# Remembering things that didn't happen **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 4, 2009, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remembering-things-that-didnt-happen/479768 "2009-01-04T02:07:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![occlusian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/eada6e/32.png) [@occlusian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/occlusian)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2009, 10:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remembering-things-that-didnt-happen/479768/81 "2009-01-21T10:16:58Z")
> [@voguevixen](#): > > Apparently not - Cecil’s report claims the Donahue show spent 10 years fielding phone calls denying he was ever on the show! > [http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/520/is-procter-gamble-run-by-satanists](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/520/is-procter-gamble-run-by-satanists) And if you think about it, why would a talk show like Donahue be booking random business executives? Doesn’t exactly fit with the concept of the show. ---
**Author:** ![chrishavel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ccd318/32.png) [@chrishavel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chrishavel)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2009, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remembering-things-that-didnt-happen/479768/82 "2009-01-23T14:40:50Z")
> [@Alice\_The\_Goon](#): > > The\* Challenger\* explosion. The camera was actually on the commentators during the explosion, not the space shuttle. But you will find tons of people that “remember” seeing it happen live. To the contrary … CNN’s live camera was firmly fixed on the shuttle when the solid rocket boosters failed: [![](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/j4JOjcDFtBE/hqdefault.jpg "Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster Live on CNN") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4JOjcDFtBE) Go to 1:37 and you’ll see it plain as day. Sort of funny given the topic here, that you were firm in your belief that no one could have seen it live on TV. Welcome to the club. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![sailor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a587f6/32.png) [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2009, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remembering-things-that-didnt-happen/479768/83 "2009-01-23T15:09:11Z")
Well, I’ll be darned. It happened to me today. A friend needed to give me something and said he was bringing his daughter to some kind of kindergarten near my place. We had met there a year or two ago so “you know where I mean”. Sure. Fine. See you there. I go. And wait. And wait. I have no doubt I am at the door of the right place. It says it right there: “Children’s development R US”. Finally I call him on the phone and he says he is at the door. No, I am at the door. We finally figure we are about a block apart. I tell him where I am and he comes over. He informs me he has never brought his daughter to this place. The right place is further down the street. Nope. I have a clear and distinct memory of picking up his daughter here. No doubt in my mind. Absolute certainty. We argue a bit. Finally I told him “look, if there were money involved I would have no doubt you were lying to me but since you have no interest in this I have to assume I somehow imagined this happened and it became part of my memory”. Later we go to pick up his daughter and my memory is jogged. Yes, that is the correct place but it is a plain building, not the “develoment kindergarten”. Since I pass that way quite often it seems my memory began conflating the original event with the new location which made more sense. After some time I had no doubts whatsoever and I would have sworn it happened. It was photographically etched in my mind and yet it never happened. As we say in Spanish:“It could well be true and never have happened”. ---
**Author:** ![johnspartan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a183cd/32.png) [@johnspartan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnspartan)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2009, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remembering-things-that-didnt-happen/479768/84 "2009-01-23T16:00:10Z")
there’s a lot of misremembering out there… esp. from media. Burns & Allen **never** did the joke “Say goodnight, Gracie.” “Goodnight, Gracie.” But it’s considered their signature line. > **[Gracie Allen |](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gracie_Allen#.22Say_good_night.2C_Gracie.22)** > > During their vaudeville routine, and later on radio and television, as their show ended, Burns would look at Allen and say "Say good night, Gracie," to which she would usually simply reply "Good night." A popular legend holds that she would reply "Good night, Gracie," but according to Burns, recordings of their radio and television shows and several histories of old-time radio (such as John Dunning's On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio), she never used the phrase. ---
