Speaker 1: This episode is brought to you by my newest supporters, Marcus, Brian, Carmen,
Speaker 1: and Ben. Thank you so much for making the show possible.
Speaker 1: Welcome once again, and thank you for being here. I'm
Speaker 1: your host, Nick Ryan. In my last episode, I shared
Speaker 1: the first half of one of my listener's experiences regarding
Speaker 1: the Mandela Effect. If you haven't listened to part one yet,
Speaker 1: I highly recommend doing so before continuing this episode, as
Speaker 1: you'll be missing important details that are mentioned in tonight's episode.
Speaker 1: I've added a link to Part one in the show notes.
Speaker 1: In part one, I also mentioned the CERN Laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland,
Speaker 1: but I didn't go in to any detail regarding what
Speaker 1: the laboratory is or what they do there. I will
Speaker 1: be going into this in greater detail in a future episode,
Speaker 1: but if you're curious, just do an online search first
Speaker 1: cern CERN and its possible connections to the Mandela Effect,
Speaker 1: and you can start exploring the rabbit hole on your own.
Speaker 1: But for now, let's continue with Anonymous's story. This is
Speaker 1: chapter three, the missing chapter. After I graduated from high
Speaker 1: school in nineteen ninety three, I didn't read a book
Speaker 1: until two thousand and seven. I'm not proud of that,
Speaker 1: but it is relevant to the next part of my story.
Speaker 1: High school teachers had sucked all of the enjoyment out
Speaker 1: of reading for me by forcing me to read things
Speaker 1: that I had no interest in. Unfortunately, as a result,
Speaker 1: I lost all interest in reading altogether. In two thousand
Speaker 1: and seven, I was working for a local courier service.
Speaker 1: A friend of mine named Charles, who I had also
Speaker 1: gotten to know a little from playing music in bands,
Speaker 1: also worked for the same company. Both of us were
Speaker 1: assigned to running routes for specific companies. Charles drove for
Speaker 1: an autoparts dealer and I drove for a hospital. The
Speaker 1: company had provided us and every other driver with those
Speaker 1: old Nokia bricklike phones that could act like long range
Speaker 1: walkie talkies. Since Charles and I were assigned specific routes,
Speaker 1: we never had to use the walkie talkie function to
Speaker 1: talk to our dispatchers the way that other couriers who
Speaker 1: were open ended and could be working for any company
Speaker 1: throughout the day did. We used those walkie talkies to
Speaker 1: talk to each other all day every day. We became
Speaker 1: very close friends, even though we had started out as
Speaker 1: more or less acquaintances. Charles was a big fan of
Speaker 1: a series of books called The Deathgate Cycle by Margaret
Speaker 1: Weiss and Tracy Hickman. He had read the seven book
Speaker 1: series several times over the years. Charles had always wanted
Speaker 1: to talk about his favorite book series with someone, but
Speaker 1: since the series was far less known than the author's
Speaker 1: highly successful dragon Lance Chronicles series, he had never met
Speaker 1: another person that had read them. Charles was not very savvy,
Speaker 1: so if forums about the books even existed in two
Speaker 1: thousand and seven, he never found them. His solution was
Speaker 1: to ask me if he could pay me to read
Speaker 1: the books so that he could talk about them with someone.
Speaker 1: I decided to read the books, but I told my
Speaker 1: friend that there was no way that I was going
Speaker 1: to let him pay me to read them. Before he
Speaker 1: brought me his copy of the first book in the series,
Speaker 1: he read it again himself, which was at least the
Speaker 1: third time that he had read them, possibly more. When
Speaker 1: he finished book one, he brought it to work and
Speaker 1: handed it to me. That night, I started reading again
Speaker 1: for the first time since nineteen ninety three. It was
Speaker 1: the day after Thanksgiving. He started reading book two as
Speaker 1: I was reading the first one. He was always one
Speaker 1: book ahead of me, refreshing his memory of all the
Speaker 1: details of the series. Every day I would come to
Speaker 1: work and we would discuss what I had read the
Speaker 1: night before, often for hours on end, before turning our
Speaker 1: conversation to other things. I quickly became as much of
Speaker 1: a fan as he was now. I will try to
Speaker 1: go light on spoilers this series, just in case you
Speaker 1: decide to read it, but there is one major spoiler
Speaker 1: that I must reveal for this story to make any sense.
Speaker 1: One of the main characters in the series is Dog.
Speaker 1: Dog is a dog. He has no name other than Dog.
Speaker 1: He belongs to Haplow, a powerful magic wielder known as Patrin.
Speaker 1: From the beginning, it is evident that Dog is not
Speaker 1: just the normal dog. Haplow had the ability to see
Speaker 1: and hear through Dog's eyes and ears, making him a
Speaker 1: perfect spy. The series is written mostly in third person.
