False Memories of Golduck in Pokemon Snap (New Mandela Effect 2024) 

Sounds like people who were playing Pokemon Snap and Pokemon Stadium back to back and got confused.

If it's not real, then why did I see it on the thumbnail? Checkmate.

Them putting a hole in the stump and having you drive past is was basically the ultimate blue ball. It looks incredibly deliberate that you’re supposed to try and knock a Pokémon into it.

63 total and it’s the Nintendo 64 like come on we all thought there was another

The memory is probably caused by that anime episode where Misty’s Psyduck disappears behind a rock and a Golduck appears, making her think her Pokemon evolved. Later in the episode she discovers it was a different one and hers is still a Psyduck.

I remember taking a picture of Nelson Mandela in Pokemon Snap I think it was on the river level with graveler you had to lure it close to the water and then hit it with a pester ball so that it falls in and then Nelson Mandela appears further down the river.

Which is more likely?: 1. My memory is unreliable 2. My consciousness is shifting through parallel universes, creating tiny differences in small, inconsequential things that would be easy to mistakenly mix up I'm thinking it's the second one. I can't remember a time I was ever wrong.

After finding out the Hylian Loach was real I don't know what to believe about anything anymore

If you think about it, Psyduck is a "gold duck".

Not video games, but I did experience the classic Berenstein mandela effect. The Summer in between high school and college I worked shelving books at a library. We got in Berenstain Bears pretty regularly. One day when I was putting some away I noticed, "Wait, 'stain'? I thought it was 'stein'." Was a year or two later I saw some post about the Berenstain Bears parallel universe theory and felt pretty validated.

I will go to my grave believing that Dorrie can eat Mario. I swear I was killed by Dorrie as a kid and spent years being spooked by Hazy Maze Cave because of it.

Honestly i think what happened is that memories are combing here, probably of pokemon staduim and pokemon snap, both games use very simliar models and so its possible the two games merged in their mind as one memory.... i played both these games too much as a kid so i knew golduck wasn't in this game but i can see someone who did a one and done playthrough combing memory with staduim

The mind is a double edge sword. A lie can become the truth and the truth can become a lie.

nah why is there a big black hole in the stump if nothing comes out of it?? that's just cruel

My uncle worked at Nintendo and said Golduck was in the game.

Not Golduck, but I do remember trying to use Pester Balls to evolve Gasley

I distinctly remember watching my older brother try evolving the Psyduck into a Golduck because he had been led to believe by some of his friends it was possible. And at the start of the video, I had vague memories of seeing Golduck in Pokemon Snap... But it didn't even match the rumours, I could have sworn you saw it swimming around much like you do Psyduck, but that's it. No jumping out of the water or getting onto land, it just swam around in the water on the river level right where there's actually a Psyduck. But... That's where my memory conflicts with itself. If Golduck was just swimming around in the river level, why do I remember watching my brother trying to knock Psyduck onto one of the stumps to evolve it? And how can I remember seeing Golduck in the game if I don't remember ever seeing my brother successfully evolve the Psyduck into the Golduck? I have two memories of the game, one of my brother falling for what was apparently a rumour that people spread and one conflicting one of seeing Golduck in a way unrelated to the rumour. Clearly the rumour wouldn't be there if I had seen Golduck the way I remember, so it makes more sense that I'm just misremembering seeing Golduck. It was probably just the Psyduck at a bad angle or part of Shellder or Cloyster, or even just a mix of things from various parts of the game, since that same memory of Golduck swimming around in the game had it surrounded by splashes the whole time from how quickly it was swimming as well as the surroundings being a lot lighter... More like you see in Valley, which also has a lot of water with Pokemon swimming in it, with large amounts of splashing water by the waterfall and whirlpool. So... Yeah, it's definitely a mix of half-remembered parts of the game with the memories of the rumour. Also, regarding such rumours, hearing that a friend did something doesn't really prove it. I had a friend in middle school that insisted he had encountered the Mew under the truck in gen 1... Despite the fact that gen 4 released around the same time and people had proven that was a rumour. If a middle schooler can insist he had recently succeeded in fulfilling a decade old rumour that had been disproven countless times already, then obviously people can claim that they accomplished something according to a rumour for a then recent game with others vaguely remembering hearing about it twenty years later. It's not proof of anything except that it was a common rumour.

