringing it to the attention of the rest of the world. That he was 'falsely' imprisoned and was in fact a peaceful man.

In the universe I inhabit he was in fact the head of a terrorist organisation responsible for death and violence......often against fellow victims of apartheid.He spent many years in solitary confinement because even after his incarceration he continued to head the terrorist organisation and issue direct orders that resulted in in pain and suffering for his fellow human beings. He was in fact.....not a very nice man at all.

Or did I slip into this universe from another?

Or maybe we just choose (subconsciously) to remember only certain things or remember them 'our way' and construct our own universe to live in. It may be identical or very nearly identical to the universe of millions of other people but vastly different to millions of others.

Is this the Mandela Effect we are talking about?

I wasn't going to post on this forum again, it seemed like it would be useless.

But I am freaked out. The first time, I am having real trouble trying to find a plausible explanation to what I experienced.

Now, this 'Mandela-effect' may be more complicated than we think.

First, I agreed about Mandela having died in prison, and I was mildly shocked to see New Zealand on the EAST side, when it was supposed to be in the northwest side instead.

I blamed this on 'remembering it wrong', since I haven't really studied Australia much (nor have I ever had that much interest in the country).

But when I experienced that shock (can't remember when, perhaps a couple of years or so ago), Australia was still at least surrounded by sea/ocean/water only. No other countries or landmasses anywhere near it. Completely by itself.

I checked the map TODAY, and I was shocked again!

So it has changed at least TWICE! Not just once.

It would be easy to shrug off my memory as a youngster, being taught where everything is, etc. against my experience as an adult.

But my -very-recent- experience as an adult, being so different from my current experience as an adult, is just ... mind-blowing, to say the least. Ok, so New Zealand was on the right side, that wasn't expected, but everything else about Australia seemed 'normal', at least. No landmasses nearby, and the shape was 'relatively round'.

How the HECK did Australia move so much to a completely different place, near a landmass, and how did it grow that weird SPIKE, that's almost touching another landmass??!

This is completely mind-blowing to me. It can't be ... it just CAN'T be!

The most scary part was that when I checked my oldest book (an enormous Atlas-book from the seventies, bigger than the normally 'big books' are, it's huge, especially for a kid - I used to read it a lot as a child), ... yes. That oddity appeared there as well!

I feel like I am in a Twilight Zone episode, or some horror movie, or in some alternate dimension.. I just can't explain this.

I am convinced that my memory can't be THAT wrong about THAT many details, especially from only a year or two back. Also, if it was a memory problem, wouldn't different people have DIFFERENT memories? Wouldn't some misremember New Zealand to be on the top, others on the bottom, etc.? Why do they ALL remember it being on the left (west) side?

But I remember, completely independently, meaning, I didn't get this 'memory' from the internet (or I wouldn't be this shocked anyway), and it's not some hazy 'unsure memory', which WOULD be easy to shrug off as just a memory problem.

If I think of some carpet color of a friend's house, and then I visit and see that it's a different color altogether, I don't have a problem with it. It's easy to shrug off, my memory was hazy about it anyway.

This memory has never been that hazy.

The SHAPE of Australia is completely messed up. It's NOT supposed to have a huge spike, that's almost touching another landmass! It's also supposed to be less 'wild' to the left of the spike, and more 'rounded'..

Furthermore, New Zealand is EVEN FURTHER AWAY now than when I checked it the last time. Is this a THIRD timeline?

If it's just memory playing tricks, why does everyone's memory INDEPENDENTLY have these details:

- New Zealand being on the left/west side, or northwest
- Australia being ALONE in the middle of ocean - surrounded by only water mass, NO LAND nearby, anywhere!

- No SPIKE
- More rounded shape

There is NO WAY Australia can be that close to any land. It's completely mind-blowingly WRONG!

I drew a picture of what Australia should look like, before looking any pictures on the internet - and then I found a picture from someone else, who describes and has drawn the exact same thing.

COINCIDENCE??

For it to be a memory trick only, would be such a huge coincidence, that it's almost more simple explanation that Australia really HAS moved and changed shape.

New Zealand is supposed to be on the left side, Australia is not supposed to be near land, it's not supposed to have a spike, it's supposed to have a more rounded shape, and it's not supposed to be in that place anyway..

I wondered why Japan somehow seems to be awfully north all of the sudden, by the way. But I thought it's just because I am not that good at geometry (yeah, use this against me, when you don't have other arguments, ok? I don't really expect anyone to believe me, because I FULLY know how crazy this sounds, but .. I can't conform to a lie, I know what I have experienced), and misremembered it.

But then someone said Japan isn't supposed to be that north .. and it started making sense to me why it felt to be in such an unnatural place all of the sudden - I mean, it doesn't feel natural that Japan should exist where it supposedly now does.