Speaker 1: Occasionally it would shift to first person, mainly when sections
Speaker 1: from Haplow's journal or another character's journal were inserted to
Speaker 1: fill in part of the story. Somewhere in book five
Speaker 1: or six. I'm not sure precisely when, because at the
Speaker 1: time I had no reason to commit the exact location
Speaker 1: to memory, a new literary device suddenly appeared for a
Speaker 1: single chapter. The chapter was clearly not from a formal
Speaker 1: journal the way that the other first person sections had been.
Speaker 1: The chapter told a story of someone who is roaming
Speaker 1: the deck and cabin of the ship that they were on,
Speaker 1: and they were looking for something. For several pages, it
Speaker 1: was unclear which character this was and what they were
Speaker 1: looking for, but the character was determined to find it.
Speaker 1: After a while, it finally becomes evident that the character
Speaker 1: is Dog and that he is searching for sausages. It
Speaker 1: seemed like just a fun, little unique chapter up until
Speaker 1: the last page, when Dog overhears Haplo's master talking to
Speaker 1: one of his other minions. It becomes apparent at that
Speaker 1: point that Haplo's master is not what he seems. Since
Speaker 1: Haplo can see and hear through Dog. This is a
Speaker 1: turning point in the story. Haplo begins to question everything
Speaker 1: that he knows and the story goes in a new direction.
Speaker 1: I loved this chapter. I found it to be an
Speaker 1: incredible choice of plot device and entirely unique to anything
Speaker 1: that I had ever read or even seen in a movie.
Speaker 1: I will never forget the beginning of the conversation that
Speaker 1: I had with Charles the next morning. Dude, dog in
Speaker 1: first person, I said, I have been waiting for weeks
Speaker 1: for you to get to this. He replied, Now, I
Speaker 1: cannot quote you the rest of the conversation word for word,
Speaker 1: because we talked about this for hours, if not days.
Speaker 1: This was also his favorite chapter in the entire series.
Speaker 1: I finished those seven novels before New Year's I went
Speaker 1: on to become an avid reader. I still have never
Speaker 1: encountered a similar storyline in anything else. Most of what
Speaker 1: I have read since then have been Star Wars novels,
Speaker 1: and there's no dogs in space. I also have read
Speaker 1: a lot of spy novels, and though there have been
Speaker 1: plenty of dogs in those, there are no magic dogs.
Speaker 1: Some time later, likely in two thousand and nine, I
Speaker 1: borrowed Charles copies of the books again and I read
Speaker 1: the series for the second time. Again. We discussed them
Speaker 1: as I was reading, but not in the same detail
Speaker 1: as the first time. However, we did still talk extensively
Speaker 1: about the dog in first person chapter, as we came
Speaker 1: to call it when I read that section again. In
Speaker 1: twenty ten, I started a new job in a different industry,
Speaker 1: I remained close with Charles until he died of a
Speaker 1: heart attack unexpectedly at the young age of forty two
Speaker 1: in early two thousand and fifteen. Just after he passed away,
Speaker 1: I decided that I wanted to read the series again.
Speaker 1: This was at least six months before I had ever
Speaker 1: heard of the Mandela effect. Since Charles was no longer
Speaker 1: around to loan me his copies of the books, I
Speaker 1: had to find my own copies in second hand bookstores.
Speaker 1: They might have been available on Amazon in new condition,
Speaker 1: but at the time it never occurred to me to
Speaker 1: try that. Nonetheless, I had no problems finding the full
Speaker 1: series used again. I started reading the series from the beginning,
Speaker 1: thinking of Charles and all the hours that we had
Speaker 1: spent talking about this wonderful story. I got the most
Speaker 1: excited when I started Book five for the third time.
Speaker 1: I knew that the chapter was coming soon. I finished
Speaker 1: the book, but I had not yet encountered the chapter. Obviously,
Speaker 1: it must be in the sixth book, but it wasn't there. Huh,
Speaker 1: Maybe I've been mistaken and it was actually in the
Speaker 1: final book. Of course it was not there. At the time,
Speaker 1: none of this struck me as too crazy. Clearly there
Speaker 1: were different versions of the novels in print. It seemed
Speaker 1: very odd, but I knew this chapter existed, and I
Speaker 1: had not yet learned that reality could be rewritten. By
Speaker 1: May of twenty seventeen, I had already discovered the mirror
Speaker 1: warning when suddenly the missing chapter came to my mind,
Speaker 1: and I decided to look further into it. I scoured
Speaker 1: the Internet for any reference to it, and I found nothing.
Speaker 1: I looked for variants of the series in an attempt
Speaker 1: to find it, but I found nothing. As the last
Speaker 1: ditch effort, I went to Margaret Weiss's website and I
Speaker 1: found an option to email the author. On May thirtieth
Speaker 1: of twenty seventeen. I didn't think that it was possible
Speaker 1: that she would read it or write back, but I
Speaker 1: decided to give it a try. I asked her about
Speaker 1: the missing chapter and how I could locate a copy
Speaker 1: of the book that contained it. Much to my astonishment,
Speaker 1: when I woke up the next day and I checked
Speaker 1: in my email, she had replied, this is that email.
