Too Many Solved Mysteries

When I was a boy of 6 or 7 I got my first book on bigfoot. Within a year I was reading about the Bermuda Triangle and the Loch Ness Monster. Ah, what great days those were. Leonard Nimoy's voice saying what we were 'In Search Of'. The thrill of picturing Sasquatch carrying Albert Ostman to his hidden lair deep in the woods, the wonder at how Flight 19 could just disappear (along with the rescue plane sent to look for them) practically in sight of land. Not knowing if they really did crash (maybe they flew through a time warp!) or where the Titanic was. Not knowing.

It seems clear that the important part about not knowing is that it causes a person's mind to create a probable scenario, an answer that fits the bill. And as children, new in the world and surrounded by mysteries, one seems as plausible as any other. Why couldn't bigfoot exist? How do you know there aren't other dimensions? The child's mind (or at least this child's mind) could believe almost anything if said with enough reverence and awe.

But now look around the world. Bigfoot turned out to be a guy in a monkey suit, Loch Ness was a badly faked photo and a tourist trap and They actually found Flight 19 and the Titantic! Bastards.

I understand the reason why people go searching for the answers to mysteries in life is because they're fascinated by them too. It's the same reason we (collectively) wanted to split the atom. Because we could. But when you take mystery away from a child the world just seems a dull and scary place, with no wonder or amazement to it. It's the mystery which tells the child we don't know everything yet, it's ok not to know some things.

So maybe I was a foolish kid. Maybe even at 10 I knew that those footprints around the earth-moving equipment weren't really from a giant humanoid. Maybe I knew there were no plesiosaurs in a peaty, boggy loch in Scotland. But even at 37 there's one thing I do know. They can't take the Mary Celeste away from me.