Upper Intermediate Video script Unit 8

The Bermuda Triangle

N = Narrator, P = Pilot, F = Fort Lauderdale Radio Operator

N: Somewhere in these waters lies the answer to one of the world’s most beguiling

mysteries, in an area of sea that has claimed hundreds of lives. Over the last century a

thousand ships have been reported lost without a trace in the Bermuda Triangle.

Since 1492 when Columbus first sailed into the area and saw strange lights in the sky

the list of bizarre disappearances in the Bermuda Triangle has grown. Thousands of

ships and planes have simply vanished without a trace, no warning, no distress calls, no

wreckage.

The Triangle covers the seas between Bermuda to Miami and down to Puerto Rico, one

and a half million square miles of treacherous water. One of the most spectacular

mysteries of the Bermuda Triangle is that of Flight 19. On the 5th of December 1945 five

US Navy airplanes with a crew of fourteen airmen were on a training flight off the east

coast of Florida. What follows is based entirely on the original radio transcripts.

P: We should be seeing land by now. There’s nothing out there.

F: Fox Tattoo 28 this is Fort Lauderdale what is your current position, over?

P: Fort Lauderdale tower we are unable to confirm our current position, over?

F: FD28, FD28 you just need to head due west, due west, do you read?

P: Roger that, we don’t know which way is west. Everything is wrong. We’re out of gas,

we’re going down, going down.

N: All fourteen airmen were lost. There was a final twist that night. A rescue plane was sent

to look for Flight 19. Twenty seven minutes later it too vanished. It is these unexplained

disappearances that keep the mystery of the Bermuda Triangle alive.

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 Upper Intermediate Video script Unit 8

World view

Eb = Eben, M = Madeleine, Ma = Martin, El = Elliot, W = Wendy, Ju = Jurgen,

G = Guillem, Lo = Louisa, A = Audrey, Lu = Luis

Eb: I must have been about nine years old and my sister and I, she was about twelve were

outside packing our station wagon for our summer holiday when out of the sky, clear

blue Namibian sky, five o’clock in the morning a bright light appears. Now the strange

thing is it was moving and it was moving very fast and made a swish sound as it went

over our heads. There was no object behind it, there was no tail behind it and of course

we were frightened. So we ran into the house and told our parents that we’d just saw

this light and they were busy packing and getting ready for the transit. Oh it was the

morning star and we accepted it and then years later of course I learnt the morning star

is the planet Venus, it doesn’t move, and I st-, I still don’t know. I’m not going to say it

was a flying saucer, there was no shape. I do wonder was it a meteorite? There was

no tail.

M: So a friend and I were travelling together and we arrived in Delhi and it had been a

long flight. Um we went to a hostel and um it was late at night so and we were both

really tired so we went straight to bed. Uh in the middle of the night my friend had to

get up to go to the toilets and the toilets were down a corridor um so she got up and

went off and on her way back she passed a staircase and she said that she saw a, a

figure on the staircase and that it was the figure of a child. So she came back and she

didn’t think uh anything at that moment but then when she got back to the room she

said to me I’ve just seen a figure of a child on a staircase and it seems really strange

because why would there be a child on the staircase in the middle of the night.

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 Upper Intermediate Video script Unit 8

And anyway we were both really tired and I said to her look you’re , you’re really tired,

it’s probably just a bit of tiredness and you didn’t see anything. So we thought nothing

of it and the next morning we got up, went down to breakfast and um we spoke to the

owner of the hostel and she actually confirmed that there were no children staying in

the hostel but that other people who had stayed there had actually said that they’d

seen figures on the same staircase. So it was a bit spooky and we decided that we

wouldn’t stay there very much longer.

Ma: I was on my own in a house in the middle of the countryside and it was about three

o’clock in the morning and um I was up and um I heard horse’s hooves outside. It was

a house by a road and um I couldn’t understand where the noise was really coming

from and um the windows were quite high up, it was a very old house. And I looked

outside and the noise stopped and I couldn’t see anything. There was nothing around

at all.

El: Do I believe in the paranormal? I think a part of me kind of likes the romantic idea that

it does exist but also I’m quite logical so I do believe there’s a certain amount of

science that can explain stuff but like a lot of people I am open to the thought that

things do exist.

W: Um if by the paranormal we mean things that can’t be explained in a literal, kind of

concrete terms then yes I do believe in the paranormal. There’s been too many things

uh happen to me in my life that I can’t explain but they’ve happened.

Ju: I believe um paranormal activities are possible. I just haven’t had any proof of it yet but

I’m still open minded so hopefully someday I’ll see a ghost or something strange.

G: I don’t believe in the paranormal. Uh there are things a lot we don’t understand but I

believe that science in the future will explain almost everything.

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 Upper Intermediate Video script Unit 8

Lo: I’m open to it. I, I’ve had a few strange experiences in my life, um but I just feel like

there’s nothing to disprove or prove really that they do or don’t, uh you know ghosts do

or don’t exist.

A: Actually I do um, I do believe in that kind of thing and maybe not the supernatural but

the paranormal I think um yes. I know quite a few people who have had um those kind

of experiences and a, a few times myself I have kind of felt that I can um sense

another dimension to things.

Lu: Do I believe in the paranormal? No I don’t. I don’t believe in ghosts or I don’t believe in

aliens or I don’t believe in anything that is not um uh seen, touched uh or uh, or um,

um proven by, by science really.

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