**Author:** ![An\_Gadai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@An\_Gadai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Gadai)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2009, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remembering-things-that-didnt-happen/479768/85 "2009-01-23T16:36:30Z")
> [@Rich\_Mann](#): > > Regarding the “Thunderbird photo”; I very clearly remember going to the school library when I was in the fourth or fifth grade and seeing the photo in a rather slim book with a sepia-toned photo of a man’s face on the cover. I still insist that I could not have been influenced by other people’s reported memories of the picture because I had never talked about it with anyone nor read about it until after I spontaneously recalled it from my youth and thought to look for it on the 'net. I was surprised both by the fact that it wasn’t anywhere to be found and by the number of other people looking for it and talking about it. > > Understand, I’m not claiming that the photo depicted real events–just that such a photo existed. I have no theory as to why it is so hard to find, and I don’t blame people for doubting that it ever existed. I find this whole story fascinating. How likely, I wonder, is it that a photo like this could have been published somewhere during the 20th century and would not turn up after much dedicated searching? Could you describe the image as you recall it please? From another forum someone has described the image as: _The picture I remember seeing was an enormus eagle nailed to the inside of a barn wall with six men in western garb standing in front of it fingertip to fingertip to show the width of the wingspan._ ---
**Author:** ![An\_Gadai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@An\_Gadai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Gadai)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2009, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remembering-things-that-didnt-happen/479768/86 "2009-01-23T16:40:48Z")
> [@Gotterfunken](#): > > Here is an earlier thread where we discussed that particular scene (and Morbo’s Betamax tape) at great length: > > ["Say, Lucas, About Those Scenes That “Never Happened”](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=279595) Did **Dooku/Morbo** ever make those rare scenes available? ---
**Author:** ![Webner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/0ea827/32.png) [@Webner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Webner)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2009, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remembering-things-that-didnt-happen/479768/87 "2009-01-23T19:08:18Z")
About four years ago, when I was in high school, I was driving to work from a friend’s house when I passed a disoriented old lady walking on the side of the road in her underwear. It was a horrifying sight. I told my friends about it a few days later. About a year ago, one of those friends told the story as if he was the one who passed the old lady in his car. He was convinced it was him but I know it was me. ---
**Author:** ![Roadfood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9fc348/32.png) [@Roadfood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roadfood)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2009, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remembering-things-that-didnt-happen/479768/88 "2009-01-24T01:21:49Z")
> [@chrishavel](#): > > To the contrary … CNN’s live camera was firmly fixed on the shuttle when the solid rocket boosters failed: > > [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4JOjcDFtBE](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4JOjcDFtBE) > > Go to 1:37 and you’ll see it plain as day. Sort of funny given the topic here, that you were firm in your belief that no one could have seen it live on TV. Welcome to the club. 🙂 Slight hijack: “Obviously a major malfunction” (heard from the NASA guy right at the end of that clip) has to go down in history as the biggest understatement ever uttered. ---
**Author:** ![Roadfood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9fc348/32.png) [@Roadfood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roadfood)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2009, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remembering-things-that-didnt-happen/479768/89 "2009-01-24T01:31:36Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > A year or two ago, someone here managed to unearth the movie clip that that came from, and it was from some obscure old movie nobody had ever heard of. The speculation is that some radio DJ was playing random movie clips between songs, as some do, and that most of the general public first heard the line from such a radio clip. Actually, it’s from an episode of a not-so-obscure TV show, “Burke’s Law”: [Photo Storage](http://s98.photobucket.com/albums/l269/hosmackah/beauty/?action=view¤t=img002.flv) ---
**Author:** ![Rilchiam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/2bfe46/32.png) [@Rilchiam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rilchiam)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2009, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remembering-things-that-didnt-happen/479768/90 "2009-01-24T22:51:43Z")
> [@Telcontar](#): > > “If every vampire who said he was at the crucifixion was actually there, it would have been like Woodstock.” /Buffy quote off Yeah, and speaking of Woodstock, if you believe every claim that someone saw the Woodstock Baby being born, or knows them, or **is** them, the festival would have produced an entire kindergarten class. In fact, there’s no proof that even **one** baby was born at Woodstock. And I should think that with the trend that’s grown between then and now – that of tracking down every historical footnote – more would be known about this mythical infant. Not necessarily hir name, but where the parents were from, why they chose to go to the festival when mom was about to pop, who assisted with the birth, if there were any complications from being born in effectively a disaster area, and so forth. And heck, they would be forty this year, so why not go public now! (If they do, I’ll gladly retract this post.) ---
