Principles of the invention provide techniques for analyzing spatiotemporally ambiguous events. In one aspect, an exemplary method includes the steps of storing event data representative of an event, the event data comprising spatiotemporally ambiguous measurements; storing side information, the side information comprising at least one of spatial data and temporal data related to the event in space-time: associating the event data with the side information by soft association to form association data; applying one or more estimation techniques to the association data to form estimation data; and determining at least one of a rate, a factor, a likelihood, a value, a time, a location, and a cause for the event by applying one or more characterization techniques to the estimation data.