Oh my God, here it all comes again...
First, I wasn't directly involved in the (released) recording of "Stairway," but I can assure you that there was NO intent for anything to sound like it was "saying anything backwards."
The whole backwards thing I have always found to be totally ridiculous. Here are some websites which give "information" about it:
http://www.reversespeech.com/music_reversals.htmhttp://www.wootang.net/backmask/classicrock.htmlhttp://skepdic.com/backward.htmlhttp://skepdic.com/backmess.htmlHere, there are "Satanic Messages" supplied by everyone from Britney Spears to Mary Poppins!
In fact, it has become a whole "backmasking" industry, and actually provides a living for a few people!
When I first noticed that some Beatles recordings had backwards sounds on them, I decided to experiment with the whole thing. I thought someone was saying (forgive me for this!) "Paul's a Queer" on "Yellow Submarine" (now I think it was probably "All's clear," or something more appropriate to the meaning of the song, but hey, it was a long time ago!) I thought that this "saying" might have been performed in a backwards manner. So, for some strange reason, I recorded that same saying forwards, turned that around backwards, and worked a long time learning phonetically, and as "correctly" as possible, to say the backwards sounds FORWARDS. In other words, I was soon speaking "backwards." Then I recorded that backwards speech, and turned THAT recording around to play in reverse. The result was the saying "Paul's a Queer" being phonetically rendered forwards, but with an out-of-this-worldly, almost mutant sounding speech pattern. ("Ray-oook'---nyeh-sssssslop'" for those who want to learn this august phrase in 'backwards-speak.') All that this experiment showed was that I was not to be trusted with any spare time.
On another occasion, years later, I was producing a band which was somewhat heavy, and we had an instrumental track which was almost demonic sounding, musically. So for fun, I recorded the lead singer speaking phrases like "Eat all your vegetables!" and "Don't forget to brush your teeth!" and other excellent, non-Satanic things. We turned those around backwards, and put them loudly throughout the song. No one at the label, at radio, or from any Christian tolerance group ever said a word! But it sure sounded "Satanic!"
I think it may be the mud shark...
Terry