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Evidence of time travel is not something to be ignored — these periodic blips of stories, pictures, and artifacts are nothing less than blatant signs that our universe is in peril. The space-time continuum is breaking apart!
Eight years ago, I shared the first batch of this evidence. A handful of photographs and video clips that many believed were proof that time travel not only existed, but that individuals from the future had already visited us. Some, it was claimed, had even journeyed back to ancient times.
But they left footprints. They dropped artifacts. They were mistakenly caught on camera. Others deliberately shared knowledge of their strange voyages.
Others, if their stories are to be believed, were not quite so deliberate — they were like you or me. Ordinary people caught in time slips, temporarily whisked away to other eras, or perhaps even other universes.
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Time Traveler In 1917 Photograph
It’s an odd thing when something, or someone, doesn’t quite fit in. At first, you may not notice. But upon closer inspection, the anomaly becomes clear.
So is the case with this seemingly ordinary photograph taken in 1917 Canada, found in a 1974 book titled The Great History of Cape Scott. It shows a group of people sitting upon the rocks of a beach, but among the crowd is a man who appears suspiciously out of place.
Many believe his clothes do not match those of the other beach-goers. Wearing a tee shirt, shorts, and with a hair style that seems quite modern in comparison, the mysterious individual hits all the check boxes for a person displaced in time.
In the photo, others even appear to look at him, perhaps in confusion.
This particular time traveler is colloquially known as the “surfer dude.”
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The Mummy’s Modern Boots
Out-of-place artifacts are a curious phenomenon. When they’re discovered, they may very well shake the foundations of what we previously thought to be true about human history and ancient civilizations. Many of these artifacts, while unusual, are still somewhat explainable, such as the Antikythera mechanism.
Others, however, raise incredible questions.
For some time now, many have wondered about the existence of the so-called “Adidas Mummy,” the preserved body of a 30 to 40-year-old woman discovered in the Altai mountains region of Mongolia in 2016. She had been buried there for about 1,100 years.
Those studying her found that she had likely died of a “blow to the head.” However, her feet drew the most attention.
She wore what looked uncannily like modern day shoes, perhaps resembling a pair of snowboarding boots, as the Daily Mail mused in 2017. They were made of felt, with splashes of bright red, and “knee length” with leather soles.
Their unique design, likened to Adidas, led many to question if perhaps the ancient Mongolian woman was in fact a time traveler. Perhaps, even if the shoes themselves were not from current times, they were made, or possibly inspired, by someone from the future utilizing the same style.
Among her other belongings was what archaeologists described as a “beauty kit,” including a mirror, a comb, and a knife. However, scientists brushed off any claims that she was a time traveler, though they did say the style of the boots was “very modern.”
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Nikola Tesla’s Jump Room
For years, Andrew Basiago has told the story of Project Pegasus, the alleged covert time travel initiative that was funded and maintained by the United States government throughout the 1960s and 70s. But perhaps the most interesting detail of his peculiar story is the existence of the so-called Jump Room.
It was in this room that Basiago claimed participants such as himself performed their secretive time travel experiments.
Built using designs by the late Nikola Tesla, recovered from his New York apartment shortly after his death, the room housed what some would call a teleportation machine. It consisted of a “shimmering curtain” made of “radiant energy,” a special, and allegedly as-yet-undisclosed, form of energy that is “latent and pervasive” throughout the cosmos. It is, if this story is to be believed, what makes time travel possible.
The curtain stood between two elliptical booms, and by passing through it, would-be travelers could journey across vast distances — and time itself. Basiago claims to have visited Gettysburg using the jump room, and that the experiments even took him as far as the planet Mars.
Beyond that, there are few other details about the mysterious Jump Room, and no physical proof remains. Did it really exist?
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Evidence Of Time Travel In A Chinese Tomb?
A story from 2008, originally published by none other than the Daily Mail, claimed that Chinese archeologists found a watch in a 400-year-old Si Qing tomb in Shangsi County, China. This story then went extremely viral, after I shared my original article on it (“Are These Images Proof Of Real Time Travel,” published March 22, 2012). The images, which are still scattered around out there (source unknown), show a group of archeologists examining a stone block within a room, as well as the singular image of someone holding up a tiny piece of metal in the shape of a watch.
Allegedly, the timepiece was “frozen” at 10:06, with the word “Swiss” engraved on its back. However, the object looked much more like a sculpted piece of stone than an actual functioning watch, not to mention the fact that its circumference appeared smaller than that of a finger.
If I were charitable, I could say that perhaps 400 years ago some people carved this to look like a watch someone had seen, perhaps one worn by a visiting time traveler. That, or I’m incorrect and it is an actual watch and the time traveler was just very tiny. Maybe we all do shrink in the future, like the Shrinking Man Project suggests we should. You never know! Moving on!
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Time Traveler Visits A Bridge?
