Author: Fiona Broome

I probably should have done this long ago, but… Well, better late than never.

Taking the advice of a long-time friend – who’s also a successful life counsellor – I’ve seen that I’ve been spinning my wheels, trying to counter the ridiculous ways I’ve been represented by others, in the media, and so on.

In other words, I’m stepping back from a few no-win games.

One of them is: Trying to explain myself as the person who launched the Mandela Effect phrase and apparently popularized the concept. Trying to convey what it’s really about, as I (and many others) see it.

Another is building and maintaining websites, just to see them de-indexed by Google. Including a 600+ article site that – for 25 years – has (had?) been one of the leading authority sites in the ghost hunting field.

Then there’s being banned by Facebook, apparently for speaking up about a privacy-option window that was about to close.

And, in the past week or so, a glitch in the set-up of my Substack prevented me from accessing that site.

If that sounds like a tale of woe, that’s not how I see it.

For me, it’s a wake-up call. It’s an “ah-HA!” moment, recognizing that my time is better spent on R&D areas that where I excel and enjoy what I do.

So, you’ll see some very visible changes, starting now.

I’ve finished defending the original context of the Mandela Effect concept.

I’m going to make all of the related books – the ones with all of the original Mandela Effect site comments – free on multiple platforms. (This will start as they complete their respective Kindle Unlimited terms.)

Note: That does not mean I’m releasing the copyrights; it simply puts the initial Mandela Effect context and discoveries within reach of… Well, everyone.

I’ve also put the original Mandela Effect site (the 2018 version, anyway) on WordPress.com, where access may be limited by bandwidth allowances, each month, but – again – the point is to make the original context as accessible as possible.

In other words, endlessly trying to defend the Mandela Effect as many of us view it…?  It’s not my game. I have better, more productive ways to spend my time.

Similarly, I’m likely to place reduced versions of my ghost-related sites on WordPress.com, as well.

This gives me the added bonus of not having to personally update – or supervise  updates to – those websites.

Meanwhile, I’m updating my most important books on paranormal topics, and relaunching them. (The first is a new, better version of “Is Your House Haunted?” due for completion this week.)

And, I’m taking my most important how-to and research articles from my ghost-related sites, and compiling them in topic-specific books.

This is a huge project likely to take a few months. I’ll do my best to get through it as fast as I can, hopefully by the end of 2024.

But starting right now, I want you to know that I’m reclaiming my time and focus. I’m eager to pursue the R&D that intrigues me. That’s where I shine, and it’s what brings me the most happiness.

As always, I appreciate your friendship and support. And I hope to share many fresh, new discoveries with you, in the future.

If you wondered if writing it “The Sun” instead of “the Sun” was a typo… it’s not.

And, I’m actually encouraged by this news: The British tabloid, The Sun, has published an article about the Mandela Effect.

Most discussions – and publicity – about the Mandela Effect has been based in the United States.

And, though over 50% of readers of my ghost-related website are from the U.K., the Mandela Effect topic never seemed to get much traction there. That was almost a relief.

But now that The Sun has featured it, I’m hopeful that the Brits will view the Mandela Effect as we did in our early (2009 to ~2012) context: As a quirky, fascinating, fun topic.

For me, the Mandela Effect was a weird little anomaly.  Something to speculate about, in a fun, “what if…?,” somewhat sci-fi context.  You know… something typical of whimsical, geek-y conversations.

Oh, I still don’t know what I’d confused, in the late 1980s, with Nelson Mandela’s funeral. In the past 15-or-so years, nothing matches what I’d seen on TV. (Admittedly, it was only a brief view each day, as the funeral coverage had pre-empted the TV show I’d wanted to see.)

However, I was – and still am – fascinated when I discover other, more mainstream “confusions” that are widespread and challenging to explain.

Likewise, I’m still frustrated by people who insist that it’s all “false memories” or – in my opinion – worse, that it’s a conspiracy.

So, for the first time in many years, seeing the topic popularized by The Sun, with the potential of reaching a fresh – and perhaps more open-minded – audience, I’m hopeful.

Perhaps the Mandela Effect can be the topic of fun and fascinating, intelligent conversations, once again.

If so, this is a BIG “thank you!” to The Sun.

This week, someone – yet again – asked me why people like me won’t declare that the Mandela Effect always reflects false memories.

Here’s my lightly edited (and perhaps redundant) reply to that comment.

