Skeptical Humanities

Hi again, everybody!

Jane Curtain & I investigated the Reverse Speech theory in 1997. We found ourselves unable to hear more than a few very short reversals in Oates’ material; even these were short accidental approximate reversals of unconnected FS sequences (as in it’s an honour). In other cases, any resemblance between FS and alleged RS was minimal; for instance, Neil Armstrong’s … small step for man (said on the Moon in 1969) does not reverse to Man will space-walk, as is claimed; the consonants, especially, do not match. However, we found that we were being distracted by Oates’ continual prompting on his video and audio tapes, which induce listeners to hear the alleged RS sequences. Because of this effect and the requirement to subject the RS theory to empirically sounder testing, we turned to experimentation.

Oates’ description of his own experimental methodology is repeatedly obscure and ambiguous, and he is generally reluctant to answer questions seeking clarification (or else repeatedly fails to understand exactly what information is required). The replication of his experiments is thus somewhat uncertain. Nevertheless, we replicated the experiments as best we could; additional variants were introduced where this was thought potentially useful. Forty subjects, divided into four groups of ten, participated in the preliminary experiment. Six short recordings of alleged RS sequences were taken from Oates’ audio tapes and were reproduced in written form. Each group of subjects experienced a different set of procedures:

Group A: The Group A response sheets listed the six written sequences, without any identification of the speakers.

Group B: The Group B response sheets listed six written sequences, which were entirely different from the RS sequences alleged by Oates, but which displayed a) the same number of syllables and b) similar or the same vowel phonemes, within each sequence.

Group C: Group C subjects were not provided with a written list of the alleged RS sequences. They were, however, told that an intelligible sentence was present in each of the six recordings.

Group D: Group D subjects were not provided with a written list of the alleged RS sequences, and they were told NOT told that there WAS an intelligible sentence in each of the six recordings but that there MIGHT be such a sentence.

Groups A and B subjects were asked to tick those sentences which they could clearly hear in the extracts played to them, or to circle any syllables, words or sequences of syllables or words, shorter than the sentences, which they could hear. Groups C and D subjects were asked to record (in normal orthography) any clearly intelligible sequences in English which they could hear, whether these formed the whole of a given extract or only a part of it.

The Group A subjects provided a significantly greater number of ‘correct’ responses than did the other three groups, and the Group B subjects provided a greater number of ‘correct’ sentences than did Groups C and D. In respect of words and syllables, the Group D subjects provided a greater number of ‘correct’ responses than the Group C subjects. It is clear from these results that suggestion (prompting) is a major factor in the hearing of alleged RS sequences. Where the vowel phonemes were the same as those proposed by Oates, 32% of the relevant syllables were ‘correctly’ identified; while, for the same participants, where the vowel phonemes were different from those proposed by Oates, only 18% of the syllables were ‘correctly’ identified. A possible explanation for the fact that the Group D subjects had more success than the Group C subjects involves the idea that they concentrated very hard to hear such sequences, whereas the Group C participants initially believed that the sequences would be obvious and gave up attempting to hear such sequences when they proved difficult to hear.

Further, potentially decisive tests of Oates’ claims suggest themselves, notably tests aimed at determining whether information which (as it seems) could not otherwise be known can be obtained from listening to RS sequences. However, Oates has not been willing to co-operate with linguists and psychologists in arranging such tests.

In summary, it appears (as is agreed by most of the linguists and psychologists who have examined Oates’ theories) that RS is an artefact of the listening process, often encouraged by advance prompting in the material (written and oral) provided by Oates.

There are various other skeptical discussions of RS, from various standpoints. Oates and some RS supporters have attempted rebuttal of some of these criticisms, but very few of these responses manifest anything resembling the level of specifically LINGUISTIC expertise required for dealing with the data, and their authors often misinterpret the criticisms and/or fail to understand what further information is required.

As ever, detailed references on request. Next time, I’ll say a little about Backward Masking and related phenomena.

Mark

Hi again, everybody! Yet more on Reverse Speech!

Further implausible, incoherent and/or suspect aspects of the RS theory and Oates’ material include the following:

1) RS should only occasionally yield phonologically/phonetically possible sequences, even in the same language. There will be even fewer cases where the reversed sequence is not only possible but corresponds with a meaningful sequence of morphemes. One example is a reversal of any word terminating in /-r/ followed by the word honesty; in an American accent, this yields a close approximation to the phrase it’s an honour. However, this reversal will, obviously, occur on all occasions when the FS sequence is produced; it does not depend upon the feelings, knowledge etc. of the speaker. The shorter elements commonly reported in alleged reversals are simply the reversed forms of common words or word-parts, although in fact the resemblance is often much weaker than in the above case. For instance, one of Oates’ favourite RS metaphors is that of the ‘wolf’; but the RS word wolf is in fact an inaccurate reformulation of the reversed forms of four, for, etc.

2) Oates lists six ‘guidelines’ or ‘criteria’ on which he claims to rely in determining whether or not a given sequence in reversed speech actually counts as a case of genuine RS. However, most of his leading examples do not meet these six criteria successfully. Indeed, some of the criteria are based on errors as to linguistic facts, and are thus most unlikely to be met:

a) The syllable counts for FS and RS should be identical. This criterion is frequently not met.

b) There should be audible spaces between words in RS. This criterion is invalid: there are not usually any spaces of this kind between words in FS, only potential pauses. Furthermore, such spaces appear to be rare in alleged RS sequences also.

c) The beginnings and ends of the words in RS should be clearly defined. The same objection may be made here as under b).

d) The vowel sounds in RS should be clear and precise. The precise sense of this criterion is unclear.

e) The reversal should be distinct from surrounding ‘gibberish’. The same objection may be made here as under b) (above); but, to the extent that this kind of judgment is possible, the criterion is frequently not met, because the reversal itself is often unclear.

f) The RS phrase should have a ‘continuous, melodious tonal flow’. The sense of this criterion is unclear.

