1. In The Beginning
Chapter One
IN THE BEGINNING
Was the Universe an Inside Job?
Cold-Case Approach:
The murder scene was a fast-food restaurant. As I examined the photographs, my eyes returned to the small, curved piece of foam lying on the kitchen floor. Only inches from the victim’s body, it rested beside the contents of her purse.
Thirty years ago, the original homicide detectives had recognized the importance of this foam. But they couldn’t decipher its meaning. Clearly not part of the purse, it seemed to stand out in the crime scene. Did the suspect leave it behind? If so, what could it tell us about the identity of the killer?
This was the first case for our newly formed cold-case team. I was fascinated with this single piece of evidence. It had to be the key to the mystery.
Whenever I begin to examine a particular piece of evidence at a crime scene, I consider three important questions:
How long has this item been at the scene? This first question considers the issue of origination. Detectives must determine which items in the crime scene have been disturbed or deposited by an intruder. If the item was in the scene prior to the crime, it is an artifact (rather than evidence of an intruder). If this is the case, it’s of little interest to investigators. The first question we have to ask, therefore, is, when did this item first appear in the scene?
Who caused this evidence to appear in the scene? This second question ponders the issue of causation. If the item under consideration entered the scene (or was altered at the scene) as a result of the crime, it’s reasonable for us to ask who (or what) caused its initial appearance (or alteration). There are only two kinds of causation at crime scenes, the same two kinds recognized by philosophers and scientists: event causation and agent causation. The second question we must ask, therefore, is, who or what caused this evidence to appear, or this condition to change, in the scene?
Why did the evidence appear at the scene, and what does this tell us about the suspect? This final question seeks an explanation: why the evidence is there. It’s related directly to the particular suspect. In the end, one suspect’s motivations will make the most sense of the evidence. The final question we must ask, then, is, why did the evidence appear, or the condition change, at the scene? And what does this tell us about the suspect?
Over the next twelve months, the answers to these three questions led me to a suspect. The foam was not part of the scene prior to the crime. Following the murder, the intruder had unwittingly dropped it as he stooped to empty the victim’s purse. The foam came from his right work boot, popping out as he crouched. His heel rubbed against the torn seam of the boot’s cuff, causing the foam to rise and spring from the lining.
Many years after the murder, I interviewed the suspect and observed a similar wear pattern. In fact, my search warrant revealed this condition in all his shoes. He admitted a habit of kicking his shoes off without untying the laces. His shoe cuffs wore out prematurely, exposing the foam and making it susceptible to displacement.
I now had answers to all three questions. I knew the foam originated at the scene as a result of an intruder. With this information in mind, I next determined that the crouching movement of the suspect caused the displacement. Finally, my investigation revealed the suspect’s habit was the reason his shoe cuff was so worn in the first place. Asking the right questions led me to a reasonable explanation.
The Evidence “In the Room”:
ASKING ABOUT ORIGINATION—DID THE UNIVERSE HAVE A BEGINNING?
Detectives must account for every item of evidence in the crime scene, including the location itself. Why did the murder occur here rather than somewhere else? Did this location necessitate the murder in some way? What, if anything, does the location tell us about the suspect in the case?
Before we examine the evidence in the room, it’s sometimes important to consider the room itself. Even before I had scientific evidence confirming the source of the foam from chemical comparisons between the foam and the intruder’s shoe, I had good philosophical reasons to conclude it had come from outside the scene. The middle of a busy fast-food kitchen was an unlikely place for it. There was also its proximity to the victim’s purse. Together, the cumulative weight of the philosophical and scientific evidence indicated the foam began to exist in the scene as a result of the commission of the crime.
What does the evidence in our universe tell us about its origin? Did all space, time, and matter1 begin to exist? If so, what does this tell us about the existence of an intruder? While universe evidence is far more complex than shoe-foam evidence, the answers to these questions are within our reach. In order to determine if the universe began to exist, we’ll need to examine several categories of evidence:
PHILOSOPHICAL EVIDENCE FROM THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF INFINITE REGRESS
A Tool for the Call-Out Bag:
We recognized either the shoe foam existed on the scene prior to the entry of the killer or it was there as a result of the killer’s presence. We knew, however, it hadn’t been in the scene for an infinite number of days, hours, or minutes. While infinites are useful mathematical concepts, they are elusive in our real life experience. Conceptual or potential infinites are one thing, but actual infinites are another, as they typically result in absurdities. Let’s consider an example. As a police officer, I carry a serialized service weapon: a Glock Model 21 pistol. Every officer in my department carries a weapon like mine, and each pistol has a number stamped on the side of its slide. Imagine my police department has an infinite supply of these handguns in our property room, numbered from #1 upward. Now let’s say we were to remove every fourth odd-numbered handgun from the property room—12.5 percent of our total gun collection.
