This gets into the BIG issue I take with these over-arching fake investigations.
Yeah, I said FAKE.
The core problem is that not only did the author not demonstrate a cause, but didn't demonstrate the cases have ANY connection at all whatsoever. The fundamental premise of lumping cases into a group is that the cases are supposed to have commonalities (beyond coincidence) and shared .... something? If they don't then why bother at all? Paulides's work fails this test. No evidence of any connection is presented at all. If the cases have no connection... why present them as a group? Sure, there's that woo-woo semi-plausible idea of "investigating" and looking for answers. But... he doesn't really do that. He's really just making lists of woo-woo things. To what end? He barely does any more than hint at a goal to his "investigation". It's like putting a giant pile of puzzle pieces in a box, then waxing philosophical about how you have no idea what the puzzle looks like... when you haven't even tried to put them together.
Yes but no but maybe.
I actually
do approve of drawing up lists of similarities and apparent coincidences, but I'd argue that he hasn't gone nearly far enough.
I think that an agglomeration of facts, both objective and subjective (and anywhere between) can allow evidence of higher-order causes to emerge.
Scientists are naturally drawn to those variables that are easily measured, quantified, compared and repeated—and these can be vital—but this approach leaves a lot of avenues unexplored; it can prejudice the search for explanations by deciding
in advance which set of facts will lead to the territory in which a common cause resides.
I was taken, for instance, with Paulides's belief that the colour red may carry some significance—specifically that many of the vanished were clad in red. This is interesting as far as it goes, but it doesn't go very far. I'd like to see an exhaustive list of the predominant colours worn by
all those who went missing—sortable by date of disappearance alongside data on the age, height, weight, sex, sexuality, eye/hair colour, sexuality, occupation and personality type of the victim—with accompanying notes on the colour of the landscape and foliage during the season concerned, and figures showing the distribution of different colours among garments produced by the outdoor clothing industry, plus a discussion of the colouration of the various prey of all predators indigenous to the region.
Supply all that and crowdsource it to see what, if any, patterns emerge. Repeat the process with data for the entire range of seemingly unexplained disappearances to see what, if any, metapatterns emerge.
And this is before we even enter the realms of the subjective and/or
apparently trivial: diet, marital status, religion, blood type, physical attractiveness, intelligence, name, hometown, previous addresses, travel history,
date on which the researcher became aware of the case, level of interest the researcher has etc.: it's spreadsheet heaven!