A strange photo, once available at the Virtual Museum Of Canada (which has since been decommissioned), appeared to show a group of people attending the reopening of the South Fork Bridge in 1941. The bridge was located in Gold Bridge in British Columbia, Canada, and quite a few people showed up for it. But like the 1917 Canadian surfer dude mentioned earlier, someone in this photo seemingly doesn’t belong.
Who was this oddly out-of-place individual, wearing what looks like modern clothing all the way back in the 1940s? Who knows? The photo went absolutely viral some time around 2010, with the man in question becoming dubbed the “Time Traveling Hipster.”
What’s fun about this one is that, time traveler or not, it’s a real photo. The man certainly stands out from his cohorts – he’s wearing sunglasses, possibly a hoodie or light jacket, and what appears to be a branded t-shirt. He’s also holding a relatively small camera. Was he simply ahead of his time? Or out of it? We can’t be sure, but but the story of this photograph is one to remember. Next!
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Lights! Camera! Action!
The above video, uploaded October 27, 2010, currently has over 4.3 million views, and contains a clip from a special feature found on the DVD edition of the Charlie Chaplin film The Circus. It’s of the movie’s premiere at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in 1928.
But what’s so special about it? What’s worth 4.3 million views on YouTube? Well, you see that woman in the dark coat walking behind zebra? What’s she holding up to their ear? Is it a cellphone? Or was she just scratching her head, like the rest of us?
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Meanwhile, from over in 1938 Massachusetts, we have the following video that some also suggest proves the existence of smartphones long before their time (or have at least mused about the possibility). A crowd of people exit a DuPont factory, and one woman is seen holding something to her ear.
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Smartphones, brushes, other handheld rectangular objects of a dubious nature. Our universe is one filled with mystery, and some questions may forever remain unanswered. Onward!
A painting from the 1800s appears to show a man holding what some have described as a fancy CD box. You can see another man depicted to be lifting up what looks like a square plastic “sleeve” that you’d place individual CDs into. The earliest form of plastic didn’t exist until the mid-1800s, and Compact Discs wouldn’t arrive on the scene until the 1980s.
Of course, it’s possibly this is just an ordinary box made for ordinary 1800s-era items.
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Safety Not Guaranteed?
In 1997, an unusual classified ad appeared in Backwoods Home Magazine:
“WANTED: Somebody to go back in time with me. This is not a joke. P.O. Box 322, Oakview, CA 93022. You’ll get paid after we get back. Must bring your own weapons. Safety not guaranteed. I have only done this once before.”
As you can imagine, some people found that odd, and it naturally wound up on the Internet. In 2012, they even made a film based on it called, well, Safety Not Guaranteed.
The Time Slip Hotel: Proof That Even Buildings Time Travel?
It’s not unusual to, on occasion, find yourself at what you might describe as a “strange” place, especially if you happen to be in a country you’ve never visited before. Two couples who vacationed to Spain in the late 1970s know this all too well. In fact, their story has become something of a time slip legend.
In 1979, they were on their way to Spain, leaving England and venturing through France. While near Montelimar, they decided to stop and search for a hotel. Their original choices were packed, but eventually they did find one — an odd place, an old two-story building with the simple word “HOTEL” above the entrance.
They got a room, and stayed for the night, despite everything seeming particularly old-fashioned. The bed was hard, the place didn’t have a telephone, and there was no glass in the windows. Likely out of bemusement, they took a number of photographs.
When they went down to the dining room the next morning, they had a chance to see the hotel’s other customers. They too looked strangely out of place, dressed in outmoded clothing, two in old uniforms. Strangest of all was the bill for their stay — 19 francs, far less than they had anticipated.
All in all, it was a somewhat strange experience, but not unpleasant. They’d found a place to rest for the night, and continued on their way to Spain, where they presumably had a decent time. It wasn’t until they returned to France and looked for the hotel again that they knew something was truly amiss.
The hotel didn’t exist.
This wasn’t a matter of the hotel simply shutting down, or their being unable to find it again. It simply was not there. They even asked around in Montelimar, and no one had ever heard of it.
When they returned to England, the mystery deepened: Their photographs of the hotel were gone. Not only was there no proof that the hotel existed, but there was no proof that they’d ever been there at all.
Their odd tale was later featured on an episode of the television series Strange But True.
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In 2019, a very curious video from Turkey showed a man nearly meeting his fate, only to be saved in the strangest way by a mysterious passerby.
According to Demirören News Agency, the event happened in late February in the Turkish city of Adana. Serdar Binici was standing outside of his store when another man, who happened to be walking by, tapped his left shoulder.
Binici, for reasons even he claims to not understand, instinctively looked over to his right, and in that moment a truck drove by, and its rear metal door swung open toward his head. Binici was able to move out of the way just in time.
The story was featured by news outlets in Turkey, and was eventually shared on Reddit.
During a follow-up interview, Binici questioned how and why the events played out as they did. Why did he look over his opposite shoulder, and not the one he’d been tapped on? Why did the stranger tap his shoulder at all? Binici supposes the stranger may not, himself, know why any of this happened. Perhaps, he thinks, it was all some kind of divine intervention.
