Which is better: a mystery or a clue? Absence or a relic? Proponents of both sides had plenty to say this month after French researchers discovered part of the answer to a puzzle that's endured nearly 60 years: Whatever happened to Antoine de Saint-Exupery?

In July 1944, the French aviation pioneer and author disappeared while on a reconnaissance mission for the Allies. There was no trace of his plane, a Lockheed Lightning P-38, or his body. It was as if, like the hero of his best-known book, "The Little Prince," Saint-Exupery had simply left the planet. His body still has not been recovered, although in 1998 a fisherman found a bracelet bearing his wife's name near Marseille, France. But then, 10 days ago, authorities confirmed that wreckage found on the seabed nearly five kilometers off Provence had indeed come from Saint-Exupery's aircraft.

The notoriously melancholy, brave, even reckless man had not melted into thin air. He had crashed into the Mediterranean -- the cause of the crash remains unknown -- close to the flight path he had been instructed to take that night after observing German troop movements in the Rhone River Valley. Like Amelia Earhart, another lost aviator, or George Mallory, whose body lay undiscovered on Mount Everest for 75 years, Saint-Exupery had taken on larger-than-life qualities simply by virtue of vanishing. Although questions persist, the stark reality of the smashed and twisted debris given up by the sea this month has had the effect of restoring his humanity, bringing him back down to earth.