Speaker 1: Thanks for the question. That would have been interesting, but no,
Speaker 1: there was not a chapter from the VP of The Dog.
Speaker 1: The Dog was Haplow's soul, so, like I said, it
Speaker 1: would have been very interesting. Thanks Margaret. Apparently reality was
Speaker 1: telling me that this sacred memory of mine discussing the
Speaker 1: dog in first person chapter of my favorite series of novels,
Speaker 1: which occurred fully in my adulthood a mere ten years prior,
Speaker 1: never really happened. I didn't have hours of conversation with
Speaker 1: Charles about it. I didn't read it twice. Charles was dead,
Speaker 1: so he wasn't going to be any help here. The
Speaker 1: camel's skull was crushed. Before I continued the next chapter
Speaker 1: of Anonymous Experience, I'd like to just point out that
Speaker 1: they shared the exact email with me. That Margaret sent
Speaker 1: word for word the exact email copy and pasted with
Speaker 1: the date, the time, and the sender, not to mention
Speaker 1: Margaret's automated signature at the bottom of the email. Let's
Speaker 1: continue now with chapter four, Eddie's revelation. By twenty eighteen,
Speaker 1: I was fully convinced that this phenomenon could not be
Speaker 1: explained by rational means. Eddie was also convinced that it
Speaker 1: was real and not just unreliable memory. However, he had
Speaker 1: not yet accepted that it was beyond anything explainable by
Speaker 1: our current understanding of reality, we still talked regularly about
Speaker 1: dozens of Mandela effects. There were many, like the Turkey
Speaker 1: Dolly and the mirror, that we were both confident had
Speaker 1: changed from what we remembered. There were many many more
Speaker 1: that both of us discounted entirely as people just not
Speaker 1: remembering correctly. There were some that seemed wrong to us,
Speaker 1: but neither of us were confident that we could trust
Speaker 1: our own memories of these. I'm not going to go
Speaker 1: into detail here about all of these, as individual reality
Speaker 1: shifts are not what this story is about. However, there
Speaker 1: are three that fit into the final unsure category that
Speaker 1: I'm going to discuss in detail, and you will see
Speaker 1: why later in this section. If you have been googling
Speaker 1: any of the changes that I have mentioned previously in
Speaker 1: the story, please refrain from doing that with the ones
Speaker 1: that I'm about to talk about until finishing the chapter.
Speaker 1: That request will make sense later. Now in the reality
Speaker 1: that Eddie and I were experiencing at the time, one
Speaker 1: of the main changes that was being discussed on Reddit
Speaker 1: and other places online revolved around the movie Apollo thirteen
Speaker 1: starring Tom Hanks. It was a change to what people
Speaker 1: remembered as the most iconic line in the movie. The
Speaker 1: line was in all of the trailers and even on
Speaker 1: the poster of the movie. At the beginning of the
Speaker 1: crisis in Space, Tom Hanks's character looks at the camera
Speaker 1: and delivered the famous line, Houston, we have a problem.
Speaker 1: At least that's what many people in these online forums remembered,
Speaker 1: but by all accounts that had never existed the quote
Speaker 1: from mister Hanks now said Houston, We've had a problem.
Speaker 1: I watched people argue back and forth about this for months.
Speaker 1: The most compelling argument that most people made was that
Speaker 1: it wouldn't have made sense for Tom to say we
Speaker 1: have since there was actual audio from the real event
Speaker 1: and it was clear that the astronaut Jack Swygert had said, Uh, Houston,
Speaker 1: We've had a problem. Many people argued that this had
Speaker 1: been a point of contention with the movie version because
Speaker 1: Tom had misspoken when they shot the film and simply
Speaker 1: got the line wrong, so it had not previously matched
Speaker 1: what Jack Swygert had said to Mission control in the
Speaker 1: real event. Eddie and I thought that we've had sounded wrong,
Speaker 1: but we also could not be sure. We both watched
Speaker 1: YouTube clips of the scene. I watched the full movie.
Speaker 1: Every version clearly said we've had a problem. It sounded
Speaker 1: wrong and it even looked wrong. It was a different
Speaker 1: angle than what we thought we remembered, but we were
Speaker 1: still not convinced. Nevertheless, we talked about it multiple times
Speaker 1: from twenty sixteen to twenty eighteen. Now. Another change that
Speaker 1: was being discussed in these groups at the time was
Speaker 1: from the original Back to the Future movie. In the
Speaker 1: scene where Doc Brown is telling Marty about his time
Speaker 1: machine after he had already tested the device on his
Speaker 1: dog Einstein, the Libyan terrorists show up and shoot Doc
Speaker 1: dead just before Marty gets in the DeLorean and accidentally
Speaker 1: ends up in nineteen fifty five. At the time that
Speaker 1: I first discussed this with Eddie, many people on the
Speaker 1: forums were discussing that they remembered the terrorists driving a
Speaker 1: VW Microbus, when in fact they were driving a silverish
Speaker 1: Toyota van that had hard angles and not the flowing
Speaker 1: curves of the blue VW microbus that many remembered. When
Speaker 1: I asked Eddie about what he remembered about this, he
Speaker 1: had no opinion. He remembered the scene, but he had
Speaker 1: never paid any attention to what kind of van it was.
