Bermuda Triangle

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Coordinates: 25°N 71°W

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Devil's Triangle" redirects here. For other uses, see Devil's Triangle (disambiguation) and Bermuda
Triangle (disambiguation).

Bermuda Triangle

Devil's Triangle

Map showing the Bermuda Triangle, with its three points located at Bermuda in the top right, Puerto
Rico in the bottom right, and the southern coast of Florida on the left.

Map of the Bermuda Triangle area

Coordinates 25°N 71°W

Part of a series on the

Paranormal

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vte

The Bermuda Triangle, also known as the Devil's Triangle, is a loosely defined region between Florida,
Bermuda, and Puerto Rico in the North Atlantic Ocean. Since the mid-20th century, the area has been
the subject of an urban legend, which claims that many aircraft and ships have disappeared there under
mysterious circumstances. However, reputable sources dismiss the idea that there is any mystery.[1][2]
[3]

Origins

Map that was published in various newspapers with the Associated Press article of 17 September 1950

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]

Other writers elaborated on Gaddis' ideas, including John Wallace Spencer (Limbo of the Lost, 1969, repr.
1973);[15] Charles Berlitz (The Bermuda Triangle, 1974);[16] and Richard Winer (The Devil's Triangle,
1974).[17] Various of these authors incorporated supernatural elements.[18]

Triangle area

Sand's article in Fate described the area as "a watery triangle bounded roughly by Florida, Bermuda and
Puerto Rico".[7]: 12 The Argosy article by Gaddis further delineated the boundaries,[12] giving its
vertices as Miami, San Juan, and Bermuda. Subsequent writers did not necessarily follow this definition.
[19] Some writers gave different boundaries and vertices to the triangle, with the total area varying from
1.3 to 3.9 million km2 (0.50 to 1.51 million sq mi).[19] "Indeed, some writers even stretch it as far as the
Irish coast," according to a 1977 BBC program.[2] Consequently, the determination of which accidents
occurred inside the triangle depends on which writer reported them.[19]

Criticism of the concept

Larry Kusche

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 in fact 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:

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 often failed to mention such storms and sometimes even
represented 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 alleged disappearances were, in reality, not mysterious. Berlitz found that one plane believed to
have disappeared in 1937 had, in fact, crashed off Daytona Beach, Florida, in front of hundreds of
witnesses.[20]

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.[1]

Further responses

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][full citation needed] and Barry Singer,[24][full citation
needed] 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.

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.[25][26]

Benjamin Radford, an author and scientific paranormal investigator, noted in an interview on the
Bermuda Triangle that it could be very difficult to locate 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]

Hypothetical 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.[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]

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,[32] such anomalies have not been found.
Compasses have natural magnetic variations in relation to the magnetic poles, a fact that navigators have
known for centuries. Magnetic (compass) north and geographic (true) north are exactly the same only
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.[33] 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.[1]

Gulf Stream

False-color image of the Gulf Stream flowing north through the western Atlantic Ocean (NASA)

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]

Human error

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]

Violent weather

Tracks of all Atlantic hurricanes between 1851 and 2019. Many storms pass through the Bermuda
Triangle.

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]

A powerful downdraft of cold air was suspected to be a cause in the sinking of Pride of Baltimore on 14
May 1986. The crew of the sunken vessel noted the wind suddenly shifted and increased velocity from
32 km/h (20 mph) to 97–145 km/h (60–90 mph). A National Hurricane Center satellite specialist, James
Lushine, stated "during very unstable weather conditions the downburst of cold air from aloft can hit the
surface like a bomb, exploding outward like a giant squall line of wind and water."[41]

Methane hydrates

Further information: Methane clathrate

Worldwide distribution of confirmed or inferred offshore gas hydrate-bearing sediments, 1996.

Source: United States Geological Survey

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]

Notable incidents

Main article: List of Bermuda Triangle incidents

HMS Atalanta

Main article: HMS Juno (1844)

HMS Atalanta. The Graphic, 1880

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]

USS Cyclops

Main article: USS Cyclops (AC-4)

The incident resulting in the single largest loss of life in the history of the US Navy not related to combat
occurred when the collier Cyclops, carrying a full load of manganese ore and with one engine out of
action, went missing without a trace with a crew of 306 sometime after 4 March 1918, after departing
the island of Barbados. Although there is no strong evidence for any single theory, many independent
theories exist, some blaming storms, some capsizing, and some suggesting that wartime enemy activity
was to blame for the loss.[54][55] In addition, two of Cyclops's sister ships, Proteus and Nereus, were
subsequently lost in the North Atlantic during World War II. Both ships were transporting heavy loads of
metallic ore similar to that which was loaded on Cyclops during her fatal voyage.[56] In all three cases
structural failure due to overloading with a much denser cargo than designed is considered the most
likely cause of sinking.