It's just so freaky that it's not a simple 'map/google' problem, but also the book written in the seventies has that same spike, and other phenomena. But everything else about the book is exactly as should be, including the childhood scribblings. This is freaking me out, as I said, and I don't have proper explanations.

If it is a memory problem, it's really CONSISTENT memory problem between numerous human beings, who might not even be aware of each other.

If it's a time travel problem, HOW THE HECK can someone still move and shape huge continents? That shouldn't be possible, no matter how big a time machine you have, unless you have enormous energy, or can somehow 'direct' natural cataclysms..

Maybe Nazis went to Atlantis with their 'Bell', and directed the cataclysmic event that sank Atlantis (Earth's other moon exploding and raining on Atlantis and Mu), guided it to do a bit DIFFERENT damage, so that part of Australia also sank, and other parts rose (perhaps New Zealand sank, and other parts rose from the waters, and now those parts are called 'New Zealand'?).

The other explanation would be that someone changed the maps only, but did it systematically from the beginning of mapmaking, and influenced (or owned) every single mapmaker since. Australia might factually still look like it's supposed to .. except for the satellite photos. Hm.. photoshopped? Nah, why would they?

I am grasping at straws here, as anyone can plainly see.. I just don't have any answers.

I didn't use to take this stuff seriously, I mean.. come on, so maybe Mandela's death was mis-reported, maybe things in movies etc. were changed (And I think also it was 'Interview with _A_ Vampire', doggone it! It was never _THE_! NEVER!) between showing it on a TV and putting it on a DVD/Bluray/etc. The whole bear-thing, I have no idea, because I never knew about those things at all.

I only entertained it as a sort of silly, implausible possibility, that's fun to toy with, heh, heh. That was my attitude. It wasn't real, my memory was wrong about New Zealand's side (but I could've sworn.. weird), but in the end, nothing like that is happening, because it CAN'T happen. I mean, how do you even invent a time machine, let alone change a timeline so drastically that a whole continent changes place? HOW? Also, why would I remember the other timeline, if it was changed a long time in the past?

Wouldn't my memory also change? So I would always be oblivious to any chance.

But Universe has Akashic records about everything, and it is not a completely linear factory, but an organic, living, Cosmic Entity.. so when you change something in the past, and change things, the residue of the previous way of things still exists, because energy can't be destroyed..

Still, I never considered it too seriously - why would I? It's a fun mystery to ponder, but that's all it is. Just like those eerie books that listed all kinds of weird, unexplainable things, like the man from Taured, et cetera.. fun things to read when you are camping somewhere, and then forget about it in your daily life.

But this is too real. This is too shocking. I JUST checked the Australia a couple of years (or one year or so) ago, and NZ being in the wrong place was shocking, but otherwise, everything was normal. How can it have changed inbetween checkings THIS MUCH?

I can't explain it, and I fully agree with ANYONE, who claims that it's impossible to go back in time and change the shape/location of continents. I truly agree.

But it doesn't remove my being freaked out about this.. this is ... not.. what I signed for. Or that's the feeling anyway. I was prepared for all kinds of fantastic happenings, UFOs landing or poles shifting, or polar bears greeting me on the streets. But not this.. I was not prepared for something to hit me this hard with 'reality'.

This is not cool, I don't like this anymore.. now would be a good time to wake up, or to stop the ride and let me out. It's not possible for a continent to change like that.. it just can't be ..

I am afraid to look at Australia on the map anymore.. what if it will have changed soon again?

The feeling is like you mentioning something casually about car engines, and everyone in the room being weird about it, and asking what you mean. Then you explain how all cars have engines, and everyone denying it, and telling you that cars don't have engines, never have.

Then you'd go outside to check, and it would turn out to be true; no cars would have any engines. You'd check the magazines, books, etc. that you remember reading as a kid and seeing articles about engines there, but no.. no mention of any engines whatsoever.

Then you check google, etc.. and EVERYTHING points out that cars have never had engines.

HOW would you feel?

That's exactly the feeling I am going through right now..

Or if you learned that Bruce Lee was never a martial artist, but a ballet dancer, and every article you found of him would support that ballet angle, even old magazines from sixties and seventies.

I have never truly felt THIS MUCH that I am really in the Twilight Zone.

I hope I am just crazy, and that would explain it all. I hope that everyone simply remembers wrong, but for some reason, the memory is really clear, vivid, strong, and feels like fact, just like the other memories that you know about the world (sky being blue, grass being green, etc).

I hope there is a simple, easy explanation for it all, and it's just an enormous coincidence that everyone's memory points to the same, exact details (perhaps some can be explained it by some kind of mass-memory-change, that they originally remembered it differently, but when they read about it, then started remembering it like the others, but certainly not all).

