I'm going off on a tangent again! I'm sure that many people by now are aware that the discovery of Bigfoot's corpse in Georgia was actually a hoax. Some people were relieved, some people were disappointed, most people didn't care. My husband, the man I said in a previous blog would sit in a cemetery on Halloween night with a tape recorder, was thrilled and heartbroken at the same time. He was heartbroken that it wasn't really Bigfoot, because he really is out there somewhere, you know. At the same time he was thrilled because he sees it as his life's work to go out there and find Bigfoot.

All of this got me thinking about the many mysteries that surround us - mostly imagined - and the number of people who really do believe in the existence of some of these things. I'm talking about things like Bigfoot, aliens, UFOs, crop circles, X-files, religious mysteries, urban legends, and even end-of-the- world predictions! Scientists, cultural anthropologists, and researchers have actually encouraged some of these beliefs.

Television has also got a lot to answer for. People will believe really strange things if they see them on tv. Sometimes viewers don't even notice the disclaimer which should let them know that a lot of this information comes from someone's overactive imagination. Sometimes the show is even touted as an expose of concealed information that the public should know about. Remember Alien Autopsy or Area 51? (The website for Area 51 must be examined with caution, unless you want to find yourself downloading alien landing ringtones to your cell or making a donation to whatever group this represents.) There is a lot of information on there, though, for people who "want to believe". Movies should be held responsible as well. For instance, the Da Vinci code has given birth to a multitude of religious "conspiracy theories".

The "truth" is out there in a lot of books at Nashua Public Library. If you are a "true believer" or a skeptic like me, you can still enjoy the books in the zeros section. Some of us will just laugh harder than others. Here's a selection:

Mysterious monsters: fact or fiction
Monsters: evil beings, mythical beasts and all manner of imaginary terrors by David D. Gilmore
The X-files : book of the unexplained by Jane Goldman
The mystery chronicles : more real-life x-files by Joe Nickell
A guide to the end of the world by Bill McGuire
Magi : uncovering the secret society that read the birth of Jesus in the stars by Adrian Gilbert
The chalice of Magdalene by Graham Phillips
and for those of us who knew it was all make-believe anyway:
The great pretenders : true stories behind famous historical mysteries by Jan Bondeson
The museum of hoaxes by Alex Boese