  In the first part of this paper, we show that the Cauchy problem for wave
propagation in some static spacetimes presenting a singular time-like boundary
is well posed, if we only demand the waves to have finite energy, although no
boundary condition is required. This feature does not come from essential
self-adjointness, which is false in these cases, but from a different
phenomenon that we call the alternative well-posedness property, whose origin
is due to the degeneracy of the metric components near the boundary.
  Beyond these examples, in the second part, we characterize the type of
degeneracy which leads to this phenomenon.