It's just a coincidence.. Australia has always had landmass near it, and that weird spike, and New Zealand has always been far away from Australia, to the east, never to the west.. it's even hard for me to type this, because I know it's wrong. It's like writing a lie.

Maybe it'll all go away if I sleep enough.

a reply to: Shoujikina

Misremembering this much would be the equivalent of remembering that Italy is shaped like a boot, and then finding out, it's shaped like a square, and exists in the middle of Europe, surrounded by other countries, instead of being a coastal country for the most part.

Memory may be wrong in DETAILS, but big things, like shapes of countries .. I have such a vivid memory of Australia's shape, and it's nothing much like the current, freaky shape. It's like knowing what Ferrari Testarossa is shaped like, and then the world agreeing suddenly that it's shaped like an old Lada from Russia.

I could see myself misremembering some -details- about the shape, like tiny islands at some point, or a specific, very tiny curve at some other point - but not the whole shape, that much. No way. Memories may be imperfect, but they can't be that consistently imperfect. If 100 different people independently remember K.I.T.T. being shaped like a Porsche, it's not a memory problem, there's something else going on. Otherwise, they would all remember different cars.

No one remembers New Zealand being northeast, no one remembers Australia being even closer to landmasses, no one remembers Australia being even more spiky and completely different shapes - they all remember the SAME THINGS, consistently.

This wouldn't be such a big deal to me, if I hadn't just freaked out about it today .. I simply can't accept the shape of 'modern Australia' - or should I say 'this timeline Australia' - but it's scary knowing now for sure, that SOMETHING has happened, and I have been shifted into a different timeline/world/dimension/Universe/whatever ... I don't have any explanations, but something is definitely wrong with the shape and location of Australia, even if I were to accept NZ being on the right side.

I want to go back to when "NZ being on the right (and thus wrong) side" was the only problem with Australia area. Oh, if only I could go back to where Australia is far away from land and without a spike, and with normal shape.

It's scary knowing that something happened, but not being able to know what that something is. It's like being in a moronic B-movie, like 6th Day or a Twilight Zone episode. The only way to cope is to just try to forget it, because this mystery cannot be solved by logical thinking alone.

Maybe in the astral world, everything will become clear.. I sure hope they haven't removed astral world.

What if other continents / countries have changed as well? I am scared to find out, it would definitely freak me out even more. Is there anything that can be done to really research this and find out WHAT happened, and WHY?

For once, I am out of answers.

I wish this was logical and normal, easy-to-explain, but 'far-fetched for most people' kind of scenario. There I'd be comfortable. Like, a child claiming that sunset looks all wrong, and parents laughing about it, and then being revealed that the child has lived in Ancient Egypt, where the sunsets were so different-looking. It would be logical, normal, and you wouldn't have to 'believe' it, but you could certainly see how it would explain everything perfectly and flawlessly.

But HOW the heck can anyone explain whole continents just .. having moved and having been reshaped? I can't understand what explanation would be perfectly sufficient for it, beyond the 'easy explanations', that I (together with the others) am just crazy, and / or remembering things wrong.

I WISH it was that easy. But I know myself and my memory and my experiences - there are memories and details that CAN be explained that way - and I am fully aware that memories are not perfect. But this cannot be explained that way, sadly. I would LOVE if it could. Nothing would please me more about this. If I think about some trip I took fifteen years ago, and try to remember someone's name, or what a certain building looked like, I am fully prepared to get that wrong. I get it. It's not accurate fact, it's a hazy memory.

But to be SO wrong about something like this, is like being wrong abotu 2+2 = 4. It just can't happen. (And PLEASE don't tell me I got that wrong, because I'd have to astral project myself out from this world if 2+2 is suddenly something other than 4)

The implications of this are really devastating; if I can be wrong about Australia's shape, location, and neighbouring islands, what else can I be wrong about? Or, what else has 'changed'? Or, what else might change in the future... maybe math, maybe music, maybe movies.. maybe something will change more and more. What can I trust anymore? What if other continents suddenly shift as well? I haven't looked at Iceland for a long time, for example.. if it's now shaped like a hovercraft, I am outta here.

a reply to: Shoujikina
No. When it comes to the positions of countries and their shape, especially in the case of Australia and NZ where their isolation has provided an environment for unique species to develop. No, you can NOT use your poor memory to as an excuse for changing timeliness--the geological development of the entire planet would be different those differences would have created a world far different from what you remember--not just "oh there is more/less ocean there than I realised".

This keeps getting weirder.

Why is Poland ENORMOUS? It's supposed to be tiny! Why is Germany very, very tiny? How can you have east and west Germany in such a small country? That's like half a country at best.

Japan is not only too north (WAY too north!), but ... what the .. it's like a BANANA! It's curved?!

