The Bermuda Triangle, also known as the Devil’s Triangle, is 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. Most reputable sources dismiss the idea that there is any mystery. The vicinity of the Bermuda Triangle is amongst the most heavily traveled shipping lanes in the world, with ships frequently crossing through it for ports in the Americas, Europe and the Caribbean islands. Cruise ships and pleasure craft regularly sail through the region, and commercial and private aircraft routinely fly over it.
Popular culture has attributed various disappearances to the paranormal or activity by extraterrestrial beings. Documented evidence indicates that a significant percentage of the incidents were spurious, inaccurately reported, or embellished by later authors.
Triangle area
In 1964, Vincent Gaddis wrote in the pulp magazine Argosy of the boundaries of the Bermuda Triangle,[1] giving its vertices as Miami, San Juan, Puerto Rico, and Bermuda. Subsequent writers did not necessarily follow this definition.[2] Some writers gave different boundaries and vertices to the triangle, with the total area varying from 1,300,000 to 3,900,000 km2 (500,000 to 1,510,000 sq mi).[2] Consequently, the determination of which accidents occurred inside the triangle depends on which writer reported them.[2]
Origins
The earliest suggestion of unusual disappearances in the Bermuda area appeared in a September 17, 1950, article published in The Miami Herald (Associated Press)[3] by Edward Van Winkle Jones.[4] Two years later, Fate magazine published “Sea Mystery at Our Back Door”,[5][6] a short article by George X. Sand covering the loss of several planes and ships, including the loss of Flight 19, a group of five US Navy Grumman TBM Avenger torpedo bombers on a training mission. Sand’s article was the first to lay out the now-familiar triangular area where the losses took place. Flight 19 alone would be covered again in the April 1962 issue of American Legion magazine.[7] In it, author Allan W. Eckert wrote that the flight leader had been heard saying, “We are entering white water, nothing seems right. We don’t know where we are, the water is green, no white.” He also wrote that officials at the Navy board of inquiry stated that the planes “flew off to Mars.”[8] Sand’s article was the first to suggest a supernatural element to the Flight 19 incident. In the February 1964 issue of Argosy, Vincent Gaddis’ article “The Deadly Bermuda Triangle” argued that Flight 19 and other disappearances were part of a pattern of strange events in the region.[1] The next year, Gaddis expanded this article into a book, Invisible Horizons.[9]
Others would follow with their own works, elaborating on Gaddis’ ideas: John Wallace Spencer (Limbo of the Lost, 1969, repr. 1973);[10] Charles Berlitz (The Bermuda Triangle, 1974);[11] Richard Winer (The Devil’s Triangle, 1974),[12] and many others, all keeping to some of the same supernatural elements outlined by Eckert.[13]
Criticism of the concept
Larry Kusche
Lawrence David Kusche, author of The Bermuda Triangle Mystery: Solved (1975)[14] argued that many claims of Gaddis and subsequent writers were often 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 Atlanticport 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.
Kusche concluded that:
- The number of ships and aircraft reported missing in the area was not significantly greater, proportionally speaking, than in any other part of the ocean.
- In an area frequented by tropical cyclones, the number of disappearances that did occur were, for the most part, neither disproportionate, unlikely, nor mysterious.
- Furthermore, Berlitz and other writers would often fail to mention such storms or even represent the disappearance as having happened in calm conditions when meteorological records clearly contradict this.
- The numbers themselves had been exaggerated by sloppy research. A boat’s disappearance, for example, would be reported, but its eventual (if belated) return to port may not have been.
- Some disappearances had, in fact, never happened. One plane crash was said to have taken place in 1937, off Daytona Beach, Florida, in front of hundreds of witnesses; a check of the local papers revealed nothing.[citation needed]
- The legend of the Bermuda Triangle is a manufactured mystery, perpetuated by writers who either purposely or unknowingly made use of misconceptions, faulty reasoning, and sensationalism.[14]
In a 2013 study, the World Wide Fund for Nature identified the world’s 10 most dangerous waters for shipping, but the Bermuda Triangle was not among them.[15][16]
Further responses
When the UK Channel 4 television program The Bermuda Triangle (1992)[17] 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.[18]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.[14]
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,[19] 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.[10] 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 June 27, 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.”[20]
Skeptical researchers, such as Ernest Taves[21] and Barry Singer,[22] 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.
