TheBermuda Triangle, also known as the Devil's Triangle, is an urban legend focused on a loosely defined region in the western part of the North Atlantic Ocean where a number of aircraft and ships are said to have disappeared under mysterious circumstances. The idea of the area as uniquely prone to disappearances arose in the mid-20th century, but most reputable sources dismiss the idea that there is any mystery.[1][2][3]
The earliest suggestion of unusual disappearances in the Bermuda area appeared in an article written by Edward Van Winkle Jones of the Miami Herald that was distributed by the Associated Press and appeared in various American newspapers on 17 September 1950.[4][5][6]
Two years later, Fate magazine published "Sea Mystery at Our Back Door", a short article by George X. Sand that was the first to lay out the now-familiar triangular area where the losses took place.[7] Sand recounted the loss of several planes and ships since World War II: the disappearance of Sandra, a tramp steamer;[a] the December 1945 loss of Flight 19, a group of five US Navy torpedo bombers on a training mission; the January 1948 disappearance of Star Tiger, a British South American Airways (BSAA) passenger airplane; the March 1948 disappearance of a fishing skiff with three men, including jockey Albert Snider;[b] the December 1948 disappearance of an Airborne Transport DC-3 charter flight en route from Puerto Rico to Miami; and the January 1949 disappearance of Star Ariel,[c] another BSAA passenger airplane.[7]
Flight 19 was covered again in the April 1962 issue of The American Legion Magazine.[10][11] In it, author Allan W. Eckert wrote that the flight leader had been heard saying, "We cannot be sure of any direction ... everything is wrong ... strange ... the ocean doesn't look as it should."[11] In February 1964, Vincent Gaddis wrote an article called "The Deadly Bermuda Triangle" in Argosy saying Flight 19 and other disappearances were part of a pattern of strange events in the region, dating back to at least 1840.[12][13] The next year, Gaddis expanded this article into a book, Invisible Horizons.[14]
Larry Kusche, author of The Bermuda Triangle Mystery: Solved (1975),[1] argued that many claims of Gaddis and subsequent writers were exaggerated, dubious or unverifiable. Kusche's research revealed a number of inaccuracies and inconsistencies between Berlitz's accounts and statements from eyewitnesses, participants, and others involved in the initial incidents. Kusche noted cases where pertinent information went unreported, such as the disappearance of round-the-world yachtsman Donald Crowhurst, which Berlitz had presented as a mystery, despite clear evidence to the contrary. Another example was the ore-carrier recounted by Berlitz as lost without trace three days out of an Atlantic port when it had been lost three days out of a port with the same name in the Pacific Ocean. Kusche also argued that a large percentage of the incidents that sparked allegations of the Triangle's mysterious influence actually occurred well outside it. Often his research was simple: he would review period newspapers of the dates of reported incidents and find reports on possibly relevant events like unusual weather, that were never mentioned in the disappearance stories.
When the British Channel 4 television program The Bermuda Triangle (1992)[21] was being produced by John Simmons of Geofilms for the Equinox series, the marine insurance market Lloyd's of London was asked if an unusually large number of ships had sunk in the Bermuda Triangle area. Lloyd's determined that large numbers of ships had not sunk there.[3] Lloyd's does not charge higher rates for passing through this area. United States Coast Guard records confirm their conclusion. In fact, the number of supposed disappearances is relatively insignificant considering the number of ships and aircraft that pass through on a regular basis.[1]
The Coast Guard is also officially skeptical of the Triangle, noting that they collect and publish, through their inquiries, much documentation contradicting many of the incidents written about by the Triangle authors. In one such incident involving the 1972 explosion and sinking of the tanker V. A. Fogg, the Coast Guard photographed the wreck and recovered several bodies,[22] in contrast with one Triangle author's claim that all the bodies had vanished, with the exception of the captain, who was found sitting in his cabin at his desk, clutching a coffee cup.[15] In addition, V. A. Fogg sank off the coast of Texas, nowhere near the commonly accepted boundaries of the Triangle.
The Nova/Horizon episode The Case of the Bermuda Triangle, aired on 27 June 1976, was highly critical, stating that "When we've gone back to the original sources or the people involved, the mystery evaporates. Science does not have to answer questions about the Triangle because those questions are not valid in the first place ... Ships and planes behave in the Triangle the same way they behave everywhere else in the world."[2]
Skeptical researchers, such as Ernest Taves[23] and Barry Singer,[24] have noted how mysteries and the paranormal are very popular and profitable. This has led to the production of vast amounts of material on topics such as the Bermuda Triangle. They were able to show that some of the pro-paranormal material is often misleading or inaccurate, but its producers continue to market it. Accordingly, they have claimed that the market is biased in favor of books, TV specials, and other media that support the Triangle mystery, and against well-researched material if it espouses a skeptical viewpoint.