**Author:** ![An\_Gadai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@An\_Gadai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Gadai)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2009, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remembering-things-that-didnt-happen/479768/91 "2009-06-04T15:14:07Z")
> [@An\_Gadai](#): > > Did **Dooku/Morbo** ever make those rare scenes available? I hope it is okay to bump this request as no reply was posted. ---
**Author:** ![IdahoMauleMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/71c47a/32.png) [@IdahoMauleMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IdahoMauleMan)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2009, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remembering-things-that-didnt-happen/479768/92 "2009-06-04T16:04:11Z")
> [@Justin\_Bailey](#): > > But Ruth did hit it, the debate is where he pointed before he hit it. In my mind, it doesn’t matter what or who he pointed at. When you make a pointing gesture in baseball when someone is riding you, that means “This one is going to make you shut up.” > > He may not have called the spot of his shot, but Babe Ruth damn well called that home run. > > [Babe Ruth's called shot - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babe_Ruth's_called_shot) I saw some grainy, black-and-white footage of this on an ESPN program a while back. It looks like (and some commentators would argue) that he is pointing his bat at the Chicago Cubs’ dugout, since they were taunting him. As he trots around the bases he is clearly pointing and gesturing into the Cubs’ dugout some more. Apparently a lot of the Babe’s competitors got a kick out of calling him ‘N-----lips’ as he was in the box, and the Cubs (especially Hack Wilson) were no exception. Or did I see that footage? Maybe I’m just remembering incorrectly. ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2009, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remembering-things-that-didnt-happen/479768/93 "2009-06-04T16:25:35Z")
Not specifically related, but amusing nonetheless: [confabulatory hypermnesia](http://www.boingboing.net/2009/05/26/rare-form-of-amnesia.html). ---
**Author:** ![dracoi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90db22/32.png) [@dracoi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dracoi)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2009, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remembering-things-that-didnt-happen/479768/94 "2009-06-04T18:42:03Z")
I just thought I’d add that the Discovery Channel ran a series of investigative shows debunking certain common beliefs. In one, they use helmet-mounted cameras to see exactly what a group of hikers see. The hikers are told it is a study to see how well they notice wild animals, but they come across a staged “UFO crash” with some vague debris and an armed guard who tells them all to move along. In the eyewitness reports given two weeks later, the hikers report things that never happened, including: saucer-shaped UFO, shots fired by the guard, multiple guards, and dead alien bodies. From a more personal background, my wife is a police volunteer and has gone through training for observation and crime scene reporting. In that training, they show a series of slides and then ask questions about what you saw. The majority of people wind up filling in all kinds of details that may be logical implications of the slides, but are not actually shown. For example, one slide shows a kid approaching a cart of oranges. The next shows the oranges falling on the ground. A large number of people “remember” a slide in which the kid knocked the oranges down. My brother and I (only 15 months apart in age) were once reminiscing about many of our childhood events. We changed the subject pretty quickly - in too many cases, we had totally different recollections about what happened, when/where it happened and who was there. Both of us were absolutely convinced our version was right. (I kind of suspect that it’s more likely we were both wrong) ---
**Author:** ![The\_Raven\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7993a0/32.png) [@The\_Raven\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Raven_1)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2009, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remembering-things-that-didnt-happen/479768/95 "2009-06-04T18:54:13Z")
I had an episode of this regarding an item on the news crawl of NECN, the cable news channel in Boston. It was around August 20, 2001. I was getting ready to head out to work, and glanced at the screen and remembered a crawl item in which Colin Powell had made a statement to the effect that we had indications of an increased risk of terrorist attack. Not a news flash sort of thing, just an item in the sequence of news items in the crawl. Of course, come 9/11, I’m racking my brain to determine if this was real, and there was a warning that was made generally known. I never could corroborate this with anything, though. ---
