Bermuda Triangle
The Bermuda Triangle, also known as the Devil's Triangle, is a loosely defined region in the North Atlantic Ocean, roughly bounded by Florida, Bermuda, and Puerto Rico. Since the mid-20th century, it has been the focus of an urban legend suggesting that many aircraft, ships, and people have disappeared there under mysterious circumstances. However, extensive investigations by reputable sources, including the U.S. government and scientific organizations, have found no evidence of unusual activity, attributing reported incidents to natural phenomena, human error, and misinterpretation.
Origins
Although the nearby Sargasso Sea already had a reputation as a mysterious region where ships may become lost, 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.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. Sand recounted the loss of several planes and ships since World War II: the disappearance of Sandra, a tramp steamer; 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 passenger airplane; the March 1948 disappearance of a fishing skiff with three men, including jockey Albert Snider; 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, another BSAA passenger airplane.
Flight 19 was covered again in the April 1962 issue of The American Legion Magazine. 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." 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. The next year, Gaddis expanded this article into a book, Invisible Horizons.
Other writers elaborated on Gaddis' ideas, including John Wallace Spencer ; Charles Berlitz ; and Richard Winer. Various of these authors incorporated supernatural elements.
Triangle area
Sand's article in Fate described the area as "a watery triangle bounded roughly by Florida, Bermuda and Puerto Rico". The Argosy article by Gaddis further delineated the boundaries, giving its vertices as Miami, San Juan, and Bermuda. Subsequent writers did not necessarily follow this definition. Some writers gave different boundaries and vertices to the triangle, with the total area varying from. "Indeed, some writers even stretch it as far as the Irish coast," according to a 1977 BBC program. Consequently, the determination of which accidents occurred inside the triangle depends on which writer reported them.Criticism of the concept
Larry Kusche
, author of The Bermuda Triangle Mystery: Solved, 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 prone to tropical cyclones, the number of disappearances that did occur were, for the most part, not disproportionate, unlikely, or mysterious.
- 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 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.
- 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.
Further responses
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, the Coast Guard photographed the wreck and recovered several bodies, 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. In addition, V. A. Fogg sank off the coast of Texas, nowhere near the commonly accepted boundaries of the Triangle.
Nova/''Horizon aired the episode "The Case of the Bermuda Triangle" on 27 June 1976. The episode 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."
Skeptical researchers, such as Ernest Taves and Barry Singer, 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.
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.
NOAA attributes most Bermuda Triangle disappearances to environmental factors such as hurricanes, sudden weather shifts from the Gulf Stream, and hazardous shallow waters. The U.S. Navy dismisses supernatural claims, emphasizing natural causes and human error. Additionally, the U.S. Board on Geographic Names does not list the Bermuda Triangle as an official location, given the lack of evidence distinguishing it from other ocean regions.
In recent years, scientists and researchers have reiterated that the Bermuda Triangle does not exhibit higher rates of disappearances than other heavily traveled ocean regions. Australian scientist Karl Kruszelnicki told The Independent'' in 2017 that the so-called “mystery” can be explained by human error, unpredictable weather, and the sheer volume of traffic passing through the area. According to Kruszelnicki, “On a percentage basis, the number of accidents in the Bermuda Triangle is the same as anywhere else in the world.
Hypothetical explanation attempts
Those accepting the Bermuda Triangle as a real phenomenon have suggested a number of explanations.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 city or state 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.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. Others attribute the events to UFOs. Charles Berlitz, author of various books on anomalous phenomena, lists several theories attributing the losses in the Triangle to anomalous or unexplained forces.