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I've seen this suggestion made in several places; here's one.

Around the time of April 2011, several US news presenters or personalities descended into speaking gibberish on national TV. Some have "cited an on-air experiment broadcast some years ago in the U.S. in which two scientists directed electromagnetic signals into the brain of a reporter, prompting him to start speaking gibberish."

Could this be the reason for these TV presenters descending into gibberish in an uncannily short time period of one another?


A video compilation of several of these supposed occurrences is HERE, and another summary mentioning Judge Judy is HERE.

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5  
How can we disprove that the US military have a "magic" gibberish weapon? – Sklivvz Jul 15 '11 at 20:13
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I've seen the military do this once at the Miss America Beauty Pageant. – Adam Prax Jul 15 '11 at 22:13
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Wearing a tinfoil hat prevents the magic gibberish weapon from penetrating. As proof positive of this claim, have you ever seen a news person on network TV speaking gibberish, while at the same time wearing a tinfoil hat? – woodchips Jul 15 '11 at 22:33
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It wasn't U.S. Army. It was Men In Black. – DVK Jul 16 '11 at 2:39
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It was Obama's Kenyan family holding witchcraft rituals. – Lagerbaer Jul 16 '11 at 3:27
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2 Answers

up vote 8 down vote accepted

What conspiracionists claim is:

Spontaneous-gibberish-talking is not the symptom of any known illness. Some have claimed those were MK-Ultra breakdowns.

Which is absolutely untrue, as this is well know medical condition known as aphasia.

Aphasia gets in the way of a person's ability to use or understand words. Aphasia does not impair the person's intelligence. People who have aphasia may have difficulty speaking and finding the "right" words to complete their thoughts. They may also have problems understanding conversation, reading and comprehending written words, writing words, and using numbers.

Causes:

more common in older adults, particularly those who have had a stroke. [...] Aphasia may also be caused by a brain tumor, brain infection, or dementia such as Alzheimer's disease. In some cases, aphasia is an episodic symptom of epilepsy or other neurological disorder.

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There are nearly 800 television stations associated with the big networks (NBC, ABC, FOX, CBS), and about half of them show their own local news program every night. That's 400+ hours per day of newly generated content, and if you don't see a bunch of flubs in 400 hours of content, you're not looking hard enough.

Magnetic fields are very well understood in terms of their field strength and direction (vector) at any given location. The dose given to the test subject of the video was huge, and very, very local. Notice how it had to be placed right against the head to cause an effect, and that the operator's head was only a foot or so away and remained unaffected. In order to generate such a large field right at someone's head without touching them, you're not only talking about a huge coil with enough power to light several houses, you're also talking about a big enough magnetic field that it couldn't be "aimed" and only affect that one person - the electronic equipment in the field (such as cameras) would also be affected, as would the camera operator and anyone else nearby. If you want to generate such a large field in such a small spot, you need to go to a particle accelerator and look at how they do it. It's not easy to focus focus magnetic fields in that way.

The claim that is being made not only fails to pass simple litmus tests as the above, but also fails to be convincing in terms of specificity or logical reason. I honestly don't think such a claim which has little basis in reputable evidence requires much consideration.

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