When the answers to the world's mysteries go unexplained...
When the secrets of tragic events go unspoken...
All too many times we are left with unanswered questions. The so-called unsolved mysteries plague those who live through and after the events. And when the questions go unanswered, the ingenuity of the human mind---which can leave no question unanswered---is masterful at filling in the blanks. Though, even with the manufactured details, many times the result leads to more unanswered questions than we started with.
Take as evidence the Flannan Isle mystery: An isolated island off the coast of Scotland, the location of a necessary lighthouse, and during the month of December in the year 1900, three lighthouse keepers vanished from the isolated island without a trace--- there was no boat on the island to lend to their escape and the only things that led searchers to believe something was not right were an untouched meal spread out on the table and an overturned chair next to the table. What would cause the keepers of a lighthouse to leave their post? What would cause them to lay out a full meal and leave it completely untouched? What would cause their disappearance but would leave no other clue as to what happened?
What would cause three men to vanish into thin air?
The only other known evidence is that the rain-gear for two of the men was missing, presumably the three men found their way outside, but why had only two of them dressed for the nasty winter weather?
The most widely accepted answer to what happened is a King Wave--- a rare, but not-unheard-of phenomenon where an unexpected ocean-swell gathers to gargantuan proportions, enough to easily pull three men from a craggy island coast and into the unforgiving abyss of the ocean. But, this still doesn't explain what led all three men to be outside in the first place, and one of them completely under-dressed for the outing.
Over a century later and the questions still remain unanswered.
Just like any other unexplained event, many a poem and fantastic story has come from this macabre mystery. From Flannan Isle, by Wilfrid Wilson Gibson written in 1912 to the 1977 Doctor Who episode: Horror at Fang Rock, whose plot loosely mirrors the tragedy of Flannan Isle--- though the King Wave is replaced by a stranded alien bent on the destruction of mankind, but that's just the sort of explanation that unanswered questions can lead to.
So, until we can determine the exact cause of their disappearance, this story will remain one of the unsolved cases of history--- one which we may never find the answers to....
And, we are left pondering what other mysteries have been explained away with thin stories, mysteries that may no longer be thought of as mysteries as those thin stories have settled themselves quite solidly in our memory.
Though, so long as the words of Wilfrid Wilson Gibson echo, Flannan Isle will be remembered as a mystery... a tragic mystery....
"...Aye: though we hunted high and low,
And hunted everywhere,
Of the three men's fate we found no trace
Of any kind in any place,
But a door ajar, and an untouched meal,
And an overtoppled chair...."
When the secrets of tragic events go unspoken...
All too many times we are left with unanswered questions. The so-called unsolved mysteries plague those who live through and after the events. And when the questions go unanswered, the ingenuity of the human mind---which can leave no question unanswered---is masterful at filling in the blanks. Though, even with the manufactured details, many times the result leads to more unanswered questions than we started with.
Take as evidence the Flannan Isle mystery: An isolated island off the coast of Scotland, the location of a necessary lighthouse, and during the month of December in the year 1900, three lighthouse keepers vanished from the isolated island without a trace--- there was no boat on the island to lend to their escape and the only things that led searchers to believe something was not right were an untouched meal spread out on the table and an overturned chair next to the table. What would cause the keepers of a lighthouse to leave their post? What would cause them to lay out a full meal and leave it completely untouched? What would cause their disappearance but would leave no other clue as to what happened?
What would cause three men to vanish into thin air?
The only other known evidence is that the rain-gear for two of the men was missing, presumably the three men found their way outside, but why had only two of them dressed for the nasty winter weather?
The most widely accepted answer to what happened is a King Wave--- a rare, but not-unheard-of phenomenon where an unexpected ocean-swell gathers to gargantuan proportions, enough to easily pull three men from a craggy island coast and into the unforgiving abyss of the ocean. But, this still doesn't explain what led all three men to be outside in the first place, and one of them completely under-dressed for the outing.
Over a century later and the questions still remain unanswered.
Just like any other unexplained event, many a poem and fantastic story has come from this macabre mystery. From Flannan Isle, by Wilfrid Wilson Gibson written in 1912 to the 1977 Doctor Who episode: Horror at Fang Rock, whose plot loosely mirrors the tragedy of Flannan Isle--- though the King Wave is replaced by a stranded alien bent on the destruction of mankind, but that's just the sort of explanation that unanswered questions can lead to.
So, until we can determine the exact cause of their disappearance, this story will remain one of the unsolved cases of history--- one which we may never find the answers to....
And, we are left pondering what other mysteries have been explained away with thin stories, mysteries that may no longer be thought of as mysteries as those thin stories have settled themselves quite solidly in our memory.
Though, so long as the words of Wilfrid Wilson Gibson echo, Flannan Isle will be remembered as a mystery... a tragic mystery....
"...Aye: though we hunted high and low,
And hunted everywhere,
Of the three men's fate we found no trace
Of any kind in any place,
But a door ajar, and an untouched meal,
And an overtoppled chair...."
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