Sam Gamgee Was A Brave And Loyal Hobbit

I wrote a while back about the character Tom Bombadil from the Lord Of the Rings. He's a fascinating character to me for the fact that he represents true neutrality and is obviously very powerful. The One Ring held no power over him. Another character I admire is Sam Gamgee.

Sam is just a simple hobbit from The Shire. His father was the gardener for Bilbo Baggins, and Sam grew up knowing Frodo Baggins. Sam was learning to take over the duties for his father. One day he overheard Frodo and Gandalf The Grey talking about The One Ring and the doom that it represented.

Sam always wanted to get out of The Shire and see more of Middle Earth. Plus, he deeply respected Frodo and worried about what might happen to him. Gandalf caught Sam eavesdropping on his conversation with Frodo. He put Sam in charge of keeping an eye on Frodo during the journey to destroy the ring. Sam took great pride in his duty.

After the party visited the elven forest of Lothlorien, Frodo tried to leave everybody, including Sam. He wanted to destroy the ring himself and spare everybody the burden. Sam followed him and refused to leave his side. At one point, Sam carried the ring and defended Frodo from sure death.

He may have been a simple hobbit, but he was very brave and loyal. There's a "modern day" assumption that Sam was gay because of the way he acted towards Frodo. The fact was he married Rosie Cotton and they had many children together. Frodo left Sam Bag End when he left The Shire for The Undying Lands.

Another interesting fact is that Sam himself went to The Undying Lands after his wife passed away. He earned that right as one of the Ring Bearers. If not for Sam, the quest to destroy the ring might have failed. You have to respect his bravery against the overwhelming odds that he and Frodo faced. Frodo would not have made it without him.

A Closer Look At The Mandela Effect

The Mandela Effect is certainly an interesting topic for me personally. I find that I've been taking in lots of information on this subject as well as Simulation Theory. When I say that, I will also point out that I haven't come to any concrete conclusions, nor do I expect to. I'm looking at these topics to find out what theories makes sense and what theories don't. It's a strange world we live in, and I think it's just getting stranger. 

The question I have is when did the Mandela Effect start? I don't know that what I write here will offer a concrete answer, but it will offer a theory. First of all, I think the Mandela Effect as a name for this the phenomenon is not a good one. 

 

It was named this way because the person who coined the term had learned that Nelson Mandela recently died, but they always thought he died in prison. Problem with that is many of us remember him getting out of prison, becoming president and going on to do great things for his country. 

 

What would be a good name for the phenomenon where we vividly remember certain things being different than most of the people around us?

I do remember in the late 1980s and into the 1990s hearing about somebody dying. The thought would occur to me that I remembered hearing about this person dying a few years earlier. I found it strange, but not strange enough to dwell on it. 

 

Maybe it was a faulty memory? These days, we don't do that. At least those of us who are researching into the Mandela effect. When did it start? 

If you saw something unusual in the 1980s, such as a lyric in a song, a line in a movie or book, a quote from a politician or whatever, where were you going to put the word out to others? Where would you find out if others remembered the same thing you did? 

 

You could get on a CB radio, but you would only get so far with that. You could go to your newspaper with a letter to the editor, but likely they would laugh you out of the room. There was no platform in the 1980s to discuss this.

In the late-1980s, the internet was becoming more available to the public. By the mid-1990s, most households were on the internet. Granted, the people were usually going to places like America Online, where the chat rooms and message boards were closely monitored. 

 

At that point, most people had VCRs and video tapes. People were just getting into DVDs. You could now watch those movies, television shows and music videos over and over again and would surely catch the changes if they were noticeable to you. 

As we moved into the 2000s, people had quicker internet and more options on where to browse. There were hubs tailored more specifically to your interests, and there were places to go to share videos. Anybody wanting music could now just download it rather than buying it at the store. People could get reacquainted with songs from the past. 

 

However, was there much discussion going on out there in the first decade of the 2000s regarding what we now know to be the Mandela Effect? I don't recall that being the case. 

