BERMUDA TRIANGLE – Facts and Myths

About Bermuda Triangle

Bermuda Triangle is a strange triangular area on the Atlantic Ocean where
many ships sailing through it or planes flying over it have apparently disappeared
without a trace. In few of such cases where wrecks could be found, the crew had
vanished. And such incidents have been happening since centuries.
More than 1,000 ships and planes have disappeared in the triangle area
over the past five centuries and such mysterious incidents on the Atlantic continue
to take place even at present days.
So getting excited already? Well, the facts however are quite far from what
is generally known or believed to be true. Many stories and myths have been
created by writers through sheer imagination which they used rampantly to draw
publicity to their books. In many cases, the facts got blurred. Many theories,
controversies and counter arguments have come up over the years challenging
the mysteries that created fear psychosis among people since ages.
So what is the fact? Is it at all true? Partially true? Or all nonsense? Let's
dig deeper to understand that while keeping in mind that far too many incidents
have taken place in this area for it to be ignored.

How did it all start?

It all started by authors who were novel writers, and the mystery was
initially perpetuated by them. But don't jump into a conclusion yet. While we all
know that novel writers are good in wild imaginations, but many of these writers
were actually popular and well respected authors of their times.
The abnormalities on the sea was first noted in 1950 by Edward Jones in
the daily newspaper Miami Herald published in Florida. However the mystery
started catching wide-scale attention in 1952 when George Sand wrote in Fate
magazine about incidents like Flight-19, a training flight of five torpedo bomber
planes, all of which went missing during a routine training session in 1945 and
never returned.
Subsequently several authors wrote about various other mysterious
incidents in the triangle area. While some of such reports were dubious or without
much substance, several incidents had actually occurred and remained
unexplained. The words around the mystery started spreading fast, and soon
Bermuda Triangle was a reality, at least in the minds of millions all over the
world.
Where is Bermuda Triangle?
By the simplest of all definitions, Bermuda Triangle is located off the South-
Eastern coast of the United States and forms a triangular zone in the Atlantic
Ocean. The three corners of the triangle are: Miami (in Florida); San Juan (in
Puerto Rico); and Bermuda (a north-Atlantic island on which it has been so
named). The American author Vincent Gaddis was the first to define this boundary
in 1964 in an issue of the magazine named Argosy and called the area 'The Deadly
Bermuda Triangle'.
However over the years, several other authors kept extending the area
beyond its original boundary because they seemed to identify mysterious incidents
in nearby areas as well.

Disappearances
Below are some amazing stories of planes and ships that disappeared or
met with ill fate while crossing the triangle area. As you visit the links, you will
also see my findings behind such great mysteries of all times. In most cases I have
discussed and explained the possible causes, in some cases I have also given
excerpts from official reports that were produced by US Navy, US Air Force or
US Coast Guards after completing the search operations. And in several cases, I
have given updates on further findings. Those below are only few cases of
disappearances. There are many more.

Flight 19 - The Avenger planes of Flight-19 took off from the U.S Naval
Base of Florida for a routine training session on an afternoon of December 1945,
but strangely this time they never returned.
PBM Martin Mariner - When all hopes for the above Flight-19 planes
were quickly fading, two Martin Mariner planes (flying boats) were sent by US
Navy to search them out. After extensive search, one of them returned, but the
other didn't and disappeared forever.
Fight DC-3 - The aircraft disappeared when it was only 50 miles south of
Florida and about to land in Miami.
C-54 Skymaster - Apparently it seemed to be a sudden thunderstorm that
had disintegrated the plane. But there was much more to the story of Skymaster.
Mary Celeste: The Ghost Ship - Known as one of the ghost ships of
Bermuda Triangle, Mary Celeste had many misadventures even before her
mystery voyage in 1872. But this time, although the ship could be salvaged, none
on board could ever be traced.
 Carroll A. Deering - This is another ghost ship of Bermuda triangle which
created one of the biggest maritime mysteries of all times. While returning from
Rio de Janeiro of Brazil to Portland in Maine in January 1921, it was found
abandoned and derelict at Diamond Shoals, off Cape Hatteras in North Carolina.
But all the 11 crewmen including the captain were missing. They vanished forever
and never to be found again.
Marine Sulphur Queen - This 524-foot carrier of molten sulphur started
sail on Feb 2, 1963 from Beaumont, Texas with 39 crew. It was reported lost in
Florida Straits on February 4, and lost forever.
Ellen Austin - The Ellen Austin, an American schooner, met with another
ship in Bermuda Triangle. The other ship was moving in full speed but strangely
had nobody on board.
USS Cyclops -Disappearance of the carrier ship in Bermuda Triangle has
been one of the greatest mysteries of the sea. The Cargo ship was scheduled to
reach Baltimore on March 13, 1918, but it never did.
USS Scorpion - USS Scorpion (SSN-589) was a nuclear powered
submarine of United States Navy that disappeared in Bermuda Triangle area in
May 1968.