After removing these pistols, how many would we have taken out of the total collection? The answer: an infinite number of handguns, because any fraction of an infinite is still an infinite. How many would be left in the property room? You guessed it: an infinite number.
So, while we’ve removed a fraction from the total, each is still an infinite quantity. This is clearly nonsensical, but it’s a common absurdity if actual infinites really exist.2 And if real infinites are impossible in our property room, they’re also impossible when considering an infinite sequence of past years, hours, or minutes. As a result, an infinitely old universe is not truly possible. We conclude that the universe had a beginning.
This becomes even more obvious when we consider another simple illustration. Imagine a linear racetrack with a start line and a finish line. Now imagine you’re a new police recruit and I’ve asked you to put on your track shoes and step into the starting blocks for a physical training test. The finish line is one hundred yards away. As you place your feet in the blocks and prepare to run, I raise the starting pistol. Just before I fire it, however, I stop and tell you to move the start line and blocks back six inches. You reluctantly do that. Again I raise the pistol to the sky—only to command you, once again, to move the line back another six inches. You comply grudgingly. Imagine this continues. Question: Will you ever reach the finish line? No. Unless there is a beginning, you’ll never get to the finish. In a similar way, time also requires a beginning in order for any of us to reach a finish; unless time has a beginning, we cannot arrive at the finish line we call “today.” Since you’re reading this book right now, time must have had a beginning.
Even if we had no other evidence on which to base an inference, there are good philosophical reasons to believe our finite universe had a beginning.3
THEORETICAL EVIDENCE FROM MATHEMATICS AND PHYSICS
In the early twentieth century, mathematicians and physicists began to affirm the finite nature of the universe. Prior to this time, scientific thinkers (embracing the dynamics of Newtonian physics) believed the universe was infinitely old, uniform, and unchanging. But when Albert Einstein tried to apply his general theory of relativity to the cosmos in 1916, he found these assumptions inaccurate. His own calculations indicated the universe was dynamic (either expanding or contracting). The notion of a static universe was so common at the time, however, that Einstein applied a mathematical “constant” to his calculations to maintain the unchanging, uniform nature of the universe he hoped for (he later referred to this effort as “the biggest blunder he ever made in his life”4). Einstein’s calculations suggested the universe was not eternally old and unchanging.
Aleksandr Friedmann, a Russian mathematician working with Einstein’s theories in the 1920s, developed a mathematical model predicting an expanding universe. This conclusion was shocking and unpopular at the time because it implied the universe must have had a beginning from which it was expanding.
OBSERVATIONAL EVIDENCE FROM ASTRONOMICAL DATA
As mathematicians explored the theoretical evidence, astronomers began to make observations confirming the expansion of the universe. Vesto Slipher, an American astronomer working at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, spent nearly ten years perfecting his understanding of spectrograph readings. His observations revealed something remarkable. If a distant object was moving toward Earth, its observable spectrograph colors shifted toward the blue end of the spectrum. If a distant object was moving away from Earth, its colors shifted toward the red end of the spectrum.
Slipher identified several nebulae and observed a redshift in their spectrographic colors. If these nebulae were moving away from our galaxy (and one another), as Slipher observed, they must have once been tightly clustered together. In 1914, he offered these findings at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society, proposing them as evidence the universe was expanding.
A graduate student named Edwin Hubble was in attendance and realized the implications of Slipher’s work. Hubble later began working at the Mount Wilson Observatory in Los Angeles. Using the Hooker telescope, he eventually proved Slipher’s nebulae were actually galaxies beyond the Milky Way composed of billions of stars. By 1929, Hubble published findings of his own, verifying Slipher’s observations and demonstrating the speed at which a star or galaxy moves away from us increases with its distance from Earth. This once again confirmed the expansion of the universe.