When apprised of these criticisms, Oates argued that RS is so different from FS that objections based on the workings of FS are irrelevant. This idea raises serious methodological issues, but it would allow Oates to claim that criteria b) and c) apply to RS even though they do not apply to FS. However, he at no point makes this explicit; and, given that most non-linguists, relying (as Oates himself does) largely upon spelling, would probably imagine that FS displays these features, it appears likely that Oates originally attributed them to RS because he too believes (or believed) that they apply to FS.

3) Oates claims that very young children begin to produce coherent RS, and, indeed, that they acquire RS well before they acquire FS, in fact as early as the ‘babbling’ stage, in the middle of their first year of life. These claims appear utterly implausible in view of what is known about child language acquisition.

4) Oates’ treatment of phonetics and phonology, including intonation, is superficial, vague, folk-linguistic and inaccurate. He also adopts a naïvely folk-linguistic, prescriptivist approach to the issue of grammaticality and accepts some other folk-linguistic ideas, apparently believing for instance that Sanskrit was the Ursprache (see my 2012 blogs here on ‘fringe’ historical linguistics).

5) In his print and video material, Oates repeatedly prompts listeners with full versions of what he claims they should expect to hear. As work with ‘backward masking’ and replications of Oates’ experiments (see later) demonstrate, this practice is highly suspect. See also earlier on Oates’ inconsistency on this issue.

6) Oates pays little attention to the findings of mainstream psychology, but develops complex, poorly-supported psychological theories, notably on the role of the metaphors he ‘finds’ in RS. Many of the concepts which he associates with RS are in fact of a ‘New Age’ or ‘fringe’ nature.

Along with Jane Curtain, I myself investigated the RS theory in 1997. Details next time!

As ever, detailed references on request.

Mark

Hi again, everybody! I hope you’re all having a great festive season! All the best for 2013!

More on Reverse Speech:

Many of David Oates’ claims about RS are implausible on linguistic grounds, and he does not appear to have read more than superficially in the linguistic literature. And in fact the RS theory is prima facie implausible; it implies the existence of a major species-wide mental apparatus and a set of unconscious mental processes for which there is no other evidence and no persuasive explanation; and it arguably generates paradoxes with respect to the directionality of time.

Oates claims that the content of the messages produced in RS typically relates in a ‘complementary’ manner to that of the messages concurrently being produced in FS (albeit often couched in metaphors requiring analysis and elucidation). RS thus gives additional information to accentuate or strengthen the message of the associated sequence of FS. It may also reveal the speaker’s unconscious or unspoken thoughts, which may be in contradiction with their more conscious thoughts as expressed in FS. Oates believes that RS – being as it is unconsciously generated, free from conscious manipulation and indeed unperceived by the conscious mind – is always reliable as an indication of the speaker’s true opinions and attitudes; in other words, it is impossible to lie in RS, even while lying on the same issue in the equivalent sequence of FS.

Investigators, including trained phoneticians, typically find reversals much more difficult to hear in the absence of information about the corresponding FS, even after repeated listening. It might be granted that if RS were genuine some training might well be needed in order for it to be understood or even heard; but Oates himself, when questioned on this issue, is inconsistent, sometimes claiming that not only experience but training (by his organization) is required in order to hear RS reliably, but elsewhere stating that newcomers to the subject can immediately hear many cases of RS (perhaps after prompting, on which see below). The case for RS would be materially strengthened if several RS analysts could independently ‘find’ the same RS sequences, across a range of examples, without knowledge of the corresponding FS sequences.

Furthermore, the fact that many alleged reversals are supposedly couched in metaphors frequently renders interpretation difficult, even where the content of the FS is known.

Investigation of Oates’ claims is hindered by a number of obscurities in his discussion. The most important of these involves what appears to be a crucial methodological and theoretical inconsistency.

Oates and his followers seek to determine whether or not alleged cases of RS actually involve what he calls at different times ‘phonetic coincidence’, ‘coincidental reversals’ or ‘constants’, by which he means either a) the ‘accidental’ occurrence of very short sequences (typically single short words) which are (almost) the same in FS and RS (‘phonological palindromes’, such as dad) or b) cases in which the reversal of the FS sequence yields another equally possible sequence, so that there is a pair of corresponding forms, each of which is (approximately) the reversal of the other, such as say/yes. He accepts that in such cases the FS and reversed forms correspond consistently, and does not regard cases such as these as genuine examples of RS. (Oates suggest7 that there are some longer sequences such as Don’t regret (it/this) and I love my husband very much which also constitute phonological near palindromes but which he accepts as genuine RS sequences because of their length. However, these are not phonological near palindromes; the reversal of such an utterance is quite unlike the original.)

There are three major problems with Oates’ ideas at this point. Firstly, Oates is not consistent as to which sequences do and do not count as ‘phonetic coincidences’, ‘coincidental reversals’ or ‘constants’, treating very similar short expressions at times as belonging to this special category and at other times as genuine RS. Secondly, Oates’ explanation of the difference between cases of these two kinds is incoherent. His definition of ‘genuine RS’ involves reference to ‘the phonetic construction of the forward speech sounds as they were said in the instant they were captured on tape’; but this definition applies equally well to his ‘phonetic coincidences’ (etc.), and indeed to any reversal of a FS sequence.

Thirdly, Oates seeks to identify and exclude ‘phonetic coincidences’ (etc.) precisely because, if his general theory is to be deemed valid, he obviously has to claim that, in contrast with such cases, ‘genuine’ cases of RS are characterized by the occurrence of different reversed speech forms corresponding with the same FS form on different occasions. In other words, the very same FS sequence spoken by two different individuals, or spoken by the same individual on different occasions and when in different emotional states, may produce entirely different RS sequences. Oates needs to make this claim because he needs to argue that differences in the feelings and knowledge of different speakers uttering the same phrases (in the same accents), emotional shifts on the part of one speaker, or shifts in the style of the discourse, can be displayed through differences in the RS. However, this claim is quite implausible: there is nothing present in RS other than reversed FS sequences, which will obviously differ only to the extent that the FS differs. Certain differences of phonetic detail (including ‘supra-segmental’ effects such as intonation) might appear auditorily more salient in reverse than they do forwards; but this phenomenon could not account for the global differences between different reversals of the very same FS sequences which Oates often identifies. Neither could minor accent differences in FS have more than minor effects on the form of RS sequences.

