Instances of subliminal messages

Television and video

In 1978, Wichita, Kansas TV station KAKE-TV received special permission from the police to place a subliminal message in a report on the BTK Killer in an effort to get him to turn himself in. The image, which appeared for a split second, showed a pair of glasses (an image thought to hold significance to him) and text that read "Now call the chief." The attempt was unsuccessful, and police reported no increased volume of calls afterward, though the killer was eventually caught in 2005.

Before the re-election of French president François Mitterrand in 1988, a subliminal picture of him was mixed in the title sequence of French national television daily news show, and it appeared for several consecutive days.

During the 2000 U.S. presidential campaign, a television ad campaigning for Republican candidate George W. Bush showed words (and parts thereof) scaling from the foreground to the background on a television screen. When the word BUREAUCRATS flashed on the screen, one frame showed only the last part, RATS. Democrats promptly asked the FCC to look into the matter, but no penalties were ever assessed in the case. The effect this had on the overall presidential race was unclear. The Democrats and Al Gore received ridicule for finding malicious intent in something that could have been a simple mistake.

Another instance of subliminal advertising revolves around commercials for the game Hūsker Dū? which flashed the message "Get it", in the United States and Canada, prompting a furor.

In the British alternative comedy show The Young Ones, a number of subliminal images were present in the original and repeated broadcasts. Images included a gull coming into land, a tree frog jumping through the air, and the end credits of the movie Carry On Cowboy. No explanation for these images was given and their relevance, if any, to the plot of the episodes in which they appear is debatable. Although they may fall foul of the FCC guidelines, these images do appear in the U.S. boxset DVD Every Stoopid Episode. In a 1970s episode of Columbo, Robert Culp's character returned to the crime scene after a subliminal cut was placed in the movie and thereby incriminated him in the murder.

Allegations

An internet-based prank flash called "Subliminal Messages" or "Subliminal Music and Images " features two supposed visual messages and an audio message. The first is the word "SEX" hidden in a gin advertisement (this message was one of those alleged by Wilson Bryan Key). The second is a woman masturbating, hidden in an advertisement for a flooring company. The animation then switches to the text of the Lord's Prayer, and starts playing Cradle of Filth's "Dinner at Deviant Palace" backward, along with faint noises. In the middle of the song, a loud scream is heard, and a series of disturbing images is flashed. The last image is a gray scale image of a mummy without wrappings, which fades away, followed by a message, "Never trust flash animations talking about subliminal stuff!"

Some groups have made claims that subliminal messages can be found in various forms of popular entertainment, such as the supposed use of "backward messages" in rock and roll songs. Many of these purported messages are Satanic; for example, if the Led Zeppelin song "Stairway to Heaven" is played backwards, lyrics including "Oh here's to my sweet Satan" can supposedly be made out. Queen's "Another One Bites The Dust" is also supposed to contain a pro-marijuana message: "It's fun to smoke marijuana". These two messages have not been confirmed by the artists, and have not been proven to exist. In contrast, some obvious Satanic messages have been backmasked into rock songs, although parody messages and artistic backmasking are more common. See the List of backmasked messages.

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