From: lcopperopolis@gmail.com   
      
   On Sunday, April 10, 2022 at 3:41:03 PM UTC-7, MrPosti...@kymhorsell.com wrote:   
   > EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:   
   > - We look again at UFO activity and missing persons, this time   
   > long-term missing persons in Australia listed on a govt website.   
   > - Adjusting for population changes in the US and AUS over the period   
   > 1930-2020 we find there is a strong and expected statistical link   
   > between UFO activity and a chunk of the missing person data.   
   > - We also show a strong likelihood of a causal connection by showing   
   > the statistical model found on the middle 1/3 of the data also   
   > predicts the relationship in the other 2/3 of the data, sight   
   > unseen.   
   > - Together with prev analysis of other sets of missing persons in the   
   > US and UK we seem to have shown there is likely a global (or at the   
   > very least the English-speaking part of it) and long-standing   
   > pattern of UFO-related missing persons.   
   > - In a future post we shall see almost no segment of the UFO data   
   > (e.g. breaking sightings down by shape, color, time or location   
   > seen) does NOT find a similar causal link.   
   >   
   >   
   > We've previously looked at links between UFO activity and missing   
   > persons in the US and UK.   
   >   
   > While "links" were seen -- in the sense that years or regions of high   
   > UFO activity (using sightings mostly in the US as a proxy for global   
   > UFO activity) were also those of the higher numbers of missing persons   
   > and contrariwise -- that doesn't constitute very good evidence of a   
   > causal connection.   
   >   
   > But we can start here to outline methods where causal connections can   
   > be shown.   
   >   
   > I'll again use the NUFORC database of sightings (mostly in the US, but   
   > some in Canada and some in other parts of the world) as a proxy of   
   > global UFO activity and we'll look at the Australian missing persons   
   > data to show the "association" is not limited to just the N Hem.   
   >   
   > The Australian govt has a website listing around 450 "long term   
   > missing persons" going back to the 1930s. A missing person case ends   
   > up on the list of there is otherwise no clue to the fate of the person   
   > concerned and they have been missing for some time. Some, perhaps   
   > many, of the cases likely involve mundane explanations.   
   >   
   > But we can correlate our proxy for UFO activity against the   
   > year-by-year data -- the year in which the victims were first noticed   
   > to be missing -- to see if there is a strong statistical relationship.   
   >   
   > We've done that before. But this time we'll add a twist.   
   >   
   > We'll set up a "validating" procedure. We'll "hide" most of the data   
   > from the statistical procedure, see if there is a high-probability   
   > link between the proxy and missing person data in the middle 1/3 of   
   > the dataset, and then check whether the years before that "training   
   > set" and years after the training set both show the same relationship.   
   > If they do then we have evidence of a causal relationship.   
   >   
   > As we might recall the US Surgeon General's Report in the 1960s showed   
   > the first scientific evidence for causality between smoking and lung   
   > cancer by outlining types of statistical links. It was shown   
   > following years of higher levels of smoking there were higher levels   
   > of lung cancer, preceding years of higher levels of lung cancer there   
   > were higher levels of smoking, and in regions of the US with higher   
   > levels of smoking there were higher levels of lung cancer.   
   >   
   > We are going to do much the same with UFO data and long-term missing   
   > persons in Australia.   
   >   
   > Because UFO sightings and missing persons are also affected by the   
   > size of the population we will adjust the data to rates per bn   
   > population. As the population of the US and Australia grew over the   
   > years since the 1930s we will "deflate" both sets of numbers by the   
   > current population size.   
   >   
   > And another adjustment that is required happens on the UFO side. The   
   > NUFORC started a web reporting form in Mar 2006 to capture a wider   
   > and more immediate set of sightings data. By no coincidence that   
   > followed the Nimitz incident in 2004. Unfortunately for statisticians   
   > the character of reports after 2006 are much different from those   
   > leading up to 2006. For one thing the annual totals of sightings after   
   > they would be reported via the web form rose 10-fold. In addition,   
   > some classifications for UFO appearance were added -- before 2006   
   > certain "shapes" were not seen as a bona fide category while after   
   > that time it turned out they were relatively common.   
   >   
   > So these considerations require the UFO data to be manipulated to   
   > offset the change at 2006.   
   >   
   > In the simple "variance adjustment" scheme used here we simply find a   
   > scaling factor for the pre 2006 numbers that makes the sample variance   
   > of the pre 2006 data match the post 2006 data.   
   >   
   > After all these adjustments the procedure then find the following:   
   >   
   > **** train ****   
   > beta in 0.00154104 +- 0.00131404 90% CI   
   > P(beta>0.000000) = 0.987977   
   > |r| > rc (0.377000 2-sided) at 5%; reject H0:not_connected   
   > r2 = 0.25219767   
   > model=[y = 0.00154104*x + 7.02939]   
   > **** validate ****   
   > train: 1977 1997 19.7088   
   > back: 1930 1977 21.9323   
   > fore: 2000 2020 18.8736   
   >   
   > The first parameter spat out is the "beta" for the relevant time   
   > series regression between UFO sightings per capita for each year   
   > between 1977 and 1997 (the middle 1/3 of the dataset) and long-term   
   > missing people in Australia. For each 1000 UFO's seen per mn   
   > capita in the US an associated 1.5+-1.3 missing persons per mn   
   > capita were noted in Australia. The stats show the link in this   
   > section of the dataset is highly robust. The "p-value" for the T-test   
   > says there is less than 2% probability this link is just by luck. The   
   > Rank test shows there is only a 5% chance the order of years by UFO   
   > sighting and the order by long-term missing persons could be so   
   > similar, just by luck. Together we might argue there is only a tiny   
   > chance -- perhaps as small as .05% -- that pattern could come up just   
   > by luck.   
   >   
   > The R2 also is interesting. At least in this middle "training" part of   
   > the dataset UFO sightings vary year by year and predict about 25% of   
   > the year by year missing persons data. It seems UFO's "explain" up to   
   > 1/4 of Australian long term missing persons.   
   >   
   > But now the most interesting part. We have only shown the statistics   
   > 1/3 of the data. Did that predict the other 67% of the data? If we   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)