EXECUTIVE SUMMARY   
   - Experts in the field suggest there are links between various   
     paranormal phenomena. In particular, there's a suggested link   
     between the appearance of unusual critters and UFO activity.   
   - We look at the associations between sightings of selected lake   
     monsters and weather and other phenomena.   
   - Surprise. UFO activity turns out to predict monster sightings more   
     accurately than weather phenomena whether remote, local or global.   
   - Amazingly, the position of key planets also seems to predict the   
     appearance/sighting of lake monsters sometimes years in advance.   
   - The links between monster sightings and weather phenomena seem to   
     pick out the usual list of suspects associated with regions that   
     already have an affinity for predicting UFO activity -- particularly   
     the Antarctic and Bering Sea.   
   - Similar patterns are seen across the sightings for all 3 selected   
     monsters here. (So selected because sighting data was readily   
     available on a dedicated website or via wikipedia).   
   - We suggest a possible link that summarizes all the patterns found.   
     A link that does not involve inter-dimensional portals.  (Which of   
     course we can not rule out).   
      
      
   UFO's are a rabbit hole topic -- you might say "gateway rabbit hole" --   
   in that they seem connected with every odd event or fringe area of   
   study going.   
      
   The folklore suggests various explanations for why that "should" be.   
   E.g. different phenomena really belong to different realms or   
   realities and "thin spots" possibly associated with mountainous   
   regions allow phenomena to leak from one to another and suddenly   
   disappear back again.   
      
   The past few months of study across the various topics if not 50 years   
   dabbling in quantum physics has reinforced to me to never to rule out   
   any explanation.   
      
   One of the thrusts of my research at the moment is to find ways to   
   overcome what many see as limitations of "science" as taught and   
   practiced whereby a body of hard-won knowledge is protected from   
   continual disruption by the temporary inclusion of new ideas that have   
   not been "fully debugged". The real world is a non-monotone system --   
   whereby later knowledge can totally invalid was was thought to be   
   "known" previously -- and the system of scientific and "rational"   
   thought we've inherited mostly from the classical Greeks is based on a   
   monotone system (like geometry) where once a theorem is proven it   
   remains true forever after and can not be overthrown by the inclusion   
   of any new facts.   
      
   So "the system" requires new ideas to pass through a Vally of Death   
   whereby any objection raised by people with sufficient training and   
   experience is normally enough to kill it off totally.  This   
   theoretically works fine in a monotone world. But it leaves something   
   to be desired in the real world.   
      
   "Outsider scientists" often complain "the system" is out to get them.   
   And it is. It's the way it works and it works that way because up   
   until now it's been successful. There's even an idea for that --   
   Darwinian evolution.   
      
   But in fringe areas in particular little progress (as measured by "the   
   system" :) has been made over the past say 100y because unless an idea   
   can "obviously" be fully integrated into the body of knowledge that   
   exists it will never be accepted. And the deadly embrace continues --   
   and unless it can be accepted there will be little progress in fringe fields.   
      
   I like to think this situation is changing. Sure it is. :) Maybe very   
   slowly. Maybe the change has been boosted a bit by collaborative work   
   done over that interweb thingy -- connecting like minds (no matter how   
   fringe) together to do their thang. And maybe a bit more by the sudden   
   realization of Hard Science recently that all those centuries of work   
   by 1000s of clever people has won us knowledge only about 5% of even   
   the physical universe. Hard Science has proven to its own satisfaction   
   there are Yuge Chunks of reality it had not suspected until now really   
   existed.   
      
   My work over the past few years has been trying to address the   
   shortcomings of "the system" as I perceive them. Instead of a   
   pass/fail grading of new ideas every conceivable idea should be given   
   a score -- some kind of likelihood that it is true or relevant to   
   humanity or (in my case) individual introverted researchers.   
      
   But how to keep track of ideas/theories in a system where anything goes   
   "to some extent"? The only way I can see to make sense of the   
   spaghetti bowl of "new knowledge" would be AI.   
      
   And to that end I've been working on adapting some s/w I've used in   
   science and industry (mostly to unscramble the global economy for   
   various company Boards) to can examine a bunch of observations and   
   present it as a more or less simple narrative that appears to make   
   sense of what is known.   
      
   As Lem would have it (Golem 2000), the introduction is over. On with   
   the next introduction!   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)