Flight 370 - Flights of wild fancy

The confirmation yesterday afternoon of the fate of the Malaysia Airlines plane at the centre of world attention since it went missing 17 days ago will bring some finality if not clarity or comfort to the relatives of the 239 passengers and crew lost in the tragedy.

Though there are many loose ends, known unknowns and probably many more unknown unknowns, the episode does highlight one thing — our age-old unease with mystery, our deep discomfort with not knowing or understanding what happens around us.

It must be assumed state security level surveillance agencies knew more and for longer than was revealed publicly in this story but the shortage of definite, plausible information showed how quickly we can fall back into the kind of fantasy and wild speculation we think impossible in an age of science and rational thought.