Benjamin Radford, an author and scientific paranormal investigator, noted in an interview on the Bermuda Triangle that it could be very difficult locating an aircraft lost at sea due to the vast search area, and although the disappearance might be mysterious, that did not make it paranormal or unexplainable. Radford further noted the importance of double-checking information as the mystery surrounding the Bermuda Triangle had been created by people who had neglected to do so.[27]
Triangle writers have used a number of supernatural concepts to explain the events. One explanation pins the blame on leftover technology from the mythical lost continent of Atlantis. Sometimes connected to the Atlantis story is the submerged rock formation known as the Bimini Road off the island of Bimini in the Bahamas, which is in the Triangle by some definitions. Followers of the purported psychic Edgar Cayce take his prediction that evidence of Atlantis would be found in 1968, as referring to the discovery of the Bimini Road. Believers describe the formation as a road, wall, or other structure, but the Bimini Road is of natural origin.[28]
Some hypothesize that a parallel universe exists in the Bermuda Triangle region, causing a time/space warp that sucks the objects around it into a parallel universe.[29] Others attribute the events to UFOs.[30][31] Charles Berlitz, author of various books on anomalous phenomena, lists several theories attributing the losses in the Triangle to anomalous or unexplained forces.[16]
The Gulf Stream (Florida Current) is a major surface current, primarily driven by thermohaline circulation that originates in the Gulf of Mexico and then flows through the Straits of Florida into the North Atlantic. In essence, it is a river within an ocean, and, like a river, it can and does carry floating objects.[34] It has a maximum surface velocity of about 2 m/s (6.6 ft/s).[35] A small plane making a water landing or a boat having engine trouble can be carried away from its reported position by the current.[36]
One of the most cited explanations in official inquiries as to the loss of any aircraft or vessel is human error.[37] Human stubbornness may have caused businessman Harvey Conover to lose his sailing yacht, Revonoc, as he sailed into the teeth of a storm south of Florida on 1 January 1958.[38]
Hurricanes are powerful storms which form in tropical waters and have historically cost thousands of lives and caused billions of dollars in damage. The sinking of Francisco de Bobadilla's Spanish fleet in 1502 was the first recorded instance of a destructive hurricane.[39] These storms have in the past caused a number of incidents related to the Triangle. Many Atlantic hurricanes pass through the Triangle as they recurve off the Eastern Seaboard, and, before the advent of weather satellites, ships often had little to no warning of a hurricane's approach.[40]
An explanation for some of the disappearances has focused on the presence of large fields of methane hydrates (a form of natural gas) on the continental shelves.[42] Laboratory experiments carried out in Australia have proven that bubbles can, indeed, sink a scale model ship by decreasing the density of the water,[43][44][45] and any wreckage would be deposited on the ocean floor or rapidly dispersed by the Gulf Stream. It has been hypothesized that periodic methane eruptions (sometimes called "mud volcanoes") may produce regions of frothy water that are no longer capable of providing adequate buoyancy for ships. If this were the case, such an area forming around a ship could cause it to sink very rapidly and without warning.[46]
Publications by the USGS describe large stores of undersea hydrates worldwide, including the Blake Ridge area, off the coast of the southeastern United States.[47] However, according to the USGS, no large releases of gas hydrates are believed to have occurred in the Bermuda Triangle for the past 15,000 years.[3]
The sail training ship HMS Atalanta (originally named HMS Juno) disappeared with her entire crew after setting sail from the Royal Naval Dockyard, Bermuda for Falmouth, England on 31 January 1880.[48] It was presumed that she sank in a powerful storm which crossed her route a couple of weeks after she sailed, and that her crew being composed primarily of inexperienced trainees may have been a contributing factor. The search for evidence of her fate attracted worldwide attention at the time (connection is also often made to the 1878 loss of the training ship HMS Eurydice, which foundered after departing the Royal Naval Dockyard in Bermuda for Portsmouth on 6 March), and she was alleged decades later to have been a victim of the mysterious triangle, an allegation resoundingly refuted by the research of author David Francis Raine in 1997.[49][50][51][52][53]
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