Page 4 - The 'X' Chronicles Newspaper - February 2023 Edition

4 The Truth About The Mandela Effect

Did Tom Cruise really

dance in his underwear

and a pair of Ray-Bans in

“Risky Business”? If you

answered “yes,” you

might be suffering from

the Mandela Effect.

(Continued from Page 3)

5. A Frowning Mona Lisa

Leonardo da Vinci’s painting is among
the most famous works of art in recorded
history. So why do so many admirers
insist the demure subject of the portrait is
frowning instead of correctly describing
her with a smirk? Brewer can’t say for
certain, but conjuring an image of the
painting might involve filling in the
blanks with segments of other paintings.

“It would be interesting to look at the on the book covers. So why do some 9. Risky Business
statistical frequencies of frowns, not readers insist it’s spelled “Berenstein”?
smiling, or smiling in paintings,” he says. It’s likely due to the fact kids may have Remember Tom Cruise dancing in his
“Maybe people are just taking the seen the name misspelled in newspaper underwear, a dress shirt, and Ray-Bans
statistical regularity of the [art] articles or in handwritten references from while home alone in 1983’s Risky
environment. People get exposed to a lot other kids or adults. According to Business? Your brain got most of it right.
of art where people aren’t smiling.” Brewer, it’s a bit of a self-perpetuating If you watch that now-iconic scene again,
problem: “There were studies in the you may be surprised to see Cruise isn’t
6. Ed McMahon and the 1980s that showed when students were wearing sunglasses. The mistake likely
exposed to misspelled words in an comes from seeing Cruise in the shades
Publishers Clearing House
education setting as a way to test their in other scenes or in the film’s advertising
spelling proficiency, the misspelled material. “When you watch a movie, it’s
Do you recall The Tonight Show
words got recorded in their memory and a big chunk of information,” Brewer
sidekick Ed McMahon showing up on
interfered with their ability to spell the says. “And a lot of things happen in that
doorsteps to hand people oversized
words correctly in the future.” chunk. When you go back to recreate it,
checks and balloons because they struck
you’ll get interference from other things
it rich in the Publishers Clearing House
8. C-3PO’s Golden Moment that happened in the movie.”
Sweepstakes? McMahon never made any
house calls. He endorsed American
The Mandela Effect is strong in Star (Continued on Page 5)
Family Publishers. While the entities
Wars fans, who sometimes err in quoting
were similar, McMahon never appeared
the film’s dialogue but also recall
on camera as part of the Prize Patrol. It’s
protocol droid C-3PO as having a gold-
an example of what Brewer refers to as
plated chassis. And he does—with one
source confusion: You may remember a
notable exception. The lower portion of
detail like McMahon appearing on
his right leg below the knee was silver
television but not the source—in this
when we first saw him, a fact that
case, a rival sweepstakes promotion.
sometimes surprises people who have
seen the original trilogy dozens of times.
7. The Bernstein Bears Fail a JOIN LARRY LAWSON AS HE
“People trying to reconstruct an event are
Spelling Bee INVESTIGATES THE
taking whatever information they can, PARANORMAL
which can mean glossing over things or ON PARANORMAL STAKEOUT
The Berenstain Bears have been
making inferences,” Brewer says. Unless ON
imparting life lessons for children in a THE ‘X’ ZONE BROADCAST
you stared at the droid’s leg, you
series of illustrated books since 1962. NETWORK
probably just assumed he was the same
The bears are even named after their www.XZBN.net
color all over.
creators, Stan and Jan Berenstain, AND ON
SIMULTV CH 54!
meaning the name appears at least twice