I've been thinking lately that something changed in this world in the last decade. Maybe it was 2012? Some theorists are speculating that the Earth really did end on December 21st, 2012. I'm not going that far, just saying something changed in the world, and we've gone down a bit different path. 

 

I also say that this is when the Mandela Effect had been coined as a term. This is when people began popping up and saying they remembered something differently. 

My theory right now, and you can call it an opinion, is that this started in the last decade. Surely, there are people going to places like Reddit and talking about Mandela Effects that ring true to them. These people have been on the internet for over a decade before then. However, they didn't start coming out with these theories until this time. 

 

My belief is that if people were experiencing this phenomenon a decade before, let's say 2002 or 2001, you'd see the internet filled with this sort of thing. That's simply not the case.

I didn't want to write this column to discuss specific Mandela Effects, though there are lyrics in a couple of songs that I have discovered have changed. These would be two of the latest that ring true to me, but I'd ask you what you remember about Joan Jett singing I Love Rock and Roll and The Rolling Stones singing Paint It Black?

What I have discovered in the research I've been doing is that too many people jump on something that they remember differently and consider it automatically to be a Mandela Effect. They don't even bother to go out and do some research to discover that there's an explanation for the name change of the movie or the logo change for the corporation.

 

When you do that sort of lazy reporting, you hurt the legitimate effort out there. I can assure you that anybody coming at this with an open mind and a little bit of time can discover Mandela Effects that ring true to them.

I see a Mandela Effect group out there. There are people who are now holding conventions to discuss the matter. It's a good and a bad thing. It's good because effort is being put into making sense of this stuff. It's bad because what happens with these groups generally is they come to a consensus of what the "official" explanations should be. 

 

In addition to belittling the people who say it's all bunk, these "gate keepers" attack people who have a different theory and some evidence to back it up. You can see good examples of this type of thinking by looking into the UFO community or the 9/11 truth community.

I don't know what the truth is regarding the Mandela Effect, and I don't lose sleep over it. It's strange indeed, especially when you notice Bible verses have changed. What it all means, I don't know. How or why this is happening, I don't know. This won't stop me from trying to find answers and coming up with my own theories and opinions.

 

By no means does this suggest that I have the answers or expect to have the answers, but I will always look for the truth. Keep an open mind, but not so open that your brains fall out of your head. The truth is out there. If possible, it could be way out there. Who knows?

Weird Mandela Effect Involving The Movie War Games?

I know a lot of people out there make videos on a wide variety of topics, and there is a Mandela Effect community on YouTube. I check in on that from time to time. I see a lot of grasping at straws with stuff, but I've seen enough to make me wonder if there is truth to it.

 

When I say that, I'm not losing sleep over this topic. Life goes on. I'm not stressing hard on the whole thing, but I'm not dismissing it because I've got better things to do with my life as some people would say. Occasionally, I engage my curiosity on the subject.

Two examples of Mandela Effects that strike a nerve with me are Morpheus supposedly never saying the line "What if I told you" in the movie The Matrix when he is explaining to Neo what is really going on in the world. Also, there's this whole deal where Ed McMahon never worked for Publishers Clearing House.

 

I vividly remember that being the case, because comedians used to tell jokes about it, while Ed was still working for the company. Not jokes being told years later, but while he was working for the company. What am I saying? It's weird, and it feels wrong.

Let me ask you this question before you attempt to shoot me down. I'm sure most people will see it the way it's presented, but I'm very curious if anybody remembers it differently. Who do you remember as the romantic interest to Matthew Broderick in the movie War Games? Presently, Ally Sheedy is listed as his co-star.

Because I've been curious about what old franchises they might bring back and vandalize by "modernizing" them, I've been looking year-by-year on Wikipedia at different movies. I'm curious how much money certain movies made and what critics were saying about them and other interesting facts from the time.

 

Dabney Coleman came up recently for some reason, and I've always been a fan of his. He was that quintessential jerk in some movies, but he played a really cool guys in others. I really loved Short Time and Cloak and Dagger, but he was good in War Games as well.