When I read that someone thought Japan was too curved, I dismissed it as 'meh, Japan has always been a little curved', picturing A LOT LESS curved Japan in my mind. The thing is, I am interested in Japan, and have checked Japan's map a lot during these last five years - and I mean, A LOT. I should know Japan's shape backwards and forwards without a problem.

And I thought I did.

WHY IS IT CURVED?

When did it curve? I mean, it was nicely 'almost straight, but just a little flowing' shape just .. I don't know, a month ago? Holy crap, what's happening?

And the more I stare at that odd-shaped monstrosity that this timeline's people call 'Australia', the more repulsed I feel about having to call THAT thing 'Australia'. That's not Australia! And that's not New Zealand, and ... that's just NOT what Australia looks like. Australia's top portion is relatively SMOOTH, it doesn't have a spike, not a friggin GULF, and there is definitely no 'wildness' about its northwest portion whatsoever. It is normally more like a 'diamond shape' than what it looks like now. It's like some kind of destroyed or eroded Australia.

I just can't recognize that mess as Australia. The worst thing is, that psychologically, and experiencially (if this is a word), it feels and seems like someone JUST changed it, because for decades, it WAS NOT like that.

And as for Japan .. someone changed it within the month or last couple of weeks. That's my experience of it, that I can't find any explanation for from the logical side of my brain. I usually can think of -some- explanation, no matter how implausible, that I can honestly side with, and think that's what happened probably -- but here, all my theories seem so crazy that I can't even take them seriously myself.

But the alternative is that I am completely bonkers (together with quite a many other people), or that my memory malfunctions in really dangerous and weird ways - but ONLY about this one topic!

And I don't now which is more likely or unlikely; time-traveling Nazis altering geography by affecting historical cataclysms (don't even ask me, how, I don't know), or perhaps hundreds if not more people having the exact same memory and strong conviction of what Australia should look like, where it should be located, and where New Zealand should be, and all of those memories and convictions being wrong, and them being surprised about Australia's 'true shape' because.. uh.. because? I don't know.

Is it possible that that many people just ASSUMED these 'false' things about Australia, and then are completely mind-blown, when they see the truth? And they just happened to assume the same, exact things without knowing about each other? (I assumed it because I learned it by looking at maps, being taught it at school, and then always seeing it like this whenever I looked at maps - until today!)

Is it possible to control a lot of people's minds so that their memories will be oddly specifically distorted, so that when reality doesn't conform with those distorted memories, they will be shocked? (although 'this timeline's' Australia looks way more distorted, just as a sidenote)

If it is a memory problem, how can all this be explained, and how does it work, exactly? It can't be easily swept away as Occam's Razor actually means that you have to investigate the phenomenon fully to FIND all the most simple explanations, etc.

I can't feel comfortable with my existence on this planet, until I see Australia as a more round-shaped, 'far away from landmasses' place without a spike and a gulf, and with New Zealand on the left side (OK, I can give the New Zealand's position away, as long as the other stuff happens).

Now, if THAT happens, and I will see Australia as 'normal' again, I am going to have heckuva hard time trying to convince anyone of what I experienced here, in the 'other timeline'.. and how distorted Australia looks like here.

As I made a drawing of the 'proper Australia' (might publish it some day, but it's just a very simple outline), I wonder what would happen, if another 'shift' happens .. would that picture still remain 'proper', or would it become distorted? That would be a total mind-intercourse.

Like, if Australia starts looking even more distorted, will my drawing start looking like 'this timeline''s Australia (the way we see it now)? Or will it remain exactly as it is?

I hate problems that you can't even debug, because you don't know what causes them..

Well, at least Iceland didn't look like a hovercraft. It looked pretty much the way I'd expect it to look (see, my memory was accurate here, why wouldn't it be accurate with Australia, which I have looked much more often than Iceland?)

Greece also seems too small, and the 'hand' looks less like a hand than it used to. But I am not as sure as this as I am about the Australia.

originally posted by: Mr Headshot
Or, you know, memory.

This.

ItVibrates, wow, that was an insulting post.

My memory is not poor, and I am not saying it's proof of anything.

I just know what I know, and what I experienced, and what I remember.

But I guess you can't take it seriously until it happens to you. And when it does, you will be FREAKED OUT, and then someone else will write an insulting post to you.

As I said, this has nothing to do with memory, and it's not just me. It's a big amount of humans, who have this same EXPERIENCE. It's not just memory. As I said, if it was memory, it would be like 'oh, I misremembered the color of your carpet'.

I would have no problem with that. Or if Australia was a little bit differently shaped than I hazily remembered. That would be completely OK.