However, the peculiarity of this video has led many to speculate that the passing stranger wasn’t just some random person, but actually a time traveler — possibly one on a mission from the future, striving to put right what once went wrong. Could this incident be yet more proof of real time travel?
Somewhere In Time
Even if these stories and strange photographs are not evidence of anything, these tales are part of our shared paranormal folklore, and have become online urban legends. Some, like the tale of Rudolph Fentz, date back decades. And while others are easily disproved, they stand as fun little anecdotes that do make you wonder, what if?
At the end of the day, it’s all just a bunch of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey…stuff. Best not to take it too seriously. Still, if you’re looking for more on possible time travelers, consider checking out the following:
Rudolph Fentz, an accidental time traveler from a series of short stories
John Titor, the alleged time traveler from 2036
The HDR, an alleged time traveling device powered by crystals
A Wormhole Under A Kitchen Sink?
Albert Einstein’s Theory Of Relativity
We should mention that a lot of the stuff we discuss to start off this article will be based on the Theory of Relativity proposed by Albert Einstein decades ago. Technically, Einstein’s ideas are no longer a theory but rather, a fact. Why are his concepts on relativity so important? Beyond the infamous E=MC2 equation, the Theory of Relativity connects both Special Relativity and General Relativity.
Both are important but they are what help us determine how gravity and time are connected. Gravity itself was technically discovered and analyzed by Isaac Newton. However, he could not figure out how gravity operated instantaneously at a distance. Einstein helped us see gravity as a force that moved matter along the shortest space, all within a curved spacetime. He found that the Sun bends spacetime and tells planets how to move.
Newton could not know time and space were not technically fixed. Einstein could and when he figured it all out with his relativity concepts, he infamously wrote “Newton, forgive me.” This was to signify that he found that Isaac could not, as he ruined Newton’s theory with his own. Einstein’s discoveries led to Quantum Physics we use today. Albert also discovered the Cosmological Constant and Unified Field Theories. Both are also useful when discussing time travel.
It is very important that you keep in mind that when discussing time travel, often spacetime will come up. The reason for this is that it connects to several different areas of how time itself passes. For example, GPS systems are not connected technically to on-ground sources. They connect to satellites in low orbit. They’re roughly 12,500 miles above the Earth’s surface.
Due to being outside of the Earth and rotating around with it, one would assume that time-wise they are connected to the same time as our own. However, they’re actually off by 1 second per second. Since Albert Einstein was able to accurately find that gravity actually curves space and time, scientists knew how to calculate this time difference.
Since gravity is weaker in low-orbit, time is altered. In this area, they even run faster in time. Yet Spacetime overall is important to keep in mind. Gravity dictates how spacetime operates, in that, the more gravity something has, the slower time will pass.
Gravitational Time Dilation is present to help us make assumptions about how time will pass for us. Meaning, if we did visit a new planet with different forms of gravity to our own, we can make an accurate assumption of how this gravity will impact our species. Einstein came up with this under his Special Relativity concept.
Gravitational Time Dilation is essentially a comparison model where we bring in two things or events and give them different forms of gravity. The time dilation will be how the time is altered between the two. Einstein found that when the potential for gravity lowers, time will pass slower. However, as gravity increases, the faster time will be.
In fact, we were even able to find that the Earth’s core is roughly 2.5 years younger than its surface due to this model. This proved to us that larger effects will require a bigger distance or a larger source of gravity.
How space & gravity affected humans intrigued NASA, so they wanted to do a comparison experiment with twins. Therefore, they used Mark & Scott Kelly. They were perfect because they were identical and did not have any major differences. In fact, both men were checked for everything known to man and seemed to match up in every major category pre-flight.
Scott went into space while Mark remained on Earth. The testing NASA wanted to do was immense. They wanted to test how the immune system responded as well as information on epigenetic changes, gut bacteria, body weight, serum metabolites, and much more.
Scott spent a year in space and upon returning, he showed positive numbers that gave scientists a lot of hope when it comes to possible long-term space travel. Some numbers were even considered shocking. However, compared to his brother Mark, Scott was a bit taller, had less facial aging, and much more.
While it might not seem to be hard to comprehend the speed of light is fast, we need you to grasp how fast it actually is. In terms of speed, the number of miles that light travels per second are 182,282. In terms of kilometers per second, that translates to 299,792. Yet in MPH terms, or how we normally judge speed, one could travel 670,616,629 miles in a given hour.
Nothing can quite move this quickly other than the light itself. If we were able to capture the ability to do this in a machine…it could be the secret to long-term space travel and even teleportation. This is also key when understanding how lightyears operate too. When you hear that a planet is roughly 10 lightyears away, this does not mean it takes 10 years to get to.
