A Woodland Jaunt at St. Edwards Park and More Mysteries

The nature of Washington State is just so beautiful. I've been trying lately to spend more time out in the woods where everything is magical and mysterious and calming and exciting. Yesterday, I went to St. Edwards Park and hiked through the woods to the shore of the lake and then back through the woods. 

The sun was out! It exists, even in the PNW!

I love finding fungi and mushrooms while in the woods. It always feels like such a treat! Like a hidden surprise! Someone should invent an interactive hiking game involving spotting forest fungi. 

The creek was half frozen. It has been a very cold winter. 

An ordinary tree or the home of some sort of magical creature? I can definitely imagine a little elf peering out from this tree. 

Someone lost their little yellow bow. 

I found my swimming spot once summer is here. 

Earlier I mentioned the mystery of the woods is part of what makes it enticing, but it is not just the woods that is full of mystery. The world in general is a weird and wonderful place. I just heard about a very mysterious story. 

There are many people who grew up in the 1990's who fondly remember a beloved movie from their childhood. The movie is about a genie played by Sinbad who helps out a little kid by granting wishes. The movie is called Shazam. Real life plot twist! This movie never existed! Despite many people from all around the country convinced they have seen this same movie, and all of them remember Sinbad int he movie and remember the name of it being Shazam, no evidence exists that the movie ever happened. Sinbad says he was never in the movie. I was a kid in the nineties and unfortunately, I do not remember the movie, although I like the idea of being swept up in this mystery. 

Some people think it is a huge conspiracy. They claim that Sinbad must have been embarrassed by his association with the movie and took drastic measures to erase all evidence that it ever existed. 

One explanation is that all these Shazam fans are actually thinking of a movie about a genie called Kazaam which starred Shaq. Believers of Shazam say 'No!', they are not talking about Kazam, they remember a separate movie and some people even say they thought it was weird when Kazam came out since Shazam already existed.

Another more interesting theory that involves a whole new mystery is that some people think the Shazam story is an example of the Mandela effect. Nelson Mandela died in 2013, but there are many people who are convinced he died in the eighties while in prison. They even remember seeing the news footage on it. Some people believe that this shared belief or remembrance of Nelson Mandela's death did not come from a mistake of the memory, but is related to parallel universes! Somewhere in a parallel universe, Nelson Mandela did die in prison in the eighties. This is how the Mandela Effect was named. Somehow, something weird happened and some people from the parallel universe ended up in this universe and still carry the memories of their original universe. Shazam could be another example of the Mandela Effect. The people who remember the movie remember it because in the parallel universe where they grew up, Sinbad did indeed make a movie called Shazam. 

The Shazam story reminds me of a story my friend told me in seventh grade. When I was in seventh grade, the movie 'Ransom' starring Mel Gibson came out. My friend told me that she had seen the movie before. She had seen it years ago when she was still little. She knew everything that was going to happen in the movie while watching it. She new every plot twist before it happened. My friend was not the lying type, so I believed what she said. It seemed such an eerie thing to know this entire movie. There seemed no normal explanation. Every explanation seemed fabulous and amazing. Maybe my friend was psychic or maybe when she was little she was in a parallel universe where the movie came out earlier or maybe she was a time traveler. 

But it turns out, like most movies, Ransom's source material was from a story already told. It was told in 1954 in an episode of an old TV show and it was told again in a film entitled Ransom! in 1956. So of course this doesn't rule out completely the possibility of time travel, but it is much more likely that my friend saw the old movie Ransom! and this is why she remembered the details of the plot so well. 

But just because there are reasonable explanations for many of life's mysteries, it doesn't mean every mystery has a reasonable explanation. Somewhere out there, there is a mystery ready to be solved with the most outlandish yet true explanation 

Learn more! Shazam and Mandela Effect.