Interested in the phenomenom called crop circles? Check out Linda Moulton Howe’s book Mysterious Lights and Crop Circles.

AP / STEVE & GENE WINDHAM

The Dewey Decimal System classifies all information from computer science (000.0) to history (900.0). Most public libraries use it. It also classifies the unknown and controversial under the number 001.9. There you’ll find more questions than answers and all of it intriguing.

From Atlantis to the Bermuda Triangle, from Big Foot to the Loch Ness monster, the pondered and unproven are described and debated. The unknown has a history as old as the ancient world.

The legend of Atlantis was first recounted by Plato. It is a story of a Utopian island civilization destroyed by a natural disaster. Modern archaeologists propose that it was an island near modern Crete demolished by a volcano. The Greek isle of Thera (now Santorin) was broken into three smaller islands when a volcano erupted there about 1500 B.C., giving rise to the legend in ancient times. Theories have abounded in modern times on locations in the Atlantic Ocean and even references in the art of the Incas. The 1883 eruption on Krakatoa, an island in Indonesia, has led scholars to understand how a land mass can be obliterated by a massive volcanic explosion. Read about the theories in Lost Atlantis: New light on an old legend, by J.V. Luce, and about the legends in Atlantis, by Don Nardo.

For mysteries closer to home, there are the perennial tales of the Bermuda Triangle. Read Charles Berlitz’s The Bermuda Triangle: an incredible saga of unexplained disappearances. The triangle is formed by three points: the island of Bermuda, southern Florida and a longitude about 40 degrees west past Puerto Rico. Planes and ships have disappeared there for generations in disproportionate numbers, often with no trace. Explanations range from swift surface and subsurface currents to unexploded munitions from World War Two to magnetic fields warping compass readings. Wreckage can quickly be covered by the sand of the ocean floor. The stories and theories continue to be investigated in The Bermuda Triangle Mystery — Solved, by Lawrence David Kusche. An academic reference librarian, he offers logical explanations for every reported disaster.

The unknown reaches beyond the geological into the realm of animal and human-like creatures., Known as Big Foot, Sasquatch, the abominable snowman and Yeti, these huge beasts have been reported in Central Asia, on the west coast of Alaska, in Canada and throught the continental U.S. They have been captured, purportedly, only in photographs. Great Mysteries: Bigfoot, opposing viewpoints, by Norma Gaffron, follows the history of these unexplained ape-like creatures with photographs from around the world.

Serpents in seas and lakes have been reported as early as 1734, when a Norwegian missionary on an ocean voyage to Greenland saw “a very terrible sea-animal” that “raised its tail above the water a whole ship-length from its body.”

In July 1933, George Spicer and his wife, on vacation from London, saw an enormous long-necked animal moving from the shoreline into Loch Ness, in Scotland. Persistent evidence of this “monster” has prompted scientific study, but no conclusions. The Loch Ness Monster, by Thomas Streissguth, describes both the legend and skepticism about “Nessie.” You can read about all sorts of like creatures in Mysteries of the Unexplained, published by Reader’s Digest.

Since Biblical times when Ezekiel saw a wheeled vehicle in the sky, people have reported seeing unidentified flying objects. The UFO Enigma: A new review of the physical evidence, by Peter Sturrock, is a scientific inquiry into accumulated data and observations. Sturrock, a professor of applied physics at Stanford University, goes to great lengths to review international evidence with disturbing results. For the ardent follower of these phenomena, this book is highly recommended. Equally fascinating coverage is given in Mysteries of the unknown: The UFO Phenomenon, published by Time-Life Books.

Meanwhile, back on planet Earth, crop circles continue to baffle both the popular and scientific mind. Mysterious Lights and Crop Circles, by Linda Moulton Howe, details in text and photogs the extraordinary tracing of designs on fields of corn, wheat and soybeans worldwide. Eighty percent of the crop circles have been proven to be hoaxes, but for the remainder adjoining and untouched crops have sometimes been biologically altered. Howe is another Stanford affiliate and documentary producer who has traveled extensively in pursuit of answers to these mysteries.

Einstein said, “The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science.”

The next time you visit your public library for answers, consider searching for questions as well.

Jane Schweinsburg is assistant director of the Coventry Public Library.