Rather, it would take 10 Earth Years to get there when moving at “the speed of light.” The fastest a manned vehicle has ever been able to go was done by the Apollo 10 when it moved at 24,791 MPH. At this rate, to get to something 10 light years away, it would take us 270,000 Earth Years!
When something moves faster in terms of speed, the slower one will experience time. If you move fast, you will experience time along with the fast-moving manned craft you’re in. Meaning, you are going to age a bit differently compared to those who are not in the craft with you. Scientists used an airplane to confirm that idea.
An experiment was done using two clocks. One went up in the airplane while the other remained on the Earth’s surface. The fast-moving plane went up in the air and flew around the world in the direction that the Earth rotates. This meant it ideally would be going with the same movement of time that a clock would be going.
Once the plane landed, scientists found the clock on the airplane was a bit behind the ground clock. Yet both clocks were set to exactly the same times before the experiment began. They found that the airplane clock moved roughly 1 second per second slower than the ground clock. This proved the time on the clock was affected by the speed of the plane it was in.
While understanding spacetime and gravity might seem useful, it’s likely you want to know what they have to do with time travel. This is a good thing to question but the answer is simple. Both help us how to determine the operation of time and how we travel in it.
Basically, if you do not know how gravity changes time then it’s hard to know how time travel itself actually works. In fact, it is due to this knowledge of time and gravity that time travel is even possible at all for a human being to do in a major form. Yet lightspeed and lightyear knowledge helps when understanding that speed and time are also connected.
This was proven in the Airplane experiment and many others over the years. Due to Einstein and his Theory of Relativity, which includes quite a lot honestly, we know mankind can do a lot more than once assumed. Basically, we said all of this so you’ll understand that time travel has been technically possible for a long time.
It’s hard to know how time travel might affect humans if we indeed did manage to do it in the science fiction way. We know it would take incredibly high speeds and the problem with something like this is the force it causes. For example, on a cruise ship, you often expect to go to the front of the ship and do what you see in the Titanic film. However, what actually happens is that in spite of the ship going no faster than the average speed limit of your car.
It brings in a ton of force and you can barely walk around, much less have Leonardo DiCaprio hold you with only a small bit of hair movement. This force is minute compared to the speed of light. In fact, you can go to The Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama to experience their G-Force machine that spins around at high speeds. It is used to simulate the force astronauts feel during liftoff.
Removing gravity in space would result in a lack of most G-Forces, which is good. However, even if we removed gravity, the speed of light will need acceleration which still causes G-Forces in space. The fact that we’ve never reached it with a manned vehicle proves we need better technology otherwise man could never survive possible major time travel. This would ideally need higher speeds to accomplish.
A lot of the time when we think of time travel, we speak about how we’d go back in time. However, this is not exactly an easy thing to do. The reason for this is mostly down to the fact that we are unable to physically go back to change what already happened. However, we can shape our futures and therefore travel into the future possibly hundreds to thousands of Earth years.
An Earth Year is nowhere near the same as a year in spacetime nor can it be compared to a year on a distant planet. If one spends what they believe is an Earth Year physically traveling through space and comes back to Earth…we already know timewise things may not add up. However, depending on how far and fast they are traveling…they could very well hop into the future several Earth years ahead. Yet they won’t physically experience the change.
They’ll come back after spending just a year away to see Earth hundreds to thousands of years later. They will not have changed but generations of their family line would have already passed. Yet right now, this concept is only available when using spacetime and cannot be experienced on a planet. You could not gain the speed necessary and you’d need to deal with gravitational laws that spacetime won’t have as much of a problem with, at least outside of G-Forces.
Let’s pretend we’re able to make a manned vehicle that can travel at the speed of light. Testing this would be hard to do but just for the fun of it, let’s say we found a way to do it. Now you’re capable of traveling distances we never thought we could ever reach, all in a short time period. However, here’s the rub of that. The short trip will be your experience but not Earth’s.
Communicating with you might be impossible. At least for Earth, we can send a message in terms of light but if you’re a lightyear away it would take 1 year to get a light-made message. Yet Earth Years in total are not being considered here. Even though you’d make roughly a 2 lightyear roundtrip…you’d only age 2 years in spacetime.
Yet the Earth you return to could be thousands of years older than when you left it. What people forget is that the people on board the space shuttle would not experience Earth Year time but Earth will still age. When you discuss time travel, the only possible way to do it is truly to go into the future like this. Well, it used to be the only way.
Scientists recently discovered what appears to be a dimension that is not moving forward but rather, moving backward. We basically mean that in its aging process, it’s only getting younger and not older. This possibly means that their time only will move backward but could never move forward.
This dimension is a mirrored parallel universe scientists were shocked to discover. This is a pretty essential discovery because a mirror dimension to our own could play a role in time travel. Currently, we can only move forward in time while their universe could only move backward. However, being a mirrored universe, everything means the opposite.
Therefore, it is a universe where the left is right & up is down. On top of this, you have to look at the implications of such a place. If it is completely mirrored, that also means the people are mirror images. However, if everything is backward to us, does that mean the people and their lives are also backward? Does everyone have Benjamin Button syndrome here? Is everything in true reverse? Honestly, we don’t know….but doesn’t that make it all the more intriguing?
