Cute Purple Dinosaur = 666 = SATAN! (Oh noes!)

Our brains look for patters where none exist - and the more insidious the pattern the more likely we are to believe it.

A repost from my Google+ stream that fits in line with the types of things I want to talk about on this blog;

My good friend, +Susan Meyer shared this with me on facebook, because I have a lot of 'obscure knowledge' and wanted my opinion on weather this had any merit or was "Logic Fail"

(Original post;  http://www.facebook.com/susan.meyer.756/posts/353893564691231 )

Short answer - Someone had too much time on their hands - but it's an interesting find nonetheless (and appears to be correct - I do seem to recall 'V' is often used in latin words that we adopted and now write with a 'U' but not certain - and the roman numerals are correct and obviously the arithmetic is correct.)

The long (disquisitive) answer;

This is similar to 'bible code' stuff. Humans are wired to spot patterns and so they wind up finding patterns where there are none.

I'm sure there are lots of names or phrases one could find that if you added them up via A=1, B=2... Z=26 you will get 666.  Or doing other weird things with them like converting them into ASCII code or something before adding them together and dividing by some super special secret number.

If you play the pokemon rap backwards "Gotta catch 'em all, Gotta catch 'em all (Yeah!), Gotta catch 'em all, Gotta catch 'em all (Yeah!)" becomes "I... LOVE SATAN! LOVE SATAN!. I... LOVE SATAN! LOVE SATAN!" it is so crystal clear when I heard it it didn't even sound warped (except the 'I' which is the inverse 'Yeah')  It's no wonder that they stopped including that rap after a few seasons (of course, by that point there were also more than 150 different pokemon, and thus didn't fit the rap anymore - so it's hard to say weather it was because of criticism that it got removed.)

YouTube link to the reversed Pokemon Rap:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cGEwFIsk0g

In addition to spotting patterns, our brains are also wired to 'fill in gaps' or gloss over bits that don't make sense (like random noise and interpreting that backwards syllables sound like language so therefore they must be) also like how when you look at your monitor you see a picture until you look REALLY close and you see all the little grid lines (well - depending on how clear your vision is).  This is most noticeable on the huge screens used in sports stadiums - they are made up of several smaller screens spaced out, but at the distance they are designed to be viewed, you don't see the gaps, because your brain glosses over the error.

More optical illusions;

http://thechive.com/2012/09/20/optical-illusions-hurt-my-brain-sometimes-25-photos/

This is also the principle by which we get Optical Illusions and 'Audio illusions' - ever swear you heard someone saying your name from somewhere?  Well it was a combination of sounds your brain triggers on. 

There was one video game I played where I could swear I could hear the phone rang every time I played it.  After the first couple of times I decided a neighbour must have a similar phone, but when I started realising it would always happen at specific times (I believe it was during boss battles) I started listening verycarefully and it was actually a combination of instruments in the music.  It actually wasn't the same at all to my phone, but it was CLOSE ENOUGH that my brain registered it and triggered the 'your phone is ringing - go answer it' response.   (In a responce to this on Google +, Susan mentioned there was one zone in World of Warcraft where as a subtext of the music she could swear she thought the game was calling her name)

To be frankly honest in this particular case, +Susan Meyer hit the nail on the head when she said "TBH it is a show for kids and heck if they like it and learn something that is all that matters. There are much worse things in this world that we have to protect our kids from."

Way too true, Susan!

Now that said - there are instances where people INTENTIONALLY hide things in places (Tom Marvolo Riddle = I am Lord Voldemort, for example) and some bands really did encode backwards 'subliminal' phrases into their music (which was played to the 9's on a particular episode of The Simpsons where Bart and his classmates all became a famous 'boy band' who became popular for their lyrics "eemra e-yet neeoj" or "Join the Army!").  I do not believe this to be one of those cases.