Anyone who has looked at the literature on human memory knows that eye-witness testimony is the least reliable form of evidence. Our memories suck and are easily manipulated.

Sounds like a bunch of kids who saw Golduck in Pokémon Stadium and probably printed Golduck from the Pokémon Snap blockbuster kiosk (since Stadium was compatible with it). Edit: Actually, perhaps the playground talk for some kids called the "Shiny" Psyduck, a "Gold Duck" or "Golden Psyduck." Shiny wasn't a term until Gen 2.

Golduck kinda has another mandela effect being that people swear its water-psychic type.

I felt like I saw one too, but I figure it's just because I also grew up with Pokemon Stadium and I for sure used a Golduck in that pretty often

HalloweenLett here! My comment from the Loach vid!!! Lol Thanks R! Real good stuff as always.

As someone who played pokemon snap extensively as a kid and found all the secrets I can tell you golduck was never in snap. This game took hundreds of hours of my time as a child I remember opening the secret passage in the river for the first time and it blew my mind.

Nope! I played the hell out of that game. No Golduck of any sort!

I happen to actually have an encyclopedic knowledge of this game. It was my first video game ever as a child and the game that made me fall in love with games. We were quite poor so couldn't afford to buy new games very often after this, so i played the absolute crap out of Pokemon Snap. I am talking I played this game for countless hundreds of hours over the next 10 years and know every single pokemon, every secret, how to trigger every pose etc. like the back of my hand. I can with 100% certainty say that Golduck was never in this game.

My friends, it just keeps not happening.

Haven’t watched the full video yet but I feel like people think golduck is in the game bc psyduck is around other water Pokémon that evolve in the River terrain and that cloyster is hovering around it. Not to mention, there are other mons that evolve just as you’re leaving that area and you’re trying quick to snap pics of them before they leave the screen. I’m sure at one point I thought golduck HAD to be in the game when I first completed it regardless if my memory believed it to be there or not

Heard the same tale as a kid about knocking the Psyduck into the stump. Seems this was a lie that was repeated often, and kids are particularly susceptible to false memories since they have trouble distinguishing between things they remember happening and things they dreamt.

My Personal™ Mandela Effect Pokemon Snap Pokemon was a photo of Ghastly in place of Haunter, in the Zapdos room. I could've sworn I saw it, in my mind's eye I still see it, but I'm convinced at this point it was a dream. Really interesting how so many people have false memories of the same game!

I don't remember Golduck, but I do remember Ninetales

This definitely is the kinda thing that happens when you play a game as a child and then don’t touch it for years on end. A lot of those childhood theories transform into false memories. Its really interesting how that happens.

I think your explanation is perfect. Water and fire evolutions did happen so it makes sense to think this was possible, on top of many people playing Snap and Stadium back to back so you technically have a decent idea of what the model would have looked like

Now then. On to a rumor i dont think abyone else has talked about yet. When i was a kid the really big rumor on my playground was that since pokemon snap released so close to the gen 2 games, only a couple months earlier, there was a secret stage. And if you scored high enough in a certain level it would u lock a secret stage with 12 gen 2 pokmon, including all 3 lengendsry beasts. Needless to say this scpre was ridiculously high, and needless to say i eventually beat said score and got nothing. And was severely dissapointed.

I think another aspect of this is that the area Psyduck swims around in is so big and intricately designed, it looks like there should be more going on there than there is.

Foil Golduck was the first trading card I ever bought in around 99 or 00

I 100% remember taking a photo of Ninetales. I didnt even knock Vulpix into the lava. I just annoyed them with apples,pester ball, and flute until one of them passed out and the other vulpix gathered around the ko'd vulpix as it evolved.