Explanation attempts
Persons accepting the Bermuda Triangle as a real phenomenon have offered a number of explanatory approaches.
Paranormal explanations
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.[23]
Other writers attribute the events to UFOs.[24][25] This idea was used by Steven Spielberg for his science fiction film Close Encounters of the Third Kind, which features the lost Flight 19 aircrews as alien abductees.
Charles Berlitz, author of various books on anomalous phenomena, lists several theories attributing the losses in the Triangle to anomalous or unexplained forces.[11]
A paranormal explanation in the 2005 three-part US-British-German science fiction miniseries The Triangle, says the triangle is a wormhole.
Natural explanations
Compass variations
Compass problems are one of the cited phrases in many Triangle incidents. While some have theorized that unusual local magnetic anomalies may exist in the area,[26] such anomalies have not been found. Compasses have natural magnetic variations in relation to the magnetic poles, a fact which navigators have known for centuries. Magnetic (compass) north and geographic (true) north are only exactly the same for a small number of places – for example, as of 2000, in the United States, only those places on a line running from Wisconsin to the Gulf of Mexico.[27] But the public may not be as informed, and think there is something mysterious about a compass “changing” across an area as large as the Triangle, which it naturally will.[14]
LIST OF BERMUDA TRIANGLE INCIDENTS
Aircraft incidents[edit]
- 1945: July 10, Thomas Arthur Garner, AMM3, USN, along with eleven other crew members, was lost at sea in a US Navy PBM3S patrol seaplane, Bu. No.6545, Sqd VPB2-OTU#3, in the Bermuda Triangle. They left the Naval Air Station, Banana River, Florida, at 7:07 p.m. on July 9, 1945, for a radar training flight to Great Exuma, Bahamas. Their last radio position report was sent at 1:16 a.m., July 10, 1945, with a latitude/longitude of 25-22N 77.34W, near Providence Island, after which they were never heard from again. An extensive ten day surface and air search, including a carrier sweep, found nothing.[1]
- 1945: December 5, Flight 19 (five TBF Avengers) lost with 14 airmen, and later the same day PBM Mariner BuNo 59225 lost with 13 airmen while searching for Flight 19.[2]
- 1947: July 3, According to the Bermuda Triangle Legend a B-29 Superfortress was lost off Bermuda. Lawrence Kunsche investigated and found no reference to any such B-29 loss. In fact the aircraft loss was that of a Douglas C-54 which was lost in a storm off the Florida coast [3] A B-29 was lost in the vicinity of Bermuda-on November 16, 1949 a B-29 was lost in the Atlantic; 2 crewmen were missing but on November 19, 1949 18 survivors were rescued 385 miles northeast of Bermuda[4]
- 1948: January 30, Avro Tudor G-AHNP Star Tiger lost with six crew and 25 passengers, en route from Santa Maria Airport in the Azores to Kindley Field, Bermuda.[5]
- 1948: December 28, Douglas DC-3 NC16002 lost with three crew and 36 passengers, en route from San Juan, Puerto Rico, to Miami.[6]
- 1949: January 17, Avro Tudor G-AGRE Star Ariel lost with seven crew and 13 passengers, en route from Kindley Field, Bermuda, to Kingston Airport, Jamaica.[7]
- 1956: November 9, Martin Marlin lost ten crewmen taking off from Bermuda.