In addition, if Oates’ distinction between ‘phonetic coincidences’ (etc.) and ‘genuine’ RS were accepted, evidence that a given FS sequence did not produce the RS sequence posited by Oates when reversed could be countered with the claim that there was no reason why it should produce the same RS sequence on different occasions. This obviously reduces the reproducibility of Oates’ investigations. Although there is no reason to accept Oates’ stance on this issue, careful replications of Oates’ experiments have used the recordings provided by Oates himself, so as to avoid such objections.

As ever, detailed references on request. More on RS next time!

Mark

Hi again, everybody!

I turn here to another alleged phenomenon involving mysterious aspects of ‘normal’ language: ‘reversals’ and similar phenomena, including ‘Reverse Speech’ and special cases of ‘backward masking’.

Reverse Speech (henceforth RS) is a theory and an associated set of practices developed by David Oates and his followers. Oates, who has no background or qualifications in linguistics or other relevant subjects, is the ‘discoverer’ of RS. Oates began to develop his theory of RS in 1984, when he was managing a ‘half way house’ for ‘street kids’ in Berri, South Australia. He heard that an American evangelist was travelling through Australia preaching that rock and roll was ‘the Devil’s music’ and that if one played such music backwards one would hear strange, evil messages (see later). Oates found himself unable to refute these claims and eventually became convinced that backwards phrases existed not only in music lyrics (whether deliberately inserted or otherwise) but also in all human speech, and often quite spontaneously, with no deliberate insertion being required. He decided that these ‘reversals’ were systematic and of great significance; he and his then colleague Greg Albrecht produced the first book on RS. (Albrecht later claimed that Oates had ‘stolen’ his ideas.) Subsequently Oates produced a further book, and he and his followers have continued to publish on RS. By the mid-1990s there were many leaflets, articles and web-site entries produced by RS devotees, but many of these texts are naïvely expressed and argued, and the content is also rather repetitive.

Oates’ basic theory involves the claim that normal forward speech (henceforth FS), if heard in reverse, often yields short (1 2 seconds) sequences of intelligible syllables, at short intervals (often of only a few seconds). The RS sequences are supposedly accessed by simply recording a passage of FS and playing the tape in reverse. They represent genuine words or grammatically ‘correct’/normal phrases (normally in the same language as the FS; certainly in the language in which an adult speaker is thinking), mixed in amongst the ‘gibberish’ which one would expect to hear in reversed speech.

Oates believes that RS is another product of the important mental processes which generate normal FS. As the brain is constructing and delivering the sounds of speech, two messages are communicated simultaneously. One message (FS) is communicated forward and listeners hear and respond to it consciously, while the other (RS) is communicated in reverse and listeners hear and respond to it unconsciously. According to Oates, the existence of RS partly accounts for the apparent ability of human beings to obtain (sometimes) more information from a conversation or other interaction than is expressed in FS; in other words, it provides a physical basis for phenomena such as ‘intuition’ or ‘the sixth sense’. (Some of Oates’ supporters, such as Jim Stutt, argue that RS arose during the early history of Homo sapiens to compensate for the loss by most humans of active telepathic ability as language – in its FS form – became more important. (Compare the ideas of Julian Jaynes.)

Oates and his followers have applied the analysis of RS in various practical domains, some of them involving matters of great sensitivity and potential harm. If RS is not genuine, this work is valueless at best and quite possibly extremely damaging. The areas in question include child psychology, alleged cases of child molestation, other alleged criminal offences (this includes the ‘O. J. Simpson’ case) and the analysis and treatment of sexual and other personal problems and issues more generally. In addition, the RS enterprise has come to have an overtly commercial character. At one stage, one hour of tape analysis (typically involving much less than one hour of analysable tape) cost as much as $US125, or $US200 if performed by Oates himself.

As ever, detailed references on request. More on RS next time!

Mark

Hi again, everybody!

If extraterrestrial aliens genuinely visit Earth, it is obviously possible in principle that they may be able to learn to use contemporary human languages, and indeed it is frequently reported that aliens have been able to learn and use the languages known by the witnesses, or other human languages ancient or modern. For example, Marc Tolosano reports a (single-witness) case where ‘ufonauts’ allegedly encountered in 1983 in France spoke French fluently (and claimed that their species was familiar with all human languages).

There is a sub-set of cases of this general nature which involve alleged contemporary extraterrestrial knowledge of unexpected human languages, notably ancient languages such as Latin and Greek. M.H. Edwards (see earlier) discusses several cases of this kind. Obviously, one possible explanation for such ability (if genuine) involves visits to Earth in ancient times and the subsequent transmission of the knowledge acquired at that time (or the retention of the knowledge by aliens with very long life-spans).

John Dean reports contact with aliens from various planets, notably one known as Korender. His account involves a common interplanetary language called Galingua, which, is allegedly the source of Latin by way of ancient contact, or else has a common ancestor with Latin. Galingua and the language of Korender are both spelled alphabetically (with thirty-nine wholly novel letters with names bearing no relation to their phonetic values) and ‘phonetically’ (presumably this means ‘phonemically’); in Korendian, however, pronouns and numerals (cardinal and ordinal) are apparently represented logographically, with single symbols, despite being polyphonemic. Dean offers (often using non-standard terminology) a brief summary of Korendian grammar (very regular but otherwise suspiciously Indo-European in character, with only a few intriguing features) and punctuation, and a vocabulary.

