The Human memory is an astonishing complex system, to say the least. The multitude of events, patterns, words and numbers that our brains can remember is truly shocking. However, our memories are not perfect. Sometimes we embellish the truth and fabricate events to fill the gaps in our memory. This is identified as a confabulation.

A great example of a confabulation is the Mandela Effect. This popular modern-day conspiracy theory represents the idea of collective misremembering. People who have witnessed this effect in their own lives have recalled a detail from the past as one thing, but now it is different from what they previously believed.

The name of this theory originated from the perplexing death of South African President and anti-apartheid revolutionary Nelson Mandela. Many people believed that Mandela died when he was sentenced to prison sometime during the ‘80s. However, his official passing was announced in 2013, leaving millions bewildered.

Since then, people have begun to search for other examples of collective memory failures. Word has spread and the conspiracy theory has taken over social media. From Twitter to YouTube and Facebook, individuals have begun sharing their personal experiences of the effect with the online world.

The most popular example seems to be the children’s book “The Berenstain Bears.” Notice anything weird about the way I spelled that? That may be because millions remember it as the “The Berenstein Bears.” Whether this widespread belief stemmed from people filling in their memory gaps with the popular “stein” or individuals just hopping on the bandwagon, it is definitely peculiar. Other examples include the popular american comedy series “Sex and the City” recollected as “Sex in the City,” Froot Loops remembered as Fruit Loops and the scented spray Febreze recalled as Febreeze.

As for why this has occurred, there are many theories. Some claim that all these minute tweaks in society have resulted from the creation of a parallel universe. Other idealists strongly believe that the reason for this was an individual who time travelled (or multiple people) in order to alter one event, but inadvertently changed the death of Mandela and the spelling of some our favorite children’s books, TV series and products. Some even believe that UFOs are actually time travel machines flying across dimensions. On the other hand, realists and skeptics suspect that these are truly just false memories.

There are many different stances you can take on your perspective of the Mandela Effect. As for my own I would like to believe that this theory is steeped in scientific fiction, as I and many others enjoy the escape from the pragmatic aspects of reality. However, the only clear evidence stems from the hypothesis formed by true realists: human memory is susceptible to both embellishment and fabrication and thus creates fallacies that substitute for intricate details lost over time. As much as I would like to believe in this speculation of fantasy, it is simply a confabulation by scientific definition and belongs to a factual realm of psychology.