Can we settle on Berenst#in?

Today, everywhere you look you see The Berenstain Bears are spelt that way - BerenstAin. Many people, however, are insistent that it was originally spelt BerentEin, so we have another Mass Memory Discrepancy Effect to consider.

For those wondering what the heck this is all about - never mind how they are spelt - The Berenstain Bears is a set of children's books originating in the early 1960's from Stan and Jan Berenstain.

The books became so popular that two TV series were launched, along with a range of merchandise and product licencing deals. Mike Berenstain took full authorship in 2012 following his father, Jan's, death.

Why can't we just ask the Berenstains?

As sometimes comes up with cases involving people still alive who were part of the source of the original incident, we should be able to solve this right away because the Bears name was taken from the surname of an actual family. Not so fast. The argument is that the Mass Memory Discrepancy effect creates parallel universes, so the one the family inhabit today will be the one they always did and it the people experiencing the effect who have "jumped" universes. 

A fascinating research project from the University of Cambridge suggests people could have even been staring at the "correct" version for years, yet registering the "incorrect" one.

Do you remember the Bears, and if so how did you spell their name back then? Here's an old reference to the "old" spelling: http://www.seanbaby.com/nes/nes/egm20.htm

Muddying the waters

The Mandela Effect has been around a while now, and this particular one is one of the best known. Of course this means the pranksters come out for fun ;-) Here's a recently uncovered image purporting to show both spellings simultaneously: