Working with a group of colleagues, generate a list of twenty favorite “mysteries” explored on cable TV shows, in blogs, or in tabloid newspapers. Here are three to get you started—the alien crash...

Working with a group of colleagues, generate a list of twenty favorite “mysteries” explored on cable TV shows, in blogs, or in tabloid newspapers. Here are three to get you started—the alien crash landing at Roswell, the existence of Atlantis, and the uses of Area 51. Then decide which—if any—of these puzzlers might be resolved or explained in a reasonable factual argument and which ones remain eternally mysterious and improbable. Why are people attracted to such topics? Would any of these items provide material for a noteworthy factual argument?