Paul von Ward ascribes special status and universal applicability to the devanagari script used for Sanskrit and to the language itself. Like many non-mainstream writers on Indian matters, he ignores/rejects what has been learned about the Indo-European origins of the language, and he implausibly interprets Sanskrit and its script as the ultimate ancestors of all later languages and alphabets, which have allegedly deteriorated and suffered from loss of phonetic range and expressive power. He attributes the invention of devanagari to ‘Advanced Beings’, extraterrestrial or inter-dimensional beings whose activities are reflected in myths around the world. Von Ward is more widely read in linguistics (as in some other disciplines) than most such promoters of ‘ancient astronauts’, but his ‘understanding’ of the subject is very uneven and idiosyncratic.

One example of alleged extraterrestrial knowledge of ancient human languages involves the work of Paul Potter, who upholds the veracity of the very strange ‘messages’ which well-known abductee Betty Andreasson (now Luca) reportedly received (over a long period) from alien entities. Those which are not in English are simply strings of words familiar or otherwise, drawn (often with some distortion) from Latin, Greek and other languages; most of them are Latin or Greek words or English/pseudo-English words based or apparently based on these languages. Where a word exists in inflected forms in the source language, the citation (dictionary) form is virtually always the one which appears here, and there is no grammatical structure. The sequences do not exemplify language in use; they are lists of words. Potter translates the ‘messages’, adding grammar as is convenient to his proposed message. It is not at all clear why aliens would communicate like this; if they knew Latin or Greek, they could surely write in these languages. Human fakers (who may not actually be familiar with Latin or Greek but who could easily possess dictionaries and a conversion table for the Greek alphabet) must be suspected.

There are in fact other cases involving UFOs where a string of the citation forms of words taken from a foreign language is presented as if it were a meaningful sentence. One such case arose in the Garden Grove abduction case of 1975, later acknowledged as a hoax. The sequence (allegedly channelled) was nous laos hikanō (early Greek: ‘mind’, ‘people’ as in we the people, ‘[I] come’). A gloss ‘I come in the mind of man’ was offered; but all three forms are citation forms, and the grammar has merely been added by the translator. (See Larson, 2002.) Another case involves what appears to be a single Modern Greek word (in Greek script) in the written material displayed on artefacts supposedly associated with the Roswell Incident/Alien Autopsy case. However, the word includes a common spelling error grounded in the ignorance of many less-educated native speakers about the origin of the form. This again suggests the possibility of fakery.

Other UFO advocates also proclaim human languages (ancient or modern) as currently used by aliens. Often, the actual origin of the favoured language is said to be extraterrestrial (which would obviously require adjustment to accounts of the relevant human language ‘families’). The best current example is the Aetherius Society, founded by George King. The Society – like von Ward (see above) and other non-mainstream writers on India – ignores what has been learned about the Indo-European origins of Sanskrit, and regards it not merely as the ancestor of all human speech but as vastly ancient and the main lingua franca of a whole series of inhabited planets. They consider that it was ‘scientifically and metaphysically’ devised and is derived from fifty primeval sounds (which, by way of misconceptualisation, they confuse with the ‘alphabetic’ letters used to write the sounds of the language); these sounds themselves are derived from features of the Chakras (supposed energy vortices in the ‘subtle’ body of a human being).

The extraterrestrial ‘master’ Aetherius was extensively channelled by King, providing links with this complex inhabited universe and normally using King’s own Southern English English. The skeptical astronomer Patrick Moore exposed King’s claim that Aetherius/King could handle questions in any human language; the medium was nonplussed by very simple questions in Norwegian and even French.

As matters stand, the provisional skeptical conclusion on the reality of extraterrestrial languages (spoken and/or written) and on extraterrestrial knowledge of human languages must be that no known case is truly convincing.

As ever, detailed references on request. More next time!

Mark

Hi again, everybody!

Some reports of entire UFO-related languages involve alleged ancient visits to Earth by extraterrestrials; otherwise unknown scripts presumably encoding otherwise unknown languages of alien origin are described. For example, George Hunt Williamson reports that some Amerindian tribal peoples live close to rock faces (some of them known as ‘Rocks of Writing’) upon which mysterious ‘hieroglyphs’ are carved; they deny any connection with these symbols, regarding them as ‘timeless’. (Shades of the Bradshaw Paintings of Western Australia!) Williamson attributes the symbols to extraterrestrial entities who visited the area in ancient times. However, it is not in fact clear that these symbols are linguistic or even symbolic in character, still less that they are of genuinely mysterious origin.

One especially dramatic case of this kind (albeit ultimately lacking any corroboration) involves not written language but 716 grooved stone disks thirty centimetres in diameter, hardened with cobalt and displaying central holes, which were reportedly discovered in the Bayan Kara Ula mountain range in Western China in the period 1938-1962. It is suggested that these disks can be compared with vinyl records and may contain much data. The story presented recounts that a scholar called Tsum Um Nui (whose existence has not been confirmed) claimed that the grooves contained script and eventually announced a decipherment; the translation offered (the details were later disputed) indicated that the disks were artefacts of the inhabitants of an extraterrestrial spacecraft which landed in the area around 12,000 years BP and was unable to take off again. The oral legends of local tribes-people apparently referred to a massacre by their remote ancestors of small-statured, ‘ugly’ newcomers; this description was interpreted as referring to the aliens. The case was allegedly published in 1965 by Chi Pu Tei as ‘The Grooved Script Concerning Spaceships Which, as Recorded on the Discs, Landed on Earth 12,000 Years Ago’. This matter has been a ‘favourite’ among believers in extraterrestrial visits to Earth.