Worth pointing out for anyone still in disbelief, the lack of assets for Golduck really is the be-all-end-all. Without code to tell it what a Golduck is, a 64-bit computer with no Internet connection wasn't going to suddenly learn how to draw a Golduck and make it behave normally with the rest of the game.

That is weird because I somewhat remember bringing my pokemon snap guide book to school before and me and my friends drawing the pokemon from it and I thought I remembered drawing golduck from one of the illustrations but I guess not.

You can get gold duck, you have to combo the flute, apple and pester ball I've done it tons of times. My sister was the one who showed me, it works. This is also for people saying you can't get Mewtwo in gen 1, yes you can, you have to get everything correctly and certain conditions to follow and a new cave will open up in an earlier area and Mewtwo will be there.

One kid in my school claimed it was possible to get golduck, he was very convinced it was real too. Maybe it was an online rumor at the time like Mew under the truck. Never heard anyone mention Ninetails before though.

Oh man this one activated some ancient memories in me. I was big into Pokemon Snap as a kid. I don't have memories of ever seeing Golduck myself, but it was definitely something I remember hearing back in the day. Schoolyard video game rumors were rampant back then. There was no youtube, or huge communities of data miners, you just had to try things yourself and see if they worked. Balloon Pikachu and especially Pikachu riding Articuno were completely unknown to a lot of players even after snapping all 63 pokes. I think that was one of the big appeals of Pokemon Snap (and something the more recent revival understood wonderfully), the fun you could have discovering new special events, as well as chasing a higher score picture.

That's weird, I actually do have a memory of hitting Psyduck with an apple and him sinking into the water and coming out as Golduck. 😲

The Golduck being found by hitting Psyduck onto the stump sounds identical to how I discovered Slowbro - which was my final Pokémon found. I only first saw it after turning around, and seeing it from a distance, and getting a poor score. Considering my story is similar to one of the commenter's comments, I think that their memory got muddled with Slowpoke into Slowbro. Makes sense considering Slowpoke is right next to Psyduck's location. Vulpix could be explained by the Charmander into Charmeleon evolution right next to it, as well as the final evolution to Charizard at the end of the stage. My theory is similar to your explanation at the 14:00 mark, but taking it one step further, by comparing what is close to both of them.

7:52 when the Shellder jumps it sure looks like the head of a Golduck jumping and it's in the exact same area. There's already 2 Shellder in the air but that last one jumping is only on screen for a very short time. Seems like this could be a very possible culprit for the belief that they saw Golduck and it was just a quick little bottom of the screen shot that could have been mentally registered as something it wasn't.

I owned Pokemon Snap, and I legit remember Koffing in game. He was in the Articuno stage and evolved the same way that Magneton, you had to get three Weezings in the same spot with the gas bombs, and then they combined into a Koffing. I must be crazy tho. Dont remember Ninetails, or Golduck. I do know you can evolve a Poliwhirl into a Poliwrath later in the stage, and that you can knock those Metapods into the water to get Butterfree. Please tell me I didnt imagine those too.

Miss the Goldeneye perfect dark videos, but always happy to get a goose upload

I'm wondering if people are misremembering the Golduck from a different game, say Pokemon Stadium and thinking it was in Snap? That was my thought during the video.

Wait a minute, Ekans wasn't in Snap? I can literally picture his pose in-game in my head. You bonk him with a pesterball and he uncoils and hisses at you. I was also pretty sure you could get him in at least 2 levels (in River and Valley). Maybe humans are just super suggestible. Or trying to remember shit from 20 years ago just causes your brain to mix up games. But damn, that one got me.

There are few things like hearing about a Mandela Effect that you do not have yourself nor ever heard about but it sounds just plausible enough that you can understand where people got it.

I've played Snap for as long as it's been out and not once have I heard this lark. This is absolutely a new one on me.