Theories explaining the mysteries

So what caused the ships and aircraft to disappear mysteriously? There
have been many research and explorations done to uncover the mystery. There is
no single theory that can explain all the incidents of disappearances. The ships
and aircraft could have been victims of different circumstances, and things would
have happened quickly and unexpectedly. While many theories have come up from
researchers and scientists trying to explain the various incidents, here are few of
the most popular ones:
Methane Gas - The gas trapped under sea floor can erupt, and as a result
can lower the water density and cause ships to sink like a rock. Even planes flying
over it, can catch fire and get completely destroyed during such gas blowout...
Sargasso Sea - It's a strange ocean area that has no shores and bounded
only by water currents on all sides. Many ships passing through it have been
stranded and made motionless. Many were found derelict and without a soul...
Electronic Fog - A strange thick cloud appears from nowhere and engulfs
a ship or a plane. Instruments begin to malfunction, and finally the ship or the
aircraft vanishes without a trace…
Hexagonal Cloud & Air Bombs - From satellite images Meteorologists
have recently discovered strange hexagonal clouds that are capable of blasting
winds to the ocean below at huge speeds. And such wind storms on the ocean can
create waves as high as 45-feet. Planes and ships under such cloud can sink in no
time.

Conclusion – The facts and myths

Since a magazine first coined the phrase 'Bermuda Triangle' in early 1950s,
the mystery has continued to attract attention. When repeated mysterious
incidents of such large scale take place in the same area, it's quite understandable
that it would spread like fire, draw large interests among people across various
interest levels including researchers, scientists, critics and of course the general
mass, and eventually take a mammoth shape over time. Indeed Bermuda Triangle
has become a living legend. But what is the real truth behind all this?
First, there is no denying that many of the incidents reported on Bermuda
Triangle have actually taken place. Because a plane or ship not returning or
reaching its destination is clearly recorded with official agencies concerned
including US Navy, US Coast Guard etc. And there have been hundreds of such
incidents. In few cases oil leakage, floats or wrecks could be found while in others,
there were no trace of anything.... this is a fact.
So the question is not about whether the incidents took place at all or not.
It's about how they took place. This is where explanations start getting blurred,
as sometimes facts get mixed up with speculations, even with imaginations.
However there are certain facts which are clear and beyond anybody's doubts.
One such known fact is about the water area around the island Bermuda
which forms one corner of the triangle. Bermuda Island is located about 650 miles
off the east coast of the US. It is known that over 300 shipwrecks lie on the seafloor
surrounding Bermuda that includes prominent ones like The Constellation, The
Cristobal Colon, The Mary Celestia, Montana, Xingda and lot more, many of
which have now become popular scuba diving sites.
So what could be the cause behind so many ships finding their graveyard
around Bermuda Island? The reason is simple... In fact about 200 square miles
of water area surrounding Bermuda is full of dangerous underwater reefs. These
reefs had created severe hazards when the pilots had to mainly depend on
compass and charts to navigate ships. The reefs rising from the bottom of the sea
and remaining hidden below the water surface tore apart the hulls of numerous
ships that passed over them. These days however with advanced GPS system,
pilots can easily navigate around hidden reefs and such accidents haven't taken
place for long many years since the invention of GPS.
 Here is one more... Scientists have found some unusual geological
formations on the seafloor within the Bermuda Triangle area. The ocean floor at
some places suddenly drop to huge depths. In fact, some locations within the
triangle have deepest trenches in the whole of Atlantic. And within this area many
vessels were seemingly lost.
Another strange natural phenomena is the whirlpools with strong tidal
currents that are found in the waters of Bahamas (a cluster of over 700 islands,
islets and cays) that lie near the western corner of Bermuda Triangle and about
50 miles off the coast of Florida. These are formed due to the large underwater