Hubble wasn’t alone in his discovery. Two years earlier, in 1927, Monseigneur Georges Lemaître—a Belgian priest, astronomer, and professor of astrophysics—also proposed an expanding universe as an explanation for Slipher’s redshift. If the universe was expanding, what was it expanding from? Lemaître concluded the universe had a beginning from which it expanded to its current condition.
THERMAL EVIDENCE FROM THE SECOND LAW OF THERMODYNAMICS
These astronomical observations were consistent with the second law of thermodynamics. This well-established scientific law said the quantity of energy within a closed, isolated system (like the universe) remains the same, though the amount of usable energy deteriorates gradually over time. This would mean the energy in our universe, unless fed from a source outside of it, will ultimately “even out” until the entire universe is uniform in energy, temperature, and disorder. A simple illustration will help us understand why this is relevant to our investigation.
Expert Witness Profile:
Imagine walking into a room and observing a windup toy police car. The longer you watch it roll, the slower it moves. You realize the car is winding down—that is, the amount of usable energy is decreasing. It’s reasonable to infer the car was recently wound up prior to your entry into the room. The fact the toy car is not yet completely unwound indicates it was wound up recently. If the car had been wound much earlier, we would expect it to be motionless by the time we entered the room.
In a similar way, the fact our universe still exhibits useful energy—even though the second law of thermodynamics dictates we are on our way to a cosmic “heat death”—indicates a beginning. Otherwise, and if the universe were infinitely old, our cosmos should have run out of usable energy by now. We can reasonably infer it was once tightly wound and full of energy.5
QUANTITATIVE EVIDENCE FROM THE ABUNDANCE OF HELIUM
Astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle studied how stars are formed. He initially insisted on a stationary, infinitely old, and unchanging universe. As he studied the way elements are created within stars, he was able to calculate the amount of helium created if the universe came into being from nothing. Helium is the second most abundant element in the universe (hydrogen is the first), but in order to form helium by nuclear fusion, temperatures must be incredibly high and conditions must be exceedingly dense. These would have been the conditions if the universe came into being from nothing. Hoyle’s calculations related to the formation of helium happen to coincide with our measurements of helium in the universe today. This, of course, is consistent with the universe having a moment of beginning.
RESIDUAL EVIDENCE FROM THE COSMIC BACKGROUND RADIATION
In 1964, two American physicists and radio astronomers, Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson, made an important discovery. They were unable to eliminate the radio signal “noise” from their large antenna at the Bell Telephone Laboratories in New Jersey, regardless of where in the universe they tried to point their instrument. They consulted with colleagues to determine the cause of this noise. Another physicist suggested the noise might not be coming from the antenna at all. Instead they might be detecting the residual background radiation caused when the universe first came into being. Penzias and Wilson proved this to be correct, winning a Nobel Prize for their discovery in 1978.
Numerous additional experiments and observations have since established the existence of cosmic background radiation, including data from the Cosmic Background Explorer satellite launched in 1989 and the Planck space observatory launched in 2009. For many scientists, this discovery solidified their belief the universe had a beginning.
Another illustration may be helpful. I served for three years on our SWAT unit, and during that time, we were repeatedly asked to flush out barricaded suspects. We employed a “flashbang” grenade in nearly all these SWAT entries. The grenades are designed, of course, to “flash” and “bang”; they make a lot of noise, light, and heat. We typically threw a grenade in the room where the suspect was barricaded (usually through a window). When the grenade hit the ground, it exploded violently, lighting the room, deafening the suspect, and filling the space with debris and heat. In that instant, as the suspect was distracted, our team came in from the opposite corner. Flashbangs are excellent distraction devices because they leave a lingering impact in the space where they are deployed.
In a similar way, if the universe leaped into existence, expanding from a state of tremendous heat, density, and expansion, we should expect to find evidence of lingering impact. The cosmic background radiation is the residual evidence of this cosmic flashbang. The pervasive radiation testifies to the extreme environment at the earliest moments of the universe.
ASSEMBLING THE EVIDENCE
My first goal at the crime scene was to determine the origin of the foam. Was it there prior to the murder, or did it appear as a result of the crime?