(I’m placing it here so – hopefully – it’s more visible to casual researchers. Or, at the very least, I can link to it and quit using valuable time, repeating myself. Not that I’m annoyed, mind you. Ahem. <– Yes, I’m chuckling as I sigh. It seems so surreal that 15 years after I began talking about the Mandela Effect, there’s still so much confusion about its origins.)

Regarding the Mandela Effect:

According to some – and at apparently  opposing poles – there are those that want to believe that everything that doesn’t match their every memory is best explained as a changed/parallel reality.

And, at the other extreme, others want to insist that all conflicting memories are best explained as “false” memories.

(Yes, Wikipedia – which once had a dedicated Mandela Effect page – now labels all related phenomena as “false memories.”)

Personally, I’m somewhere between those two.

That is, I’ve seen logical explanations – usually commonplace confusions – for some alternate memories.

For example, if someone’s mom or grandfather kept calling the peanut butter brand’s name “Jiffy” (instead of “Jif”) when the child was a toddler, that name may be what they recall.

That’s especially true if the family switched to Skippy (brand name) peanut butter by the time the child could read, and – since then – the child (now an adult) never paid close attention to other brands of peanut butter… until someone in a forum mentioned the Jif/Jiffy conundrum.

I always advocate fact-checking and doing one’s best to debunk an alternate memory, when possible.

However, in my own case, I have yet to find any multi-day, televised funeral (and its immediate aftermath) that fits the time frame and context of my Mandela-related memory.

Since my family moved every three years or so, I have a clear time frame for the memory. For me, that makes fact-checking far simpler.

I also recall several specific images, from the slow movement of the hearse with crowds lining the streets, to the widow walking towards a podium beneath a huge tree, and she was leaning heavily on her bodyguard’s arm.

In addition, it was a time when my family was experimenting with a “no TV” rule.

So, unless I was watching a specific, scheduled TV show, there was no channel surfing.

If the show I planned to watch wasn’t actually on – as in this case, since it was preempted – I quickly turned off the TV.

That’s why this memory is fairly clear, as I was irked that my intended, early morning entertainment wasn’t on at its usual scheduled time.

I still don’t have an explanation for the memory. People have suggested that the funeral was Stephen Biko’s, but he died in 1977. It doesn’t fit my history at all, and I doubt that his funeral received three days of daytime coverage in the U.S.

Even now, I can’t find a South African funeral for someone else, so significant his funeral would preempt American TV programs for three days, within my memory’s time frame.

What I also can’t explain are the reports by others – many hidden (by request) from view – that matched precise details of the funeral that I’ve never made public.

And, since I could see their IP numbers, they appeared to be in very different parts of the country.

Note: Yes, I’m aware of IP spoofing, etc. Starting around 2012, trolls were a steady problem at my original Mandela Effect (dot com) site. Every comment was moderated before the pubic saw it, and I did my best to be sure most comments were authentic.

So, it’s possible that those comments may have been made by people who – like my family – had moved since the years of the funeral that I recall. And we all saw the same, erroneously displayed TV coverage.

However, the volume of those reports make it unlikely that, for multiple days, a local channel (to me, at the time) was (mistakenly?) running a replay of the Biko funeral… and that we all saw it.

That’s why I don’t see the Mandela Effect as either straightforward or a dichotomy. However, I have nothing to prove and – in fact – freely admit that I have no proof to support my assertions. I’ve said that repeatedly.

If you’re more comfortable with a simple, A/B answer for the Mandela Effect, and it works for you, that’s fine.

However, it doesn’t work for me.

If you’ve recently discovered the Mandela Effect, here’s a one-minute summary of what it is… and isn’t.

UPDATE, 13 Aug 2024:  Substack is glitching. For the past 48 hours, I haven’t been able to access my Substack account. Their Support Chat is replying with inane, repetitive suggestions, and their Tech Support isn’t replying at all. Even with a form letter.

However, I guess they’re doing a reset today. Fingers crossed!

In case Substack doesn’t fix what’s broken within a reasonable timeframe, if anyone can suggest an alternative, let me know.

---

Since Facebook banned me, it’s become more difficult for friends to find my latest news, online.

And really, I’m working at a near-frantic pace (since Halloween is fast approaching), so I needed a simple way to stay in touch, too.

Substack is – for now – the best solution for me… And I hope it is for you, too.

