Hypotheses and their tests: Attendee input from the 2009 ICCRA conference

At the annual ICCRA conference, attendees were asked to think about formulating what might have been a speculation or belief about structured power imprints (SPIs) in terms of a hypothesis and a plan for an experiment that would test the hypothesis. The results of that exercise follow. Editing license was taken with some of the responses in order to maintain a uniform format and/or simplify the response so that it could be more easily tested. Only the attendees know which hypothesis is theirs.

Some of these hypotheses are more complex than their tests might indicate and more simplification may be required in order to achieve a testable proposition. This is the nature of materialism and the scientific method and is captured by the word Reductionism: taking complex ideas or observations and reducing them to a typically larger but simpler set of ideas or observations.

We encourage you to examine the following sets of hypotheses and approaches to testing them to see if they can be simplified further in order to eliminate testing more than one variable at a time. You should also feel free to submit new hypotheses and their means of testing to the ICCRA website (via Jeff Wilson). More intrepid explorers can perform the testing of hypotheses and submit their test results in the form of a brief summary, as above.

            A
It is hypothesized that new SPIs are more likely to occur along a straight line drawn between old SPIs  than elsewhere.

One approach to test this hypothesis would be to select one of the 'lines of SPIs from an earlier year' at the beginning of the SPI season and check, as the season progressed, to see how many formations occurred on that line versus occurring some distance away from it, say up to 15 miles either side of the line. A line fitting exercise could be done with the locations of SPIs along the 30 mile wide corridor and the 'goodness of fit' determined. Various statistics could be determined that would indicate how close the PSI locations came to forming a straight line. Some justification would have to be provided for selecting the distance of 15 miles either side of the line of interest.

            B
It is hypothesized that SPIs are energy signatures.

One approach to test this hypothesis would be to place various detectors of wavelengths of energy where SPIs might occur and record what happens.

            C
It is hypothesized that it is possible to capture the formation of an SPI with a video camera.

One approach to test this hypothesis  would be to set up a video camera in a location where a SPI (or several SPIs) has formed or somewhere along a line that connects the locations of earlier SPIs and record continuous video of the site.

            D
It is hypothesized that ancient earthworks and SPIs occur along straight lines in the environment whereas other human created environmental features do not.

One approach to test this hypothesis would be to create a program that would run in Google Earth that can run a test based on the Hough transform that would use locations of ancient earthworks and SPIs and look for linear features within these geographic locations vs linear features within geographic locations of other features. For more information on the Hough transform see webpage at http://www.cogs.susx.ac.uk/users/davidy/teachvision/vision4.html

            E
It is hypothesized that the direction of the prevailing wind during the creation of a SPI influences the 'spillover' effect of the energies of SPI creation. That is, the energies are 'pushed downwind' of the SPI.

One approach to test this hypothesis would be to measure energy effects immediately outside of a SPI and see if the results correlate with wind direction at the time of SPI formation.

            F
It is hypothesized that the locations, timing and shape of a particular SPI, taken together, form a message relevant to reactivation of energies in nearby Indian earthworks.

One approach to test this hypothesis would be to measure different types of energies at the site of  Indian earthworks that are situated close to where a SPI has formed. Somehow, the energies at the earthworks would have to be measured both before and after the SPI was formed in order to relate factors relevant to the SPI with a change in energies at the earthworks.

            G
It is hypothesized that features of a SPI such as its associated diatonic ratios and the image of the SPI, when seen from above, have healing qualities.

One approach to test this hypothesis would be to obtain the cooperation of a medical facility that works with a sufficiently large population of, perhaps, post-surgery patients and expose a test set of the patients to the sounds of diatonic ratios taken from a particular SPI and a control set of patients to the sound of random sets of notes. Post-surgery recovery times would be compared between the test and control groups of patients. An image of  the SPI could be used along with the sounds of its diatonic ratios but the two variables need to be tested separately before they are tested together.

            H
It is hypothesized that extra magnetic material is brought into SPIs as they are formed.

One approach to test this hypothesis would be to measure the amount of magnetic material in the soil or on the plants in the downed areas of a set of SPIs and measure the amount of magnetic material in the soil or on the plants in the parts of the SPIs that contain upright plants, as well as in areas outside of the SPIs altogether, taking into account the results of the experiment in hypothesis E, above.  A statistical comparison would evaluate the likelihood that the population of samples from downed areas is identical to the population of samples from standing and control areas.

            I
It is hypothesized that Men in Black (MIB) have some special means of knowing when and where a SPI has formed.

One approach to test this hypothesis is to collect information from farmers as to when they first noticed a SPI in their fields and when they first noticed MIB in the vicinity of the field. The farmer could sight MIB before or after the farmer sees the SPI. If, on average, MIB are seen before the SPI is seen, the data would seem to indicate that the MIB are not relying on farmer reports in order to locate SPIs and have some other, more timely means of knowing when a SPI has formed.

If I have grossly misrepresented your intent vis a vis this exercise, email me at gene.thomas@comcast.net with suggestions for improvements.