- 1962: January 8, A USAF KB-50 51-0465 was lost over the Atlantic between the US East Coast and the Azores[8]
- 1965: June 9, A USAF C-119 Flying Boxcar of the 440th Troop Carrier Wing missing between Florida and Grand Turk Island[9] The last call from the plane came from a point just north of Crooked Island, Bahamas, and 177 miles from Grand Turk Island. On July 18, 1965 debris from the plane was found on the beach of Gold Rock Cay just off the northeastern shore of Acklins Island.[10]
- 1965: December 6, Private ERCoupe F01[11] lost with pilot and one passenger, en route from Ft. Lauderdale to Grand Bahamas Island.[12]
- 2005: June 20, A Piper-PA-23 disappeared between Treasure Cay Island, Bahamas and Fort Pierce, Florida. There were three persons on board.[13]
- 2007: April 10, A Piper PA-46-310P disappeared near Berry Island after flying into a level 6 thunderstorm and losing altitude. Two fatalities were listed.[14]
- 2017: February 23, The Turkish Airlines flight TK183 (an Airbus A330-200) was forced to change its direction from Havana, Cuba to Washington Dulles airport after some mechanical and electrical problems occurred over the triangle.[15]
- 2017: May 15, A private MU-2B aircraft was at 24,000 feet when it vanished from radar and radio contact with air traffic controllers in Miami.[16] Plane wreckage was found.[17]
Incidents at sea[edit]
- 1800: USS Pickering, on course from Guadeloupe to Delaware, lost with 90 people on board.[18] {Possibly lost in a gale}
- 1812: Patriot on her way from Charleston, South Carolina to New York City on December 30, 1812. Theodosia Burr Alston, daughter of Aaron Burr, was lost with her[19]{Possibly lost in a storm}
- 1814: USS Wasp, last known position was the Caribbean, lost with 140 people on board.[18] {Possibly lost in a storm}
- 1824: USS Wild Cat, on course from Cuba to Tompkins Island, lost with 14 people on board.[18] {Note lost in a Gale with 31 on board}
- 1840: Rosalie, found abandoned except for a canary.[18] {Possibly the “Rossini” found derelict{?}[20]
- 1918: USS Cyclops, collier, left Barbados on March 4, lost with all 306 crew and passengers en route to Baltimore, Maryland.[21]
- 1921: January 31, Carroll A. Deering, five-masted schooner, Captain W. B. Wormell, found aground and abandoned at Diamond Shoals, near Cape Hatteras, North Carolina.[22]
- 1925: 1 December, SS Cotopaxi, having departed Charleston, South Carolina two days earlier bound for Havana, Cuba, radioed a distress call reporting that the ship was sinking. She was officially listed as overdue on 31 December.[23]
- 1941: USS Proteus (AC-9), lost with all 58 persons on board in heavy seas, having departed St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands with a cargo of bauxite on 23 November. The following month, her sister ship USS Nereus (AC-10) was lost with all 61 persons on board, having also departed St. Thomas with a cargo of bauxite, on 10 December. According to research by Rear Admiral George van Deurs, USN, who was familiar with this type of ship from their service in the USN, the acidic coal cargo would seriously erode the longitudinal support beams, making these aging and poorly constructed colliers extremely vulnerable to breaking up in heavy seas.[24] They were both sister ships of the USS Cyclops.
- 1963: SS Marine Sulphur Queen, lost with 39 crewmen, having departed Beaumont, Texas, on 2 February with a cargo of 15,260 tons of sulphur. She was last heard from on 4 February, when she was in rough, nearly following seas of 16 feet, with northerly winds of 25–46 knots, and listed as missing two days later. The Coast Guard subsequently determined that the ship was unsafe and not seaworthy, and never should have sailed. The final report suggested four causes of the disaster, all due to poor design and maintenance of the ship.[25]
- 2015: On late July, 2015, 2 14 year-old boys, Austin Stephanos and Perry Cohen went on a fishing trip in their 19-foot boat. The boys disappeared on their way from Jupiter, Florida to the Bahamas. Despite the 15,000 square nautical mile wide search by US Coast Guard,[26] the pair’s boat was found a year later off the coast of Bermuda, but the boys were never seen again.[27]
- 2015: SS El Faro sank off of the coast of the Bahamas within the triangle on October 1, 2015. Search crews identified the vessel 15,000 feet below the surface.
