The science behind backmasking

From Wikiback

In November 1985, American Psychologist published "Subliminal Messages: Between the Devil and the Media" by John R. Vokey and J. Don Read. In this report, a series of tests are summarized indicating that there are no effects on a listener of messages that allegedly had been recorded backward into popular rock music.

What is meant by "recorded backward into"? It referes to reversing a portion of recorded sound or speech, which is then sort of "pasted" onto a forward track of a song. The result is usually that you can tell that this has been done. Though many refere to this as "backmasking", it doesn't do a good job at hiding or "masking" the fact that there may be a hidden message. Effectively hiding or masking the existence of such requires the use of "Phonetic Reversal". This referes to speaking (or singing) in such a way that a word or phrase also has a meaning if played in reverse.

Often the reality of this latter kind of backmasking is questioned simply because it seems impossible to achieve. But it really isn't that difficult. Unless of course you want to sound good and SELLABLE forward. Let's try it: We want to produce the simple sound-check term "Testing". What would that sound like backwards? Something like "NGIT-SET". Now we find something that mimmicks NGIT-SET. That's the hard part (especially if we wanted to create something elaborate) How about this: "The truth - knowiNGIT-SET us free". Record it and play it backwards on any Windows Sound Recorder Utility.(start>programs>accessories>entertainment>sound recorder). After you experiment for a while you may notice that a lot of effort goes into these things, and that after a lot of deliberate planning and execution the end-result sounds often like coincidence or that others cannot understand your "message" unless you tell them what it is. Like much of the rest of backmasking.