What does this mean to us when discussing time travel? It means that if a mirrored universe exists and we can access it, we could follow their laws when it comes to physics. If they can only move backward and we can only move forward, there is a good chance that accessing it would allow us to go backward in time.
How can this be done? That’s the complicated part. There have been some who feel wormholes could be the best possible avenue, especially if we could create our own version that could be controlled. If this ever did happen, then connecting to a mirrored universe could be possible. However, this is the stuff of science fiction and not science fact as of yet. Theoretically though, if we could access this universe then we could possibly travel back in time.
As we could enter this wormhole and then exit into space. This allows us to remove any possible gravitational issues. If we can control the wormhole, then we could open it to pop back into our own universe at the exact time we wish to go back to. Since our mirrored universe goes only backward, we’d follow their laws of physics to the letter this way. Yet if we did this, there’s a lot to consider.
Sometimes, you do not need to consider traveling through space or even focus on lightyears and speed. Perhaps, all you need to consider for time travel to be possible is Cosmic Strings. It is believed that these strings are tubes of energy that stretch across the entire length of our expanding universe.
This connects a lot of major concepts but time travel seems to be the most prominent here. Cosmic String fans believe this is possibly the best thing for time travel to be possible because these strings are leftover from the early cosmos. Since they likely contain huge amounts of mass, they could technically warp or fold spacetime around them.
It is assumed that Cosmic Strings are either infinite or they’re in never-ending loops. If two strings came close to one another, essentially parallel to the other, they’d bend spacetime so much and in such a particular way that time travel could be possible using them. Of course, this is just a theory for now as are a lot of String Theory concepts.
There are two sets of timeline theories to consider. The first is the one every science fiction movie and book seems to be based on. If you go back in time and do something, it could directly impact the time you go back to. Yet in other theories, this is not the case. Some believe that your past is constant, meaning it will never change.
Let’s pretend you went back in time and killed Baby Hitler like you might hear people mention. If you did this, some believe it will result in the future never having heard of Adolph Hitler. Yet in this “past is constant” theory, you will go back to your own time and never see a change. Hitler always existed. This is due to the fact that you have not affected your own timeline but rather, invented a new timeline that will create essentially its own new universe.
Others believe that your timeline will still always exist but you might go back to your own time to experience the change because you were absorbed into this new universe you basically created by killing Baby Hitler. Let’s explore this a bit more through effects and paradoxes.
No, we’re not going to be discussing the Ashton Kutcher movie of the same name. However, they were pretty spot on with what this theory suggests. The Butterfly Effect is part of what is known as “chaos theory.” This theory is made up of a branch of math focusing on dynamic systems where random states of disorder and/or irregularities are often governed by deterministic laws that are sensitive to initial conditions. Basically, there are underlying patterns in randomness.
The Butterfly Effect comes originally from the work of Edward Lorenz. He came up with this concept revolving around tornado and how it is influenced by minor things. In this case, the flapping of the wings of a distant butterfly and how it could have caused the tornado weeks later. Lorenz based this concept on following weather models and how weather itself can be altered over minor changes in the environment.
This was already something that French Mathematician Henri Poincaré and American Mathematician & Philosopher Norbert Wiener. Lorenz’s theory was then used in the area of time travel by pointing to how little changes in the past could cause bigger changes down the line. Of course, this would be big to keep in mind if we indeed did affect our own universe when going back in time. As we could cause bigger problems than the type we might have stopped.
This is the one that has quickly become the most debated in time travel paradoxes. Called the Grandfather Paradox, one person might feel that they want to die. Perhaps they don’t though but they feel that their family was part of a lot of bad things throughout history.
They are willing to selflessly go back in time and kill their grandfather or great(x times you need) grandfather, all to ensure their family does not exist. This will sadly cause them to not exist either but by doing this, they run into a paradox. If they kill their grandfather, then technically they prevent themselves from ever existing.
Therefore, they could not have gone back in time to kill their grandfather. Basically, it means that it would be like they never went back in time at all. Now, another person could kill their grandfather as long as there was no family relation. However, they simply could not. Keep in mind that this paradox is not exclusive to grandparents but several changes one might make in the past when time traveling.
A lot like the Grandfather Paradox, the Let’s Kill Hitler Paradox works pretty much the same way. However, are some differences here too, especially when looking at the timeline theories. In this instance, a person perhaps is tired of living and wants to go back in time to kill themselves.
Apparently, they don’t have the nerve to kill themselves but could easily kill a baby that happens to be them from the past. It could be any younger version of them, however. This does not need to be a baby, technically. In any case, they go back in time but seem to fail every time they try to kill their past self. Why?