Our question is whether the universe had a beginning or is infinitely old. Any conclusion must take into consideration the various lines of evidence we’ve just explored: the philosophical evidence from the impossibility of infinite regress, the theoretical evidence from mathematics and physics, the observational evidence from astronomical data, the thermal evidence from the second law of thermodynamics, the quantitative evidence from the abundance of helium, and the residual evidence from the cosmic background radiation.
Given the quantity and diversity of this evidence, it is reasonable to infer the universe had a beginning; it is not infinitely old. The varied forms of evidence strengthen our case. As a detective, I recognize a simple evidential principle I call the diversity-certainty ratio. When multiple divergent lines of evidence all point to the same conclusion, you can trust you’re making a proper inference. The evidence for the beginning of the universe is decidedly diverse.
A Tool for the Call-Out Bag:
As astrophysics researcher Paolo Saraceno wrote, “The discovery of the background radiation, together with the observed abundance of helium, was a mortal blow to the theory of a stationary universe; only an initial fireball could have produced it. This meant the universe had an origin.”6
At this moment of origin, commonly referred to as a cosmic singularity, all space, time, and matter came into existence from nothing. The Standard Cosmological Model accepted by physicists today is grounded on the foundational premise that our universe came into being from something beyond the space, time, matter, and energy of our universe. While thoughtful investigators may disagree about the precise age of the universe, we can be confident about its finite nature. This cosmological model is considered a “striking success”; it describes all the scientific (and philosophical) data, and “a clear majority of the cosmological community” has accepted it.7
Staying “Inside the Room” for an Explanation:
ALTERNATIVE POSSIBILITIES VERSUS REASONABLE EXPLANATIONS
I’ve learned something important in the many homicide trials I’ve worked over the years: There’s always more than one way to explain evidence. Jurors are asked to evaluate two different interpretations of the evidence they’ve been presented, and they’re usually asked to assess two completely different theories related to the crime. While the Standard Cosmological Model (describing a universe with a beginning) is still the dominant theory among cosmologists and physicists, a number of competing ideas have been offered to describe the origin of the universe. Some of these explanations would allow us to stay “inside the room” of the universe to explain its existence; others would not. Do any of these alternatives disprove the reasonable inference that the universe had a beginning, however? No. Sitting in criminal trials over the years, I’ve come to recognize three critical liabilities common to faulty arguments: (1) they are unsupported by the evidence, (2) they have erroneously redefined critical aspects of the data, or (3) they suffer from logical contradictions. In an effort to explain the evidence we’ve described in the universe, scientists looking for an alternative to the Standard Cosmological Argument have considered a number of possibilities over the years. They’ve asked some important questions, but their answers and explanations suffer from the liabilities I’ve observed in my criminal trials:
A Tool for the Call-Out Bag:
COULD THE UNIVERSE BE EXPANDING ETERNALLY?
Some scientists have explored the question of the universe expanding eternally in an effort to explain the expansion without acknowledging or explaining its beginning. Historic models such as the Steady State Theory claimed the universe had been stretching and filling in eternally without an origin. But theories of this nature lacked evidential support, particularly once the cosmic background radiation and overabundance of helium were discovered.
COULD THE UNIVERSE BE CYCLING ETERNALLY BETWEEN EXPANSION AND CONTRACTION?
Oscillating or cyclical theories claim the universe has been expanding and contracting eternally. But early versions of these theories are also unsupported by the evidence. There isn’t, for example, sufficient mass in the universe for gravity to slow its expansion to cause a repeating cycle. More current cyclical models (such as the Cyclic Ekpyrotic Scenario) are even more speculative, relying on highly controversial string theory physics and leaving many questions completely unaddressed. As a result, these theories have not replaced the Standard Cosmological Model.
COULD THE UNIVERSE BE PART OF A LARGER, ETERNAL ENVIRONMENT?
A variety of quantum theories acknowledge the beginning of our universe but seek to place it in the context of a larger eternal setting. These theories claim the universe emerged from subatomic “virtual particles” in a preexisting, eternal quantum vacuum. Models of this type still have to explain the origin of the vacuum, however. In addition, these proposals redefine the meaning of “nothing” when describing the preexisting (1) primordial vacuum, (2) virtual particles, and (3) time from which our universe emerged. The evidence demonstrates all space, time, and matter began with the origin of our universe. Whatever preceded this universe cannot, therefore, have been spatial, temporal, or material, at least by the definitions we have been using all along. Emergent models redefine the meaning of “nothing” to include “something” (the primordial vacuum, virtual particles, and time). While this solves the problem semantically, it doesn’t solve the problem evidentially.
