In the first half, guest host Connie Willis (info) spoke with researcher David John Oates about his work examining messages in recorded audio played backward. He traced his interest in this phenomenon to the early 1980s, when teenagers he worked with as a youth counselor played rock records in reverse. After investigating reports about Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven," he began studying ordinary human speech rather than just music. "I maintain this is a natural form of language. All of us are speaking both forwards as well as in reverse," Oates claimed.
Oates identified reverse messages in songs by Led Zeppelin, AC/DC, the Doors, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Judas Priest, and Dick Van Dyke's performance in Mary Poppins. He then played a recording from the aftermath of the Jonestown massacre, which he interpreted as an electronic voice phenomenon saying, "Here's the door, and Mr. Jim Jones, welcome." Oates described it as "one of the creepiest ones I've got." He also discussed a 1990 court case in which the band Judas Priest was sued after a teenager's suicide, with parents alleging subliminal backward messages promoted the act. "The judge in the case ruled that the backward messages did exist, but there was no evidence put forward to say they were subliminally suggestive," Oates recalled.
Beyond paranormal recordings, Oates emphasized therapeutic applications of reverse speech. He commented that reversals could identify underlying childhood experiences and guide treatment, and said most of his work involved clients seeking help with depression, anxiety, relationship troubles, financial problems, trauma, migraines, and perceived behavioral blocks. He has also recorded animals and believes their backward sounds may convey simple needs. In one cat recording, he insisted he heard, "I need water." He encouraged listeners to record pets and reverse the audio: "You'll be amazed," he asserted.
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In the second half, musician and educator Terry Fisher shared a lifetime of UFO encounters he claimed runs through his family. He described growing up in a household where discussions of UFOs were accepted, noting that his grandmother and mother both reported sightings. His grandmother, whom he described as "a very Catholic woman... would tell us these stories of these UFOs that she would see spiraling down on her way across the ocean to Germany." Fisher alleged his mother also witnessed a UFO as a teenager and later saw a triangular craft in 1982, "before the triangles really came out."
He then described his own encounters, recounting a small red orb he reportedly witnessed on two separate occasions—once while exploring towers near a river with his cousin, and later while riding in a car with his band. "That red orb just followed the car," he recalled, adding that his soundman spotted it first. His most detailed account involved a massive rectangular craft near a power dam in the late 1970s. Following low-altitude military flight exercises in the region, Fisher claimed he stepped outside during an intense vibration to observe a large, rectangular object suspended in the air. "I don't know what it was, but it was the width of a football field," he said.
He allegedly observed human-looking figures wearing blue uniforms and caps inside the illuminated structure. According to Fisher, after one of the occupants noticed him, he collapsed while attempting to run back to the house. "There are no memories of anything after that," Fisher stated. In addition to his reported sightings, Fisher discussed personal experiences with electronic interference, claiming that streetlights and cash registers frequently malfunction in his presence. He also described an incident where household clocks and appliances stopped working after he received a book about time travel.