There have been reports of people who claim to remember the death of Nelson Mandela in detail. This allegedly happened in the early 1980s when Mandela was in prison.

Several people commented on this phenomenon in the web site The Mandela Effect.

For example, Perry Wayne says:

Both my wife and I remember Nelson Mandela dying in prison. Included in this memory are the funeral snippets on TV and a legal flap over book rights involving his Widow.

Colleen says:

I also remember Nelson Mandela dying in prison and was quite amazed when he was elected president of South Africa. Last night I watched the movie, Invictus, and kept wondering where or when was I? I clearly remember the announcement of his death and was amazed that more people around me were not moved by the sadness of it. I also remember vaguely some controversy about his “estate”.

There are a few things that do not match my memories of this universe. Such as Honduras. I remember it as an island in the Caribbean, not a country in Central America.

Besides Mandela’s death, there are people who claim to remember reports of the death of preacher Billy Graham.

Geographic information is also reported differently, as the U.S. having 52 states (it actually has only 50), New Zealand was in a different geographical location, and Honduras was an island.

Another commenter writes:

I also remember New Zealand being located to the northwest (odd, because most everyone who remembers an alternate position seems to recall it being to the northeast) of Australia and Australia being located further south and smaller. Also, I remember in school having to memorize and be tested on all the countries of North & South America. Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Guatemala were islands in relatively the same location; smaller and differently shaped but similar. Though its entirely possible I’m remembering that incorrectly as geography was never my forte.

What explains these experiences? Some people argue the existence of parallel universes, and that somehow these universes events seep into ours. The concept of parallel universes is used in physics and philosophy.

A parallel universe could be related to ours, or arise from ours, and may contain different versions of the events that occurred. For example, it is possible that in a universe parallel to our own, the coup d’Etat of 2009 never happened in Honduras.