“THE MANDELA EFFECT: DIMENSIONAL RIFTS, ALTERED HISTORY AND MISREMEMBERED MOVIES” #WeirdDarkness

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IN THIS EPISODE: Do parallel dimensions really exist? And if they do, is it possible to travel to them? Two people have stories that might have you believing you can – one of them having “Lunch In a Different Dimension”. *** A very strange phenomenon that has been reported by vast swaths of the population is known as “The Mandela Effect” which entails a mass misremembering of events, facts, or details. These can involve everything from pop culture to historical events, and often leave those who are faced with a reality much different than they remember in shock or bewilderment. Indeed, the history that you know, read about, and are sure is set in stone may not be so at all, and there seem to be alternate mysterious timelines of history that exist side by side with our memories and the reality we think we know.
SOURCES AND ESSENTIAL WEB LINKS…
“Lunch in a Different Dimension” by Jason Offutt for Mysterious Universe: http://bit.ly/2RXe3XF; http://bit.ly/2FSGH7r
“The Mandela Effect” by Brent Swancer for Mysterious Universe: http://bit.ly/2Y3ZxCX, http://bit.ly/2XIOqQp
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PARTIAL TRANSCRIPT…..

The idea that there are similar, or nearly identical realities that exist on a different level than ours, has thrived in concept as far back as there is history. Olympus, Asgard, Mag Mell, Annwn, Brahmapura; these places of legend go by many names in many cultures, but they are the same in the fact that they are like our world, but they are not our world. Science has long embraced the idea of multiple universes, including the Infinite Universe theory in which the universe is so big it can’t help but repeat itself, and the Parallel Universe theory in which multiple universes are formed like a layer cake, each section not interacting with the others unless something happens and bits of the layers touch. The late great paranormal researcher John Keel (best known for his 1975 book “The Mothman Prophecies”) wrote in his 1970 book, “Strange Creatures from Time and Space,” that he believed there were “window areas” in which the veil between universes was thin and sometimes, just sometimes, people go through.

I’m Darren Marlar and this is Weird Darkness.

Welcome, Weirdos – I’m Darren Marlar and this is Weird Darkness. Here you’ll find stories of the paranormal, supernatural, legends, lore, the strange and bizarre, crime, conspiracy, mysterious, macabre, unsolved and unexplained.

Coming up in this episode…

Do parallel dimensions really exist? And if they do, is it possible to travel to them? Two people have stories that might have you believing you can.

But first… a very strange phenomenon that has been reported by vast swaths of the population is known as the Mandela Effect, which entails a mass misremembering of events, facts, or details. These can involve everything from pop culture to historical events, and often leave those who are faced with a reality much different than they remember in shock or bewilderment. Indeed, the history that you know, read about, and are sure is set in stone may not be so at all, and there seem to be alternate mysterious timelines of history that exist side by side with our memories and the reality we think we know. We begin with that story.

If you’re new here, welcome to the show! While you’re listening, be sure to check out WeirdDarkness.com for merchandise, my newsletter, enter contests, to connect with me on social media, plus, you can visit the Hope in the Darkness page if you’re struggling with depression or dark thoughts. You can find all of that and more at WeirdDarkness.com.

And this month we’re celebrating Weird Darkness’ birthday… this month makes seven years of Weird Darkness as a podcast. And to recognize our birthday, every October we ask you to make a donation to our Overcoming The Darkness fundraiser. Every dollar we raise through donations and the Weirdling Woods painting auction will go to organizations that help people who struggle with depression. You can learn more about the fundraiser and what we’re doing with it on the Hope in the Darkness page at WeirdDarkness.com.

Now.. bolt your doors, lock your windows, turn off your lights, and come with me into the Weird Darkness!

STORY: INTERDIMENSIONAL HISTORY==========

When looking at the Mandela Effect we might as well start with the phenomenon’s namesake, and that lies with the great South African anti-apartheid revolutionary, political leader, and philanthropist, Nelson Mandela. It seems that a good portion of the population believes that Mandela died while languishing in prison in the 1980s while serving a 27-year sentence on charges of conspiracy to overthrow the state. In fact, while he did serve his time in prison he was eventually released, and he played a big role in world events up until he died in 2013 at his home from complications of a respiratory infection. Yet this is not how many people strongly remember it at all, and there are those who are adamant that he did in fact die in that prison, and that they had even read of it in history books and seen it on the news. It was when paranormal researcher Fiona Broome voiced this jolting discrepancy online that plenty of people chimed in to say they seemingly misremembered the exact same thing, and from there countless other examples came to the fore, earning the phenomenon of mass false memories the “Mandela Effect,” also often known as the “Mass Memory Discrepancy Effect.”

As with Mandela, world leaders and political powerhouses seem to draw this phenomenon to them. On November 22, 1963, then president of the United States, John K. Kennedy, was riding in a motorcade in Dallas, Texas, along with his wife, Jacqueline Kennedy, Texas governor John Connally, and Connally’s wife, Nellie, when the president was assassinated by a former U.S. Marine and communist by the name of Lee Harvey Oswald, who would himself be assassinated later by a Jack Ruby. At least that is the official, commonly accepted scenario, but the Kennedy assassination has grown into a morass of conspiracy theories and mysteries that I do not intend to fully get into here.