I'm looking through the War Games Wiki and I see Ally Sheedy listed as Matthew Broderick's co-star. What the hell? I remember it differently. I remember the star of Nightmare On Elm Street 1 and 3, Heather Langenkamp, starring in this movie. 

 

I don't think it registered with me the first time I saw the movie. I didn't think too much about it. Two or three years later, after I'd enjoyed Nightmare On Elm Street 3, I looked and saw her name in War Games. I thought it was pretty cool that she was in that movie. It's always registered in my mind since then.

One of the things skeptics do is to just flat-out say your false remembering it. Well, I'm not false remembering the memory that Heather Langenkamp was in another 1980s movie that I enjoyed.

 

The other thing they say is you're conflating it. This is what they say about lines from movies like "what if I told you" in The Matrix, or "no, I am your father" in Star Wars.

 

They claim you're just remembering it that way because pop culture started putting it out that way. Okay. I believe that's possible in the case of Star Wars, but "what if I told you" comes out of left field to me. It's not one word being misquoted in a line, it's a line that they say doesn't exist now.

I looked through the 1980s to see what else Heather had done. Maybe I'm remembering it differently? Rumble Fish and The Outsiders could be possible movies, but I never watched either one of those movies. 

 

I remember thinking the The Outsiders just didn't interest me, even though I remember other people loving the movie. There is no movie for me to have confused her in. There's nothing else I would have seen her in that I enjoyed like I did War Games.

Am I saying this is a Mandela Effect? No. I'm saying it's weird. This is not how I remembered this movie. I remember her being in the movie. I remember mentally registering that she was in another movie I liked in addition to the Nightmare On Elm Street movies. I recall thinking that was cool.

 

The fact that there is not another movie I could have been confusing this with makes it that much stranger. I looked within the community, and nobody remembers this. I'm sure if I posted my observations, somebody might step forward and say they remembered it that way too. I was hoping to see something organic pop-up, because it would almost be confirmation that I'm not alone.

That's the thing about the Mandela Effect. Once you tell people that you've experienced it, if you get enough people to look at it, others are going to confirm what it is that you say you saw. Sure, there will be some people who genuinely remember it the way you do.

 

Others will vaguely remember something similar and go ahead and agree with you because it makes sense. It's a frustrating thing about the Mandela Effect, because we can't scientifically study this. It's not like we can compare timelines or that sort of thing. We can come up with possibilities, but documenting real evidence skeptics would consider is difficult to do.

For the record, War Games does have a Mandela Effect linked to it, although it didn't seem like many people agreed with it. It's when the computer asks the Matthew Broderick character, "shall we play a game?"

 

Others are remembering it as, "would you like to play a game?" I think there's another line people remember as well. For the record, I remember the first line. I can still hear the computer voice in my head, because I watched the movie so many times.

I totally understand people's aversion to this topic. They don't want to discuss it because they have other things to worry about. In some instances, a Mandela Effect will strike a nerve with somebody, and they realize that it's strange. They get defensive and take it personal when you push them on it.

 

I don't believe this is something that needs to be obsessed over. However, it doesn't hurt to look into things and try to come up with an answer that is satisfactory to the people who are looking for answers.

 

Telling people they are false remembering or conflating something will reassure the skeptics that the people who think something is going on are wrong, but it doesn't do anything for the people who are experiencing the phenomenon.

It's understandable that people are questioning reality these days. The fact is, our politicians, people in power and the news media lie to us so often that they make it an art form. People are seeing through the lies, and some people are taking it further and saying that everything they're being told is a lie.

 

This has led to people questioning whether we went to the moon or even if the Earth is flat. In fact, those two ideas along with the possibility that we're living in a simulated reality have been linked to the Mandela Effect. Personally, I think that's not the way to approach this.

The biggest question to be asked in regards to the Mandela Effect is, is this really happening? If there is enough consensus that even a few of the suggested Mandela Effects are happening, there's another question to follow. 

