This is the blog of The Bermuda Triangle. Made by request of our Reading lecturer for our Reading assignment. We are Setya Octaviani (12090003), Amirah (120901006), Dian Safitri (120901020), Vivi Arliani(120901004)
Over the years there have been dozens of articles, books, and television programs that promoted the mystery and history of the Bermuda Triangle.
And there have been many news paper articles on such mysterious disappearances in Bermuda Triangle.
However, Larry Kusche in his study found that few did any real investigation into the mystery. Rather, they passed on the speculations of their predecessors as if they were passing on the mantle of truth.
Here are some references to news paper articles that have mention of some of the incidents I have discussed in my other sections.
30-Passenger Airliner Disappears In Flight From San Juan To Miami, New York Times, December 29, 1948.
Check Cuba Report Of Missing Airliner, New York Times, December 30, 1948.
·Airliner Hunt Extended, New York Times, December 31, 1948.
Marine Sulphur Queen: This 524-foot carrier of molten sulphur started sail Feb 2, 1963 from Beaumont, Texas. This was a T2 tanker converted into sulphur carrier. It was reported lost in Florida Straits on Feb 4.
Howard, an expert on Bermuda Triangle, claims that more than 50 ships and 20 planes have gone down in the Bermuda Triangle over the last century itself, and up to 1000 over the last 500 years.
Many theories exist to explain the mystery of the missing ships and planes in the Bermuda Triangle.
While some of them use extreme natural disasters or amazing science, some theories even talk about super natural events and mysterious technologies.
Methane Gas
Huge amounts of Methane gas, trapped thousands of feet under the ocean floor at Bermuda Triangle can be a possible cause of the planes and ships getting lost in the triangle area. The gas if released, can cause the water to become very light and make a ship sink in no time. Since the gas is also inflammable, its eruption can also completely burn a plane flying over the area.
I had also heard another similar Methane theory directly from Teddy Tucker at a conference in Bermuda. Teddy is the legendary scuba diver and a treasure collector in the island.
Compass Variation
Magnetic and absolute North are not the same. Not adjusting for the compass variation between the two can lead to major navigational hazards. And in Bermuda Triangle, there is a narrow strip where the compass points to absolute North.
US Coast Guards communicated that incorrect compass adjustment would have led to many ships and planes getting lost in the triangle. Read Compass Variation Theory for the full justification.
Electronic Fog - A Hutchison effect?
It has been heard several times that ships and aircraft get engulfed in some kind of electronic fog and the fog keeps moving along with the ship or the plane. And eventually, all the electronic equipment and other instruments start malfunctioning.
Those ships and airplanes either disintegrate or disappear without a trace. Can this be true? Experiments by Vancouver based scientist John Hutchison shows that this can be possible. Read Electro Magnetism in Triangle to know the full theory.
Strange Weather
At times there are violent storms in the Bermuda Triangle area. These short but intense storms can build up quickly and go away so fast that even a satellite can't detect them properly. But these storms are strong enough to destroy ships or planes completely.
There are also waterspouts seen in this area. A waterspout is like a tornado at sea that sucks water from the ocean thousands of feet into the sky. Other possibilities include underwater earthquakes. Scientists have actually found a great deal of seismic vibrations in the Bermuda triangle area. They have also noted freak waves up to 100 feet high.
Gulf Stream
The Gulf Stream is an ocean current that originates in the Gulf of Mexico, and then moves through the Straits of Florida, into the North Atlantic. It is like a river within an ocean and can carry floating objects. A small plane making a water landing or a boat having engine trouble will be easily carried away. It happened to the cabin cruiser Witchcraft on December 22, 1967, when it reported engine trouble near the Miami buoy marker one mile from shore, but was not there when a Coast Guard cutter arrived.
Freak Waves
Very large waves can appear suddenly even in calm seas. One such rogue wave caused the Ocean Ranger, then the world's largest offshore platform to capsize in 1982. Research has shown that freak waves up to 30m tall, capable of sinking a large ship within moments, can and do happen. Although these are very rare, in some areas ocean currents indicate that they happen more often than normal.
Hurricanes
Hurricanes are extremely powerful storms which are generated in the Atlantic near the equator, and have historically been responsible for thousands of lives lost and billions of dollars of damage. The sinking of Francisco de Bobadilla's Spanish fleet in 1502 was the first recorded instance of such destructive hurricane. These storms have in the past caused a number of incidents related to the Bermuda Triangle.
Unusual Seafloor
The seafloor in this area is also quite strange. There are some unusual formations. It goes from a gentle slope to a sudden deep drop. In fact, some of the deepest trenches in the world are found in the area of the Bermuda Triangle. Ships or planes that sink into these deep trenches will probably never be found.