Speaker 1: I was on my own with this one, and honestly,
Speaker 1: I could not be sure of what I really remembered.
Speaker 1: I was fairly confident that I indeed remembered the blue
Speaker 1: VW that others did, but I wasn't positive. My father
Speaker 1: had owned a VW microbus in com and he talked
Speaker 1: about it incessantly. It was very feasible that he had
Speaker 1: mentioned it on the way to the movie theater to
Speaker 1: see the movie, or on the way home. Heck, the
Speaker 1: way that guy would just talk through a movie, I
Speaker 1: couldn't rule out that he yelled out at the top
Speaker 1: of his lungs. That reminds me of my VW right
Speaker 1: in the movie theater. Such an event could easily cause confabulation,
Speaker 1: but it did not sit right with me. It felt
Speaker 1: very wrong.
Speaker 2: Again.
Speaker 1: I watched multiple versions of the clip on YouTube. They
Speaker 1: all showed the silver Toyota. I decided that it was
Speaker 1: time to introduce my kids to the films, so we
Speaker 1: watched all three of them. There was the silver Toyota.
Speaker 1: I started looking at blogs dedicated to Back to the Future.
Speaker 1: I remembered when Bond fans were arguing on their own
Speaker 1: blogs about Dolly's braces were the Back to the Future
Speaker 1: fans doing the same thing. Yes, they were. A lot
Speaker 1: of people also remembered the VW, and these people were
Speaker 1: thoroughly ridiculed. I finally gave up on this notion of
Speaker 1: it being a change after I read a post on
Speaker 1: one of the blogs that confirmed its accuracy by rewatching
Speaker 1: clips of the opening of the film. It seems the
Speaker 1: director had put it in a very sneaky Easter egg
Speaker 1: in the scene where Marty is holding on to another
Speaker 1: vehicle while on his skateboard on the way to school
Speaker 1: in the beginning of the movie. The silver Toyota that
Speaker 1: the terrorists were driving is in that scene. It's parked
Speaker 1: just around the corner from the strip that contains Cupid's
Speaker 1: Adult presumably a gentleman's club, as well as other shops
Speaker 1: that mostly appear to be out of business. It is
Speaker 1: closest to the former movie theater that had been converted
Speaker 1: into the Assembly of Christ Church. Since it's safe to
Speaker 1: assume that the Libyans are Muslim, they're obviously not at
Speaker 1: the church, so it's implied that they're taking in some
Speaker 1: nude ladies before going to murder doc. Okay, that's a
Speaker 1: damn good Easter egg. I must be wrong about this one.
Speaker 1: The third change that I will mention is much easier
Speaker 1: to explain. Tidycat's cat litter was called tidy Cat in
Speaker 1: our version of reality from twenty sixteen to twenty twenty three.
Speaker 1: Eddie and I discussed it several times. However, neither of
Speaker 1: us own cats. We are both dog people. We both
Speaker 1: confirmed in stores while shopping for our dogs that it
Speaker 1: was indeed called tidy cat. Whatever. We clearly had this wrong.
Speaker 1: We don't care about cat litter. It felt wrong, but
Speaker 1: it was more logical that we were just remembering it wrong.
Speaker 1: As you can see from these preambles, neither of us
Speaker 1: are irrational. Although by this time I was completely convinced
Speaker 1: that something spooky was going on, I still looked at
Speaker 1: anything that seemed wrong to me, and I tried to
Speaker 1: find a reasonable explanation. I still do that to this
Speaker 1: day if I discover something new that seems to differ
Speaker 1: from my memory. We do not automatically assume that this
Speaker 1: reality is out to get us. We first assume that
Speaker 1: we are wrong, and we work from there. We still
Speaker 1: do that even after the following occurred before I continue.
Speaker 1: Please consider showing your support by subscribing, sharing, and giving
Speaker 1: the podcast a positive review. You You can also visit
Speaker 1: me on Patreon, buy me a coffee, or a PayPal
Speaker 1: where you can make a donation or become a member.
Speaker 1: You can even join my Patreon for free and get
Speaker 1: access to future updates. And of course, just being a
Speaker 1: listener is the best support of all and I'm grateful
Speaker 1: to have you here. Now. Please stay tuned and I'll
Speaker 1: be right back. After these brief messages in the summer
Speaker 1: of twenty and eighteen, I did what I do every day.
Speaker 1: I open read it to see what people had discovered
Speaker 1: about this phenomenon or what they were discussing today. And
Speaker 1: there it was a post stating that Apollo thirteen had
Speaker 1: flip flopped and it was now back to saying, Houston,
Speaker 1: we have a problem. I quickly headed to YouTube. It
Speaker 1: was true. There it was, That's the scene that I remember.
