When I first heard about the Mandela effect, like you, I dismissed it and never really looked into it further. Somehow, it came back on my path because of the following: In the '80's there was some news that brought singer Julio Iglesias in the news. Now, he was very populair in Europe at the time, so this might not have been news everywhere.
The news came out that aside from the two sons he had at the time (Enrique and Julio Jr.) he also had another son out of wedlock, who was actually older than the other two. Now, I KNOW that this happened, because my parents were up in arms about it (my mother being a fan) and the guy got into the news quite a bit. He also looked just like his father, even had a little hit song himself (probably a pay-off of some kind) and he had a relationship with Princess Stephanie of Monaco (you know, the problem child). One day, I was talking to someone about that, tried to find him online (I had done that some years before, without any issues) and could not find him. Not only that, every info about this event was gone. There was nothing I could find about Julio's illegitimate son. Nothing whatsoever. So what happened? Did the guy and all of his memory just disappear? Wiped out so to speak. I know for a fact that what I'm saying is true, because I asked my brother and sister, and they remembered him...
That's when I read about the Mandela Effect again, and realized, it could be something like that. That, or Julio Iglesias used his money and influence for more sinister things...