I played this game for countless hours as a child and I do not have the false memory of Golduck 🤷🏻‍♂️

I seem to recur that memory as well. It was that very first Psyduck. You knock him into the stump and his upper torso and face quickly pop out. I seem to remember his big face. The interesting thing about Mandela Effect is people having the same false memory. You make a good point, people don’t have other similar false memories of other Pokémon evolving.

I got pokemon snap the same christmas it released with a giant strategy guide. I played the hell out of that game. I cant say I specifically remember getting golduck. But i can say when i replayed river a few years back i remember thinkihg something was missing and kept trying to make something happen with psyduck. Something seems off with that level for sure but it was always a trippy level

I wasn't sure of the method behind it, but I remember being pretty convinced as a kid that I could evolve the Squirtles in the valley stage for a while. Don't know what made me outright stop believing but it may have just been having access to the internet by a certain point.

Ninetails would come out of the lava, run to short gap, pose and jump off to the right.

Add me to the list. I was actually just talking about this the other day playing snap. It’s crazy that I remember the same method and spot as everyone else.

Golduck and wigglytuff are definitely in my memory but I was young so I don’t remember them counting it.. It was probably just us hanging around as kids claiming we’ve found something in it and then we just rolled with it and spread the rumor to next kid lol

Between this game and Pokémon Stadium, there’s so much confusion

gonna be honest, i played that game heaps as a kid and never remember seeing golduck

I hadn't realised Speedlore was officially ended. Gutted!

I don't think I ever thought Golduck was real, but I think I had dreams about it. Like people have said, the evolution style, placement, and similar looking Pokémon in the River stage are all factors. This is why this was my favorite game growing up -- there was nothing quite like that indescribable feeling of seeing a new Pokémon for the first time. It was the stuff of dreams -- and even -- nightmare fuel. I remember throwing the cartridge in the trash and crying when I discovered Slowbro but didn't snap him in time (I then recovered the cartridge from the trash, of course). Something about how impermanent the photos are (unless you save them to the album) is mesmerizing. That being said... you gotta make a video about double-Slowbro! That shit blew my mind. Feketerigo, Sukige, and Roundy are demons.

I swore there was a golduck at the same point, i couldnt remember the details through, but the stump did seem to be part of it, but realised it wasnt on my recent playthrough.

My parents had a habit of obsessing over documentation for new products, so whenever they'd purchase a new video game, they would also purchase the corresponding Prima guide, believing it to be important. I was usually the one dispelling urban legends among my friends because of those guides. No fun allowed. Needless to say, the Pokemon Snap Prima guide did not mention any way to obtain Ninetails or Golduck.

I played Pokemon Snap for N64 extensively back in the day, and this is not something I remember at all or even ever heard of. There has to be some other Pokemon media or something where a Vulpix or Psyduck evolve by falling into lava or water or something. The details from people stories match up too well, but I know for a fact that does not happen in Snap N64. Crazy how this stuff happens. Maybe something like this happens in the anime when they meet the character from Snap?

I don’t have a Golduck story in snap, but I remember convincing myself that Vulpix would summon Ninetales. In the beginning area with the Vulpix if you lure them near a lava stream there’s a spot where they stop walking and start clapping their paws and chanting “Vulpix.” I would painstakingly lure all three there, but nothing ever happened.

Not hearing peach say “here we go” is so jarring. I’m actually going to old videos, running your title card or whatever you want to call it and then coming back for the new video.

I wanna share my childhood Mandela just to see if anyone else had in. In Super Smash Bros. Brawl's Subspace Emissary, there's a level (I believe it's called something like The Mountain) where you spend most of the level climbing up a frozen peak with Meta Knight and Ice Climbers. However, at the top, there's a fight where you can choose to be either Meta Knight or Lucario and fight the other. Except, one time my brother and I was messing with the cursor for this fight when selecting our character and got it to let us pick Ice Climbers. They are in the final shot of the cutscene, which usually means the character is playable for the next sequence, but in this case they aren't. We vividly remember that the cursor was properly positioned and the text correctly displayed "Ice Climbers". We did not pick them because we were bad at them but we both remember being given this option. We've never repeated it and never found anyone else that encountered it. Are we alone in this?