Speaker 1: Every single version was now what I had expected to
Speaker 1: see in the first place. I then went back to
Speaker 1: read it, and I did a search for Apollo thirteen
Speaker 1: in the Mandela Affect subreddit as well as the retcond subreddit.
Speaker 1: Gone were the mentions of we've had a problem. In
Speaker 1: their place were people saying that they had grown up
Speaker 1: with Tom saying we've had and they were confused that
Speaker 1: he was now saying we have. The arguments about how
Speaker 1: the movie line differed from the actual words that the
Speaker 1: real astronauts spoke were back. I was back home. All
Speaker 1: was right with the world. That was my reaction. However,
Speaker 1: Eddie's was different. I called Eddie immediately. It was mid afternoon.
Speaker 1: I was ecstatic because I knew that Eddie would be
Speaker 1: fully with me after this. He could no longer pretend
Speaker 1: like any of this was reasonable or rational. He would
Speaker 1: now be forced to grapple with the undeniable fact that
Speaker 1: something supernatural or otherwise unexplainable by anything within human understanding
Speaker 1: was indeed at play here. I guess I was right,
Speaker 1: he would be forced to grapple with it. However, I
Speaker 1: didn't intend for it to turn that grapple into a
Speaker 1: full suplex body slam of a moment. Hey man, what's up?
Speaker 1: He asked, You need to go look at Apoll of
Speaker 1: thirteen right now. Huh, you just need to go and
Speaker 1: look at it. We ended the call, and within just
Speaker 1: a few minutes it he called me right back He
Speaker 1: was slightly chuckling when he asked, what is that all about?
Speaker 1: Edie had apparently thought that the scene that we had
Speaker 1: just watched was another recreation of what people remembered before
Speaker 1: a reality shift. No, it's back, Houston, we have a
Speaker 1: flip flop, I said. The line was silent for a
Speaker 1: long moment. I could hear the panic setting in from
Speaker 1: the other end of the connection. I believe he asked
Speaker 1: me to clarify, so I did. I'm not sure of
Speaker 1: the exact conversation after that, but I know that it
Speaker 1: didn't last very long. He cut me off and abruptly
Speaker 1: ended the phone call. I was perplexed. Here it was,
Speaker 1: this was the evidence that we had so long sought after.
Speaker 1: It was undeniable. Now, something bigger than anything we understood
Speaker 1: had to be responsible. Why was and Eddie as excited
Speaker 1: as I was. Later that evening, Eddie finally called me back.
Speaker 1: He told me about how he had experienced a full
Speaker 1: on panic attack during our last conversation. He told me
Speaker 1: how he immediately went back to YouTube and watched several
Speaker 1: clips and saw that everything was again as we thought
Speaker 1: that we had remembered. But instead of reacting with elation,
Speaker 1: he was horrified. Eddie's wife had been asleep taking an
Speaker 1: afternoon nap throughout all of this. Suddenly it hit him,
Speaker 1: Is she even real? Am I even real? He asked
Speaker 1: himself in a terrified panic. He sprinted down the hall
Speaker 1: and threw open the bedroom door. She was there. He
Speaker 1: broke down in tears. I apologized to Eddie for the
Speaker 1: way that I had presented it to him. I was inconsiderate.
Speaker 1: It had not occurred to me that he could react negatively.
Speaker 1: I guess all those people that we had previously mocked
Speaker 1: weren't such liars or lunatics after all. Although I am
Speaker 1: still regretful for the way that I presented this mind
Speaker 1: altering moment to Eddie, I will forever be grateful that
Speaker 1: we experienced it together. I don't think either of us
Speaker 1: could possibly have maintained our sanity had we gone through
Speaker 1: this alone and didn't have someone else to confirm that indeed,
Speaker 1: this really happened. I will be lifelong friends with Eddie
Speaker 1: for more reasons than I can count, but this shared
Speaker 1: experience is at the top of the list. I know
Speaker 1: that no matter what we go through, what disagreements, we
Speaker 1: will someday have this moment formed an unbreakable bond between us.
Speaker 1: A few months later, it happened again, but this time
Speaker 1: Eddie wasn't involved. He hadn't had an opinion on the
Speaker 1: Back of the Future terrorist van. He hadn't rewatched the
Speaker 1: scene countless times and all three of the movies. He
Speaker 1: hadn't read the blog posts. I had. It played out
Speaker 1: much the same way for me as it had the
Speaker 1: first time, but I wasn't quite as excited because I
Speaker 1: had no one to share it with. I opened read
Speaker 1: it and there was a post about Back to the
Speaker 1: Future flip flopping. Sure enough, I went to YouTube and
Speaker 1: I saw the blue VW microbus with the white top.
Speaker 1: That was what I remembered before I had talked myself
Speaker 1: out of it. I pulled up whatever streaming service had
Speaker 1: the movie at that time and confirmed that it was there.