One Karyl Robin-Evans (1980), supposedly published posthumously, allegedly contacted a small-statured tribe known as the Dropa in the same general area. The Dropa believed that their ancestors were not human but had come from the Sirius system; after a crash-landing in the remote past which brought them to Earth, many were massacred, but the community was able to survive and eventually became the Dropa. This legend was interpreted as referring to the Bayan Kara Ula event. The story appeared suspicious to interested parties of all persuasions, and much later David Gamon (1995) admitted that he had been the hoaxer. It appears probable that the entire case is itself a hoax; but, in any event, if the disks ever existed they have now apparently disappeared, and further study is thus (at present) impossible.

Some other claims of this general type are even more extreme, for instance the utterly implausible claims (linguistic and other) surrounding ‘Mantong’, which (as I have recounted elsewhere) is said to be an ancient language/script reconstructed from the English names of the letters of the Roman alphabet and various short English words associated with these. The background story (often termed ‘the Shaver Mystery’) involves alleged subterranean humanoid but non-human beings known as the ‘dero’ (degenerate and wicked) and the ‘tero’ (good), the products of a disaster which occurred 20,000 years BP.

In like vein, Alexandre St. Yves d’Alveydre reported that the ancient ‘Vattanian’ language, along with an alphabet of 22 letters (suspiciously corresponding one-to-one with those featured in Indian, Hebrew, Roman and other human scripts), was revealed to him in 1885 by a race of beings living in the paradise of Agartha. The Vattanian vocabulary allegedly expresses archetypal notions and some of its words and concepts supposedly persist in human languages; there is, predictably, little attention to matters of grammar.

Some Latter-Day Saints sources continue to promote the veracity of the ‘Reformed Egyptian’ in their Book of Abraham and other texts associated with The Pearl of Great Price. Some of the texts are read as referring to other inhabited planets, which feature in LDS theology (notably, the supreme planet ‘Kolob’. When the early LDS leaders claimed that this was the language of the plates which an angel lent to them to be mystically translated, Egyptian had not yet been deciphered, but the small pieces of genuine Egyptian text presented in LDS sources were already known at the time and have subsequently been interpreted quite differently.

There are also cases where alien linguistic items are said to have been ‘borrowed’ into human languages (spoken and/or written) – or where humans themselves are said to be of extraterrestrial origin, which is reflected in some linguistic features. For instance, Brian Crowley and Anthony Pollock hold that the builders of the alleged monuments on Mars (such as the ‘Face on Mars’) were themselves human; the species initially evolved (contrary to all appearances) on Mars and only later migrated to Earth as local conditions worsened. They trace various names and other words, found in Welsh, Irish Gaelic, Egyptian, South American languages, etc., to a Martian language. Of course, as with channellers of ‘Atlantean’ and other such material, they are free to propose any forms which they believe might lie behind the human language data, claiming that their extraterrestrial sources provide corroboration.

As ever, detailed references on request. More next time!

Mark

Hi again, everybody! I’m back!

Some specific claims regarding relatively ‘orthodox’ communication systems (‘languages’) reported as used in the context of alleged contact with extraterrestrial entities. As ever, detailed references on request.

One especially prominent advocate of the reality of extraterrestrial languages of a more ‘orthodox’ nature is Mary Rodwell (Perth, Western Australia). Rodwell organises support groups for ‘experiencers’ (most of them ‘abductees’) and produces books, videos etc. on the subject, with samples of the written and spoken forms of alien languages as well as alien-inspired artwork. Rodwell promotes the view that these experiences represent actual physical happenings. Her ideas are discussed at length in the ‘Alien Semiotics Project’ papers mentioned earlier. The spoken and written material cited by Rodwell is produced by ‘experiencers’ rather than directly by aliens; the forms and sequences are outlined in largely self-reported case studies, notably that of the repeat-experiencer Tracey Taylor. The written material has the appearance of text written ‘grass-stroke’ style in a range of large alphabets, syllabaries or (parts of) logographies. There is too little material in each sample to be more confident, especially in the absence of useful translations. In fact, the translations offered for both the spoken and the written material are typically holistic only; they represent entire messages rather than individual words or phrases. Morpheme-by-morpheme translations are not available, and this point is actually emphasised by Rodwell. This conveniently excuses Taylor and others from being asked to assist linguists seeking to analyse the languages in the normal way by breaking utterances down into meaningful units and analyses using substitution and other such exercises.

Other cases involving alleged extraterrestrial languages include one presented by Janet and Colin Bord, who report the alleged finding (by John Reeves) of paper bearing an unintelligible manuscript; as this finding immediately followed a UFO sighting (in 1965), the material was interpreted as alien (‘Martian’) in origin. A decipherment was later offered but with no authority or conviction. A similar case, also reported by Bord & Bord, involves the ‘Silpho Moor Disk’ (eighteen centimetres wide) found in Yorkshire, UK, in 1957, containing copper foil sheets and bearing ‘hieroglyphic’ inscriptions on both disk and sheets. These too were ‘deciphered’ as containing extraterrestrial messages. Bord & Bord refer also to the similar texts presented by George Adamski and to the supposed links with Marcel Homet’s work (see above).

One very forthcoming reporter was the 1960s contactee Bernard Byron, who claimed fluency in seventeen written and spoken extraterrestrial languages (some of them extrasolar) and was happy to provide specific translations. He was interviewed by the skeptical astronomer Patrick Moore, but unfortunately his material was never recorded at sufficient length for useful linguistic analysis.

Allen Greenfield commences from the alleged oddity of the names reportedly given by extraterrestrial aliens for themselves, and argues that aliens (and now contactees) are in fact using a Kabbalistic cipher which is related to the Roman alphabet as used to write English.

The experiences recounted by Alec Newald, who had a ‘missing time’/UFO-abduction experience, involved ‘telepathy’; but he does report a series of written single numerical symbols corresponding with the integers 0-12 (suggesting that the aliens use Base-13 or a higher base, see below on Jim Sparks).