They cannot kill themselves, because they would not be alive to have done so. Yet they could cause possible damage, such as markings that they will experience. However, you too will experience them. Let’s say you shoot at your younger self but miss and shoot their arm. You could look at yourself and see a mark left by the bullet in your arm, as you were shot while you were younger by some strange man who looked a lot like you.
The Bootstrap Paradox is thought to be the most respected theory in the connected timeline. Why? It follows all the rules of the constant past concept without breaking those laws. Basically, in this paradox, you experienced something in the past that was always going to happen. It is part of a casual loop.
In this format, one event causes the second event. Yet it was the second event that was actually the cause of the first. A great example of this can be seen in DC Comics’ The Flash character. Reverse Flash goes back in time to kill young Barry Allen but fails, then the Reverse Flash decides to instead kill Barry’s mother.
Barry got himself out of the home but could not save his mother. By going back in time to save his mother, he’d never become The Flash. Therefore, he has to let his mother die to become the hero the world needs. If she never does, he does not become a forensic specialist for the CCPD the night of a Particle Accelerator Explosion, which gave him his powers. Yet if he’s never The Flash, he cannot run back in time to stop himself from being killed either. Which creates a loop of needed actions.
It’s interesting that we bring up The Flash in this scenario of time travel. He actually does go back in time to stop Reverse Flash from killing his mother in the Flashpoint Paradox story-arc. This is a key part of DC Comics that causes a few rifts in the multi-universe itself and ends up causing a Crisis Event.
In any case, when Flash does this he technically creates a new timeline and universe where his mother exists yet he is not The Flash. A lot of things are the same but many things are not. Bruce Wayne is killed instead of his parents, causing his father Thomas to become Batman while his mother actually becomes this universe’s Joker.
Superman does not land in a field but rather, in the center of the Metropolis. Wonder Woman and Aquaman have an affair leading to the death of Mera, the Queen of Atlantis. Thus causing a war that will wipe out the planet. This must be changed, so Flash finds a way to recreate the conditions that gave him powers, nearly killing himself to do so. All to go back in time. Yet this does not stop changes from happening because it still causes a rift where a third universe or timeline comes about.
If we did go back in time, it is most likely that we would end up being connected to the laws of the second timeline theory we proposed. This is the timeline where the past is constant and cannot technically be changed. When it does change, it would then create another universe branched off on its own.
Basically, if we kill Baby Hitler then we will not see the result of this in the timeline we return to. Hitler always existed in our timeline and always will. However, the interesting notion is to consider how we could end up remaining in this Hitlerless universe. One would conclude the only way to do this is to remain in the timeline we’ve gone back to.
Therefore, the changes you make would branch off a different timeline and you’d remain in it. However, you might not have to remain behind. It is interesting to note that if we did use the mirrored parallel universe to go back in time, to begin with, we’d likely be able to visit this new universe we created eventually. If we can access one universe, what stops us from accessing another? We just shouldn’t assume our time travel changes will affect our present timeline.
Mandella Effect
The term “Mandela Effect” was first coined in 2009 by Fiona Broome when she created a website to detail her observance of the phenomenon. Broome was at a conference talking with other people about how she remembered the tragedy of former South African president Nelson Mandela’s death in a South African prison in the 1980s.
However, Nelson Mandela did not die in the 1980s in a prison—he passed away in 2013. As Broome began to talk to other people about her memories, she learned that she was not alone. Others remembered seeing news coverage of his death as well as a speech by his widow.
Broome was shocked that such a large mass of people could remember the same identical event in such detail when it never happened. Encouraged by her book publisher, she began her website to discuss what she called the Mandela Effect and other incidents like it.
Notable Examples of the Mandela Effect
The story of Nelson Mandela is not the only example of this type of false group memory. As the concept of the Mandela Effect grew along with Broome’s website, other group false memories began to emerge.
Henry VIII Eating a Turkey Leg
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People had a memory that the above portrait of Henry VIII featured him eating or holding a turkey leg, though no such painting has ever existed. There have, however, been similar cartoons created. This may be related to the common knowledge of Henry VIII as a large man.
Luke, I Am Your Father
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If you saw Star Wars: Episode V—The Empire Strikes Back, you probably remember Darth Vader uttering the famous line, “Luke, I am your father” in the pivotal scene near the end of the film.
You might be surprised to learn, then, that the line was actually, “No, I am your father.” Most people have memories of the line being the former rather than the latter, and it is commonly quoted incorrectly.
Mirror, Mirror on the Wall
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If you watched Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, you probably remember the line, “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?” As you can see from the above subtitled screenshot, the line actually began with the phrase “Magic mirror on the wall” instead. It probably doesn’t help matters that Julia Roberts and Lily Collins starred in a 2012 live-action film based on Snow White called “Mirror Mirror”!
Oscar Meyer or Oscar Mayer?
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There is some controversy over the spelling of the famous brand of hot dogs, Oscar Mayer weiners. Some people claim to remember the brand being spelled “Meyer” instead of “Mayer,” which is the correct spelling.