Speaker 1: I found the blog where I had read about the
Speaker 1: silver Toyota being parked near the Strip Club. The blog
Speaker 1: was still there, but the post about the Easter egg
Speaker 1: was now gone. There were still people arguing about the van,
Speaker 1: but now it was all the people saying that they
Speaker 1: grew up with the Toyota van, and suddenly it was
Speaker 1: a VW those people were now soundly ridiculed. There was
Speaker 1: also a new post. I wish that I had written
Speaker 1: down who it was in my previous temporary reality that
Speaker 1: had posted about the Easter egg, but the name of
Speaker 1: the poster didn't seem important at that time. Looking back,
Speaker 1: I would bet that it was the same person who
Speaker 1: in this reality pointed out that the silver Toyota that
Speaker 1: those people remembered was indeed in the movie. It was
Speaker 1: parked just down the street from Cupid's Adult near the church.
Speaker 1: I watched that scene again. That's correct. It's still there
Speaker 1: as of the moment that I'm writing this. I checked
Speaker 1: twice today. Now, naturally, that detail is used to try
Speaker 1: to explain the memories of the people that had never
Speaker 1: seen the v W in the scene before, which is ridiculous.
Speaker 1: The silver van can only be seen for a moment,
Speaker 1: and it's not in any way the focus of that scene.
Speaker 1: It's unreasonable that anyone would mistake this brief shot with
Speaker 1: the terrorist scene. I believe those people that say that
Speaker 1: they grew up and always saw the silver Toyota in
Speaker 1: the terrorist scene. It's not my experience at all, but
Speaker 1: I believe them. I shared this experience with Eddie, and
Speaker 1: he believed me, but it didn't have much of an
Speaker 1: effect on him since he didn't experience it himself. He
Speaker 1: remembered talking to me about this change, but he couldn't
Speaker 1: remember what I had said about it previously. He had
Speaker 1: no opinion. A few months ago, I looked at Reddit
Speaker 1: and I saw that tidy Cats was back. I was
Speaker 1: quickly able to confirm that by looking at Amazon and
Speaker 1: other retailers. I forgot about it for a week or more,
Speaker 1: and it then dawned on me one day, so I
Speaker 1: sent Eddie a text, do you know that tidy Kats
Speaker 1: is back? He didn't reply. I got a little concerned
Speaker 1: that I had sent him into another panic attack, but
Speaker 1: somehow I forgot about it. A couple weeks later, we
Speaker 1: were talking on the phone and he mentioned it. I
Speaker 1: saw tidy Cats in the store today, He said, how
Speaker 1: did that make you feel? Well? I just kind of thought, huh,
Speaker 1: it really is back. Yeah, that was my reaction. Every
Speaker 1: time that I'm in a grocery store now, I am
Speaker 1: always sure to take a look at fruit loops, cereal,
Speaker 1: and Flintstone vitamins, just in case the camel doesn't even
Speaker 1: exist anymore. Chapter five why does it even matter? There
Speaker 1: is an aspect of this story that I have skipped
Speaker 1: over up to this point to keep the narrative flowing.
Speaker 1: But it is an element that I find to be
Speaker 1: just as intriguing and confusing as the rest of it.
Speaker 1: To put it simply, many people will react with extreme
Speaker 1: anger to this entire subject. By the time of Eddie's revelation,
Speaker 1: my wife had essentially forbidden me from bringing up the
Speaker 1: subject in any way. When I first encountered these reality shifts,
Speaker 1: I was excited to see what she remembered. I would
Speaker 1: ask her about various changes, much in the same way
Speaker 1: that Eddie did with me that first winter night. Sometimes
Speaker 1: she remembered things like I did, and sometimes she didn't.
Speaker 1: The subject seemed to make her uncomfortable. Eventually she just
Speaker 1: started saying I don't know to every single question that
Speaker 1: I would ask her about her memory of reality. One night,
Speaker 1: Eddie and I were both at a party with our wives,
Speaker 1: which was hosted by our friend Chip. Eddie knew Chip
Speaker 1: far better than I did, and apparently they had also
Speaker 1: discussed these changes. As the sun was setting on us,
Speaker 1: sitting on Chip's deck, Chip decided to bring up the
Speaker 1: topic what do you guys think of the Mandela effect?
Speaker 1: He asked, Well, it was like he had just proposed
Speaker 1: having an orgy and then posting it on Facebook. My wife,
Speaker 1: Eddie's wife, and Chip's wife collectively lost their minds. They
Speaker 1: all got so viscerally angry at the mere mention of
Speaker 1: the subject that we immediately changed the subject. It nearly
Speaker 1: ruined the entire night. When I had my own revelation,
Speaker 1: the day that I discovered that reality may be different
Speaker 1: than it appears. I thought for sure that when I
Speaker 1: brought this stunning evidence to my wife's attention, it would
Speaker 1: force her to take this seriously and start to talk
Speaker 1: about it. I was living under the false premise that
Speaker 1: everyone had studied the passenger's side mirror the way that
Speaker 1: I had as a kid. That is not the case.