caves known as Blue Holes and have the potential of sucking in a ship that pass
over them.
So at this point it is fair to say that many disappearances in the triangle are
real... while some have probable explanations and some do not. However there
are still some questions that spring up. For example... are there any other ocean
areas on earth where similar such incidents take place? Are the numbers of such
incidents similar or even more than Bermuda Triangle? So if the numbers are
similar or more, are such incidents actually normal on any ocean routes?
Let's explore this, because this can throw some lights on whether we are
believing something imaginary or real when it comes to speculation....
Larry Kusche, a librarian in Arizona State University was a big critic of
Bermuda Triangle and made a deep research into the incidents and finally
published his book 'The Bermuda Triangle Mystery: Solved' in 1975. Most of his
research was based on referring newspapers of the times that reported the
incidents, checking out the meteorological (weather) reports of the days the
incidents took place.
He concluded that the total number of such incidents in the triangle area is
nothing unusual in a place where tropical cyclones or hurricanes are quite
common. His study also showed that number of incidents in Bermuda Triangle is
not significantly more compared to several other ocean areas.
Kusche further clarified that several authors wrongly reported some of the
incidents and created juicy stories out of them. He pointed out a case where an
author misreported a ship disappearing three days after it left a port in Atlantic
while the fact was the ship actually left a port of the same name from Pacific
Ocean which was over 3,000 miles away.
In another case Kusche showed that an author described a ship getting lost
in calm sea while the meteorological report showed a strong cyclone was passing
by.
 Now read this... Lloyd's is a London based insurance body and active in
marine insurance market since long. They insure ships on voyage. When Lloyd's
was asked by a UK television channel if they noted unusual number of ships
sinking or getting lost in Bermuda Triangle, they answered 'NO'. They further
confirmed that they do not even charge higher insurance rates for ships passing
through Bermuda Triangle area because they consider it safe.
The US Coast Guard also supported Lloyd's observation that the number
of reported missing cases in Bermuda Triangle is nothing unusual.
Here is one more... A study conducted in 2013 for WWF (World Wide Fund
for Nature) reported the 10 most accident prone ocean areas in the world for
shipping. And that does not include Bermuda Triangle. In fact based on accidents
recorded, the most dangerous water areas are South China Sea, the
Mediterranean and the North Sea.
Now the food for thought... So does it all mean the notion of Bermuda
Triangle being dreaded is baseless? Is it all hunky-dory out there?
Well, there are several questions which still need to be answered before we
can come to that conclusion, if at all. Hundreds of ships and planes were actually
lost in that area, and many such cases are not yet explained with evidence. It is a
fact that authors fanned the fire to take commercial advantage of the situation.
But it is hard to believe that a legend of such gigantic nature is just a baseless
myth that continues to engulf the world for so many decades. Despite thorough
and sustained investigations, numerous incidents continue to baffle the
investigators.
It is well known that marine and airway channels across Bermuda Triangle
are some of the busiest and most commercially used routes in the world. They are
used extensively by numerous cruise lines and airlines connecting The USA,
Europe, and Caribbean islands, Bermuda, South America and even Africa.
Think of what may happen to billions of dollars of thriving international
business and its impact on economy if the area gets to be known as dreaded? Will
anybody want such flourishing economy to get jeopardized by officially calling
out the area as dangerous?
Many conflicting possibilities exist to keep the Bermuda Triangle mystery
alive. But that does not deter anybody these days to visit the Island of Bermuda
(one corner of the triangle) which is one of the top island destinations in the world
with lovely pink sandy beaches and lovelier people. Millions of tourists visit
Bermuda by cruise ships and airplanes crossing the triangle area and return safe
and hearty. But, what about safety within Bermuda island itself?