Attempts to stay “inside the room” of the universe to explain its beginning are inadequate because they either lack evidential support or must redefine critical aspects of the evidence to make their case. (Two of the three recurring flaws we described in this chapter will be seen in chapters to come.) For more on the liabilities related to these alternative explanations, refer to the Secondary Investigation section at the end of the book. Return here after reviewing the additional data.
AN EXPERT WITNESS SAYS THE UNIVERSE HAD A BEGINNING
When we finally brought the suspect to trial in our shoe-foam case, we relied on the testimony of an important expert witness. In an effort to compare the foam at the crime scene with the foam in our suspect’s shoe (recovered and stored a few days after the crime), we used a process known as forensic spectroscopy. Criminalists at the FBI crime lab identified the chemical composition of the foam samples with this technology to see if they matched. They didn’t. The foam recovered from the suspect’s shoes exhibited the presence of phthalates, while the foam from the crime scene did not (phthalates are a substance used in the manufacturing of plastics). While our two foam samples were chemically identical in every other way, the FBI criminalists did not believe they were from the same source. Our case appeared to have an insurmountable obstacle.
We knew something the criminalists didn’t, however. The suspect’s shoes were originally booked into evidence, and they’d been stored for thirty years in a plastic tub in our property room. The foam sample from the crime scene had been stored for the same period in a separate paper bag and envelope. We called an expert witness from the regional crime lab to testify about the nature of phthalates and their ability to migrate from plastics to other adjacent materials—which was precisely what had occurred with the foam in the shoes. The phthalates from the plastic tub had migrated into the tub’s contents and contaminated the shoe foam over the course of thirty years. Our forensic expert was able to account for this contamination, explain it to the jury, and demonstrate how closely the two foam samples matched once this phthalate contamination was removed from the spectroscopic data. Sometimes an expert witness can help make sense of confusing scientific information.
A Tool for the Call-Out Bag:
If you’re a bit confused by all the alternatives offered by those who deny the universe had a beginning, perhaps it’s time to call an expert witness. In this case, there’s no one better than Alexander Vilenkin, theoretical physicist, cosmologist, professor of physics, and director of the Institute of Cosmology at Tufts University. Partnering with mathematician Arvind Borde, cosmologist Alan Guth, and graduate researcher Audrey Mithani, Vilenkin has written several papers demonstrating any model of the universe in which expansion is occurring, regardless of the early conditions of the cosmos, must have a beginning.8 Vilenkin’s work addresses all the models we’ve already described, plus any future proposals in which the expansion of the universe is acknowledged.9 Vilenkin is a critical expert witness because he simplifies and makes sense of the diverse, sometimes-confusing scientific data.1
Searching “Outside the Room” for an Explanation:
ASKING ABOUT CAUSATION—WHAT COULD CAUSE THE UNIVERSE?
Once I determined the shoe foam in my crime scene first appeared at the time of the murder, I knew it had strong evidential value. In fact, once I knew it wasn’t part of the original scene and didn’t belong to the victim, it was clear I had evidence of an external suspect. But at this early stage of the investigation, I still wasn’t sure about the suspect’s identity or nature.
In a similar way, once we’ve determined the “room” (the space, time, and matter of the universe) had a beginning, it’s reasonable to attribute the appearance of this “room” to a nonspatial, atemporal, and nonmaterial cause—that is, a cause from outside time and space and having no physical substance.
The universe could not have caused itself, since something would have to exist to cause its own existence. But what exactly was this external causal “suspect”? What could account for the beginning of all space, time, and matter? Could the cause of the universe also have a cause? No. If the cause of the universe is also caused, we again face the dilemma of infinite regress and all its unavoidable absurdities. That’s why scientists are searching so diligently for an uncaused cause.1
Just as in crime scenes, the causal forces of the universe can be divided into two categories: personal and impersonal (we call them agent causes and event causes). Now let’s think carefully about the cause of the universe, which we’ve established could not itself have had a cause.
If it is an impersonal cause, it produced the universe out of necessity. Impersonal causes such as gravity cannot make decisions; they simply act and cause reactions inevitably. If, on the other hand, the first cause of the universe is a personal causal force, the universe may be here as the result of a choice. Personal agents can choose; impersonal causes must simply respond to prior events.