Carroll A. Deering

Main article: Carroll A. Deering

The schooner Carroll A. Deering, as seen from the Cape Lookout lightvessel on 29 January 1921, two
days before she was found deserted in North Carolina. (US Coast Guard)

Carroll A. Deering, a five-masted schooner built in 1919, was found hard aground and abandoned at
Diamond Shoals, near Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, on 31 January 1921. FBI investigation into the
Deering scrutinized, then ruled out, multiple theories as to why and how the ship was abandoned,
including piracy, domestic Communist sabotage and the involvement of rum-runners.[57]

Flight 19

Main article: Flight 19

US Navy Avengers, similar to those of Flight 19

Flight 19 was a training flight of five TBM Avenger torpedo bombers that disappeared on 5 December
1945, while over the Atlantic. The squadron's flight plan was scheduled to take them due east from Fort
Lauderdale for 141 mi (227 km), north for 73 mi (117 km), and then back over a final 140 mi (225 km) leg
to complete the exercise. The flight never returned to base. The disappearance was attributed by Navy
investigators to navigational error leading to the aircraft running out of fuel.

One of the search and rescue aircraft deployed to look for them, a PBM Mariner with a 13-man crew,
also disappeared. A tanker off the coast of Florida reported seeing an explosion[58] and observing a
widespread oil slick when fruitlessly searching for survivors. The weather was becoming stormy by the
end of the incident.[59] According to contemporaneous sources, the Mariner had a history of explosions
due to vapor leaks when heavily loaded with fuel, as it might have been for a potentially long search-
and-rescue operation.[60]

Star Tiger and Star Ariel

Main articles: BSAA Star Tiger disappearance and BSAA Star Ariel disappearance

G-AHNP Star Tiger disappeared on 30 January 1948, on a flight from the Azores to Bermuda; G-AGRE Star
Ariel disappeared on 17 January 1949, on a flight from Bermuda to Kingston, Jamaica. Both were Avro
Tudor IV passenger aircraft operated by British South American Airways.[61] Both planes were operating
at the very limits of their range and the slightest error or fault in the equipment could keep them from
reaching the small island.[1]

Douglas DC-3

Main article: 1948 Airborne Transport DC-3 disappearance

On 28 December 1948, a Douglas DC-3 aircraft, number NC16002, disappeared while on a flight from San
Juan, Puerto Rico, to Miami. No trace of the aircraft, or the 32 people on board, was ever found. A Civil
Aeronautics Board investigation found there was insufficient information available on which to
determine probable cause of the disappearance.[62]

Connemara IV

A pleasure yacht was found adrift in the Atlantic south of Bermuda on 26 September 1955; it is usually
stated in the stories (Berlitz, Winer)[16][17] that the crew vanished while the yacht survived being at sea
during three hurricanes. The 1955 Atlantic hurricane season shows Hurricane Ione passing nearby
between 14 and 18 September, with Bermuda being affected by winds of almost gale force.[1] In his
second book on the Bermuda Triangle, Winer quoted from a letter he had received from Mr J.E.
Challenor of Barbados:[63]
 On the morning of September 22, Connemara IV was lying to a heavy mooring in the open roadstead
of Carlisle Bay. Because of the approaching hurricane, the owner strengthened the mooring ropes and
put out two additional anchors. There was little else he could do, as the exposed mooring was the only
available anchorage. ... In Carlisle Bay, the sea in the wake of Hurricane Janet was awe-inspiring and
dangerous. The owner of Connemara IV observed that she had disappeared. An investigation revealed
that she had dragged her moorings and gone to sea.

KC-135 Stratotankers

On 28 August 1963, a pair of US Air Force KC-135 Stratotanker aircraft collided and crashed into the
Atlantic 300 miles (480 km) west of Bermuda.[64][65] Some writers[12][16][17] say that while the two
aircraft did collide, there were two distinct crash sites, separated by over 160 miles (260 km) of water.
However, Kusche's research showed that the unclassified version of the Air Force investigation report
revealed that the debris field defining the second "crash site" was examined by a search and rescue ship,
and found to be a mass of seaweed and driftwood tangled in an old buoy.[1]

See also