 

What's making this happen? Or, why is this happening? Some people will go to their Bibles for answers.

 

Here is a head-scratcher for you Bible readers. What animal is it that lies down with the lamb? The answer blew me away, because what it says it is isn't what I remember. Strange days indeed.

The Mandela Effect Can Mess With Your Mind

The Mandela effect is basically when you remember something you may have seen in a movie, or a song, a corporate logo, the name of a business, lines from a speech a politician gave, actual Bible verses and so on. 

 

You remember it a certain way, because you grew up knowing that to be the case. However, you look now to find evidence that it was never the way you remember it to be. Some people call this a mistaken memory, but the problem is that in some cases there are millions of people who remember the same thing you do.

The Mandela Effect can mess with your mind. I do see some people getting a bit carried away with this phenomenon. You have people looking at different things that they claim are Mandela Effects. They aren't.

A simple search online can find the answer to those particular effects. Nothing actually changed. It's not that they misremembered alone, they also didn't properly research. That type of thing discredits the legitimate research being done.

One of the big ones to me was Ed McMahon working at Publishers Clearing House. He would deliver the check and say, "Whomever, you have won $1,000,000." It was a memorable line, and it also became a punchline on late night talk shows and sitcoms and that sort of thing.

 

It was part of our cultural dialogue at the time. This was back in the 1980s. I was blown away to find out that Ed never worked for Publishers Clearing House, at least in this timeline. He worked for a rival company that is no longer in existence.

The people who do the research into these phenomenon also look for what they call residual effect. This is where they find interviews of the people involved, either video, audio or in print. The people involved remember the same thing. It's very fascinating. 

 

I'm still on the fence with the "Luke, I am your father" line from Star Wars. In this timeline, it's "No, I am your father." I sort of remember it as "No Luke, I am your father." James Earl Jones, voice of Darth Vader, said in an interview that he remembered that line and was waiting to find out how they were going to reveal that Darth Vader was a liar.

One of the big residual effects associated with the Publishers Clearing House thing with Ed McMahon came from the man with whom he had worked for many years.

 

Who could forget the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson? The show has never been the same since the iconic host retired. McMahon was his sidekick for many years, and Johnny was well aware of the different projects in which Ed was involved. Certainly, he would know Star Search and Publishers Clearing House, right?

The residual effect in question would be Johnny's guest appearance on David Letterman. This didn't happen very often, but Johnny happened to be in New York on business. What made this one interesting was he showed up with a giant check and said he was sorry that Ed McMahon couldn't be there.

 

However, Johnny said that Ed wanted him to tell David that he had won $1,000,000. If you look at the check he presented him with, it said Publishers Clearing House. This is obviously a "smoking gun" to people who know that the Mandela Effect is real.

Johnny knew Ed well enough to know what company he worked for. If he was going to tell that joke, he was going to tell it right. The joke was that Ed was presenting checks to everybody and he worked for Publishers Clearing House. 

 

If he didn't work for that particular company, that check simply wouldn't have been written as such. What would be the point of that joke? It makes no sense. I'm sure the debunkers out there will come up with excuses, but this one seems pretty obvious. Something changed.

I'm careful not to say that these changes we are witnessing are caused by A or B. Some will say it has something to do with CERN, others will say it's the D-Wave computer and others might say timelines are collapsing on themselves. 

 

I don't know, and I don't know that I would be in a position to ever tell you what the cause is. I just know something is happening. My interest is in documenting all of this and keeping an eye on what legitimate research is being done. I also have an eye towards trying to figure out when this phenomenon started.

Somebody with an open mind can easily check Mandela Effects that are posted out there. A lot of times, the people are careful to make a video saying something happened here. In the description and title of the video, they don't tell you what it is. 

 

They want you to think about what they're about ready to show you and prepare yourself for what they're ready to reveal. In this way, they don't affect your own memory. If you're honest about this, you're going to discover at least a few of these things ring true. That's only part of the mystery, but maybe the rest will be revealed in time.