Incidents on land[edit]
- 1969: Great Isaac Lighthouse (Bimini, Bahamas) – its two keepers disappeared and were never found.[28] (A hurricane passed through at the time of the disappearances).
References[edit]
- Jump up^ Garner family records. Further information available upon request from dgarner@PacBell.net
- Jump up^ Flight 19 Archived 2009-04-13 at the Wayback Machine. Department of the Navy, Naval Historical Center – The Loss Of Flight 19
- Jump up^ Harro Ranter (3 July 1947). “ASN Aircraft accident Douglas C-54G-1-DO Skymaster 45-519 Florida coast, USA”.
- Jump up^ “The Milwaukee Sentinel November 20, 1949”. google.com. Retrieved 15 July 2017.
- Jump up^ G-AHNP Aviation Safety Network – Avro 688 Tudor 1 G-AHNP
- Jump up^ NC16002 Aviation Safety Network – Douglas DC-3DST-144 NC16002
- Jump up^ G-AGRE Avro 688 Tudor Mk.1 G-AGRE c/n 1253 – Jack McKillop
- Jump up^ Harro Ranter. “ASN Aircraft accident 08-JAN-1962 Boeing KB-50K Superfortress 51-0465”.
- Jump up^ Ranter, Harro. “ASN Aircraft accident Fairchild C-119G Flying Boxcar 51-2680 Crooked Island, Bahamas”. aviation-safety.net. Retrieved 15 July 2017.
- Jump up^ “The Milwaukee Journal August 11, 1965”. google.com. Retrieved 15 July 2017.
- Jump up^ [The Legend lists plane loss as a “Cessna” But see NTSA report]
- Jump up^ “NTSB Record as NTSB Identification: MIA66A0065”. ntsb.gov. Retrieved 15 July 2017.
- Jump up^ “Recent Disappearances in the Bermuda Triangle”. lovetoknow.com. Retrieved November 4, 2016.
- Jump up^ “ASN Wikibase Occurrence # 43829”.
- Jump up^ “The Turkish Airlines plane en route to Cuba landed to the US”.
- Jump up^ Li, David K.; Sheehy, Kate (2017-05-16). “Small plane carrying family vanishes in Bermuda Triangle”. New York Post. Retrieved 2017-05-17.
- Jump up^ Ranter, Harro. “ASN Aircraft 15-MAY-2017 Mitsubishi MU-2B-40 N220N”. aviation-safety.net. Retrieved 15 July 2017.
- ^ Jump up to:a b c d Berlitz, Charles, and J. Manson Valentine. Without a Trace. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1977. Print.
- Jump up^ “Aaron Burr”. Biography.com. Retrieved 15 July 2017.
- Jump up^ “The derelict Rosalie”. http://www.bermuda-triangle.org. Archived from the original on March 5, 2016.
- Jump up^ USS Cyclops Archived 2010-08-10 at the Wayback Machine. Department of the Navy, Naval Historical Center – Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships
- Jump up^ Simpson, Bland (2005). Ghost Ship of Diamond Shoals. UNC Press Books.
- Jump up^ “Mails and Shipping”. The Times (44157). London. 31 December 1925. col D, p. 18.
- Jump up^ Rob Fisher. “Naval History.ca – History of the Royal Canadian Navy – Canadian Merchant Ship Losses, 1939–1945”.
- Jump up^ “Marine Sulphur Queen Coast Guard Report Summary of Findings”. pacbell.net. Archived from the original on 9 May 2008. Retrieved 15 July 2017.
- Jump up^ “2 Boys in a Fishing Boat Vanish In the Bermuda Triangle”. madmikesamerica.com. 26 July 2015. Retrieved 15 July 2017.
- Jump up^ Angel, Greg. “ONE YEAR LATER: Austin & Perry Boat Found”. cbs12.com. Retrieved 15 July 2017.
- Jump up^ Rowlett, Russ. “Lighthouses of the Bahamas”. The Lighthouse Directory. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
THE YACK 