But the whole thing being in a completely different place - not only a separate location, but DIFFERENT location (in that it's not a similar location), and missing features that I am convinced were there, and then having other people describe EXACTLY THE SAME AUSTRALIA I REMEMBER and draw a picture that's almost identical to the picture I drew (before seeing his picture), renders your insulting dismissal invalid.

You probably didn't even read the post, because I did address 'the most obvious denial' that you just threw at my face with an insult. My memory is not poor. Don't insult me or my memory.

If you really want to find the truth about this (it's not a semantic debate for me, it's a SHOCKING, FREAKY EXPERIENCE that I wish I hadn't experienced!), take all factors into account, and don't fall into the first, most simple explanation that comes to your mind, without investigating and realizing from that evidence why that explanation is not only insulting and invalid, but also completely inadequate to explain all the effects of this experience.

For me, this used to be just a 'mysterious topic' that was easy to forget with a couple of laughs and move on to something else. Believe me, I WAS where you are now. "Bah, people just remember things wrong, and movies and such change lines and dialogue afterwards for TV release, and perhaps Mandela's death was just erroneously reported, etc."

I was reaching for the easy explanations and because the other people were just text on the screen from some internet loon (or possible loon), it was very easy to just cast aside and not take it seriously.

You are not taking this seriously, so why are you even posting? Do you think your post adds something? Do you think your post helps something? Do you think you are bringing some kind of wisdom that I never thought of before? Do you think you are contributing something valuable to the discussion? No. You have poor writing skills and very narrow understanding of this whole thing (if you have any), if you honestly think your post was helpful at all.

I don't understand your type of posting. All you do is mock and insult and then try to bring someone else down, and then sweep a completely life-changing shock under the carpet, as if it was nothing. You don't help or bring any interesting viewpoints into the discussion, NOR did you say anything that hadn't been thought of before.

Believe me, I would be the happiest individual in 100 mile radius, if your simple theory was the truth.

BUT IT ISN'T, so please apologize for your insulting and thoughtless post, or just stop posting and disturbing the actual discussion from now on, OK?

Geez.

As if this wasn't shocking enough, do we really have to be insulted on top of it?

(Actually, this was a big part of why I stopped posting here until now. Non-understanding (censored) posting completely useless, worthless, non-informative, insulting, condescending, houlier-than-thou posts, where they pretend to know everything about the Universe, and laugh at the posters, who are actually trying to communicate something serious, just because their own minds are too small to be able to comprehend that the Universe is perhaps a bit more interesting place than they are ready to handle).

All I know is; THAT IS _NOT_ AUSTRALIA! And I don't have an explanation - I only know what the explanation ISN'T, and as I have said before, it is _NOT_ a question of memory.

Otherwise, I would be the only one with this, or everyone who had different memory (which would then be 'false' or 'poor', as you so insultingly say), than the 'reality' looks like in this 'timeline', would have a DIFFERENT memory. Not the exact, same, identical memory with my memory.

How do you explain all these people having identical memory about what Australia should look like, and how to you explain their shock and horror about it? That kind of emotional shock and being so sure of how something is doesn't usually happen with hazy or unsure memories. If you show me a coin with some president on it, and I hazily remembered it to be some other president, THAT could be blamed on poor memory.

And I'd have no problem with it.

But if you show me a Pontiac Trans-Am Firebird, and tell me it's a Ferrari Testarossa, I am going to be in an identical shock, because no matter how 'poor' my memory is, there is just NO WAY I would mis-remember Ferrari Testarossa's true shape that badly.

The same goes with Australia - I may not remember each coastline curve exactly, but I can't mis-remember its general shape that badly. And I don't think anyone could.

Another mistake that many people seem to make (people love insulting us, who seem to, against their will, experience their precious 'reality' a bit differently - Australians have even called this truthful perception insulting, although they are the insulting ones), is to think that just because THEY have travelled to NZ thirtyseven years ago, and have always remembered NZ to be there, this somehow proves something.

It doesn't.

Just because this 'timeline's (as you can notice, I always use quotes when I write that word, because I don't know what's happening, can't be sure of it, and don't have a better word/explanation right now) NZ has been like that for 9500 years, doesn't prove anything.

And it certainly doesn't render our experience(s) invalid in any way. It doesn't mean that NZ is supposed to be in that unnatural, weird place, and it doesn't mean that the spike and gulf aren't completely NEW things to us, who have 'shifted'.

I _NEVER_ saw any spike or gulf in the shape of Australia before TODAY. So this is completely new to me. Completely new. Psychologically, Australia changed its shape today, from my perspective. I shouldn't be insulted because of this.

I can totally understand how impossible it is to even swallow that something this can happen, and I would normally be on the other side of the fence about this, taking it into possibility (but still not INSULTING anyone, for crying out loud!), talking about it with interest, entertaining all kinds of possibilities... I would be the one to say 'you might remember wrong', I would be the one saying there could be some more realistic possibility for this, if we really investigate it.