To be fair, the brand pronunciation is a closer match for the “Meyer” spelling, while “Mayer” is often pronounced differently, as in the musician John Mayer’s name.
Location of New Zealand
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Where is New Zealand in relation to Australia? If you look at a map, you will see that it is southeast of the country. However, there is a community of people who claim to remember New Zealand being northeast instead of southeast.
Berenstein Bears
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The famous children’s book series the “Berenstain Bears” created by Stan and Jan Berenstain is not immune to the Mandela effect. Many people report remembering the name being the Berenstein Bears (spelled with an “e” instead of an “a”).
This is similar to the Oscar Mayer issue and hints at perhaps an underlying cognitive reason for the Mandela Effect instead of parallel realities, as some people believe.
Shazaam, Starring Sinbad?
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One of the most well-known examples of the Mandela Effect is the collective memory of a movie called “Shazaam” that starred the actor/comedian Sinbad in the 1990s.
In fact, no such movie exists, although there was a children’s movie called Kazaam starring Shaquille O’Neal, and some other coincidences that could help to explain how this movie became created (or remembered) in many people’s minds. Even more confusing, there is now a movie series based on the DC Comics superhero Shazam—though it does not star Sinbad.
Pikachu’s Black-Tipped Tail
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Many people report remembering Pikachu, a Pokémon character, as having a black-tipped tail. In reality, the character has always had a solid yellow tail. The confusion or false memory may stem from the fact that Pikachu, as you can see, does have black-tipped ears.
Mickey Mouse’s Suspenders
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Mickey Mouse might be the most famous cartoon character in the world, but even Disney’s famous mouse is often misremembered in the minds of fans. People often report the character wearing suspenders when he does not. The original Mickey is wearing shorts, but is completely unclothed on the top half of his body—how scandalous.
Sally Field’s Famous Oscar Speech
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When Sally Field won an Oscar in 1985, her acceptance speech included the oft-repeated, oft-parodied line “You like me, you really like me!” Except, what she actually said was “I can’t deny the fact that you like me, right now, you like me.”
Children of the ’90s probably owe their false memory to Jim Carrey’s parody of the line in his film The Mask, when his character utters the line “You love me, you really love me” in clear homage to Field’s speech.
No, Really, It’s Not Looney Toons
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Yes, the Looney Tunes are in fact cartoons, not cartunes. And yes, you may remember watching the next generation of characters on a TV show called Tiny Toon Adventures. Nonetheless, the original show was Looney Tunes, not Looney Toons, as a companion to Merrie Melodies.
Jiffy Peanut Butter
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There is Jiffy Lube, there’s Jiffy Pop popcorn, there’s Skippy peanut butter, and you may be able to whip up a PB&J in a jiffy, but no, there is no such thing as Jiffy Peanut Butter. It is and has always been Jif, though many people would swear to the contrary.
Curious George’s Tail
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This one is, well, curious. The assumption is that Curious George is a monkey, and most monkeys are understood to have tails. Many remember Curious George having a tail, but alas, everyone’s favorite curious primate is in fact tailless. We hope this hasn’t caused George any kind of existential crisis.
What the Heck Is a Froot Loop?
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You can thank Kellogg’s for this entry in the weird spelling section of the Mandela effect catalog. While the very well-known cereal is supposedly fruit-flavored, they decided to lean into the loops and double up on the double O’s, opting for Froot Loops instead of Fruit Loops, much to our surprise.
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Fruit of the Loom’s Logo
You may not be able to identify every piece of fruit in the logo for the clothing brand Fruit of the Loom, but everybody at least knows that there is a cornucopia behind all the fruit, right? Wrong! Just ask the company itself—there is no cornucopia, even if we all remember it.
C-3PO’s Leg Is What?
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That’s right, C-3PO, the famed Star Wars droid, has a silver right leg, but we won’t blame you for getting this one wrong. Given the lower resolution of older films, the character often being shot from the waist up, and the fact that the original line of toys featured an all-gold C-3PO, it’s no surprise how surprising it is to discover he had a silver leg all along.
“Play It Again, Sam”…Or Not
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“Casablanca” is one of the most famous films of all-time. And while, many decades later, more and more people have not seen it, what is nonetheless known is the famous line “Play it again, Sam.” Unfortunately, if you are familiar with that line, you may be confused to learn that it was never actually said in that exact way in the film. Ingrid Bergman’s character does, however, say “Play it once, Sam.” Adding to the confusion may be that Woody Allen made a film in 1972 called “Play It Again, Sam” about a film critic obsessed with “Casablanca”.
It’s a Beautiful Day…Where?
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Hollywood contributed to the Mandela effect when the 2019 Mister Rogers biopic was named “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood,” a reference to the opening line of the famous song that opened every episode of Fred Rogers’ show—”It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood.” In reality, however, the song opens with the line “It’s a beautiful day in this neighborhood.”
