Extraordinary claims. Ordinary investigations.

In the GRAPHIC video above presented on Italian television, an alleged aborted alien fetus is shown. You read that right, an aborted hybrid alien fetus shown on mainstream TV, in gory high-definition detail. That’s only part of a long, convoluted story told by a not-at-all anonymous lady abductee, Giovanna Podda.

You can read some translation of the video and story over at the ATS forum. And keep reading for what that “alien fetus” really is. With graphic, gory images.

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Well, it was unknown, because in a few hours it was identified. Those are colonies of tubificid worms, specifically T. tubifex, smaller than a tennis ball. They are not giant blobs about to eat humans, as the small video camera may suggest to the viewer. They are small clusters of hundreds of worms attached to the sewer pipes in Raleigh, North Carolina.

The identification, made by Dr. Timothy Wood on DeepSeaNews and also by Roberto Takata on Massa Crítica, has been confirmed by Ed Buchan, environmental coordinator at the Raleigh Public Utilities Department, to the local TV, News 14 Carolina.

According to Buchan, the tubifex worm colonies attach themselves to roots that work themselves into weak points in the pipes. Other staff members in the department have seen it before, although sightings aren’t particularly common.

Tubifex (video above) are harmless, commonly used as fish food, and it’s probable those in the sewer came directly from a domestic aquarium.

Their pulsating behavior, as if the whole colony was one bigger organism, is perhaps the most interesting feature. Schools of fishes and swarms of birds also exhibit a similar, beautiful collective behavior, well studied, but sticking to the disgustingly sticky, we may refer to slime mold.

One particular species, P. polycephalum, unicellular but with many nuclei, is even capable of “solving” a maze:

The secret is the food placed in the start and finish points – the slime mold converges to the shortest path between them. The research, published on Nature, earned the authors an IgNobel award last year.

P. polycephalum slime mold may be as intelligent as T. tubifex worms are dangerous, but now you know amoebas can solve mazes and fish food can be terrifying, at least when viewed on Youtube.

It’s worth noting that the horrid sewer creature was made popular by the io9 blog, from the same blog network that made the Montauk Monster popular a year ago. Gawker, your source for terrible unidentified creatures.

UPDATE: A couple more images of Tubifex that may make things even clearer (and nastier):

That’s yummy Tubifex worms sold in Japan. Case closed.

“This video of so called “plasma radio” is popular lately on Russian blogs. The shown effect is very cool. Here is a short story to understand it:
Location: Brovary town, Russia [Actually, Ukraine].
Transmitter output: 150 kW
Also used: old Soviet antennas, 90 meteres (280 ft) long cable.
That’s all what you need for UNSAFE experiments to receive radio waves. In the area of the effect of radio waves very big potential difference emerges. Because of the modulation of the radio signal the electical spark arc starts vibrating with the human voice and begins to “speak”. The intensity of current in such “radio” can reach hundreds of ampers and it easily can molt metals. Such electricity doesn’t have any barriers, it can come through the thick tree. Don’t try this at home!” [English Russia]

Is this real? An elaborate hoax? Another urban legend? Here in Forgetomori, the Answer reads YOU!! Keep reading.

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After laughing about it, there’s a serious side to this sort of “reverse speech” or “subliminal messages”. No, not a serious satanic side, but the rather interesting way this effect exploits some glitches in our perception.

When you are presented with an incomprehensible speech, your brain tries very hard to find some meaning, giving way to a sort of auditory paredolia. So, when someone gives you that meaning, you are actually able to hear it.

This effect is funny when “subtitling” foreign languages:

You native English speakers must know this exact very same video has also been “funny subtitled” in many other languages, and that even English speaking videos are “funny subtitled” in other languages. “Eyes without a face” sounds like “ajudar o peixe” in Portuguese, or “helping the fish”. It actually sounds exactly like that when the Portuguese “subtitle” is given.

Science has been studying the special dedicated way we perceive speech in more detail, and one particularly fascinating bit of research is related to sine-wave speech. It’s an artificially constructed sound, “lacking the harmonic structure of speech and not having the pulsing structure associated with voicing”, but with the frequencies and amplitudes of the sinusoids set equal to those of the original speech.

“These artificial signals could be perceived in two ways. Listeners who were told nothing about the stimuli heard science-fiction-like sound, electronic music, computer beeps, and so on. Listeners who instead were instructed to transcribe a ‘strangely synthesized English sentence” were able to do so. They heard the sound as speech, even though the speech sounded unnatural”.

The most amazing thing is:

“Once that [speech listening] mode is engaged, it is difficult to reverse the process. Listeners who have heard the stimuli as speech tend to continue to do so”.

You can experience this effect for yourself trying these examples. First listen to the sine-wave speech. Then listen to the original. Then listen to the sine-wave speech again. It will be almost crystal clear in its meaning. If we gave you a “subtitle” along with the sine-wave speech you would also understand it perfectly.

The lesson is not that some real message was hidden that can be understood by those wise enough. The lesson is that we can extract some arbitrary meaning from almost anything that sounds like speech.

This is how “Yes we can” can be turned into “Thank you Satan”. Reversed, it becomes:

“nac ew seY”
”Thak yu Satn”
”Thank you Satan”

As a side note, “Yes we can” reversed sounds even more clearly as “É eu sei” in Portuguese, which means “Yes I know”. But this is pure coincidence with no real meaning other than the ones some people force fit in.

Of course, there are some instances where reverse speech is intentionally inserted into music, but the persuading effect this has is highly doubtful, curiously this is usually done exactly to cater to those who believe reverse speech works.

If you still take reverse speech seriously, you may also find relevant that some adult movies have very spiritual “subliminal” messages.

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Sources and links:
- An introduction to the psychology of hearing by Brian C. J. Moore
- Fun with sine-wave speech
- via Renegade Futurist

Is this real? If you have the stomach, click on the image to head to an image gallery and our very ordinary investigation.

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