What I would like to get into is the mass misremembered detail of how many people were actually in the car on that day Kennedy was shot. Numerous people, including those who have allegedly spent hours and hours obsessively poring over the footage of the assassination, insist that there were just 4 people in the car at the time of that fateful assassination, and that it was definitely a 4-door car, but the true number was actually that there were 6 people in the car as far as we know. How could this be? The main theory is that the front two people were simply obscured by the car window, coupled with the focus on the actual assassination taking place, which have conspired to create the false memory.

Yet, there are many who are absolutely, positively sure that it has to have been 4 people. This detail has driven a lot of people absolutely bonkers, and there have been plenty of people who have tried to get to the bottom of this conundrum. One Justin Danneman, of the site squawker, managed to find all sorts of pictures that seem to show that it could not have possibly been 6 people in that vehicle, such as a replica of the car Kennedy was in that is noticeably a 4-seater, plus other photos and even a photo from Life Magazine that clearly shows just 4 seats in the car, yet the official number is indeed 6, with an unusual three rows of seats in the vehicle and a double windshield, much to the surprise and chagrin of some who claim to have gone over the footage frame by frame and remember it by heart- with 4 people in a 4-seat car. What is going on here, and if this were some sort of shift of reality why are there photos that still exist showing only 4 seats when it should have all changed? Who knows? All we know is that it is a persistent odd historical event that a good number of people get wrong.

Adding to the mystery is that a great many do not recall that there was ever a double windshield on the vehicle, nor that a secret service agent runs up from behind right after the shooting or that Jacqueline Kennedy climbs over the back seat in the wake of the shooting. There are claims that even the angle of the footage and the trajectory of the killing shot are all wrong in the current version, or that the people in the car aren’t behaving the way they are clearly remembered as being. The footage as it stands now seems to be almost alien to the way some remember it, such as one poster on Reddit who said:

WHAT THE?! Where’d the extra people come from? What’s with the double windshield? This event was before my time, but a few years ago (two or three max) I decided to learn more about it and spent many an hour looking super-close at the video, frame-by-frame even! There were like 3 different videos, all in color, but the Zapruder film was clearest. The film in this link isn’t from the same angle as the one I saw, and it’s a little more blurry/less colorful too.

It almost seemed like it was the driver that had shot him, because his right arm went over his left shoulder as he turned to see what was going on behind him. (This was one of the conspiracy theories; the driver did it.) JFK was behind the driver, and Jackie was behind the passenger. The man in the passenger seat did not react as quickly as the driver. JFK had been hit in front of the head, but also I remember discussion about another bullet that grazed him and hit the passenger. The “magic bullet” theory was famous, because a single bullet would have had to do a “180 in mid-air” to cause that damage, and yet the media kept cramming that fake fact because Oswald’s gun had been found to have only shot the one bullet.

This strange double-windshield car and that couple making out in the middle… no no no. The driver never turns around? No no no. Watching this clip I can’t even believe what I’m seeing. freaky!! This is nothing like the film I saw. His wife never climbed over the back seat like that. The car is the same color and still a convertible but it is noticeably different as well. Camera angle is also situated different. Anyone who remembers this the way I do will have their jaw drop when they see this footage.

Even the subsequent footage of the assassination of Lee Harvey Oswald by Jack Ruby has been accused of undergoing a change in reality, with the angle of the famous footage being different than what they are sure it to be. Is this all just a trick of memory and a misrepresentation of historical facts or has reality been changed from what some remember? Another U.S. president with his own share of bafflement is Franklin D. Roosevelt, 32nd president of the United States and often simply known as FDR. Many are very familiar with this president and his exploits, but what many people don’t seem to remember correctly is that FDR was in fact paralyzed from the waist down throughout the entirety of his presidency. Wait, what!?

Although there is a great number of people who are certain that FDR was in full possession of his physical health, or that at least he could stand and walk, the fact is that, at least in this reality, he was bound to a wheelchair. The condition first plagued him in 1921 when he was 39 years old, and he slowly lost the power of his legs after falling overboard while yachting. Other symptoms he suffered were fever, facial paralysis, bowel and bladder dysfunction, numbness, and hyperesthesia, and doctors at the time were convinced that he had polio, although in modern times it is thought that his condition was more consistent with what is known as Guillain–Barré syndrome. Whatever the reason, the important point here is that he could not walk when he was president.

But how could that be? Many of you might be convinced that he was featured walking about or standing, but this is not true. If you really pay attention to FDR’s photos of when he was in office, every single one of them is staged to make it look as if he is fine, but every one of them show him sitting down or leaning against something. He also avoided being seen in his wheelchair in public, and did everything in his power to distract from the fact that he was paralyzed, trying to hide it from the public eye. He did a fairly good job of hiding his disability, but he was never able to stand and walk around. This fact that one of America’s greatest and most iconic presidents ever was in a wheelchair the entire time really comes as a shock to many people who are sure that this wasn’t the case in the history they clearly remember.

