XPost: alt.paranet.ufo   
      
   EXECUTIVE SUMMARY   
   - The annual cycle of phytoplankton growth closely correlates with   
     UFO activity.   
   - Different types of planklton correlate differently with UFO   
     activity suggestring some plankton are "attractive" and   
     some "repellant" to UFOs.   
   - At least one interpretation of the data seems consistyent   
     with UFO's being operated or associated with lifeforms that   
     seem similar to mammals if not some type of humans.   
      
   One of the first things my various programs noticed since they started   
   crunching through UFO data months back is a curious strong correlation   
   between sightings and atmospheric N2O -- "laughing gas".   
      
   N2O is well known to climate scientists because it is another   
   important greenhouse gas and capable of warming the planet if atm   
   levels increase.  But I had to look up what natural processes were   
   involved in releasing and absorbing it.   
      
   Apart from humans and their pesky industrial agriculture the big   
   source of N2O turns out to be ocean plankton.  Plankton blooms in each   
   hemisphere at different times of the year -- some plankton are   
   warm-loving, some cold-loving -- and more plankton generally means   
   higher levels of atm N2O.   
      
   Feeding this little tidbit into the AI database allowed it to   
   hypothesise various estimates for ocean plankton based on atm NO2   
   (lagging indicator), ocean surface temperatures, and polar ice   
   coverage. And -- big surprise -- these pseudo indexes of seasonal   
   plankton growth were highly predictive of UFO sightings.  The s/w   
   flagged as (pseudo)plankton bloomed in the N Hem UFO sightings in N   
   America increased; as the plankton bloomed in the S Hem sightings   
   decreased. Apparently a lot of UFO's were busy elsewhere at some times   
   of the year.   
      
   It gave me a warm fuzzy feeling that Our Friends might be buzzing   
   around farming the oceans. A problem if they are ET's. It's OUR DAMN   
   PLANKTON YOU BASTARDS! :)   
      
   OTOH if they are eating plankton then their physiology must be a bit   
   like ours. Maybe people (counting flying jellyfish and whatever else)   
   from maybe within the solar system all developed from the same stuff   
   and therefore can all eat carbon based life.   
      
   You might imagine if they were too different from earth chemistry they   
   should be able to easily manufacture food from "space dust" or   
   whatever else they could put into the nearest Acme Matter   
   Converter. :)   
      
   But the matter needed a closer look. What kind of plankton seems to   
   predict UFO activity best? Does it differ across UFO "types" (shapes,   
   color)? Is there some nice patterns showing how activity moves between   
   the N and S hemisphere over the seasons or years?   
      
   These are some of the questions we can ask the data.  The answers   
   might tell is whether the entities behind UFO activity are totally   
   alien, some kind of mammal, or maybe even some kind of human (and low   
   down on the totem pole of probabilities -- some group of modern humans   
   that just for some reason want to be left alone by the other 9 bn of us).   
      
   Scrounging around the web brought up some plankton data, but most of   
   it was rough. Scientists like to go out in boats and get water   
   samples and measure what kinds of bugs they find in the water, but   
   no-one much seems to have surveyed the whole ocean and tried to get a   
   good handle on how different types of plankton behaves season to   
   season.  The data I had to sign my life away to get hold of from   
   various sources certainly didn't lend itself to estimating weights in   
   different season across large chunks of water -- at best they told me   
   how many different species were found in a given year in some small   
   patch of water off southern Australia or the West Atlantic.   
      
   But then there are the NOAA satellites that get spectral readings day   
   by day for the whole planet.   
      
   It turns out one group has the data turned to look for ocean   
   chlorophyll and that can get a good read on how phytoplankton in bulk   
   has come and gone season by season, month by month over the past 10-20 years.   
      
   I jammed that data through my s/w and, yes, there was a very strong   
   predictive power from ocean chlorophyll and UFO activity.   
      
   And then I found   
      
      
   This dataset is limited -- only for the 90s -- but it is daily, covers   
   the whole ocean as well as lakes to a granularity of 10s of kms, and   
   estimates surface density of several different types of phytoplankton.   
      
   And it produces some very very interesting patterns when rubbed up   
   against UFO sighting data.   
      
   The 4 groups of plankton covered by the dataset are:   
      
   prochlorococcus   
      
     Prochlorococcus is a genus of very small (0.6 µm) marine cyanobacteria   
     with an unusual pigmentation (chlorophyll a2 and b2). These bacteria   
     belong to the photosynthetic picoplankton and are probably the most   
     abundant photosynthetic organism on Earth.   
     -- wiki   
      
   synechococcus   
      
     Synechococcus (from the Greek synechos, in succession, and the Greek   
     kokkos, granule) is a unicellular cyanobacterium that is very   
     widespread in the marine environment. Its size varies from 0.8 to 1.5 \mu.   
     -- wiki   
      
   flagellates   
      
     A flagellate is a cell or organism with one or more whip-like   
     appendages called flagella. The word flagellate also describes a   
     particular construction (or level of organization) characteristic of   
     many prokaryotes and eukaryotes and their means of motion.   
     -- wiki   
      
   diatoms   
      
     Diatoms are a major group of algae, specifically microalgae, found in   
     the oceans, waterways and soils of the world. Living diatoms make up a   
     significant portion ...   
     -- wiki   
      
   Right out of the gate the different types show different affinity for   
   UFO activity (using as usual lightly corrected sighting data from NUFORC):   
      
      
   Phytoplankton	Transf		R2		Beta   
      
   diatoms		log		0.42952395	-0.816982   
   prochlorococcus	-		0.24137960	280.78   
   synechococcus	log		0.10141215	-2.50767   
   flagellates	-		0.00672999	60.3335   
      
      
   In this study the different phytoplankton are averaged over the entire   
   earth incl land (because some live in lakes).  The units are mmol of   
   organic phosphorus per m2.  Normally species abundance slowly   
   oscillate between 0 and maybe 1 mmol P/m2 over the course of a year.   
   The S Hem is the big reservoir for most phytoplankton and can   
   represent 10x to 100x more than available in the N Hem at certain   
   times of the year. At some times there are more phytoplankton in the N   
   Hem than the S Hem.   
      
   The data above does not break down concentrations by hemisphere, but   
   knowing that NUFORC sightings are 99% for the US allows us to   
   hypothesise that an increase in sightings corresponds with UFO's *not*   
   travelling to the S Hem and a decrease in sightings meaning UFO's are   
   more active in the S Hem and not buzzing so much around the US & Canada.   
      
   So 2 groups of phytoplankton seem to be of interest to the UFOs --   
   diatoms and synechococcus. The other 2 seem to be "UFO repellents".   
   E.g. prochlorococcus blooms seem to cause the UFO's to buzz around in   
   big numbers and other evidence suggests this is not a target of   
   possible harvesting operations. Which is nice.  prochlorococcus   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)