Another set of claims involves the ‘Wingmakers’, extraterrestrial beings (‘a specialized training faction of the Central Race that – for the most part – is not incarnate in a physical form’) who have allegedly provided contactees with large amounts of information ‘translated from a language that does not easily translate to human definitions’. This belief system arose from the claimed discovery in 1996 of an alien artefact near Chaco Canyon in New Mexico.

The ufologist George Hunt Williamson claimed to have experienced many communications with aliens – some through devices resembling ouija boards. Although he uses the term tongue (‘language’), the linguistically novel elements of these communications very largely involved only individual alien names and other single words. In addition, Williamson presents a series of some 81 symbols, channelled to his associates in 1952 and identified as the ‘Solex-Mal’ system. Each symbol is linked with an alien word spelled out in the Roman alphabet. Some of the symbols form structurally-related series, and, where symbols form such a series (and thus share features), the associated words are phonetically similar. A number of the symbols/words are provided with English glosses (words or phrases). Williamson also promotes bizarre etymologies and analyses involving the mystical significance of the positions of letters in words, such as English ladder and its earlier form with initial h-.; he links these claims with his views on alien contact with humanity extending over the centuries. See also later on Williamson and the ‘Rocks of Writing’.

Another case involving alphabetic writing is that of Jim Sparks, who claimed to have been taught an alien alphabet in which the number and direction of the strokes making up each character was crucially important (or so perceived). Suspiciously, the characters correspond directly with the letters of the Roman alphabet (except Q, X and Z) – or with integer symbols, but only 1-6 (this might suggest use of Base-7, comparable with the Base-13 suggested by Newald’s data as reported above). In writing, the alien users of the system would place one symbol over another, until only a black spot was visible, although Sparks believed that the aliens could still resolve this into characters when reading. Sparks was initially taught to read alien texts from right to left but was later presented with texts arranged in circular form.

There are various cases in which no coherent account of alien language could be provided but where individual alien words or unintelligible alien speech were reportedly heard or where witnesses later attempted to imitate or reproduce alien speech-sounds without any understanding, and other cases involving unintelligible symbols (sometimes possibly non-linguistic in nature) reportedly observed on alien craft.

More next time, involving alleged ancient visits to Earth by extraterrestrials!

Mark

Hi again, everybody!

A short blog this time, presenting ‘theoretical’ aspects of claims regarding languages reported as used in the context of alleged contact with extraterrestrial entities.

Last time I discussed this issue as it applies to reports of (relatively) humanoid aliens. If the alien users of the alleged extraterrestrial languages were instead markedly NON-humanoid – and this might be considered more plausible, given their wholly exotic planetary and evolutionary origin – the languages themselves would very probably be even more dramatically different from known human languages. They would be such as would fit the alien physiology, psychology, home planetary environment etc.; partly for that reason, they would be very likely to infringe some of the main typological patterns which prevail across the range of human languages and indeed some human-language universals. They would also, in all probability, display some unfamiliar phonetics, including sounds not found in any human language or indeed sounds which were unpronounceable for humans.

One of the basic distinguishing features of human language (not found in the communication systems of any other known species) is its ‘double articulation’ into a) individually meaningless phonemes and b) meaningful morphemes/words made up of sequences of these phonemes. This is what enables language to express very many word-meanings with such a limited inventory of individual sounds. Another general linguistic universal is the existence and indeed the dominance of syntax (syntactic structure), by means of which words and morphemes are organised into phrases, clauses and sentences; while human languages vary typologically in respect of syntax, it is hardly possible to imagine a human language WITHOUT syntax. It is plausible for features as basic as these to be absent only in cases where UTTERLY non-humanoid beings are described.

In such extreme cases, non-human languages might not be similar to human languages even in more general/superficial terms. For instance, they might not be uttered with remotely similar speech organs, if the alien users’ overall physiology were as different as might be expected. Even if such beings used the auditory-acoustic channel of communication, as with human speech, they might have vastly different vocal apparatus, auditory acuity and frequency range, etc.

In fact, the vocal apparatuses and acuities/hearing ranges of some physically possible types of alien would allow (for example) the avoidance of double articulation, by permitting a language to have thousands of distinguishable phonemes and hence thousands of single-phoneme morphemes without thereby displaying excessive amounts of homophony and ambiguity. But without linguistic expertise the invention of such an utterly alien system, would be EXTREMELY difficult; indeed, the possibility of such a system would scarcely occur to most non-linguists. As things are, however, there are (perhaps predictably) currently NO quasi-factual reports of languages of this kind which manifest the required degrees of expertise and plausibility (as opposed to openly invented cases in fiction).

If any such truly alien languages really do exist, these enormous differences which will probably obtain between alien and human systems will surely hinder the analysis of these languages, especially if little specific information about the users of these systems is available (for example, if a system is presented only as performed by human contactees, possibly with ensuing modifications of its more markedly alien features). But linguists might expect to make some progress as more was learned, even if contactees had themselves learned the systems by currently inexplicable means (see above).

Most unfortunately, the linguistic expertise in much of the literature in this area is, as noted, scanty. Little work on the issue has been done in ufological circles, although it HAS been a more salient focus of attention in SETI (Search For Extraterrestrial Intelligence) circles, often in the context of informed speculation regarding alien intelligence and psychology. Even here, however, the discussion, though interesting, is often seriously lacking in specifically linguistic expertise. For instance, it is often assumed (as it is in much science-fiction) that core notions in science and especially logic and mathematics – believed to be very generally shared – will permit rapid movement towards overall decipherment/mutual understanding. However, given the diversity of structures and concepts even among human languages and cultures at comparable technological levels, this may be over-optimistic, at least in some respects. The grammatical and semantic systems even of human languages, if these are unrelated, can certainly differ very dramatically.