Here’s what I like about Substack:

1. It’s free and easily accessed.
2. You don’t even need to visit it. Just subscribe, and my latest updates will show up in your email. (Just make sure they don’t land in your spam folder!)
3. You can leave comments at Substack, and perhaps engage in conversations there, as well. So, friends can chat with one another – in comments – and share insights.

So, that’s the news. Go to Substack and sign up (free), or use the form below. I look forward to seeing you there!

So…

Facebook banned me, and Google de-indexed my websites. What to do next…?

Well, after a few days of pouting, I’m finding new ways to communicate with friends and fans, and one of them is YouTube.

For starters, I’m going through my old podcasts (mostly from 2009 – 2013), updating them as needed, and posting them at my YouTube “Ghosts and Haunted Places” channel, YouTube.com/@FionaBroome .

Those podcasts are a mixed bag. Some are relatively normal podcasts, with updates and new research results.

Others are… extreme. “Speculative” might be an understatement. (And they’re in my “Extreme Ghost Hunting” playlist at that YouTube channel.)

I’ll also be restoring my podcasts at Libsyn, now that they have settings to prevent those recordings from appearing – unauthorized – on others’ podcast channels. (The restored podcasts will have some updates, too.)

So, that’s the news, and I’ll appreciate it if you can let other friends know where to find me.

Thanks!

P.S. Let me know if you’d like me to record anything specific about ghost hunting, haunted locations, and places you’d like to investigate. (My best in-depth research is in the U.S., the U.K., Canada, and Ireland… not necessarily in that order.)

 

When I posted yesterday, I was upset, to put it mildly.

But, overnight, I was able to gain some perspective, and a fresh, important way of looking at this.

Here’s what happened:

• First, Google de-indexed almost all of HollowHill.com, my largest (500+ articles) website.
• Then, Facebook banned me, when I tried to alert others to a fast-approaching deadline to opt-out of your personal data being shared.

So, as you can see, I’m pretty much starting all over again.

Hmm… What would I do with a fresh start…?

Well, when I started HollowHill.com, back in 1999, I was a “category of one.”

Nobody else was sharing how-to information about ghost hunting. Not on such a large scale, anyway.

But, over the years, I decided to modify that website’s content.

I wanted to make ghost hunting accessible to everyone, not just beginners, but also those with different backgrounds, and different reasons for investigating haunted sites.

Gradually, that diluted my own opinions, and – in a way – my authenticity. (However, some of you – especially those who know me in real life – are aware of my actual views about ghosts and haunted places.)

Media’s impact on ghost hunting

In recent years, we’ve all seen ghost hunting become sensationalized. Now, it’s entertainment, sometimes going viral with jump scares, and too often regarded as a joke.

Some investigators are deliberately stirring up non-ghostly entities.  A few even invoke what are generally categorized as “demons.”

The main reason: It keeps viewers engaged. That boosts views and ratings.a

Watching ghost hunting TV shows and in videos, I generally see “investigators” doing things that are 180-degrees different from what’s consistently worked for my teams.

And, frankly, the examples those shows are setting… They’re kind of appalling.

Maybe I should have spoken up, sooner.

But, either way, since – as of June 2024 – my ghost hunting website is seen by a scant 2k – 3k unique visitors/month, I feel comfortable changing its tone and much of its content.

Seeing my vulnerabilities, thanks to Facebook’s ban, was what I needed to see the importance of change.

 Once again, I’ll be a “category of one.”

It’s time for me to be more authentic, and – at the same time – make ghost hunting more accessible for genuine researchers.

In retrospect, I wish I’d made this shift sooner. You deserve better information, and the opportunity to enjoy richer, more successful investigations.

So, I’ll need a week or two, to put together my plans.

And then, well, this won’t be an overnight fait accompli.

Realistically, you’ll start seeing changes by late July, on both HollowHill.com and my YouTube channel.

I’ll also update my books, and release some that I’ve held back because they are… well, a bit radical. Nobody else is talking about these topics.

Of course, you’ll still learn how (and where) to investigate ghosts.

However, I’m going to be clearer about what works consistently (and doesn’t), in actual practice.

Ghost hunting can be a richer, more wonderful, and engaging experience than anything you’ve seen on TV or on YouTube, TikTok, etc.

I’m eager to share my insights and experiences with you, so you can get more from ghost hunting, too.