The [scientists’] families have dismissed the runaway theory unanimously, describing their loved ones as “cowards,” “cravens” and “slaves to fear” who “would never have set foot outside their domain, unless something—or someone—spooked them.”

Climate scientists have no natural enemies, but police are not ruling out fell deeds.

“Certain circumstantial data are reminiscent, if not redolent, of dodgy play,” explained a media liaison officer for Australian Federal Police, “but apodeictic proof of villainy has yet to be uncovered, so it is too early to rule out fair cricket.”

“It’s not like Tim to let a domain name lapse,” said the father of one scientist.

The grandma of another chimed in.

“Have you met [the group of friends]? An ISP bill would be chump change. Climate scientists might only get eight months of work a year but they’re obscenely [well] compensated. It’s silly money, really.

“Are we seriously meant to believe eight academics on $190,000 couldn’t do a whip-round for fifty bucks when their [virtual] landlord was up their arse[s]?”

The 92-year-old woman was even more scathing when she took into account the site’s lack of premium features (“really, no comments?”), static sitemap and shallow navigation structure (“two or three clicks deep, if that”).

“Packages this minimal, blogging platforms are practically paying you to take off their hands these days,” she felt.

“If [my grandson] and his mates paid more than $9.99 [last year], they got bloody well gypped.”

One of the mums agreed. “That would be pretty gullible, even for them.” Police in Australia have praised the “fast thinking, slow thinking” and “community spirit” of an anonymous citizen who discovered the eerie ghost property late last night. Perturbed by what he could only describe as “suspicious inactivities” at the site, the punter rang a national crime hotline sometime later to articulate his vague forebodings.

Two members of the squad [which discovered the pitiful state of the blog] are on Sadness Leave.

NSW Police Force Assistant Commissioner Peter Barrie told a press conference today: “In 2015, the National Crime Command is urging people to ‘Follow Your Instincts’ if you suspect something is dodgy.

“Last night’s good Samaritan did exactly that. Remember, ‘If You Sense Something, Say Something. No Matter How Ineffable.'”

Acting on the tipoff, detectives from the IP Sniffer Dog Unit and Missing Evidence Task Force carried out a daring pre-dawn browse of the address.

“But there was nothing to see. Or perhaps: nothingness,” said Assistant Commissioner Barrie.

Although squatters had ‘bagsed’ the site (an Australianism thought to mean something like ‘claimed’), the desolation was otherwise “utter,” he recalled.

Hardened cyber-detectives—twenty-year veterans of the squad—were reportedly among those affected by the sepulchral silence and measureless emptiness. An AFP source says at least two members of today’s strike force were given Sadness Leave, triggered presumably by the unspeakable and immemorial vacuum that dwells where science’s favorite fraidycats should be.

Australia’s Scared Scientists are now understood to have gone missing a full four months ago. That’s when their address was vacated, according to squatters who were interviewed by police today.

The development dashed hopes that the troubled researchers had simply gone ‘walkabout’ and might be back within hours—before hunger, delirium and frostbite began to take a toll.

There is no recorded case of climate scientists surviving more than a few weeks away from the inner city areas they call home.

The news has led many Australians to give up their vigil for the emotionally arrested researchers.

Police are expected to make a formal announcement, in coming hours, of a shift in mission parameters from rescue to recovery—the traditional signal to begin imagining the victims not as they were in happier times, but as they are now: in thermal equilibrium with nature.

Only one hope remains for the special scientists’ survival: foul play.

The eight anxious families are now keeping their spirits up by debating whether their loved ones are in the clutches of organ harvesters, sex traffickers or climate deniers.

A groundswell of worried citizens in Australia and elsewhere is calling for the ruins of the Scared Scientists’ habitat to be honored.

“It’s time to kick out the squatters, and let the well-wishing community turn [the Scientists’] final resting place into a tribute wall, scrapbook or dynamic, evolving shrine!”, said a Facebook petition released three days ago. It quickly struck a chord, and has so far gathered 150,000 signatures—plus several celebrity endorsements.

So transcendental was the message of the petition, its authors did not want to limit it by addressing it to anyone. It begins simply, “To whom the fate of the planet may concern.”

President Obama’s tweetwriters gave it their blessing, attaching the words, “Nobody should own hallowed ground. We, the People, need to take [the Scared site] back.”

Australian police have already been moved to explain themselves. In an AFP statement yesterday they acknowledged the global attitude to those who squat on the sacred, but pleaded that—for absurd historical reasons—their hands were tied.

“We have to point out,” they pointed out, “that Australia is technically a constitutional squattocracy.”

Meanwhile the occupants of the site, who are said to be fans of the mass movement, are still waiting to hear back from mankind. In a new blog post they’ve reminded us, the People, that they slashed the domain price to $2 several days ago.

“Knowing how much this cause means to the pro-climate world we were only too happy to offer the reduction.

“The ball is in the people’s court.

“No pressure.”