Supernatural Theories
There are also explanations based on some supernatural theories like the lost city of Atlantis, UFOs and Aliens that also try to solve the Bermuda Triangle mystery.
Skeptic's Theory
And like in all other subjects, there are skeptics who do not believe that Bermuda Triangle area has any mystery to be solved at all. They say there is nothing unusual about all these disappearances and they can all be explained with science or some logic.
There are many more explanations.
Strange magnetic fields from the bottom of the ocean are favorites among those who are technically-minded. Weather like thunderstorms, hurricanes, earthquakes, high waves, pirates, explosive cargoes, incompetent navigators etc. are favorites among skeptical investigators.
Another popular theory is that extraterrestrials are abducting planes and ships, or that their activities are indirectly causing the disappearances. Others have suggested that the Bermuda Triangle area is an anomaly of space and time in which planes, ships, and people are sucked into a vortex that transports them to different times, and possibly even different dimensions
Flight 19 were training aircrafts of TBM Avenger bombers of US Navy that went missing on Dec 5th, 1945 while flying over the Atlantic.
They were scheduled to go due east from Florida Naval base for 120 miles, then north for 73 miles, and then back over a final 120-mile route that would return them to the naval base. But strangely they came back.
Adding to the mystery, a search and rescue Mariner aircraft with a 13-man crew was dispatched to find out the missing flights. But the Mariner aircraft itself was never traced again.
Photo: US Navy Grumman Avenger flight, similar to Flight 19. This photo had been used by various Triangle authors to illustrate Flight 19 itself (US Navy).
Mary Celeste: Known as one of the ghost ships of Bermuda Triangle, Mary Celeste had many misadventures even before her mystery voyage in 1872. Find out the full story.
The Ellen Austin on its voyage in 1881 came across another ship that was sailing without a single soul on board.
Ellen Austin transferred some of its crew onto the other abandoned ship and attempted to sail with it to New York.
The other ship suddenly disappeared. After some time the ship re-appeared, but again without a single soul on it. Then it again disappeared without trace.
USS Cyclops: This navy ship disappearance resulted in the single largest loss of life in the history of the US Navy. It occurred when USS Cyclops, under the command of Lt. Commander G. W. Worley, went missing without a trace with a crew of 309, sometime after 4th March 1918, after departing the island of Barbados.
PBM Martin Mariner: Two Martin Mariner planes were sent on the 5th of December 1945 to search for the Flight-19. One did not return. Find out the full story.
USS Scorpion: USS Scorpion (SSN-589) was a Nuclear powered submarine of United States Navy that disappeared in Bermuda Triangle in May 1968.
The flight Douglas DC-3 NC16002 disappeared in Bermuda Triangle when it was only 50 miles south of Florida and about to land in Miami on December 28, 1948.
The flight 441, a Super Constellation Naval Airliner, disappeared in Bermuda Triangle on October 30, 1954
C-54 in Bermuda Triangle: Apparently it would seem to be sudden thunderstorm that would have disintegrated the C-54 plane. But there was more to the story.
Witchcraft - Witchcraft, a 23-foot cabin cruiser went missing for ever in Bermuda Triangle area on the night of December 22, 1967. The owner took it offshore only to watch the lights of Miami shoreline.
Theodosia Burr Alston was the daughter of former United States Vice President Aaron Burr. Her disappearance has been cited at least once in relation to the Triangle. She was a passenger on board the Patriot, which sailed from Charleston, South Carolina to New York City on December 30, 1812, and was never heard from again.
S.V. Spray was a derelict fishing boat refitted as an ocean cruiser by Joshua Slocum and used by him to complete the first ever single-handed circumnavigation of the world, between 1895 and 1898.In 1909, Slocum set sail from Vineyard Haven bound for Venezuela. Neither he nor Spray were ever seen again.
Here are some more incidents at Bermuda triangle:
1492 - Christopher Columbus reported strange lights and strange compass readings.
1609 - The Sea Venture got wrecked during the first attempt to colonize Bermuda.
1814 - The USS Epervier and her crew disappeared while carrying the peace treaty to end the war between America and the North African Barbary States.
1855 - The schooner James B. Chester was found floating in the ocean. The crew was missing but there was no sign of struggle, and the lifeboats were still in place.
1941 - The USS Proteus and the USS Nereus vanished, just as their sister ship the USS Cyclops previously did along the same route.
1963 - Marine Sulphur Queen: This 524-foot carrier of molten sulphur started sail Feb 2, 1963 from Beaumont, Texas with 39 crew. It was reported lost in Florida Straits on Feb 4.