Another world leader who has attracted talk of his own Mandela Effect is former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who served from 1940 to 1945 and again from 1951 to 1955, and was most notable for boldly leading his country to victory in World War II. Seen as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the 20th century and a larger than life historic figure, Churchill was also rather well-known for his bombastic speeches, which served to rally the people and are also highly quotable. But do you remember them correctly?

One of Churchill’s most rousing and famous speeches of all was given during the height of World War II when he expressed his intentions to do whatever was necessary to fight the Nazi scourge. You probably know the speech, don’t you? It is famous for the line “We will fight them on the beaches,” right? That is what most people remember and which has been quoted again and again, an icon from one of the most powerful speeches of the war. Right? If you have been paying attention in this article so far, then you known that, no, of course that is not what he really said at all. He actually said “We shall fight on the beaches,”

This mistaken quote is oft-repeated in the media and online, but it is wrong. That’s pretty odd, isn’t it? Speaking of Nazi’s, let’s take a look at the head honcho himself, Adolf Hitler. He is a very menacing and prominent figure in history, and we all probably know exactly what he looked like, not very tall, brown hair, and brown eyes, pretty much not at all what his idea of the “perfect Aryan” was. Yet, this description is wrong, and Hitler actually at least had blue eyes, as much as you may think or remember differently. This example of the Mandela Effect is sometimes chalked up to propaganda against the German leader at a time when color photographs were not really a thing and were very rare in those days. However, Hitler’s eyes were most certainly blue, often described that way, and sometimes photographed that way, not brown as so many believe.

Another very famous historical figure who also has a history that people seem to get wrong on a regular basis is Mother Teresa of Calcutta (1910 – 1997), who already has an instance of the Mandela Effect with her name alone, as many remember it as being “Mother Theresa.” Yet the bigger mystery is why so many people clearly remember her being made a saint, or canonized, in the 1990s, or even while she was still alive, well after her death, and that it was carried out by Pope John Paul II. This is very vividly remembered as having been all over the news that way, yet, this sainthood was actually not achieved until 2016, and was granted by Pope Francis, which has left a lot of people flabbergasted.

Keeping on people from history, we have the portrait known all over the world as the Mona Lisa, painted by the famous Italian Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci. It is perhaps one of the most famous and widely known paintings ever created, and it too has its own Mandela Effect mysteries. First is that many people believe that the identity of the woman in the painting has always been a complete mystery. They are absolutely sure that this is a well-known and persistent unsolved mystery of the art world, but they might be surprised to know that her identity has long been known as being of Lisa Gherardini, the wife of Francesco del Giocondo, which is even officially recognized in the records of the Louvre museum. The Mona Lisa has another mystery in that many people are sure that the woman in the painting has always had a completely blank expression on her face, but look now and it is clear that she is smiling.

Besides notable famous people there are also assorted historical events that are claimed to have somehow changed in our memories of them. There is the famous historical event that happened during the French Revolution, which was a far-reaching social and political upheaval in France and its colonies that lasted from 1789 until 1799. A famous incident during the revolution, indeed the catalyst for the whole thing, happened at the very beginning on July 14, 1789, when a huge mob of people armed with an assortment of weapons converged in front of the Bastille, where hundreds of prisoners were kept. The popular image of this storming of the Bastille is of hundreds of newly freed prisoners spilling out to join the revolution, but in fact current historical records show that only 7 prisoners were actually freed, a big discrepancy with what you may remember learning and as is commonly depicted.

In more modern times there i the case of the Tiananmen Square “Tank Man.” The notorious Tiananmen Square Massacre broke out in China in June of 1989. At this time, thousands upon thousands of student led pro-democracy activists had gathered in Tiananmen Square for demonstrations seeking basic human rights, culminating in a vicious crackdown enacted by the Chinese government.

After declaring martial law, heavily armed troops descended towards the square, arresting and killing indiscriminately as protestors attempted to block their progress. These shockingly violent tactics employed by the Chinese government brought about outrage and worldwide condemnation, yet even then the killings and arrests continued virtually unabated. Amongst all of this mayhem an image emerged which seemed to perfectly encapsulate the strife that was rocking the area at the time. Called the “Tiananmen Square Tank Man,” the image shows a lone, unarmed man defiantly and bravely standing in the path of an incoming Chinese tank, which is followed by a whole procession of other tanks.

Now, many of you may vividly remember from TV footage and history books that this man was mercilessly mowed down and killed by the tanks. It may be firmly ingrained into your mind to the point that it is indisputable fact. Yet, this never happened. Look today and you’ll see that video footage of the incident shows the unnamed individual sidestepping and remaining in its way even when it tries to go around him, and even jumping up onto the tank to apparently have a short chat with the tank’s driver before dropping down and taking up his defiant position once more. This continues for several minutes before the man is swept away by a group of people. The iconic photograph of this incident, taken by Associated Press photographer Jeff Widener, has become one of the most potent, famous, and instantly recognizable images of the century, yet although no one knows who this man was, it is very clear that he did not die as so many erroneously recall.

