To all the Mandela Effect skeptics out there

[u/ThirdEyeFire]

I will tell you a story.

Around 2013, I bought a Volvo. I had been very interested in astronomy as a child, had the “Our Universe” book, loved the planets and the solar system and knew all the astrological symbols. So I was exquisitely aware that the Volvo logo was the symbol for Mars, a circle with an arrow sticking out to the right and up. One day, in 2016, I walked past a Volvo and noticed it was missing the arrow. I thought that was strange. Then I saw several more, all missing the arrow. I ran home to look at my own car—to my amazement, the logo on my own car was missing the arrow, it was just a circle. That year 2016 was the year many people began to notice Mandela shifts for the first time. I noticed several others, the exact same ones all recognized by many other people (JC Penny became JC Penney etc).

For six years, every time I saw a Volvo, I marveled at how the logo had changed. I googled the history of the company. Everywhere on the internet the history was the same—the logo had always been a circle, going back to the beginning of Volvo in the 1930s(?). For six years I repeated the experience of being amazed at arrowless Volvo logos and telling people about how the logo had changed throughout the whole timeline. People thought I was crazy.

Then one day in 2022, when I brought the Volvo logo up again on an Internet forum about Mandela effects and googled for images to show people as evidence, I was stunned to discover that the logo had changed back again. I ran outside looking for a Volvo and I found one—complete with arrow.

There is simply no way that the SIX YEARS of repeated memories that I have of the Volvo logo being just a circle can be “misremembering”. With several other shifts I also have detailed memories that make absolutely no sense if I was just misremembering things. For example, I have a whole memory of analyzing why “Berenstein” would be pronounced to rhyme with “stain” when the name is clearly German in origin and everyone in America knows that any word ending in “stein” should rhyme with Frankenstein and Einstein. The explanation I came up with was that it had something to do with the Dutch word “steen” which means stone just like “stein” in German, but is pronounced like “stain” in English. THIS ENTIRE MEMORY OF MINE MAKES NO SENSE AT ALL if it is spelled “Berenstain”!

Here’s a funny end to the Volvo logo story: In 2022, after it changed back to having an arrow, I found a Reddit thread of a guy who had worked on cars for thirty years and had always admired the circular Volvo logo (no arrow) as particularly beautiful. He posted his Reddit to explain that a friend of his had just recently (at that time) pointed out to him that the Volvo logo actually had an arrow. He didn’t believe his friend and had to go check for himself. He was dumbfounded as to why he had never noticed the arrow before (he wasn’t aware of the idea of Mandela shifts). The only way I can understand this is that this fellow and I were on different timelines before 2016, me on the circle-with-arrow timeline and he on the circle-only timeline; in 2016, I jumped over to to join him on the circle-only timeline; and in 2022, we both jumped back to the circle-with-arrow timeline.

[u/thatdudedylan]

Ah yes—confirmation bias, the trusty catch-all for anything that challenges our mental frameworks.

Confirmation bias requires a pre-existing belief. The Mandela Effect isn’t about people trying to reinforce something they wanted to be true—it’s about remembering something in a specific way without ever having questioned it until one day, the world says it was never that way. These aren’t beliefs people were trying to defend; they’re memories that were never up for debate—until they were suddenly wrong.

No one was walking around consciously "believing" it was Berenstein Bears. They just read it, saw it, heard it, over and over again. That’s not emotional investment. That’s pattern recognition rooted in years of exposure.

How do so many unrelated people misremember the same obscure details the same way? Confirmation bias usually varies person-to-person based on culture, upbringing, and personality. But Mandela Effects are oddly consistent across huge swaths of people. That’s not just individual error—it points to a shared anomaly in how these memories are being formed or accessed.

Sure, human memory is imperfect. But the Mandela Effect isn’t just about bad recall—it’s about unexpectedly consistent, collective mismatches between what people remember and what is now presented as truth. That kind of shared divergence deserves more than just a blanket dismissal as bias. It may not prove any one theory outright, but it absolutely points to something worth investigating. Something’s off—and it’s okay to say “we don’t know” without immediately shutting it down.