I turn here to the actual content of the reports of alien language use. Many of these involve communication allegedly emanating from extraterrestrials by means of ‘telepathy’ (without specific linguistic forms) or some form of mind transference, sometimes involving advanced technology. Telepathy is a ‘convenient’ feature of the scenario if the material is in fact being fraudulently invented, because it negates the necessity of inventing the many specific details of a language (see later on another strategy of this kind, involving ‘holistic’ translations). On the other hand, it is not agreed among researchers that telepathy ever occurs, either amongst members of one species or between species, or if it is possible in principle; the advantage gained by fraudsters who adduce telepathy is thus doubtful.

More next time on more ‘orthodox’ communication systems attributed to aliens!

Mark

Hi again, everybody!

A particularly modern manifestation of channelling and related/similar phenomena involves languages (spoken, written, etc.) reported as used in the context of alleged contact with extraterrestrial entities. As a matter of policy, I don’t assume here, by way of background, either that any such entities have ever interacted with human beings or that this has never occurred.

Numerous reporters who identify as UFO-contactees or abductees – some as early as George Adamski and George Hunt Williamson – have reported hearing samples of the languages used by the aliens and/or seeing samples of written language (or of what appeared to be written language). Some contactees and abductees have even claimed that they have learned such extraterrestrial languages (often, it seems, by mystical means such as ‘telepathy’ rather than by any known means; see later). These reporters produce texts written in these languages (supposedly by alien associates, or by themselves) and/or volumes of speech. (Some reporters also provide non-linguistic semiotic material.)

Such cases are in fact very numerous and varied. Linguistically-informed comments on this material are few, but Christian Macé provides a comparative account of various claims of this kind. Macé examines possible links with other (allegedly) mysterious linguistic material; for instance, he relates characters reported by Adamski to those described in a very different context (alleged ancient South American inscriptions) by Marcel Homet. Assessment of such claims would be of more interest if at least one out of two or more allegedly related sets of texts could be established as undeniably alien in origin; but of course this has never been accomplished, and in any event the similarities adduced are typically superficial and unsystematic, and thus not especially persuasive.

Since 1999 Gary Anthony, latterly in partnership with me, has been developing the ‘Alien Semiotics Project’, an endeavour to question and cooperate with abductees, witnesses and researchers, to explore the UFO abduction narratives and literature, and to involve unbiased qualified experts in the relevant fields so as to give alleged alien languages and symbols a fair appraisal using scientific methodology.

Anthony was inspired by the work of Mario Pazzaglini, who was more at home with semiotics than with linguistics proper. The linguistic conceptualisation in Pazzaglini’s material is often weak. Most strikingly, he confuses matters of script and language, the distinction between types of script (alphabetic, syllabic, logographic; in addition, Chinese and Egyptian scripts are wrongly described as ideographic), the issue of the iconic transparency of logographic symbols (pictographic/non-pictographic), and distinctions between specified named types of script (hieroglyphs, cuneiform etc.). He also states that an unknown script cannot be assigned to any type; but in fact this can be done with a high degree of reliability – even if the language itself is unknown – by applying statistical tests. Pazzaglini is also too ready to accept sensationalistic explanations for doubtful data or reports rather than psychological or other less dramatic explanations.

For our part, Anthony and I seek to consult any interested parties (whatever their roles) on the relevant issues. We request samples of as great a length as possible. Frequently, samples of alleged alien speech or writing are not long enough to permit useful linguistic analyses; shorter samples are useful only if translations – preferably ‘literal’ – are available. (See later on the issues surrounding ‘holistic’ understanding of such material.) We have asked for assistance through the ufological literature, seeking:

a) samples of alien scripts and of texts written in these scripts, with statements regarding script-type and ductus (left to right or right to left, top to bottom or bottom to top, starting where on the page) and (for alphabetic or syllabic scripts) identification of word-boundaries;

b) samples of spoken alien language, ideally recorded on tape but, if this is not possible, in the form of transcriptions either into ‘imitated spelling’ (where the sounds are represented using the spelling of English or of the reporter’s own strongest language, with identifications of the reporter’s language and/or accent) or (better) into the International Phonetic Association Alphabet;

c) translations into English (or other human languages.

Responses have been disappointingly limited, but the project remains active.

One issue here is that of the physical and psychological nature of the alleged alien users of the languages: either humanoid to a considerable degree (and inhabiting planets similar to Earth), or markedly different (or of course of an intermediate nature). In the former case, the languages envisaged, like those represented in this context in science-fiction or fantasy, might be relatively ‘normal’ languages which happen not to exist in the real world as human languages which developed on Earth. However, even the languages of humanoid aliens, being as they would be totally unrelated to any actual human language, might still infringe some of the main ‘typological’ patterns which prevail across the range of human languages (such as prevailing word order patterns) or indeed some of the few really well-established ‘human-language universals’.

These issues are obviously highly relevant to the possible fraudulent invention of languages of this kind. It is more difficult than most non-linguists imagine to invent, convincingly, even a novel human language (as opposed to an unstructured set of vocabulary items); and this applies also to more exotic ‘languages’ such as those in question here (even though it is somewhat more difficult to be confident about matters of plausibility where alleged non-human languages are at issue). Expertise in linguistics is needed in such acts of invention if the languages are to appear possibly genuine to an examining linguist. Few fraudsters and few reporters of alien languages would actually have such expertise, which suggests that if any such ‘languages’ really appeared to linguists to be plausible they might very well prove to be genuine languages (whatever their actual origin; there might be possibilities other than extraterrestrial origin). In contrast, languages which had in fact been fraudulently invented might appear too similar to known human languages, structurally and phonetically, to be genuinely of alien origin, or might simply appear implausible. (This also applies to openly invented non-human languages in fiction.)

Full references for any specific item on request! More next time!

Mark

Hi again, everybody!