We also have the tragedy of the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger, which broke apart 73 seconds into its flight, killing all seven crew members and shocking a nation. In this case the Mandela Effect lies in the time of the disaster. Although it most certainly happened on January 28, 1986, there are a fair few people who insist it really happened before that, in 1984. Additionally, these people claim that the explosion occurred in the summer months, when the actual disaster really happened in winter, which is indeed one of the reasons for the mishap, as a seal broke which had not been thoroughly tested in the cold conditions. Making things more bizarre are the tales from people who are certain that some of the astronauts survived the tragedy to go on and live normal lives, which none of them did, at least in this reality. Which version is true? Does it depend on which reality you are from or is this mind tricks?

It is curious that so many people should remember history so wrongly. What is going on here? The most rational explanation is that this is all due to the inherit glitches of the human brain. Specifically, our memories are much more malleable and in flux than we may like to believe. Especially with details or memories we only have a fleeting awareness of or do not know in any great depth, misinformation can alter or completely warp what we think we remember as our brain struggles to fill in the gaps with these wrong facts or details. These new facts can cause fabricated, distorted, or misinterpreted memories that we take to be true, even in the face of concrete evidence to the contrary, causing the puzzlement we experience when we are confronted with reality.

Then there are the more far-out theories, which claim that this is evidence of some fundamental shift in reality that has occurred without our awareness. In this case we have shifted over to an alternate timeline which is mostly the same, yet different enough to give us a sense of unease when we encounter the details that do not line up and which we apparently remember from our former reality. Also just as bizarre is the idea that this may even indicate that we are in a Matrix-style computer simulation and that someone or something is messing around with the program either intentionally or due to a glitch. Whatever scenario you believe it is at the very least a peek into a strange phenomenon of the psyche, and even the hardest skeptics have to admit that it is at the least an intriguing and anomalous peek into perhaps one of the biggest mysteries of all; the human mind.

When Weird Darkness returns, we’ll see how the mysterious Mandela Effect has probably affected how you remember some of your favorite movies! Up next!

STORY: MANDELA AT THE MOVIES==========

The Mandela Effect, which entails a mass misremembering of events, facts, or details, can involved history events as we’ve already discussed – but pop culture is not immune to the effect either. It is an uncomfortable feeling to have the memories and reality you know and remember to be fundamentally different than what you once thought, and instances of the Mandela Effect are numerous. One area of pop culture that has proven to be a wellspring of examples of the Mandela Effect are movies, in many cases ones that are loved all over the world and yet are not as we may remember them to be.

Starting with one of the older movies where the Mandela Effect can be seen we have the iconic The Wizard of Oz, which actually has numerous instances of this in effect. The first is the famous line when Dorothy says to her dog, Toto, “Toto, I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore.” It is such an iconic line that it is even known by people who have never seen the movie, and it has become a phrase in popular use to signify that things are getting weird. However, Dorothy never says that. She in fact says “Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.” It is close, but enough of a discrepancy that it drives people nuts.

Also in The Wizard of Oz is the famous scene when the wicked witch commands her army of creepy flying monkeys to “Fly, my pretties, fly!” only she does not say that as you may strongly remember, but rather just says “Fly! Fly! Fly!” This is such a well-known and widespread mistake that the line is often misquoted in popular culture to this day. There is also the line near the end of the film when our ragtag group finally reaches the titular Wizard and Toto pulls back the curtain to reveal an old man at the controls of his machinery, invoking a thunderous voice that many people remember as saying “Pay no mention to the man behind the curtain!” Yet, this is not said. The line is actually “Pay no attention to THAT man behind the curtain.” The Wizard of Oz has even more instances of the Mandela Effect, which we will come back to later in the article.

Another older, but still rather famous line from a movie that is often misrepresented is from the film Oliver Twist, when Oliver asks the evil taskmaster Mr. Brumble for a second helping of porridge. Most will probably remember very well that he says “Please sir, can I have some more?” but what he really says is “Please sir, I WANT some more.” This line is also often misquoted in popular culture, and really rubs people the wrong way when they realize the line they thought they knew is wrong, so convinced are they of this memory.

There are numerous other lines from more modern movies that are persistently remembered wrong by most people, and some of them can be quite jarring when one is confronted with the real line. A very memorable one is the line from the movie Jaws, when the character Brody takes a look at their inadequate boat and tells the grizzled shark hunter Quint “We’re gonna need a bigger boat.” This is the line, right? Because they are a team about to go hunt the shark together and “WE” need a bigger boat, right? You may remember it so intensely, but no, he actually says “YOU’RE gonna need a bigger boat,” which seems to not make sense in this context and is much different than we all think we recall.

Yet another example of an oft-quoted line being wrong comes from the Clint Eastwood starring 1971 action film Dirty Harry. After running down a criminal and having a brief shootout Harry looms over the criminal, points his gun at him, and says “Do you feel lucky, punk?” This is quoted this way again and again, but it is wrong. The real line is “Do I feel lucky?” with the whole line being “You’ve got to ask yourself one question. Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?” This is another very unsettling one when people realize it, because so many remember it wrong in exactly the same way, and this line has become a rather famous example of the Mandela Effect.

