  Betelgeuse is the nearest red supergiant, one of the brightest stars in our
sky, and statistically speaking it would be expected to be "typical". Yet it
exhibits many features that seem "curious", to say the least. For instance it
has a high proper motion. It rotates fast. It has little dust. It dimmed
unexpectedly. Is any of these, and other, phenomena atypical, and taken
together does it make Betelgeuse atypical? This is important to know, because
we need to know whether Betelgeuse might be a prototype of red supergiants in
general, or certain subclasses of red supergiants, since we can study it in
such great detail. It is also important to know as it may be a link to
understanding other, apparently atypical cases such as supernova 1987A, and
maybe even such exotica as Thorne-\.Zytkov objects. Studying this question in
itself helps us understand how we deal with rarity and coincidence in
understanding the Universe we live in.
