EXPLAINATION
THE BERMUDA TRIANGLE
You won't find it on any official map and you won't know when you
cross the line, but according to some people, the Bermuda Triangle is a
very real place where dozen of ships,
planes
and people have disappeared with no good explanation. Since a magazine
first coined the phrase "Bermuda Triangle" in 1964, the mystery has
continued to attract attention. When you dig deeper into most cases,
though, they're much less mysterious. Either they were never in the area
to begin with, they were actually found, or there's a reasonable
explanation for their disappearance.
Does this mean there's
nothing to the claims of so many who have had odd experiences in the
Bermuda Triangle? Not necessarily. Scientists have documented deviations
from the norm in the area and have found some interesting formations on
the seafloor within the Bermuda Triangle's boundaries. So, for those
who like to believe in it, there is plenty fuel for the fire.
In
this article, we'll look at the facts surrounding what we do know about
the area as well as some of the most commonly-recited stories. We'll
also explore the bizarre theories like aliens and space portals as well
as the mundane explanations.
Many think of the Bermuda Triangle,
also known as the Devil's Triangle, as an "imaginary" area. The U. S.
Board of Geographic Names does not recognize the Bermuda Triangle and
does not maintain an official file on it. However, within this imaginary
area, many real vessels and the people aboard them have seemingly
disappeared without explanation.
The Bermuda Triangle is located
off the Southeastern coast of the United States in the Atlantic Ocean,
with its apexes in the vicinities of Bermuda, Miami, Florida, and San
Juan, Puerto Rico. It covers roughly 500,000 square miles.
The
area may have been named after its Bermuda apex since Bermuda was once
known as the "Isle of Devils." Treacherous reefs that have ensnared
ships sailing too close to its shores surround Bermuda, and there are
hundreds of shipwrecks in the waters that surround it.
The Bermuda Triangle Mystery
Over the past 100 years, the Bermuda Triangle has seen what some say
is a significant and inordinately high number of unexplained
disappearances of planes, ships and people. Some reports say that as
many as 100 ships and planes have been reported missing in the area and
more than 1,000 lives have been lost. The U.S. Coast Guard, however,
maintains that the area does not have an unusual number of incidents.
In
1975, Mary Margaret Fuller, editor of "Fate" magazine, contacted
Lloyd's of London for statistics on insurance payoffs for incidents
occurring within the Bermuda Triangle's usually accepted boundaries.
According to Lloyd's records, 428 vessels were reported missing
throughout the world between 1955 and 1975, and there was no greater
incidence of events occurring in the Bermuda Triangle than anywhere else
in the world.
Gian J. Quasar, author of "Into the Bermuda Triangle: Pursuing the Truth Behind the World's Greatest Mystery" and curator of
Bermuda-triangle.org,
argues that this report "is completely false." Quasar reasons that
because Lloyd's does not insure small crafts like yachts and often
doesn't insure small charter boats or private aircraft, its records
can't be the definitive source. He also states that the Coast Guard's
records, which it publishes annually, do not include "missing vessels."
He requested data on "overdue vessels" and received (after 12 years of
asking) records of 300 missing/overdue vessels for the previous two
years. Whether those vessels ultimately returned is unknown. His Web
site has a
list of these vessels.
The
National Transportation and Safety Board (NTSB) database indicates
(according to Gian J. Quasar) that only a handful of aircraft have
disappeared off the New England coast over the past 10 years, while over
30 have occurred in the Bermuda Triangle.
The mystery of the
Triangle probably took hold with the first well-publicized disappearance
in 1945, when five Navy Avengers disappeared in the area. The cause of
the disappearance was originally "pilot error," but family members of
the pilot leading the mission couldn't accept that he had made such a
mistake. Eventually they convinced the Navy to change it to "causes or
reasons unknown."
The myth gained momentum after reporter E.V.W.
Jones compiled a list of "mysterious disappearances" of ships and planes
between the Florida coast and Bermuda. Two years later, George X. Sand
wrote an article for "Fate" magazine, titled "Sea Mystery at our Back
Door." The article was about a "series of strange marine disappearances,
each leaving no trace whatever, that have taken place in the past few
years" in a "watery triangle bounded roughly by Florida, Bermuda and
Puerto Rico."
As more incidents occurred, the reputation grew and
past events were reanalyzed and added to the legend. In 1964, "Argosy
Magazine" gave the triangle its name in an article titled "The Deadly
Bermuda Triangle" by Vincent Gaddis. Argosy magazine's tagline a
"magazine of master fiction," but that did nothing to halt the spread of
the myth. More articles, books, and movies have appeared, suggesting
theories ranging from
alien abductions to a giant octopus.
Next, we'll look at some early well-known incidents that have been attributed to the area.
Well-known Disappearances
Many Bermuda Triangle Web sites include long lists of missing ships
and planes. But many of those were nowhere near the Triangle when they
disappeared or they turned up later with rational explanations for their
disappearances. For example, the Mary Celeste, found floating in 1872
with not a person on board and everything exactly as they had left it,
is on nearly every list of losses blamed on the Bermuda Triangle. But in
reality, it was many hundreds of miles from the Triangle at the time.
Here
is a sampling of the some of the most notable incidents. As you'll see,
some of these have reasonable explanations although they're still
attributed to the strange and unknown powers of the Bermuda Triangle.
The U.S.S. Cyclops, 1918
During
World War I, the U.S.S. Cyclops served along the eastern coast of the
United States until January 9, 1918. At that time, she was assigned to
the Naval Overseas Transportation Service. The Cyclops was scheduled to
sail to Brazil to refuel British ships in the south Atlantic. She set
out from Rio de Janeiro on February 16, and, after a brief stop in
Barbados from March 3 to 4, was never seen or heard from again. All 306
passengers and crew were gone without a trace.
U.S. Navy Avengers Flight 19, 1945
The most famous Bermuda
Triangle story is the mystery surrounding five missing Navy Avengers in
1945. The story of Flight 19 is usually summarized this way: a routine
patrol set out on a sunny day with five highly experienced student
pilots. Suddenly, the tower began receiving transmissions from the
flight leader that they were lost, compasses were not working, and
"everything looked wrong." They were never seen again, and extensive
Navy investigations turned up no clues to explain the disappearance.
Lieutenant
Charles C. Taylor led the mission, which included several planned
course changes. They departed at 1:15 p.m. on December 5, 1945. At 3:00
p.m., Lieutenant Robert F. Cox was flying over Fort Lauderdale, Florida
when he heard a signal that he thought was from a boat or plane in
distress. He called Operations at the Naval Air Station to report what
he had heard. Cox told Taylor to fly with the sun at his left wing and
up the coast until he hit Miami. Taylor then said that they were over a
small island with no other land in sight. If he was over the Keys as he
had said, however, he should have seen several islands as well as the
Florida peninsula.
With less than two hours' flying time until they ran out of fuel,
Taylor described a large island to Operations. Assuming this was Andros
Island, the largest in the Bahamas, Operations sent Taylor a heading
that would take him to Fort Lauderdale. Apparently this heading was
correct, because once Flight 19 assumed the new course, Taylor's voice
began coming in stronger over the radio. Taylor, however, didn't believe
this course was right and after a few minutes said that they "didn't go
far enough east. Turn around again and go east. We should have a better
chance of being picked up closer to shore." With this move,
transmissions began to weaken as they flew out of radio range in the
wrong direction. For unknown reasons, Taylor ignored the standard flying
procedure of flying west if over water and east if over land.
Two PBM-5 Mariner seaplanes went out to search the area, but one exploded soon after takeoff. The other never located Flight 19.