Moving on we come to the 1982 Harrison Ford science fiction classic Blade Runner. Every fan of the original worth their salt knows the monologue that the replicant Ray Batty gives at the end just before he dies, right? The one about C-Beams glittering in the dark and those attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. All of these memories will be lost “like tears in the rain.” Many people can probably quote this whole memorable monologue by heart, but they are probably quoting it wrong, because Batty actually never says “like tears in THE rain,” but rather just “tears in rain,” with no “the.” It is enough of a change from what we insist we remember to seem strikingly odd. The famous courtroom drama starring Al Pacino, …And Justice for All also has the famous and oft-quoted line “I’m out of order? You’re out of order! This whole court’s out of order!” which is not even what he says, but rather the much different “You’re out of order! You’re out of order! The whole trial is out of order! They’re out of order!”

The list of such lines goes on and on. Do you remember in E.T. the Extraterrestrial when ET says “Phone home”? He actually says the off-sounding “Home phone.” James Bond never says “The name’s Bond, James Bond,” but instead says simply “My name is Bond, James Bond.” In the movie The Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal Lecter never says “Hello, Clarice,” but just “Good morning,” so where in the world did “Hello, Clarice” come from? The Silence of the Lambs has another such anomalous line when the serial killer Buffalo Bill is giving instructions to his captured prey to apply a lotion to her skin. As he looks on many people will clearly remember him saying “It puts lotion on its skin,” but he in fact says “It RUBS lotion on its skin.” This mistake has also been regurgitated again and again in popular culture in TV shows such as Family Guy and South Park, but it is wrong. As with many of these it’s a small, subtle difference, but one that so many people remember exactly the same wrong way, and which has a way of being a bit weird and of not sounding right on some fundamental level.

There is also the first of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings films, The Fellowship of the Ring. After confronting the terrifying, monstrous Balrog the whole place starts dramatically crumbling down around our heroes and the wizard Gandalf, which incidentally is also oddly remembered as being incorrectly spelled Ghandalf by a lot of people, finds himself precariously hanging from a yawning chasm below him. He then commands the rest of the group to, as you may remember “Run, you fools!” However, he really says “Fly, you fools!” which doesn’t even really seem to make sense in this situation, but there it is. Also quite odd is the line from the alien invasion movie Independence Day, wherein Will Smith’s character shoots down one of the aliens and then punches it out while saying “Welcome to Earth!” It is very often remembered that he says this with the pronunciation “Welcome to Earf,” but he very clearly and unambiguously says just “Earth.”

Not even animated films are exempt from this phenomenon. In the film Snow White, what do the seven dwarfs sing during their march? Can you picture that song? It’s “Heigh Ho, Heigh Ho, it’s off to work we go!” Right? Wrong. They actually sing “Heigh Ho, Heigh Ho, it’s home from work we go!” This is quite an unsettling revelation for many, as it is a song that they remember so fondly from their childhood and which they feel they must surely correctly remember, but the dwarves are not off to work, but rather off to their home. “It’s off to work we go” is indeed said once in the movie, and is almost like a false start, but the main song in the film and its official lyrics have them singing “home from work.” Weird.

The animated movie Alice in Wonderland also has a misremembered line, as the Cheshire Cat never says “We’re all mad here,” as many are sure he says in the movie, but rather “Most everyone is mad here.” The Alice and Wonderland film hosts another example of the Mandela Effect in that the characters Tweedledee and Tweedledum are almost always remembered as having tiny propellors on their hats, yet go back and look and you’ll find that there are no propellors but rather little yellow flags.

There are also the “non-quotes,” which are famous lines everyone distinctly remembers but which never actually even existed at all, such as the “Hello, Clarice” line from The Silence of the Lambs. For instance, picture the science fiction movie The Matrix in your mind. Do you remember when Neo finally confronts Morpheus and is told about the true nature of reality in the “red pill” scene? Morpheus goes into a monologue that begins with “What if I told you…” Right? You can probably totally remember that line and hear that clearly in your head in Laurence Fishburne’s deep voice. The thing is, “What if I told you” is never said in this scene, nor is it uttered in the movie at all. This baffles a lot of people because the line is very strongly remembered and iconic to the point that it is even a meme, but in fact it was never said. Where did it come from and why did it pop into our collective heads so intensely?

Another very famous line that nearly everyone knows comes from the original Tarzan movies from the early 1900s, where everyone knows that Tarzan would say “Me Tarzan, you Jane.” Right? Well, no, he never says that at any point at all. Similarly, anyone who knows the series of films and TV shows Star Trek will probably have the line “Beam me up, Scotty” immediately spring to mind. After all, it is a major feature of Star Trek, isn’t it? Indeed, people who have never even heard of Star Trek probably have been exposed to this line, and it is incredibly pervasive, yet this is never actually said at any point ever. Captain Kirk at no point ever says “Beam me up, Scotty” in any incarnation of the series. Also commonly remembered from Star Trek but never actually appearing is the line “It’s life, Jim, but not as we know it,” which doesn’t exist. One of the most famous of these non-quotes is the line “Play it again, Sam,” from the movie Casablanca, which is not once said at any point in the film. The closest thing we have in the movie is the line “Play it once, Sam. For old times’ sake.”