Mr. Monopoly’s Monocle
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Rich Uncle Pennybags aka Mr. Monopoly sure seems like the type to wear a monocle. But in reality, the leading man of the board game everyone has played but nobody has ever finished can see just fine without a monocle. The leading theories are that we mistake him for the monocled Mr. Peanut. Oddly, there is yet another Jim Carrey connection as well—a scene in Ace Ventura 2 features the pet detective encountering a monocled man he refers to as “The Monopoly Guy.”
Explanations for the Mandela Effect
So why would this effect even happen? Let’s explore.
False Memories
A more likely explanation for the Mandela effect involves false memories.1 Before we consider what is meant by false memories, let’s look at an example of the Mandela effect as it will help us to understand how memory can be faulty (and may lead to the phenomenon that we are describing).
Who was Alexander Hamilton? Most Americans learned in school that he was a founding father of the United States of America but that he was not a president. However, when asked about the presidents of the United States, many people mistakenly believe that Hamilton was a president. Why?
If we consider a simple neuroscience explanation, the memory for Alexander Hamilton is encoded in an area of the brain where the memories for the presidents of the United States are stored. The means by which memory traces are stored is called the engram and the framework in which similar memories are associated with each other is called the schema.
So when people try to recall Hamilton, this sets off the neurons in close connection to each other, bringing with it the memory of the presidents. (Though this is an oversimplified explanation, it illustrates the general process.)
When memories are recalled, rather than remembered perfectly, they are influenced to the point that they can eventually become incorrect. In this way, memory is unreliable and not infallible.
Confabulation
Confabulation involves your brain filling in gaps that are missing in your memories to make more sense of them. This isn’t lying, but rather remembering details that never happened. Confabulation tends to increase with age.2
Misleading Post-Event Information
Information that you learn after an event can change your memory of an event. This includes event subtle information and helps to explain why eyewitness testimony can be unreliable.3
Priming
Priming describes the factors leading up to an event that affects our perception of it. Also called suggestibility and presupposition, priming is the difference between asking how short a person is, versus how tall a person is. Saying, “Did you see the black car?” instead of “…a black car?” makes a subtle suggestion that influences response and memory.4
In essence, memories are vulnerable bits of information stored in the brain that can be changed over time. While we assume that our memories are accurate, this is not necessarily the case.
Alternate Realities
One theory for the basis for the Mandela effect originates from quantum physics and relates to the idea that rather than one timeline of events, alternate realities or universes may be taking place and mixing with our timeline.5 In theory, this would result in groups of people having the same memories because the timeline has been altered as we shift between these different realities.
You aren’t alone if you think this sounds unrealistic. Unfortunately, the idea of alternate realities is unfalsifiable, meaning there is no way to disprove that these other universes don’t exist truly.
This is why such a far-fetched theory continues to gain traction among the Mandela effect communities. You can’t prove it’s not real, so you can’t discount the possibility of it. For many people, the excitement of a bit of mystery in everyday life also likely comes into play.
Recap
While the notion of alternate realities might appeal due to its air of mystery, many examples of the Mandela effect are likely due to some type of collective misremembering. Incorrectly recalling information is, in fact, quite common. One study found that 76% of people made some type of mistake when asked to recall information.6
The Internet’s Impact
The role of the internet in influencing the memories of the masses should not be underestimated. It’s probably no coincidence that consideration of the Mandela effect has grown in this digital age.
The internet is a powerful way to spread information, and with this spreading of information comes the potential for misconceptions and falsehoods to gain traction. People then begin to create communities based around these falsehoods and what was once in the imagination starts to seem factual.5
In fact, in a large study of over 100,000 news stories discussed across Twitter, conducted over a period of 10 years, showed that hoaxes and rumors won out over the truth every time by about 70%.7 This wasn’t the result of manipulation or bots either—real verified accounts of real people were responsible for spreading false information at a much higher rate than the truth.
This notion of the speed with which false information spreads on the internet could help to explain the Mandela effect.
As each person chimes in with their own experience or memory of an event, those false memories could affect the memories of other people, thus coloring them to remember the events in the same way.
For example, Sinbad did star in other movies in the 1990s and appeared in a movie poster for the film “Houseguest” coming out of a mailbox (this looked similar to a genie, which could explain the association with the movie “Shazaam”). Sinbad also dressed up like a genie for an event that he hosted in the 1990s.
When one person mentioned this movie “Shazaam” (likely on the internet), it altered the memories of other people who tried to recall the movies that Sinbad made from the 1990s. Online communities spread this information until it appeared to be factual.
This explanation is supported by evidence that remembering something repeatedly builds your confidence in the memory even if it grows more inaccurate over time. As more and more people provided incorrect details, these become incorporated into other people’s memories as facts and strengthened their conviction that they were correct.
The Mandela effect continues to be hotly debated, despite reasonable evidence that it is more likely explained in terms of the fallibility of human memory than some form of parallel universes at work.
Of course, we don’t know everything. As more incidents of the Mandela effect continue to occur, perhaps more research into the origins will shed light on the causes.
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