1971 - Sting-27, a USAF Phantom jet, vanished completely without a trace. Official reports indicated it may have suffered an impact, but the details were never revealed.
1976 - The Sylvia L. Ossa, a 590-foot ore carrier with a crew of 37 disappeared 140 miles from Bermuda.
1991 - The pilot of a Grumman Cougar jet made a routine radio request to increase altitude. While ascending, the aircraft gradually faded from radar and vanished.
1999 - The cargo freighter Genesis sent a radio signal to a nearby vessel, indicating a problem with the bilge pump. Despite extensive searches by the Coast Guard, the ship and crew were never seen or heard from again.
The Bermuda Triangle first got its name in 1964 in an article by Argosy Magazine which catalogued some disappearances and dubbed it “The Deadly Bermuda Triangle”. According to the Triangle authors, Christopher Columbus was the first person to document something strange in the Triangle, reporting that he and his crew observed "strange dancing lights on the horizon," flames in the sky, and at another point he wrote in his log about bizarre compass bearings in the area. Modern scholars checking the original log books have surmised that the lights he saw were the cooking fires of Taino natives in their canoes or on the beach; the compass problems were the result of a false reading based on the movement of a star. The flames in the sky were undoubtedly falling meteors, which are easily seen while at sea.
Flight 19, which consisted of five U.S. Navy bombers vanished without a trace in the Bermuda Triangle along with a rescue plane on December 5, 1945. This mystery seems to be the foundation of the triangles credibility as an area of paranormal phenomena.
All kinds of paranormal activities take place in this triangle of mystery. Planes loose power and become uncontrollable, compasses spin wildly, many ships and planes have disappeared completely, never to be seen again. The sky has been known to glow white and thick, green, glowing fog has also been witnessed. Strange, magnetic forces of unknown origin seem to be dragging airplanes toward the paranormal waters. What's even more unusual is that the disappearances of ships and planes take place in decent weather conditions.
The Bermuda Triangle, also known as the Devil's Triangle, is an area in the Atlantic Ocean where various disappearances of people and their aircraft and surface vessels have occurred. Some of the disappearances involve a level of mystery which is often popularly explained by a variety of theories beyond human error or acts of nature, attributed by some to the paranormal, a suspension of the laws of physics, or activity by extraterrestrial beings. An abundance of documentation for most incidents suggests that the Bermuda Triangle is merely a sailors' legend, later embellished by professional writers. Popular interest in the idea continues, however, reflecting the irrepressible human yearning to fathom that which lies beyond the external, physical world and interact with the realms of the imagination and spirit.
Ships and planes have disappeared mysteriously as they go across the Bermuda Triangle area in the Atlantic ocean. And all these happen when there is apparently no human errors, equipment failures or even natural disasters. Strangely, the ships and aircraft just vanish when everything seems to be okay.
The mystery of the Bermuda Triangle remains as one of the greatest and most baffling puzzles of all times. The area is also known as the Devil's Triangle because of the belief that Devil is at play here.
There has been over 1000 cases recorded over the past five centuries where ships and planes have disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle area without good explanation.
Where is it ?
The Bermuda Triangle is located off the South-Eastern coast of US in the Atlantic Ocean, starting from Miami. The triangular boundary has its points at Miami (Florida); San Juan (Puerto Rico); and Bermuda (the north-Atlantic island).
Each side of the triangle measures a little less than 1000 miles with a total area of about 1.5 million square miles. Accidents had mainly taken place along the southern boundary of the triangle, that is between Florida and Puerto Rico (see the map below).
Another popular theory says that it is more of a trapezium covering the Straits of Florida, the Bahamas, and the entire Caribbean island area east to the Azores. Occasionally, the Gulf of Mexico is added under this theory.
Beyond the exact geographical boundaries, the general area of the Atlantic, Caribbean, and Gulf of Mexico have been heavily-sailed shipping lanes since Christopher Columbus led the way for the European involvement of the New World. From colonial trade ships to the modern day, ships cross through the triangle waters daily for ports in the Americas and Europe, as well as the Caribbean Islands. Cruise ships are also plentiful, and pleasure craft regularly go back and forth between Florida and the islands. It is also a heavily flown route for commercial and private aircraft heading towards Florida, the Caribbean, and South America from points north.
The climate in that area of the ocean can be fairly extreme. The Gulf Stream ocean current flows through the Triangle after leaving the Gulf of Mexico. Sudden storms can and do appear, and in the summer to late fall, the occasional hurricane strikes the area. The combination of heavy maritime traffic and tempestuous weather makes it inevitable that vessels could founder in storms and be lost without a trace—especially before modern telecommunications, radar, and satellite technology arrived late in the twentieth century.
