Reverse speech

Reverse speech is a theory first put forward by David John Oates[?] claiming that every time a human speaks they convey two related sentences only one of which we can hear naturally. The second message is embedded backwards into the person's speech.

This means that if a person's statement was recorded and played backwards, the speaker's unconscious thoughts could be heard. The most famous recording which is claimed demonstrates this is the speech given by Neil Armstrong at the time of the moon landing, played backwards the words "man will spacewalk" can be clearly heard.

However it has been argued that without prompting no one would hear this phrase, and only once we had been told what to listen for would we hear it.

External references

• Scientific analysis of Reverse Speech (http://www.skeptics.com.au/journal/revspeech1.htm)
• David Oates website (http://www.reversespeech.com)