Speaker 1: It has never dawned on me until this moment. But
Speaker 1: maybe the reason that Eddie and I studied it so
Speaker 1: carefully is because we both grew up without any siblings.
Speaker 1: My wife comes from a larger family, so she probably
Speaker 1: did not sit in the front passenger seat anywhere near
Speaker 1: as often as Eddie and I did. Regardless, my wife
Speaker 1: got very angry with me when I brought up the mirror.
Speaker 1: That was the last time that she ever spoke about
Speaker 1: any of this in any detail. She doesn't know about
Speaker 1: the flip flops, and she doesn't know about the missing chapter. Recently,
Speaker 1: there have been a few things that have come up
Speaker 1: where it's clear that she remembers some things the way
Speaker 1: that I do, and I have lightly brushed the topic,
Speaker 1: but I'm still careful not to push it too hard,
Speaker 1: and I certainly don't use the dreaded Mandela effect term
Speaker 1: at all. Eddie's wife reacted the same way the day
Speaker 1: that he charged into the bedroom to ensure that she
Speaker 1: still existed. Rather than trying to calm her husband down
Speaker 1: in the middle of an existential crisis, she berated him,
Speaker 1: she mocked him, and she kept it off with the
Speaker 1: same question that my wife asked the day that I
Speaker 1: told her about the mirror. It's the same question that
Speaker 1: I've heard from others when I've tried to discuss the subject,
Speaker 1: Why does it even matter? They ask? What the f
Speaker 1: do you mean? Why does it even matter? This is
Speaker 1: the most important thing that anyone has ever discovered. Reality
Speaker 1: is not what we think it is. Sure, it's still
Speaker 1: quote unquote real. We still have to work and eat
Speaker 1: and pay taxes. We still have to deal with everything
Speaker 1: in our daily lives. But this changes everything that we
Speaker 1: thought we knew about the world and the universe. The
Speaker 1: concept that someone could possibly not care at all about
Speaker 1: the fact that reality can be retroactively rewritten by some
Speaker 1: unknown force is inconceivable. I've encountered similar reactions from others
Speaker 1: as well. Mark is a good friend of mine. If
Speaker 1: I catch him off guard and can ask him what
Speaker 1: he remembers about something before he realizes that I'm talking
Speaker 1: about a reality shift, He's happy to have the conversation,
Speaker 1: and most of the time he remembers things the way
Speaker 1: that Eddie and I do. But the moment that I
Speaker 1: reveal that reality disagrees with his memory, he always has
Speaker 1: the same reaction. He pauses for a moment, gets a
Speaker 1: distant look in his eyes, and then he says, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's right, I was wrong. He does this every time.
Speaker 1: If I try to push the matter in any way
Speaker 1: by pointing out that he just quoted or describes something
Speaker 1: exactly the way that I and other experiencers remember it,
Speaker 1: and that he came up with that completely on his own,
Speaker 1: he will begin to get uncomfortable and angry. I don't
Speaker 1: understand the psychology behind this reaction, and it gets far
Speaker 1: more vehement online. The Mandela Affects subdit is the best
Speaker 1: example of this. It's almost overrun by people who are
Speaker 1: just there to beerate anyone and everyone who thinks there
Speaker 1: is anything more to this than just bad memory. It
Speaker 1: is so bad there that others created the ret kond subreddit,
Speaker 1: which enforces rules against that, to the point that you're
Speaker 1: not even allowed to say bad memory in that group.
Speaker 1: That's also not good for the conversation, but I do
Speaker 1: understand why it's necessary after years of reading posts in
Speaker 1: the main Mandela affect group. While I can understand not
Speaker 1: believing in it if you haven't lived through the things
Speaker 1: that I have, and even laughing about it the way
Speaker 1: that I did when Eddie first asked me about it,
Speaker 1: I cannot understand the level of anger, which borders on hate,
Speaker 1: that is expressed by these people. It's bizarre how determined
Speaker 1: some people are to try to shut down any conversation
Speaker 1: about this topic. Another curious aspect of this is evident
Speaker 1: if you look at online discussions about other unprovable theories,
Speaker 1: For instance, in forums where people are discussing their experiences
Speaker 1: with hauntings, UFOs, or Bigfoot. It's not hard to find
Speaker 1: others debunking specific videos or stories, but it is incredibly
Speaker 1: rare to find people that seem to have as their
Speaker 1: main goal to disprove the entire concept. While I have
Speaker 1: never seen a ghost, I would not waste my time
Speaker 1: in those forums trying to prove that everyone who does
Speaker 1: believe in them is wrong. Why are there so many
Speaker 1: people in Mandela affect forums that feel compelled to disprove it.