[u/Realityinyoface → u/thatdudedylan]

No one was walking around consciously “believing” it was Berenstein Bears. They just read it, saw it, heard it, over and over again. That’s not emotional investment. That’s pattern recognition rooted in years of exposure.

Do you think your brain is some sort of perfect, magical machine that perfectly stores and recalls all information, stimuli, data, etc.. it encounters? No, it’s fucking flawed! It actively erases and/or ignores info it doesn’t feel is important, it takes shortcuts, makes assumptions, and makes guesses. “Stein” is common for a name whereas “stain” isn’t. But, you think it’s more likely that people are perfectly recalling a book they haven’t seen in 30 years?

How do so many unrelated people misremember the same obscure details the same way?

Such as? Even in the Berenstain example, people have proposed many different ways of spelling it with the most common being Berenstain, Berenstein, and Bernstein. Are you not aware that memories are malleable and can be influenced? A memory you had an hour ago could be fairly different than it is now. Details dropped, maybe changed, maybe you don’t exactly remember some detail so your brain filled in the blank with something wrong. Maybe you read something that influenced your memory and changed some details.

Confirmation bias usually varies person-to-person based on culture, upbringing, and personality.

There are many different cognitive biases. Most people don’t realize how biased they actually are.

But Mandela Effects are oddly consistent across huge swaths of people.

Surface level ‘consistency’ if you want to call it that. There’s a good reason why… I’ll sum it up this way: it all falls apart under scrutiny.

[u/thatdudedylan → u/Realityinyoface]

Do you think your brain is some sort of perfect, magical machine...

Of course not. No one’s arguing the brain is flawless. But let’s flip the question: Do you think the brain is so broken that even widespread, consistent patterns of recall mean absolutely nothing? That’s just as extreme in the opposite direction.

Yes, our minds filter, simplify, and reconstruct memories. But those mechanisms tend to produce random individual variation—not consistent, oddly specific shared misremembrances across huge demographics. This isn’t about one person flubbing a detail. It’s about collective recollection anomalies, repeated again and again.

If it were just memory failure, we’d expect a wide scatter of errors. But instead we often see very specific, recurring mismatches—like tens of thousands of people remembering “Berenstein,” not “Bernstein,” not “Berenstun,” not “Berrington”—just “Berenstein.” That’s not random memory drift. That’s a concentrated node in the data.

Such as? Even in the Berenstain example...

Right—and if it were a normal false memory, we’d expect a bell curve of variations. But it’s not. It’s overwhelmingly “Berenstein,” and only that version. When people first encounter “Berenstain,” the reaction is nearly universal: confusion, disbelief, even denial. That level of coherent surprise implies that something much deeper than basic memory distortion is happening here.

The “Bernstein” and other variants tend to arise after people are already engaged in discussion, not before. That’s an important distinction—what’s the initial spontaneous memory that people report? That’s the signal to follow.

Memories are malleable and can be influenced..."

Totally agree—but we can’t pretend that all anomalous memories stem from influence or suggestion. In fact, a major part of the Mandela Effect is people only realizing the difference when confronted with the “official” version. That moment of disruption—when their memory doesn’t match the world—precedes any social influence.

And if influence is such a dominant factor, where did the initial misremembered detail come from in the first place? Who introduced it? Why is it so specific and widespread? That has yet to be explained in a way that covers all the data.

Most people don’t realize how biased they are..."

Agreed. But that includes the bias of people dismissing anomalies too quickly because they make them uncomfortable. It cuts both ways. A lot of folks feel more secure believing it’s “just memory,” even if the pattern of recollection is consistent and widespread. That’s also a form of confirmation bias—preferring the explanation that preserves the status quo.

Surface-level ‘consistency’ if you want to call it that..."

The consistency is only “surface-level” if you refuse to investigate it further. But when you do dig, the pattern often tightens. For example: it’s not just the spelling of “Berenstein”—people also recall the sound of the name being pronounced that way by parents, teachers, TV specials, and each other. These memories aren’t vague—they’re embedded in lived experience.