**Author:** ![Grendel\_s\_Father](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b782af/32.png) [@Grendel\_s\_Father](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grendel_s_Father)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2009, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remembering-things-that-didnt-happen/479768/96 "2009-06-04T19:36:12Z")
> [@Harmonious\_Discord](#): > > [The Mysterious Thunderbird Photo](http://www.prairieghosts.com/tbirdaz.html) People thought they’d seen the picture in an old book, but there was no picture. Now there are some faked pictures, but that’s after the fact. Anybody that thinks they saw a picture may have seen one of the fakes at this point. For the record, I’m one of them, and this freaks me out to no end. I still have a vivid memory of it AND the book I remember seeing it in. Of course, when I read that story a while back I went and checked. Not in there. But I was probably misremembering the book, I’d swear I knew that photo from when I was a kid. Is this proof of somebody going back in time and changing the past? Most likely! 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2009, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remembering-things-that-didnt-happen/479768/97 "2009-06-04T20:50:19Z")
I know I have a false memory. It is a memory of me at 1 year old being told by my brother that we have a baby sister. I am sitting on the ground, playing with a toy fire truck. I know it is a false memory, because my brother told me what I was doing when he told me we had a sister. And my memory is from _his_ point of view - I am looking down at myself. Yet I have had this memory for decades and any time I think about the topic I clearly remember it. I also have been confusing myself over events that happened in TV shows and my reactions. Several of those are posted in threads on Cafe Society. ---
**Author:** ![JimOfAllTrades](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@JimOfAllTrades](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JimOfAllTrades)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2009, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remembering-things-that-didnt-happen/479768/98 "2009-06-05T02:51:15Z")
> [@Critical1](#): > > speaking of miss Fonda, she wasnt nude in the opening credits of “Barbarella” no matter how many people think she was. Somebody is nude during about the last minute and a quarter of the opening credits, as shown here: (link disabled because of some nudity) [http://w](http://w) [ww.youtube.com/watch?v=m76uV2rK8KY](http://ww.youtube.com/watch?v=m76uV2rK8KY) Is it a body double or something? I’ve never been good with faces but it looks like Fonda to me. ---
**Author:** ![Wildwood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/db5fbb/32.png) [@Wildwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wildwood)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2009, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remembering-things-that-didnt-happen/479768/99 "2009-09-25T21:08:47Z")
> [@Cosmic Relief](#): > > If I’m not mistaken, many people claim that they saw movie footage of the Kennedy assasination on the day it occurred in 1963 (either live, or in a newscast later that day). This is impossible because the Zapruder film was never broadcast publicly until the 1970s. Think again & follow this link: [http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=12216&hl=Muchmore](http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=12216&hl=Muchmore) A taster from the thread: > [@](#): > > AP, "Movie Film Depicts Shooting of Kennedy,” Milwaukee Journal, November 26, 1963, part 1, p.3 > > Dallas, Tex.-AP - A strip of color movie film graphically depicting the assassination of President Kennedy was made by a Dallas clothing manufacturer with an 8 millimeter camera. > > Several persons in Dallas who have seen the film, which lasts about 15 seconds, say it clearly shows how the president was hit in the head with shattering force by the second of two bullets fired by the assassin. > > Life magazine reportedly purchased still picture rights to the material for about $40,000. > > **(“The film also was being distributed by United Press International Newsfilms to subscribing stations. WITI-TV in Milwaukee is a subscriber, but will reserve judgment on whether to show the film until after its officials have viewed it.”)** ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2009, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remembering-things-that-didnt-happen/479768/100 "2009-09-25T21:24:56Z")
The Milwaukee Journal has confused the 8mm film taken by Marie Muchmore with the Zapruder film. UPI purchased the Muchmore film, LIFE magazine purchased all rights to the Zapruder film. (Yes, I have read the link.) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remembering-things-that-didnt-happen/479768.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remembering-things-that-didnt-happen/479768.md?page=6)