Movie lines are not the only things that get mixed up and misremembered, and another type of Mandela Effect in films has to do with mistaken details of the films or characters. Some of these have to do with titles of movies, or with character names. For instance, many may remember the famous 1979 Vietnam war movie as being called Deer Hunter, when it is actually “The Deer Hunter.” The famous villainess from the Disney animated movie 101 Dalmations is often remembered as Cruella DeVille, but did you know that the actual spelling is Cruella De Vil? This seems quite wrong to a great many people, but it is correct. The same kind of name mistake can be seen with the movie Gremlins, where Gizmo’s nemesis is fondly remembered as being named “Spike,” when he was actually called “Stripe,” which is totally different.

There are also other details from movies, characters, and even movie posters that people get wrong and which are chalked up to the Mandela Effect. A famous one is that the beloved Star Wars character C-3PO is not all gold, but rather has one silver leg, which is a bit jolting to those who have seen the movies countless times and never noticed it. Also from Star Wars, everyone thinks that Obi Wan Kenobi says “May the Force be with you,” but did you realize that it is actually Han Solo that says that? Coming back to The Wizard of Oz, have you ever realized that in one scene in the film the Scarecrow can clearly be seen holding a silver Magnum 357 handgun? Nobody remembers this having ever being in the movie before, but there it is, clear as day, made even more bizarre in that a handgun never appears in the numerous stage productions based off of the movie, and this further cements the Wizard of Oz as a wellspring of Mandela Effects.

Another quite strange and famous example of a startling and widely misremembered movie detail can be found in the original 1984 The Karate Kid film. Can you envision Daniel’s iconic headband in the movie, which he even wears in the final showdown? What color is it in your mind? How does it look? The majority of people will probably remember it as having a low red rising sun against a white background on it, but this is actually incorrect. Go back and watch it now and the headband features a central black circle with blacks lines radiating out from it, which can be quite a bit of a surprise and looks way different than what we remember. Even weirder is that some people even remember it as being blue. There is an odd detail that every one seems to get wrong in the classic 1973 horror film The Exorcist as well. In the exorcism scene when the possessed Regan is confronted by the priests and tied to the bed, she now has a feeding tube inserted in her nose, a jolting detail considering most people insist that such a tube was never there before.

Even movie posters can’t escape the Mandela Effect. Perhaps the most well-known example of this is the iconic poster for the movie Jaws. It is very often remembered as exhibiting a clear stylized bite mark taken out of the lower portion of the “J,” but in fact this bite mark has never existed in the poster. Another example is the poster for Terminator 2: Judgment Day, which oddly enough is already often misremembered as being spelled “Judgement Day.” In this case, the problem is with the sloping of the letter “A,” which is adamantly remembered as being different and looking very off for quite a few people.

Here we have looked at just a few of the more well known examples of the mysterious Mandela Effect as it pertains to the movies, although there are even more where these came from. What is going on here and why do so many people remember things so differently from the way they are and in exactly the same way? For some this is merely a memory glitch or trick of the mind, mistakes and misinformation that get picked up and spread until it all takes a life of its own and manages to convince people that the error is the way it should really be. We become convinced that the false memory is real and it becomes so lodged in our head that it completely usurps the original memory. The mystery is why is spreads to so many in the same way rather than just being isolated cases.

Others think that this is a hint that at least a portion of the population has shifted between parallel worlds that are very similar but in which certain details don’t quite line up exactly in subtle but noticeable ways. Still others think that it is evidence that reality has been retroactively tampered with somehow, possibly from time travel, and that we have splintered off into an alternate timeline while retaining certain memories from the old timeline. Perhaps even more bizarre still is the idea that we live in a computer simulation and these are either glitches in the program or someone deliberately changing and tweaking our simulated reality for inscrutable purposes. In the end there is no evidence that any inter-dimensional travel or timeline alteration has occurred, nor any real concrete rational answer, but either way the Mandela Effect continues to be an odd anomaly that is weird and entertaining at the very least.

Coming up… do parallel dimensions really exist? If they do, is it possible to travel to them? Two people have stories that might have you believing that you can – and one of them had lunch in a different dimension! That’s up next on Weird Darkness!

STORY: PARALLEL DIMENSIONS==========

Parallel universes, dimensions that nearly resemble our own, were once pondered by Plato, and proposed mathematically by Princeton University graduate student Hugh Everett III in 1954. These parallel worlds, common in myth, have been staples in science fiction since Edwin A. Abbott’s 1884 novel, “Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions.” More modern science fiction, like the dimension-jumping television program “Sliders,” and Philip K. Dick’s novel “The Man in the High Castle” (in which the Axis won WWII), gives us exciting glances at worlds like, yet unlike, our own. Exciting unless you stumble upon one of these alternative dimensions yourself as Carol Chase McElheney did in early March 2006.