But when it happens to YOU... the bottom of your stomach gets a big knot, and your whole sense of reality crumbles - your feeling of any kind of security or safety in existence disappears, and you can't be sure of almost anything anymore. It's a SHOCK, and you doubt yourself probably more than anyone else does, so you go through this very thorough process of self-doubt and searching for 'simple answers'.

If it WAS just 'poor memory', I couldn't be happier. New Zealand being on the right, when it's supposed to be on the left, is weird, but it can be explained with 'poor memory', PERHAPS.

But there are simply too many oddities about this to be explained that way. Australia DEFINITELY didn't have any landmass near it, that's WHY they used to send their prisoners there! It'd been impossible to escape, because it's a remote place in the middle of nowhere.

Maybe this is a nightmare.. or perhaps I died and I am in hell? Did television suck me in when I watched some Twilight Zone episodes?

Maybe Australia will be normal after some sleep .. I wish I could take this as some kind of trivial detail that doesn't matter, but this is a matter of 'alternate timeline' or something, and I can't take that lightly. What the heck happened to me and a bunch of other people?

Or did something happen to this planet? Large Hadron Collider effects?

Is this a bad copy of Earth? Nah, they couldn't copy the insulting posters that well..

a reply to: Shoujikina

Wow Dude, just ...WoW...yours are the most...."Interesting" posts I have ever read.

Keep away from the mushrooms man.....

I have Been in Australia.....forever.

It has'nt changed for at least a few 100 thousand years...other than the oceans being a little lower.

Yes the "spike thingy" has always been there of course.
Yes we are close to Papua New Guinea.
Yes New Zealand has always been to the East and a little lower than Australia.

You really need to take a chill pill, lay down and relax about this........Nothing has changed, no time line shift, no Twilight zone.
You obviously just had the wrong perception......and in your own word, "You didnt care much about Australia anyway".
So why stress over it now....and NO it has never been a Round shape....

Check out some early 1700s European maps.........even they knew back then.

www.map.net.au...

a reply to: EternalSolace

Interesting thread, the Mandela Effect has certainly caught my attention, especially as an avid fan of the Bernstein Bears as a nipper (though Mandela dying before he really did isn't one I remember, my Mum made me sit down and watch Mandela's walk to freedom because it was history in the making, I paid attention when he died, but in my experience he only died once).

Another one caught my attention this morning. I remember my Mum (who passed away herself in 2002) telling me that one of the Coreys of Lost Boys fame (Haim and Feldmen) died when they were quite young. I was surprised to see on IMDb that Corey Haim didn't die until 2010, I was a bit confused. Am I misremembering? My memory of my Mum telling me this is quite vivid...

originally posted by: Shoujikina

ItVibrates, wow, that was an insulting post.

...

But if you show me a Pontiac Trans-Am Firebird, and tell me it's a Ferrari Testarossa, I am going to be in an identical shock, because no matter how 'poor' my memory is, there is just NO WAY I would mis-remember Ferrari Testarossa's true shape that badly.

The same goes with Australia - I may not remember each coastline curve exactly, but I can't mis-remember its general shape that badly. And I don't think anyone could.

Word count wont let me address each and every point in one post, but I will deal with these two.

This is not about superficial "looks", what is different between the clunky old push-rod V8 to the much more modern, more refined... cough... old Fezza? the difference is more than just a 2-door coupé, they are built from a whole different engineering perspective. Some people know this, and their opinions hold more weight in the identification of modern classics, some dont know this and will see any 2-door coupé as "well it looks like a Trans-am". There are some people whose testimony on a particular subject holds more weight.

To the second point, I have lived in Australia, I understand how its flora and fauna had developed in isolation to that of our closest neighbours in SE Asia. I see this every day. If you feel insulted by what I posted in response to you, then please try to take into account my first point of this post where I mention to knowledge of the "modern classic" era of automotive history.

Dont use google now. Does the Fezza use a K-jet or is it one of the last of the carby fed Fezzas???

originally posted by: Shoujikina

But when I experienced that shock (can't remember when, perhaps a couple of years or so ago), Australia was still at least surrounded by sea/ocean/water only. No other countries or landmasses anywhere near it. Completely by itself.

I checked the map TODAY, and I was shocked again

Hold on, I didn't know Australia was different, I went and looked at Australia on a map for the first time since school (I'm late 30's now), I had a clear mental image of how I remember Oz from maps and what Google Maps just showed me is nothing like it, as everyone else says, the land to the North is way too close...

a reply to: djz3ro

No...Nobody else "Says".

Only you crazy people who havent bothered to really look at maps.