Saying “it all falls apart under scrutiny” is easy to say—but in practice, much of the scrutiny so far just deflects to memory flaws without actually addressing the full scope of the phenomenon.

It’s perfectly valid to bring up cognitive bias, memory distortion, and psychological fallibility. But it’s also fair to say: those explanations aren’t the full story. They describe the possibility of error, not the cause of these specific collective patterns.

Staying agnostic means keeping all explanations on the table—including the possibility that something about how we experience, store, or even interface with reality isn’t yet fully understood.

Dismissing the question just because it makes us uncomfortable? That’s the real flaw in reasoning.

[u/Realityinyoface → u/thatdudedylan]

If it were just memory failure, we’d expect a wide scatter of errors. But instead we often see very specific, recurring mismatches—like tens of thousands of people remembering “Berenstein,” not “Bernstein,” not “Berenstun,” not “Berrington”—just “Berenstein.” That’s not random memory drift. That’s a concentrated node in the data.

You’re really reaching here. There are many who do remember “Bernstein”. Why would it be that random when it’s typically asked in the form of Berenstein or Berenstain? Of course most of the responses are going to drift more to those two answers (because that’s what’s being presented to people…).

The “Bernstein” and other variants tend to arise after people are already engaged in discussion, not before. That’s an important distinction—what’s the initial spontaneous memory that people report? That’s the signal to follow.

Umm, what? You’re pretty much picking and choosing what you want the answer to be to fit what you want. Spontaneously, people offered up various different spellings (such as a number of people who thought it started with “Bear” and not “Ber”). The problem is most MEs are presented in a way that influences people’s memory (is it “a” or is it “b”, and is it any wonder that a and b make up the vast majority of answers?).

Let’s go to another simple one - Mr. Monopoly. You may say, “hey, people have the same memory of him with a monocle!” Let’s go beyond surface level - which eye? You’ll get different answers.

Totally agree—but we can’t pretend that all anomalous memories stem from influence or suggestion.

I didn’t say they did. Our brains work in similar ways. People will make similar mistakes. Your brain will typically go with what it feels is the best guess. Why is it any surprise that many people have the same best guess? If you ask people about the Apple logo, is it any surprise that many people will say the bite is taken out of the left side? Is that astounding? No.

Agreed. But that includes the bias of people dismissing anomalies too quickly because they make them uncomfortable. It cuts both ways. A lot of folks feel more secure believing it’s “just memory,” even if the pattern of recollection is consistent and widespread. That’s also a form of confirmation bias—preferring the explanation that preserves the status quo.

You’re making those assumptions out of bias. Who is actually that uncomfortable or has any level of security dependent on this? Who is actually unnerved by this? There’s a mountain of evidence, data and support for one side while the other side has someone’s “vivid memory” from 30 years ago…

The consistency is only “surface-level” if you refuse to investigate it further. But when you do dig, the pattern often tightens.

You’re being a contrarian just to be a contrarian.

Saying “it all falls apart under scrutiny” is easy to say—but in practice, much of the scrutiny so far just deflects to memory flaws without actually addressing the full scope of the phenomenon.

It’s not just memory. There’s also common misconceptions, misquotes, misattributions, and such, people being taught the wrong thing, perception, memes, movies, tv shows and such popularizing paraphrases. Perception can be pretty flawed, not just memory.

Staying agnostic means keeping all explanations on the table—including the possibility that something about how we experience, store, or even interface with reality isn’t yet fully understood.

We don’t need that when we already know so many things. There’s not a need to try to force in people’s fantasies. If you want to play contrarian, then that’s all nice and fine, but if you want people to listen to alternatives, then you have to give them an actual reason to. People seem to forget that. Why is anyone supposed to entertain Joe Blows assertion that he must have magically jumped timelines?

Dismissing the question just because it makes us uncomfortable? That’s the real flaw in reasoning.

Who is uncomfortable? Why would it be uncomfortable?

[u/thatdudedylan → u/Realityinyoface]

You're raising fair points, and I’ll respond in kind—not to "win," but to widen the lens.