I have a weird memory with Pokemon Fire Red specifically. On Mt. Ember, I remember encountering a Machamp and being pretty hyped to capture it. Unfortunately I ended up fainting the thing which bummed out. I remember i spent a good few hours on Mt. Ember, encountering Pokemon over and over, hoping to encounter Machamp again, but no. I checked the pokedex and found out you can't encounter it, so i convinced myself for the longest time that there was probably just 1 Machamp per save. Apparently no such encounter ever existed, ever. But i remember encountering a Machamp on Mt. Ember specifically. Now I'm wondering if i accidentally did some kind of glitch or something that spawned a Machamp.

I am constantly remembering things "wrong" but I keep having near-death experiences and I swear I shift to an alternate reality instead of dying... Help...

I kid you not, when this came out on the N64/switch version, while playing this level, I tried to get the golduck to appear and told my wife who has never played the game, “that this used work, why can’t I get it”. What the heck.

I don't remember Golduck in SNAP but I do remember thinking the log thing would work and trying to get that to happen over and over. Never did.

I encountered a Mandela Effect a while back, when I found out that Lopunny doesn't actually learn the move Acrobatics in Pokémon Diamond, Pearl & Platinum. Yet I distinctly remember that it should be able to. Though I recently did some research, and found out that it must have been that one time my starter was Chimchar. Since it can eventually learn the move. I usually play through the game with Turtwig. Every time I catch Buneary, except that one time when I choose Chimchar.

I also remember Golduck being in the game, in that exact same way. BUT, I also have a theory as to what might be why for folks. It's a MASSIVE stretch, but maybe some modified and not quite legal carts got put out there that looked legitimate - and had Golduck in it? Since it's really weird that so many people - with no contact between them - remember the exact same thing.

I've got a false memory that i tried many times to recreate several times from Mario Kart 64. On Sherbet land there is giant penguin in the middle of the track on an iceberg. i remember there being a cinematic camera pan showing off the penguin when you saw the track for the first time or something. i tried resetting my game and beating the game several times to make it happen again. i eventually concluded it must have been a dream or something. Imagine my surprise 10ish years later playing Mario Kart Wii for the first time and the NEAR EXACT SAME cinematic camera pans across the penguin in the middle. i was shook. i tried explaining this to my brother but no one could understand it like could. how could someone believe a story like that.

I really hope that some day we find weird limited cartridges that somehow made it into production and only a few kids got. This is a near total impossibility, but it would blow so many minds.

My brother and I both have a shared Mandela Effect for Pokemon Gold & Silver, where Lapras had an evolution, and the Pokemon they evolved into was pink and had a very dressy wavy style to it, not unlike Blissey, the Chancey evolution... Later, we thought it must've been us confusing parts of Lapras and Chancey, particularly how they both have the curly ears, and simply misremembering Blissey themselves as a Lapras evolution, somehow, but man... it's still pretty vivid, this image of a larger Blissey-like Lapras evolution. And strange that my bro remembers the same thing.

There was a rumour at my school that once Trev has gone down to the platform in Cradle, you could shoot him without going down there yourself. I tried and tried, but you can't even see him until you go down there yourself

I see Golduck, i somehow get pulled through the algo and click

I actually remember a rumor my older brother used to believe in when we were kids. He was told, probably by the internet, that if you lured the Pikachu in Tunnel towards the egg symbol on the wall where Haunter flies and then play the Poké Flute, Pikachu will somehow break through the wall and emerge from the other side as a Raichu. I tried it myself after he told me and we both learned pretty quickly it wasn't possible. That pattern on the wall was just a blunt hint at what was needed to hatch the egg, but someone must've hoped it stood for much more. I also read online through a website called SuperCheats that some people swore on their parents' lives that you could take a Blink-And-You-Miss-It snap of Mewtwo as Mew teleports away after you force it into pic taking range. That I also tested and proved to be untrue, and it was through trying all these rumors and claims that I discovered MUK was the 63rd Pokémon I was missing the entire time.

