I’m sure some Mandela stories may be collective false memories but a few things happened that convinced me something is different…

No, it was not BerenstAin Bears: it was BerenstEin Bears. I was at my grandmother’s house about 40 years ago in my dad’s old bedroom looking at the cover of a Bernstein Bears book. I didn’t know if Berenstein was pronounced like “Einstein” or “Steen”, a classmate of mine.

The Thinker statue(s)... I always remember it as resting his chin on his hand. Just before Christmas 2019, I was visiting my former boss and her husband and the statue came up in conversation. I googled the image and it was page after page showing the statue resting his forehead on a closed fist; no picture of the chin-rester could be found. This is not how they remember it either as they’d stayed in a hotel somewhere in Europe just down the street from one of the statues. Neither of us could find a picture of how we remembered it.

A week later, I googled the image again and it was page after page showing the statue resting his chin on his hand; it was back to how I remembered it. I called her husband and asked if he remembered the conversation; he did. I told him to search the image online, he saw the results, and laughed, saying “the cabal’s at it again”.

I’m sure some Mandela stories may be collective false memories but a few things happened that convinced me something is different…

No, it was not BerensAin Bears: it was BerenstEin Bears. I was at my grandmother’s house about 40 years ago in my dad’s old bedroom looking at the cover of a Bernstein Bears book. I didn’t know if Berenstein was pronounced like “Einstein” or “Steen”, a classmate of mine.

The Thinker statue(s)... I always remember it as resting his chin on his hand. Just before Christmas 2019, I was visiting my former boss and her husband and the statue came up in conversation. I googled the image and it was page after page showing the statue resting his forehead on a closed fist; no picture of the chin-rester could be found. This is not how they remember it either as they’d stayed in a hotel somewhere in Europe just down the street from one of the statues. Neither of us could find a picture of how we remembered it.

A week later, I googled the image again and it was page after page showing the statue resting his chin on his hand; it was back to how I remembered it. I called her husband and asked if he remembered the conversation; he did. I told him to search the image online, he saw the results, and laughed, saying “the cabal’s at it again”.