Rain pounded McElheney’s car as she drove through San Bernardino, California, to spend a few days at a sheepdog trial in Perris, California. As she topped a hill south of the city, she saw a road sign for nearby Riverside. Her family roots were put down in Riverside in the early 1800s and she wanted to visit familiar places, such as her old house, and the cemetery where her grandparents are buried. “I’ve been going to Riverside since I was a baby,” McElheney said. “I’m real familiar with the city. I know my way around. I knew where my grandmother lived. I’ve been to the cemetery. I knew where I was going.”

As McElheney thought of visiting her grandparents’ graves, a chill ran through her. “Just as I decided to visit the cemetery, a huge blast of cigar scent entered my car,” she said. “It was pouring rain out, and I had my windows rolled up. My grandpa smoked cigars, and he died when I was five and that’s all I remember about him.”

Just as quickly as the smell floated through the car, it was gone. She drove past Riverside and on to Perris where she checked into a hotel and attended the dog show.

The next day McElheney attended the first sheep dog trial, then drove to Riverside. She didn’t like what she saw. “I could not find anything familiar,” McElheney said. “I used to live there after college.” Her street wasn’t the same, it was just wrong. The bungalows with small yards looked the same age as her old house, and the numbers were right, but her house wasn’t there. “I could not find my old place,” she said. “I thought they couldn’t have torn the house down and built another house in that 1920s style to fit into the architecture. None of the houses looked familiar. They all looked different.”

Then she drove to the street where her grandmother once lived, stopped the car, and looked around in amazement. “It was totally different,” she said. “None of the houses were anything like I remembered. No tall trees, her house wasn’t there. The numbers were in the same range, but the houses were all new. Grandma’s house and my aunt and uncle’s house next door were gone.” All the homes on what should have been her grandmother’s street were modern ranch-style houses lined by bushes, nothing like her Grandmother’s big, Tudor home with towering eucalyptus trees in the yard. “It was just gone.”

So was the cemetery. “The cemetery where my grandparents were buried was just not there,” McElheney said. “I drove around the block where it was supposed to be, and it was just fenced off with weeds inside. No gate, driveway or anything.”

Confused, McElheney pulled away from the empty lot to see if she could find anything familiar. She did. She recognized Riverside City College and Central Middle School. “Some of the other stuff was right. The college looked right, the middle school looked right,” she said. But when she pulled onto University Avenue, things were markedly different. “University Avenue was a main drag and there were scary looking people, so I got out of there,” she said. “I looked for the Mission Inn and it wasn’t there.”

University Avenue, once home to restaurants, insurance companies, banks and motels, was now, “completely ghetto,” McElheney said. “It was all graffitied-up and deserted.” To the point she was afraid to stop and ask directions. It was on University Avenue she realized something otherworldly was happening to her. “The thing that occurred to me is if I got out of my car something weird would happen,” McElheney said. “I thought if I talked to someone I’d be forever caught in this weird version of the ‘other’ Riverside, or that they weren’t going to be human. The more places I tried to recognize, nothing matched up. Nothing looked familiar.”

After a couple of agonizingly frustrating hours, McElheney turned the car around and went back to Perris. “Everything was normal,” she said. “I was afraid I’d go back and the hotel wouldn’t be there or my key wouldn’t fit. Everything was as it should be.”

A few years later McElheney’s father died and was to be buried in the same cemetery as her grandparents, the cemetery she saw as an empty fenced-off, weedy lot. “It was back to what I remembered,” she said. “He was buried next to my grandparents. The rest of the city looked like it did when I lived there after college in the ’70s. My cousin was there and she said her house and my grandma’s house are still there. University Avenue was normal looking and the Mission Inn was there. We had lunch there. I felt comfortable. I didn’t go back to the other areas to check them, but I knew they would be okay.”

What happened to Carol Chase McElheney? She’s convinced she slid into another dimension – one that was less than friendly. “I just got the feeling if I got out of the car and talked to someone I was going to fall off the edge of the earth. I’d end up being missing,” she said. “It must have been a dimensional thing. It looked like it was 2006, but I’d taken a different path. It looked like Riverside had just taken a different direction.”

Paul Colizzo is convinced that in 1995 he travelled to a different dimension as well.

Colizzo lived in Rhode Island and had been to Newport many times. The city that was home to the America’s Cup yacht race for more than 50 years was only a 45-minute drive away, after all; he’d been there so often he considered himself a “regular.” One of his favorite places to eat was the Newport Creamery that served everything from buttermilk pancakes, to burgers, to clam rolls to the Awful Awful (an ice cream cocktail of vanilla, chocolate, coffee, strawberry, mint, cotton candy, orange, bubble gum, chocolate mint and mocha. “You Drink 3, You Get The 4th Free!”).

But on a day in 1995, he and his friend Kenny drove to this town of roughly 25,000 people for Kenny’s dental appointment and his world changed. After Kenny’s appointment, they went out for lunch in this town he knew well, and found something unexpected.

“I parked my car in a familiar spot and we walked down the famous Americas Cup Avenue to Thames Street,” Colizzo said.

They walked past a Shell service station he was familiar with, but Colizzo was surprised to see a wall slant downward and opened into a street that had escaped him during previous visits.

