Brief communication "What do we know about freaque waves in the ocean and lakes and how do we know it?"

Abstract. We made an objective examination of our present state of knowledge on freaque waves in the ocean and lakes from three separate perspectives:

- testimonial – from eyewitness account of actual encounters;

- empirical – from available in-situ wave measurements;

- conjectural – from academic theoretical formulations;

and led to a subjective answer to the posted title question of this paper: we do not know very much about freaque waves in the ocean and lakes! There are really no interconnections among the three perspectives we examined. Put them together however, persuades us to think that freaque waves are really an integral part of the ocean and lakes, they happen not infrequently but we still basically do not know when, where, how, what, and why they will happen. We do not even have as yet a viable definition on the phenomenon. So in order to expect tangible progress in our knowledge to the understanding of freaque waves in the ocean and lakes, we propose to strengthen a key ingredient by further invigorate the empirical aspect of the perspective, specifically making more in-situ spatial wave measurement for freaque wave studies, which is practically non-existence at the present.