You do Realise the Australian Native people Mostly Walked to Australia, obviously from Papua New Guinea.....at a time when the Oceans were much lower than today.

Nothings changed, didnt you see my comment just above, showing maps from the 1700s....with Australia in exactly the same place.

Well at least we know Scotland has'nt shifted, its still right next to Canada somewhere.

There is no simple explanation to this, no matter how the people without the experience try to convince the people with the experience that they are loons, bad at geography, or have bad / wrong memories.

But now that time has passed, I have learned to accept it a bit. Everything local seems identical, exactly as I'd expect it to be, down to the last detail that I can remember.

Earth, however.. seems somehow shrunken, very small all of the sudden, and I have noticed so many other changes.

Frankly, I don't really care about when Mandela died, or that Graham-guy, or whatever it was, but I was mildly shocked to realize Jon Voight didn't die a long time ago.

I mean, all that 'celebrity/movie/name' stuff doesn't mean anything to me - if Australia would retain its normal place and shape (and other countries as well), and Earth was bigger again, I would have absolutely no problem with this other stuff. Though I can understand it being just as shocking to others.

I have to say, my understanding of others and sympathy has grown because of this experience.. I can totally emphatize now, when before, I approached this with only 'intelligence', without emotional or heartfelt involvement.

However, I need to correct some of my statements. I had only read a few reports the day I was so freaked out about all this, and all of THOSE were identical to my memories.

Since then, I have read and researched the phenomenon more (and there are A LOT of people, who have experienced it - thank goodness that I am not alone with this!), and come to realize there are variations in the memories, not EVERYONE remembers it the same (but certain 'debunking-obsessed, narrow-minded individuals' probably don't read my posts fully anyway).

Some actually DO remember New Zealand existing in Northeast, some Southeast, but higher, some remember it a bit closer, or a bit further away. But a number of people seem to agree with me on every detail. I was convinced of all those details before reading anyone's posts about them. I had only known about 'Mandela effect' through the New Zealand and Mandela dying in prison, and some bear-names - before experiencing it myself, I didn't know about the 'roundness', 'location' or 'spike'.

In my 'timeline' (for the lack of better term), Italy was also a 'country shaped like a boot', not a 'country that's shaped like boot with a rag glued to it'.

So, I apologize for reaching hasty conclusions based on only a handful of other people's descriptions (I honestly didn't know how wide this phenomenon was at the time, I thought I was lucky to find even ONE that had the same memory, and I was almost rejoicing every time I found out there's YET one more.. I imagined only around ten people or so might have the same memories, if I was lucky).

I didn't know there were SO many of us - some seem to have lived in slightly different timelines from 'my group' - but at least two details seem consistent; that Australia is in the wrong place (too far north, and usually also to the west), and that the spike just isn't supposed to exist.

Those islands above Australia also look unnatural and out-of-place to me. It's like I am seeing them for the first time, and I am ready to sign an affidavit to the fact that I saw the 'this timeline's shape of Australia' for the very first time only a couple of days ago. Never saw that shape before, as far as I can remember.

I loaded the 'Map of the world' program to my old Commodore 64 (it's a very old 'educational game'), and also placed my "made in the early seventies" Atlas on the table, and looked at that freakish-looking Australia in both instances. Of course, not surprisingly, it was the same on both.

The most freaky and perhaps scary part of it all is that besides these curious details ("Sex IN the City, "Interview with A Vampire", celebrities being alive/dead, Earth's size, Australia's shape and location, and also New Zealand - Size and shape of Germany, Poland, Italy, etc. etc.), everything is still the same.

Exactly the same. The desktop background picture didn't change. The internet protocol still works just as it always had. The songs, movies, TV shows - same, exact dialog, same exact gestures, completely identical. All my own works, perfectly as I remember creating them.

If this shift happened to me a couple of days ago (and another shift a couple of years ago, possibly), then why are things from decades back still the same, why is everything physical exactly like it's supposed to? How can one _HUGE_, faraway thing change, but nothing small and localized did at all?

I agree completely with anyone who says this doesn't make sense, or that continents can't move, or that timeline shifting sounds both ridiculous and ludicrous, and brings forth questions and almsot 'plotholes', like, why didn't anything else change, or why isn't Australia blue-and-red-striped in the departed timeline, etc.

No one is doing this to insult anyone or to make any wild claims.

It's just something that HAPPENS to you, apparently - and you can't control it. You can only try to find some kind of explanations, hopefully, from these discussions. But these are more like accusations and judgments, parties to point and laugh at the poor fools, who dare express their really weird and shocking experience to others.

It's like kicking cripples, when they are down. They experience something shocking, and then people gather around and point and laugh at them and tell them they DIDN'T experience it, as if that somehow helps them.

I can only ask: What's wrong with you people, who insult others?

