Ghosts and aliens and filled-in ponds.

I have been scarce lately because of the effort involved in entirely remodelling the garden. The pond is filled in, the wrecked lower lawn dug out, the dead plants bagged and ready to take to the dump. I'm putting in decking - or rather, someone who knows what they are doing is putting in decking and I'm getting in their way. For a wooden structure, there seems to be rather a lot of concrete involved.

There is some haste in this because the weather forecast says we are to expect snow next week. That's nothing unusual, I recall having to seek rapid shelter because of a hail shower that punched my hostas full of holes one year and felt like it was doing the same to me. It was the first of May, I think it was 2001 or maybe 2002. So it is not 'climate change' but it will soon be illegal to say that.

Garden centres and supermarkets have been selling garden plants for over a month, but only an idiot would buy them now. Unless he had a greenhouse, which I will order as soon as the weather calms down. I decided on polycarbonate rather than glass because it's less likely to break in a hard frost, or when rampaging mobs of drooling children-shaped demonic entities decide that throwing stones at random strangers' property is some kind of a good idea.

I might also build a pillory, in case I need it for something.

It has been an excessively long break from investigating but it's not just me who is affected. There are few reports in the news these days, nobody is willing to freeze to death on the off-chance of a photo that no sceptic will believe anyway. What is interesting is that my 'guest' appears to be active again. It's been silent throughout the cold weather and I thought it had left.

There are far more reports of ghostly activity when the temperature is comfortable than when it is cold. I'd always put this down to the investigators, rather than the ghosts, and assumed that cold weather might not affect activity anywhere near as much as it would affect those looking for it. Then again, ghostly activity is associated with a drop in temperature so maybe ghosts (human or otherwise) don't just absorb heat, but require it. The ability to generate a temperature differential might be important. That would be harder to do in severe cold and might also be hard in severe heat. This will take some thinking about.

On the UFO side of things, an American professor says that the subject should be studied properly, in universities. I agree absolutely. Sceptics will howl 'Waste of time' because they are true believers in what they think science should be about.

Science is, or should be, about investigating. Many people have reported seeing something unusual. Dismissing them all as cranks is not science. Maybe what they see is not from another world, maybe it's a phenomenon of this world and if that's the case, should we ignore a natural event on the say-so of true believers in the logic of 'I haven't seen it so it's not real'?

Maybe, just maybe, some of those sightings are totally inexplicable by science as we currently understand it.

The sceptics will say 'Then we should ignore it. It's inconvenient. Stick your fingers in your ears and sing "La-la-la". It's not real. Stay with the herd.'

I say, that's when science gets really interesting.