Mandela Effect Experiment

 

On Wednesday I posted the above tableau on social media asking if it meant anything to anybody. This has caused a lot of curiosity and many people have contacted me asking what it was about. I told them that I couldn't explain because this involved an experiment if I told them it would ruin the controls of the experiment. Now the experiment is over I can reveal all. It concerns a video from the '80's two-tone ska band Madness. When I was a child, Madness were very famous and I was fond of their songs. My favourite is probably Our House. The video of this has recently been remastered with a new non-musical intro, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwIe_sjKeAY. A few days ago I watched the video and realized that I was possibly experiencing a Mandela effect. You see, that was the first time I had seen this video since around the time of the track's release in 1982, almost forty years ago. I must have watched it on Top of The Pops or a similar musical TV programme. However I remember the start of the video being very different. In the video as I remember it, the opening scene shows a map with a big circular pink spot in the middle with a label next to it saying "You are here"; which is a common feature of maps on public display. The frame then zooms in on the spot and the picture segues to an overhead shot of a street that mirrors exactly the marks on the map. At the place where there is a pink spot on the map is a house. The house and the area around it are all painted pink, the roof, the walls, the garden, the pavement and road outside; in a circle corresponding to the scale of the spot on the map. The video then changes to the familiar one you see above. I first assumed that the remastered video must have edited out that opening or replaced it, so I searched for earlier versions of the video, expecting to find them. I couldn't.
 
I realized that this might not be a Mandela effect. It might simply be a conflation, a natural error of memory that inevitably occurs over time with everybody. Try watching a film you haven't seen for twenty years; it will be different to how you remember it. Mandela effects are the same distortions of memory shared by numerous other people, see the background links below. In order to test my theory I devised this experiment. I knew that if I just asked people: "Hey, do you remember that Madness video? Did it have a pink spot that turns out to be a painted house?" then that is not a proper experiment because it is presenting them with the idea from me, or even giving them the chance to make up a story, consciously or subconsciously, that they remember it like I do. If this were a true Mandela effect then they would remember what I remember independently of me; so I had to secure the process by not telling anybody. I felt the best method of inquiry was to give out a hint that would jog their false memories, if such memories existed. So I combined the "You are here" spot with a reference to Madness and thought that it would be enough. As it happened, after three days nobody has reported the false memory I have which means it probably is not a Mandela effect. It really is just me. I have misremembered the content on the Madness video because of four decades of conflation. Alternatively I might have confused it for another music video from a long time ago, or even maybe a dream I had. Still, I think doing the experiment was a good idea and if something like this happens again I shall have another try. I recommend using this method if you think you are perhaps afflicted with a Mandela effect and that way we have a chance of discovering a new one supported by proper evidence.
See here for background: https://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2020/12/the-mandela-effect-film-review.html.
And: https://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2015/07/cern-progress-or-apocalypse.html.
And: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2019/07/scientist-plan-to-open-portal.html.
And: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2016/09/ive-got-mandela-effect.html.