I don't think I would have been ready to accept anything this wild (I never subscribed to the 'multiverse' theory anyway), either, and would have just chalked it up to bad memory or whatever 'easier' and more 'comfortable' explanation. So I can't really blame people, who do that - they are only human, and even taking this kind of thing seriously without considering the people who experience something like this are at least a little bit bonkers, requires a LOT out of someone. Perhaps too much.

But those people shouldn't still be INSULTING and BELITTLING, and downright mean and hostile. There's no reason for that. If they don't like this discussion, they are free to leave it, they don't have to bring down everyone who dares express their thoughts about a life-shattering shock that they experienced. They need understanding, not accusations, for crying out loud!

I would never have insulted those people, even if this hadn't happened to me. I would probably have taken it with a grain of salt or more, but I would still have taken it as a possibility - just pushed it in the back of my mind with the other mysteries, and probably still thought that maybe they suffer from some kind of psychosis or other form of hallucination or delusion, perhaps they have secretly or unknowingly ingested drugs or are victims of hypnosis or simply have bad memories. I wouldn't still claim any of these things to be necessarily the truth, and I certainly wouldn't berate, judge, insult, accuse or say they shouldn't be talking about it or that it'd be insulting to the Australians to express their experience.

There's no reason to be mean or insult anyone. So, someone presents an experience that they are shocked about, that might not fit your own worldview tightly and snuggly. Does that mean you have free range to just take shots at them? No.

They are still human beings. And maybe if you can just take it as a -possibility- that something very dramatic and emotionally disturbing and shocking has happened to them recently, perhaps you could tone down your hostility and verbal violence and just treat them as human beings. You don't have to believe their story to be kind to them, you know.

What are you afraid of? Are you afraid to be kind to people who don't share your worldview exactly 100%?

I am not going to accuse anyone of being a paid shill or somehow benefitting otherwise from doing that evil activity, or otherwise being directed to do all that to these people.

But it -does- seem awfully like an almost organized campaign to shut up people about certain topics. I bet I could make much wilder claims and not be insulted and belittled as much. If I claim that a color-changing Unicorn lives under my Saab, I probably wouldn't get as much flack as if I honestly express that Australia isn't where, or shaped as, it in my decades of being on this planet has taught it should be.

This phenomenon about why posters write such awful horror towards innocent human beings would be an interesting topic of a very 'Above Top Secret'-type investigation..

By the way, if it WAS just 'poor memory', etc.. then why would this 'poor memory' not appear everywhere, but only in this one area? Why don't I misremember other things, like the color of my couch or bicycle, or where I put the spoon, or what things I possess? Or the lines in movies or TV shows, or scenes in them, or .. why only geographical things? Why don't I misremember mathematics? (Unless I do, and 2+2 is not 4 anymore)

Why would poor memory be so limited and predetermined, and only work in one area, but not anywhere else? Shouldn't it appear everywhere, where any memories exist?

o
Hold on, I didn't know Australia was different, I went and looked at Australia on a map for the first time since school (I'm late 30's now), I had a clear mental image of how I remember Oz from maps and what Google Maps just showed me is nothing like it, as everyone else says, the land to the North is way too close...

Oh no, I brought you into the shock. I am sorry.

Now I _TRULY_ know and appreciate what they mean, when they say: "Ignorance is bliss".

Perhaps it would have been better for us, if we had never looked at Australia's map again. Then I wouldn't even know anything had happened (not sure what did, but something certainly did), and you would only think it's the bears.

I always wanted to know the truth about everything - I wasn't satisfied with the easy surface explanations, especially if they were fishy and felt wrong somehow. But now I have bumped into truths and realities that I actually would rather not know. Too bad you can't really "un-know" something..

Is there a hypnotist in the audience? Could they please hypnotize me to believe that the Globe, Australia, Italy, Germany, Poland, etc. are all perfectly normal like that - that's what they are supposed to be like, and erase my other memories of them?

I would seriously PAY for that.

originally posted by: gort51
a reply to: djz3ro

No...Nobody else "Says".

Only you crazy people who havent bothered to really look at maps.

The only maps I have had reason to look at since my school days are local Ordinance Survey ones (for camping and hiking) or Google maps (for making travel arrangements). Your little dig about Scotland makes it plain as day you're taking this all a little too personally...

originally posted by: Bilk22
John Lennon was shot." I was devastated. The door to the yard from the kitchen was open. It was a warm sunny day and I was in shorts. I walked out on to the back porch and I sat there and cried. December 8th? Really?

For a long time, I felt that I was the re-incarnation of John Lennon and me becoming a musician only made it...simple?

I've learned later he supposedly died exactly 2 months after I was born but I felt that it didn't make sense because I AM John Lennon!? No? I still feel that I am, how weird is that...