Is the uncaused cause of the universe personal or impersonal? As we examine other evidences “inside the room” of the universe, we’ll be better able to determine the nature of this force.
Asking for an Explanation:
WHY DOES THE UNIVERSE EXIST?
Expert Witness Profile:
The jurors in my shoe-foam case agreed the foam first appeared in the crime scene at the time of the murder. They also concluded this foam came from outside the scene and was evidence of an external suspect. But many of them were uncertain where the foam really came from. Why did it pop out of the suspect’s shoe when he bent down to sift through the victim’s purse? I explained how our suspect kicked off his shoes, and the jury finally understood the reason for his worn boot cuffs. This explained why the foam was dislodged and entered our crime scene.
When it comes to the existence of the universe, the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century German mathematician and philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz asked an important question about the universe’s existence. Leibniz observed, “Nothing takes place without sufficient reason.… Assuming this principle, the first question we have the right to ask will be, ‘Why is there something rather than nothing?’”1 The answer to this question depends on whether the first cause of the universe is personal or impersonal.
If the first cause is an impersonal causal force, the universe is simply a consequence of physics. It happens to exist, and nothing more can really be said about it. In fact, the question is rather senseless. Physicists reject why questions of this nature in favor of how questions. We can ask how a preexisting impersonal cause might generate our universe, but it’s pointless to ask why it did so. If the first cause is a personal agent, however, the why question becomes more reasonable.
When jurors evaluate a case, answers such as “That’s just the way it is” and “That’s a silly question” are unsatisfying. We want to know what happened, how it happened, and why it happened. Any possible solution denying our ability to ask the why question seems unreasonable. Yet this is where we find ourselves if the first cause of the universe is an impersonal force of physics. This doesn’t mean we should reject such an explanation; but if we ultimately come to this conclusion, we must accept that we’ll never get an answer to the why question beyond “That’s just the way it is.”13
“Inside the Room” or “Outside the Room”?
EXPLANATIONS FOR THE CUFF FOAM AND THE CAUSED UNIVERSE
The foam in my crime scene clearly pointed to the existence of an external suspect, an intruder who accounted for its initial appearance (origination), triggered its dislodgment when he bent down to empty the victim’s purse (causation), and whose past habit of kicking off his shoes explained why his boot cuffs were unable to retain the foam in the first place (explanation). The shoe foam could not be explained from inside the room. It was an important piece of evidence pointing to the existence of a particular sort of external intruder. Our suspect, a recently fired employee of the restaurant, entered the business after closing and killed the victim as part of a botched robbery attempt. They’d worked together, and she could have identified him. He was convicted more than twenty years after the murder and is currently serving a life sentence in California.
Like the shoe foam, the beginning of the universe cannot be explained from “inside the room.” The evidence points to a cause outside of space, time, and matter. Cosmologist Paul Davies, recognizing the dilemma presented by the evidence, wrote, “One might consider some supernatural force, some agency beyond space and time as being responsible … or one might prefer to regard the [beginning of the universe] as an event without a cause. It seems to me that we don’t have too much choice. Either … something outside of the physical world … or … an event without a cause.”14 This inference of a cause “outside the room” is reasonable, given the strength of diverse evidence for a caused universe and the inadequacy of efforts to stay “inside the room” of the universe for an explanation.
In summary, we used a simple investigative principle. We asked three causation questions in an effort to determine the identity of the first cause of the universe. Along the way we employed our life experiences to make a few reasonable inferences, identified common characteristics of faulty explanations, used the diversity-certainty ratio to evaluate our cumulative case, and consulted an expert witness to verify our conclusions. These investigative techniques strengthen the case for a universe with a beginning.
Our Emerging “Suspect” Profile:
The origin of the universe is an important piece of evidence pointing to the existence of an external cause, a particular sort of “suspect.” As we examine the evidence related to this cause, we can begin to assemble a “suspect” profile. Like most of my criminal investigations, each piece of evidence from the crime scene (“inside the room”) will tell us something about the potential existence and nature of a causal suspect (“outside the room”).
We can start our profile with what little we know so far, but there’s not enough evidence yet to fully describe or identify this suspect. Is our suspect an impersonal or personal force? The more we examine our “crime” scene, the clearer this answer will become.