I don't know if it was a tactical time weapon to avert MAD or the Texas Superconducting Super Collider that was cancelled in this timeline- but I'm confident that we are in the alternate timeline. How it happened, I don't know- but it did. The SSC was over 3 times more powerful than this timeline's LHC collider at CERN. LHC was able to find Higgs Bosons which give particles mass. I think in the other time the SSC was able to find whatever it is that gives space a time component and also the time anti-particle that annihilates time.

In any case, I don't know how it happened, but I know it did and somehow some information transferred to this time line. Specifically, for me knowledge of a scar that I never had until this week. I remember always having a scar on my right temple, but in this time I've ignored the memory because I've had a lipoma in that spot for years. However, this week I had the lipoma removed and now I'm developing the exact scar and accompanying nerve damage I always remember having. I remember it right on my face, but the growth has kept me distracted.

I think this may also be where the Mandela Effect comes from, because many of the changes people remember occurred around the time that the SSC was canceled and it's funding was redirected to the International Space Station and Space Cooperation with the Russians.