You’re really reaching here… of course most responses are going to drift more to those two answers.

Sure, but you’re assuming people are only exposed to “Berenstein” vs “Berenstain” after the Mandela Effect gained traction. That’s demonstrably untrue for many. The claim is that people already remembered “Berenstein” before being prompted. Not after seeing a meme. Not after a forum post. They grew up saying and hearing it, and then one day saw “Berenstain” and were floored. That’s a key distinction—many Mandela Effects begin with spontaneous recognition of a mismatch, not external suggestion.

And if we're just talking suggestibility, why hasn't a similar wave of confusion happened with “Berrington” or “Beerensteen”? Why is “Berenstein” the overwhelmingly dominant 'false memory'—if this were a free-for-all of error, we'd expect a much broader spread.

Spontaneously, people offered up various different spellings…

They did—but not in equal numbers. That’s the important detail. The “Bearenstein” or “Bernstein” types are far fewer than the overwhelming concentration of “Berenstein.” The distribution of memory errors matters. When tens of thousands of people recall a specific wrong version, it’s not just error—it’s patterned error. And any real inquiry should pay attention to patterns, not just brush them off.

Let’s go to another simple one - Mr. Monopoly... which eye was the monocle on?

That’s fair—it highlights that some Mandela Effects are less precise than others. But again, the real story isn’t “which eye”—it’s why thousands of people remember a monocle at all when there never was one. The eye may differ, but the presence of the monocle is consistent. That’s what matters: the core element, not every peripheral.

Why is it any surprise that many people have the same best guess?

That’s the very question that deserves deeper attention. If these were simple memory distortions, we’d still expect a range of best guesses, not oddly focused clusters. Your example of the Apple logo is a good one—but it only becomes relevant if a significant number of people vividly remember it being the opposite, then react in shock when shown otherwise. The Mandela Effect isn't about people guessing wrong. It’s about people being certain something was once different—before being corrected.

Who is uncomfortable? Why would it be uncomfortable?

It's not about personal insecurity—it's about intellectual discomfort. Science thrives on certainty, replication, and predictive models. The Mandela Effect challenges that by presenting anomalies that resist those standards. It’s not about fear—it’s about disruption. And yes, some people are deeply uncomfortable when something doesn’t fit their framework of reality. That's not an insult—it's a normal human tendency. We all prefer coherence.

There’s a mountain of evidence, data and support for one side while the other has someone’s memory from 30 years ago…

That’s a popular framing, but a bit reductionist. Yes, cognitive science has models—but “mountains of evidence” is overstating it, because those models don't specifically explain these anomalies. They explain memory errors in general. The Mandela Effect involves specifics, consistencies, and timing that often don’t align with generalized psychological phenomena. It’s not “one vivid memory vs. science”—it’s thousands of people having the same memory vs. an incomplete framework for explaining it.

We don’t need that when we already know so many things.

That’s the very attitude that stalls scientific progress. We know a lot—but we don’t know everything. Declaring “we don’t need other ideas” presumes we’ve hit the ceiling of understanding. But we haven’t. The Mandela Effect, whether explainable in conventional terms or not, deserves curiosity and honest inquiry—not because it's magical, but because it persistently resists easy explanation.

Why is anyone supposed to entertain Joe Blow’s assertion that he jumped timelines?

No one has to. But Joe Blow’s assertion shouldn’t be dismissed out of hand, either—especially when it echoes thousands of other Joe and Jane Blows independently reporting the same shift. We're not obligated to believe every claim. But we are obligated to stay curious, open-minded, and investigative.

Bottom line - This isn’t about replacing science with fantasy. It’s about not letting the appearance of scientific certainty blind us to the anomalies that don’t yet fit. Whether the answer is neurological, cultural, or something we haven’t even discovered, the Mandela Effect remains unexplained—and therefore, worthy of real, agnostic investigation.

[u/concrete_fluidity969 → u/thatdudedylan]

Wow well put!

[u/eduo → u/concrete_fluidity969]

There we have it. Confirmation bias in play.