Site-Seeing -- ''The World Of Reverse Speech'' Reverse Speech Enterprises

Web site review

XX 1/2 "The World of Reverse Speech" Reverse Speech Enterprises http://www.reversespeech.com

Actually this Web site is a load of bull and I can't believe I'm writing about it.

Did I say that?

Guess someone will have to record me talking about "The World of Reverse Speech" and then play my words backward to find out what I truly think.

If any of this sounds vaguely reminiscent of "Paul is dead" (as in the Beatles) or satanic messages allegedly embedded in "Stairway to Heaven" (Led Zeppelin), well, it should.

Except Australian researcher David John Oates maintains he's really on to something, and whether you believe him or not, his Web site is worth checking out. Using Seattle-based RealNetworks' RealAudio player technology to "prove" his point, the site features a number of examples.

Take the case of Susan Smith, the woman who drove her car in a lake and drowned her children. Before her arrest, she pleads to the people who "kidnapped" her babies to look after them."I am constantly praying each day that they are taking care of them and giving them the necessities that they need to survive," she said.

But, with the audio played in reverse, she is heard to say: "Made a big gamble up."

An extensive collection of Bill Clinton clips includes a conversation he had during a TV talk show with a woman caller who notes she graduated from high school with Hillary in 1965. She wants to know if the class would be able to hold its 30th high-school reunion at the White House.

Clinton's response appears to be friendly and courteous when he says, "That's a decision for her (Hillary) to make, but I'll bet you she would like to welcome you here at the White House. . . . I will tell her that you asked."

But buried in reverse speech - again played at various speeds so it sounds as if the President is on a bad acid trip or has taken way too much Novacain - we learn that he really said: "Some nerve, that gal that's on the phone."

Oates, who lives in San Diego, maintains that if you run speech backward, "every 10 seconds or so you can hear these clear and precise phrases" that reveal our true thoughts.

He is amassing evidence, he says, to show the hidden communications in everyday speech. He contends language contains two messages: the "forward" speech we consciously construct, and the "backward" speech the unconscious mind creates. As we talk to one another, we invisibly intuit the reverse side. "We're actually processing the backward phrases of others all the time," he says.

"It sounds bizarre when you first come across it, but I'm very serious about it," he says. "I've got lots of evidence to back it up. . . . I'm slowly being listened to."

How can you resist a site that plays to our curiosity, intuitions and general belief that, no matter what someone says, you find yourself wondering, "What did he really mean by that?"

"Related links" toward the bottom of the home page leads to sites such as "Backward Masking" and "007 International Detectives." There's also a link to speech-reversal samples submitted by true-believers. But because they have not been trained in "Reverse Speech location techniques," those submissions carry a disclaimer warning that some "may not be as clear as other reversal presented on this site and Reverse Speech Enterprises does not necessarily endorse these reversals as being legitimate." - Peter Lewis Seattle Times staff reporter