A further phenomenon of the same general type as channelling involves ‘Electronic Voice Phenomenon’: electronically generated noises which resemble speech in known or unknown languages but are not the result of intentional voice recordings or renderings. The parapsychologist Konstantin Raudive was the first to popularize the concept; he reported that most instances of EVP were the length of a word or phrase, sometimes displaying alternation between languages, unfamiliar grammatical patterns, etc. Notable earlier claims along these lines had been made by Attila von Szalay & Raymond Bayless and Friedrich Jürgenson, and more recent advocates of EVP or associated/similar phenomena include Peter Bander, Tim and Lisa Butler, Sarah Estep, Frank Sumption (who invented a ‘box’ for accessing EVP), George Meek (working with the channeller William O’Neil), Mark Macy, Christopher Moon, Ernst Senkowski, Judith Chisholm, etc., etc.

Most of these advocates of EVP claim that it is of paranormal origin. Explanations include living humans imprinting thoughts directly on an electronic medium through psychokinesis, and communication by spirits, beings from other dimensions or extraterrestrials. The recent work by Anabela Cardoso examines the extraterrestrial hypothesis but concludes that EVP emanates from deceased persons. Steve Mizrach suggests that paranormal entities with the capacity for speech may actually be brought into being by the use of the relevant technology.

Most skeptics who have examined these cases consider that the voices are probably artefacts of the listening process. Sources include static, stray radio transmissions, background noise (especially where the sensitivity of the recording equipment has been enhanced) and ‘apophenia’ (the finding of significance in insignificant phenomena, here illustrated by ‘auditory pareidolia’, the interpretation of random sounds as forming words and longer oral texts in a language known to the listener); some cases may simply be hoaxes.

Another important relevant alleged phenomenon in this general area is xenoglossia: cases of humans speaking and/or understanding languages which they have never learned – not in a trance, as if channelling or experiencing glossolalia, but as a second personality which emerges in everyday situations (and usually does not appear to command the language used by the speaker’s main personality). The material apparently emanates from ‘another part’ of the speaker’s own mind. In some reports of xenoglossia the command of the relevant ‘other’ language is reported as only passive (or largely so), but in others active command is reported. See earlier on parallels and links involving xenoglossia on the one hand and glossolalia or channelling on the other.

The psychologist Ian Stevenson claimed several cases of this kind as evidence of reincarnation; the second language is one which was acquired by normal means in a previous lifetime and has somehow been transmitted into the mind of the new incarnation. Of course, this is a possible explanation only if reincarnation itself is a genuine phenomenon; it is rejected both by the Judaeo-Christian-Muslim religion complex (according to these religions, people live in this world only once) and by contemporary (largely ‘materialistic’) science (according to most scientists, death is the end of a person’s existence). Belief in reincarnation is associated with Hinduism and Buddhism and their offshoot religions. If reincarnation is indeed the explanation for xenoglossia, this has major consequences for world-views.

Several writers on such matters, including Steven Rosen and some of the advocates of glossolalia and channelling discussed earlier, have endorsed Stevenson’s interpretation of such cases, at least to a degree; and Ian Lawton examined the matter with some care, drawing no firm conclusions but not categorically rejecting Stevenson’s analysis, and critiquing some skeptical comments.

However, Sarah Thomason found that Stevenson’s reports of fluency and understanding were much exaggerated. The subject’s command (active and passive) of the ‘other’ language is typically minimal and unimpressive, and could have been obtained from very limited studies which the subject might have forgotten (‘cryptomnesia’, a term coined by Flournoy; see earlier). In other such cases, it emerges that the subject had in fact had sufficient exposure to the language in question (not always consciously) to account for the data, or was familiar with a very closely related language. In addition, Stevenson’s own grasp of linguistics appears limited; he makes some conceptual errors, suggesting for instance that the usage of uneducated speakers of languages cannot be expected to manifest grammar (a folk-linguistic idea).

In some other such cases there is again a mixture of contemporary usage and an attempt at archaic forms, usually in the same language; see for instance the case of the Bloxham Tapes, made under hypnosis and allegedly relating to past-life experiences. In one extreme case, it is reported that a 13-year old Croatian awoke from a one-day coma no longer able to speak her native language but instead communicating in German. As Benjamin Radford comments in this context, such cases have at times been attributed to demonic possession – although reincarnation might still be adduced in such cases.

Some groups of religious believers also claim that they are able to understand languages which they have never learned. This was reported in conversation with me by some followers of Subud in New Zealand, who were unfortunately uninterested in demonstrating the truth of their claims (as occurs in some cases involving glossolalia).

There are a few cases involving linguistic material and time travel. The best known case of linguistic information allegedly arising out of time travel or at least the viewing of past events involves the ‘Chronovisor’, a supposed mid-twentieth-century invention by one Father Marcello Pellegrino Ernetti which allowed observation of past events (but not participation). An important piece of evidence concerns a lengthy, previously unrecorded passage in Latin, around 10% of a play which is known to have existed but which is largely lost (Thyestes, by Quintus Ennius). However, there are anachronisms in the text, and in addition the clustering in this passage of a high proportion of the surviving minor fragments is suspicious. If the text is a hoax, as must surely be judged probable, someone who was proficient in Latin went to a great deal of trouble in the course of faking it.

Some reports of non-humans using language involve apparitions of what appear to be the spirits of deceased animals. One of the most striking cases involved a ghostly mongoose known as ‘Gef’ which allegedly interacted with the Irving family at a remote location in the Isle of Man during the 1930s, speaking intelligently in English, Hebrew, Russian, Spanish, Welsh, etc. Christopher Josiffe believes that some sort of anomalous phenomenon was in fact taking place; he suggests that Gef was ‘formed’ from the collective minds of the three family members. Support for this view is furnished by the fact that Gef’s reported interests and knowledge overlapped substantially with those of the family; his ability to speak some Hebrew (like the father) was also interesting in this context. However, he also appeared to have some knowledge of other matters such as song lyrics which were supposedly unknown to the family. Josiffe’s interpretation depends, of course, upon acceptance of the reality of collective minds and related phenomena more generally.

Full references for any specific item on request! More next time!

Mark