Speaker 1: The only other subject outside of political conspiracy theories, where
Speaker 1: I can find this type of contempt for the believers
Speaker 1: and the overwhelming urge of so many people to disprove
Speaker 1: it is in the Flat Earth forums Chapter six conclusion.
Speaker 1: The only conclusion that I am comfortable withdrawing from all
Speaker 1: these experiences is that reality is not what we think
Speaker 1: it is. It's malleable and can be rewritten retroactively. I
Speaker 1: don't know why or how it's happening, but it is happening.
Speaker 1: It's likely been happening for a very long time, possible forever.
Speaker 1: It's been going on for at least fifty years. Author
Speaker 1: Philip K. Dick spoke about the phenomenon publicly in the
Speaker 1: nineteen seventies, although he did not call it the Mandela effect.
Speaker 1: Art Bell even took a phone call from someone in
Speaker 1: two thousand and one that was confused because they believed
Speaker 1: that Nelson Mandela had died in prison. This was eight
Speaker 1: years before Fiona Brom coined the term. Do I have
Speaker 1: a favorite theory? Sure? I lean towards simulation theory as
Speaker 1: an explanation, but I have yet to find hard evidence
Speaker 1: of that, so I cannot be sure. As much as
Speaker 1: I would love to have someone to blame for all
Speaker 1: of this, I cannot get on board with those that
Speaker 1: say that CERN is responsible. It's been happening longer than
Speaker 1: the large Hadron collider has existed. I also must admit
Speaker 1: that most of the reality shifts that I recognize seem
Speaker 1: insignificant in the grand scheme of things. I have no
Speaker 1: idea why anyone would want to change the wording on
Speaker 1: a mirror, remove Dolly's braces and a Turkey leg, or
Speaker 1: with the purpose of altering the kind of van that
Speaker 1: was used by the terrorists in back the future could
Speaker 1: possibly be. It seems random and pointless. Do I think
Speaker 1: it's possible that there is some meaning behind it, and
Speaker 1: this is all some elaborate code that has been set
Speaker 1: up for someone to discover and then change the world. Maybe.
Speaker 1: But if that is the case, I know that I
Speaker 1: will not be the one to figure that out, and
Speaker 1: I would be skeptical of anyone who claims that they have.
Speaker 1: There have recently been a couple of scientific studies on
Speaker 1: the phenomenon. Look them up for yourself. No one running
Speaker 1: these studies is yet ready to attribute all of this
Speaker 1: to something spooky, but they have determined that there seems
Speaker 1: to be something more to this than just poor memory,
Speaker 1: because control groups that they have inserted using things that
Speaker 1: no one is claiming to have changed, are rarely, if
Speaker 1: ever misidentified, while the well known changes are commonly and
Speaker 1: consistently identified, even by people who have never heard any
Speaker 1: of this. The last thing that I will say after
Speaker 1: writing this story about my experience with the Mandela effect
Speaker 1: is that I really hate that this thing has been named.
Speaker 1: That I remember Mandela becoming president, not dying in prison.
Speaker 1: I wish that it was called the Dolly effect, or
Speaker 1: the mirror effect, or literally anything else. So do you
Speaker 1: think I'm crazy? Do you think I'm just making all
Speaker 1: this up. Do you think this is all just bad memory?
Speaker 1: I understand if you do, especially since the craziest part
Speaker 1: of this story cannot be proven in any way. You
Speaker 1: will never find evidence of the wrong line in Apollo,
Speaker 1: the wrong van in Back to the Future, or the
Speaker 1: existence of tidy Cat, because those things have changed back
Speaker 1: to their original form. If the multiverse explanation is true,
Speaker 1: you may not have been on the same timeline where
Speaker 1: those things happened. If this was all new to you,
Speaker 1: then I'm sure it sounds nuts unless any of the
Speaker 1: very few examples of reality shifts that I covered in
Speaker 1: this have a meaning to you and you happen to
Speaker 1: have anchor memories around the same shifts. But I challenge
Speaker 1: you to investigate it yourself. Google the Mandela effect and
Speaker 1: find a list of fifty two one hundred of them.
Speaker 1: Go through that list and find out for yourself if
Speaker 1: you still think all of this can just be bad memory.
Speaker 1: But keep in mind that there is no reasonable explanation
Speaker 1: why so many people would remember a turkey leg in
Speaker 1: that painting. It's never a candy cane, never a hunting bow,
Speaker 1: never a mug of beer. It's always a turkey leg.
Speaker 2: I hope you enjoyed tonight's episode, and i'd like to
Speaker 2: say a massive thank you to Anonymous for reaching out
Speaker 2: to me and allowing their experience to be told. And
Speaker 2: if you'd like to submit your experience with the Mandela Effect,
Speaker 2: you can find all my contact and support information in
Speaker 2: the show notes and of course at Paranormal Mysteries podcast
Speaker 2: dot com. Until next time, thank you so much for listening,
Speaker 2: and please remember don't wait for the unknown to come
Speaker 2: to you, get out there and find it.
Speaker 1: S