I REMEMBER STEPHEN HAWKING WRITING ABOUT THIS IN THE 1970S, WHICH I DISCOVERED VIA JERRY POURNELLE: Dangerous ‘naked’ black holes could be hiding in the universe. “Ever since we first discovered the existence of black holes, we’ve wondered if it’s possible to form a singularity without the associated event horizon — a so-called ‘naked’ singularity. This would be a very dangerous place indeed, because it would be a location where the laws of physics break down that is fully accessible to the rest of the universe. At least with a traditional black hole, the singularity is safely wrapped beneath an event horizon, so even though it’s a place of extreme and unknown physics, at least whatever happens there is locked away from the rest of the cosmos.”