I remember this myth from when I was a kid....but I don't recall it being a Mandela effect, I recall it being one of those standard pre-internet "friend from school told me" gaming urban legends that were all over 90's childhoods....it's funny it was traded around so much that it's now fully gaslighted people and become a Mandela effect

It’s possible that some of these individuals may have had dreams about evolving Psyduck into Golduck, and are conflating dreams with memories. Cecile’s story in particular sounds like a dream, due to the specific and consistent details they described, and the fact they acknowledged it to be false memory.

Golduck is one of Nintendo favourite pokemon. Appearing in all mainline Pokemon games. It is quite odd the pokemon does not appear in Snap.

My Golduck worked at Nintendo and said he was in the game.

I never had this misunderstanding bc I was obsessed with snap as a kid and teen so I do have encyclopedic knowledge of the 63 pokemon in this game. But I can see how some people could misremember this because the tree stumps in the water are similar to the craters in volcano and the stumps with bulbasaur earlier in river. Throwing something into the stump wouldn't be out of the question for how the game hides some species

The fruit of the loom logo definitely had a cornucopia reality is broken someone should fix it

No

WAIT NINE TAILS ISNT IN SNAP I had no idea, but gold duck, I never thought that was true.

I am here to be the killer of fun. I used to play this a lot as a kid. I remember psyduck very well. I dont remember golduck ever appearing.

I am dying for you to make more random content like this, even if the content isn't random, just make videos man, I love your content!

I think Cloyster showing right after psyduck is what make people misremembering a Golduck into existence. They both have a similar color scheme and Cloyster is not an interesting sight to remember forever. Since he just levitates out of the water and does a very slow spin before getting back underwater. Also, You can ignore the shellders and he will still show up anyway. People remember a fully evolved blue Pokémon after the psyduck's zone and don't remember any special interaction with Shellders and voila they think it was Golduck.

This made me find out that both golduck and ninetails werent in pokemon snap. I remember golduck walking around the cave stage specifically, which makes this even more weird for me.

New Pokemon Mandela Effect: Shelder in Pokemon RBY could once clamp onto Slowpoke from menu to evolve to Slowbro at any level(similar to Abra teleport to Pokemon center)

For whatever obscure reason, I had two copies of snap 64 as a child. And I played them A LOT to say the least. I distinctively remember it only having 63 pokemon. And I do not remember Golduck, and I most DEFINITELY don't remember Ninetatails.

LOL! I specifically "remember" that there was ONE TIME where I used Splash with Magikarp and it actually did DAMAGE! I would have been about 8 or 9, playing Red version on my GBC. So from there on out, I figured Splash has like a 1/1000 chance to actually deal damage. Super fun stuff.

I have a Mandela effect revolving Golduck, I COULD HAVE SWORN GOLDUCKS’ SHINY WAS PINK, DIS ANYONE ELSE BELIEVE THAT??? Idk what it is, I forgot, but I remember checking a month ago and figuring out that his shiny was not pink.

"Well yeah, of course I got a picture of Golduck in Pokemon Snap! Gold-Duck is the yellow one, right?"

Great topic and video. This phenomenon is really interesting and I enjoyed your analysis and research. I never played pokemon snap much but I am convinced that the case is strong as to why there should be a golduck or ninetails evolution in this game.

Wait...he wasnt in snap? I thought i remembered psyduck turning into golduck when hit with a pesterball 😢

My biggest question is how did two people used the term 'straddling' to refer to whatever they were trying to say it was doing.

Imagine any pokemon hitting Golduck with DIG in pokemon stadium, this is where the 'stomp' comes from