“I could see the ocean and all the sailboats in it,” he said. “I saw these little wooden stands selling souvenirs. We walked into a business district I’d never seen before loaded with shoppers. Very busy, a two-way street. I can still see the bus stopping.”

There were several restaurants in this newly-found area, but one caught Colizzo’s eye – Newport Creamery. He didn’t know there was another location in town.

“I said to myself, ‘I have never seen this one before’,” he said. “I was also ashamed to say (this) to my friend because … I didn’t want to look like an idiot.”

Colizzo paid for his lunch with cash then sat and looked out the window to take in the area as he ate a cheeseburger combo and a Coke.

“I had a view of the ocean, watching people play Frisbee and walk their dogs,” he said. “It was so amazing I could not wait to tell my wife.”

Everything else was normal. The restaurant looked like the other location, the food was the same, the people outside were dressed normally and the cars along the street were as they should be. Excited for the new find, Colizzo picked up his wife from work that night.

“I told her, ‘Wait until you see where I’m taking you Saturday night’.”

Three days later, Colizzo and his wife went to Newport, turned down Americas Cup Avenue to Thames Street and took a right at the Shell station – just as he’d done with Kenny. But there was no wall that opened to a previously unknown street.

“I did not see the … ocean, just a ball field, and an apartment building, so I drove around for a half hour and gave up.”

He tried to take his wife to the new Newport Creamery twice more that summer. Then again in 1997, 1998 and 1999.

“In 1999, I walked every street side and road off Americas Cup Avenue and Thames Street, about three hours, I found nothing,” he said.

Colizzo kept trying because he knew what he’d experienced. That street, that shopping area, and that restaurant were real.

He bought his first computer in 2000 and did a web search for Newport Creamery restaurants in Newport, Rhode Island. There were two listed; the one he’d been to previously, and one on Bellevue Avenue.

“I said to myself, there is the answer, it is the one on Bellevue Avenue,” Colizzo. said. “That conclusion was satisfactory for me for the years following.”

It wasn’t until he found Google Streetview that the specter of the missing restaurant appeared again. He looked up the Newport Creamery on Bellevue Avenue. It wasn’t the restaurant he’d been to in 1995. There was no ocean view, no shopping district, nothing familiar. He thought maybe Google Streetview hadn’t picked up the right angles.

Colizzo went to the Bellevue Avenue Newport Creamery in 2012 and discovered Google had been correct. This wasn’t the right restaurant. He finally spoke with Kenny about it.

“He said to me he was also ashamed to say that area was unfamiliar to him as well, that there was something strange about that day.”

Colizzo’s curiosity exploded in 2016. He began to ask business people in Newport about the 1995 location, but no one knew what he was talking about. He talked with the Newport city clerk who said there had never been more than the two Newport Creamery restaurants in town – and they’d never moved from another location.

“I told a coworker of mine this story, he worked with engineering maps, and he said to me that he was familiar with Newport. I described my situation the best I could, the wall, the water, he said, I think I know where you are talking about,” Colizzo said. “He pulled it right up on the maps and I can see the satellite view. I said, ‘oh my God, that’s it’.”

Colizzo had found the area he’d once visited and eaten a cheeseburger combo and a Coke. But there was no business district, no wooden stands selling souvenirs, and no restaurants – especially not the one he remembers.

“There is room there for it, about 100 yards of grass in front of some elevated houses.”

He went to Newport a week later, located the slanted path, and saw where he and Kenny had walked toward the ocean – but it was hidden on the opposite side of the street. He walked toward the ocean and stood on the ground where the restaurant had been – a place where no restaurant had ever been.

“It appears we entered a vortex and we slung shot around the other side of the avenue where the wall and ocean were on the left,” Colizzo said. “The district we walked into was in another version of Newport, Rhode Island. I have investigated this for 21 years … the story is true. What happened to me? How did this happen? Maybe before 1995, that was my reality and I went through a vortex going back and I am in the other one now and never made it back.”

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Thanks for listening. If you like the show, please share it with someone you know who loves the paranormal or strange stories, true crime, monsters, or unsolved mysteries like you do! And please leave a rating and review of the show in the podcast app you listen from! You can email me anytime with your questions or comments at darren@weirddarkness.com. WeirdDarkness.com is also where you can find all of my social media, listen to audiobooks I’ve narrated, shop the Weird Darkness store, sign up for monthly contests, find other podcasts that I host, and find the Hope in the Darkness page if you or someone you know is struggling with depression or dark thoughts.

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All stories in Weird Darkness are purported to be true (unless stated otherwise) and you can find source links or links to the authors in the show notes.

“Lunch in a Different Dimension” by Jason Offutt
“The Mandela Effect” by Brent Swancer

Again, you can find links to all of these stories in the show notes.

WeirdDarkness™ – is a production and trademark of Marlar House Productions. Copyright, Weird Darkness, 2022.

Now that we’re coming out of the dark, I’ll leave you with a little light… “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” – John 16:33

And a final thought… “Don’t be pushed by your problems. Be led by your dreams.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

I’m Darren Marlar. Thanks for joining me in the Weird Darkness.