Perhaps you have heard about the infamous Bermuda Triangle – a region in the Atlantic Ocean that eats ups flights and ships. Innumerable accidents have occurred here in course of history, and many lives lost. There are many stories and explanations concerning the Triangle. What, in reality, is the Trainable, and what explains the mishaps that occur so frequently here?
The “Bermuda Triangle” or “Devil’s Triangle” is an imaginary area located off the southeastern Atlantic coast of the United States of America, which is noted for a supposedly high incidence of unexplained disappearances of ships and aircrafts. The apexes of the triangle are generally believed to be Bermuda; Miami, Florida; and San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Whether or not such a mysterious belt in the ocean exists is a controversial issue. Some major accidents that took place in this belt over time made people conceive the notion that something magical exists about this belt. Some of the incidents have been so serious that the region cannot be ignored any more.
In March 1918, the US Navy lost its ship USS Cyclopes here. The incident resulted in the single largest loss of life in the history of the U.S. Navy. It took place when USS Cyclops under the command of Lieutenant Commander G. W. Worley, went missing without a trace with a crew of 306 sometime after March 4, 1918, after departing the island of Barbados. Although there is no strong evidence for any theory, storms, capsizing and enemy activity have all been suggested as explanations to this disaster.
Another equally hair-raising incident took place in 1945. Flight 19 lost one of its aircrafts in the same region in December. Flight 19 was a training flight of TBM Avenger bombers that went missing on December 5, while over the Atlantic. The impression is given that the flight encountered unusual phenomena and abnormal compass readings, and that the flight took place on a calm day under the supervision of an experienced pilot, Lt. Charles Carroll Taylor. Adding to the mystery is that the Navy’s report of the accident was ascribed to “causes or reasons unknown.” It is believed that Taylor’s mother wanted to save her son’s reputation, so she made them write “reasons unknown” when actually Taylor was 50 km NW from where he thought he was. A silly mistake for a navigator of his repute and qualification!
Another well-known disappearance is the civilian tanker SS Marine Sulphur Queen carrying bulk molten sulfur which sank in February 1963. Although the wreck of Marine Sulphur Queen has not been located, a life preserver and other floating artifacts were recovered. These disappearances support the popular belief in the mystery and the existence of supernatural qualities of the “Bermuda Triangle.”
Scientists believe that a significant factor with regard to missing vessels in the Bermuda Triangle is a strong ocean current called the Gulf Stream. It is extremely swift and turbulent and can quickly erase evidence of a disaster. The weather also plays its role. Prior to the development of telegraph, radio and radar, sailors did not know a storm or hurricane was nearby until it appeared on the horizon. For example, the Continental Navy sloop Saratoga was lost off the Bahamas in such a storm with all her crew on 18 March 1781. Many other US Navy ships have been lost at sea in storms around the world. Sudden local thunder storms and water spouts can sometimes spell disaster for mariners and air crews. Finally, the topography of the ocean floor varies from extensive shoals around the islands to some of the deepest marine trenches in the world. With the interaction of the strong currents over the many reefs the topography of the ocean bottom is in a state of flux and the development of new navigational hazards can sometimes be swift.
It has been found that the magnetic compass that helps navigators find their way in the sea behaves abnormally in this belt, and they often miss their marks. This leads to accident. Some people claim that these disappearances fall beyond the boundaries of human error and are acts of nature. Some of these disappearances have been attributed to the aliens living in the space, who caste their magical spells. However the real cause has so far remained unexplained.
Geographically, no government has demarcated any area properly as the Bermuda Triangle. How we come to know about it is from various writings by various authors. The boundaries of the Triangle vary with the author; some stating its shape is akin to a trapezoid covering the Straits of Florida, the Bahamas, and the entire Caribbean island area east to the Azores; others add to it the Gulf of Mexico. The more familiar, triangular boundary in most written works has as its points somewhere on the Atlantic coast of Florida; San Juan, Puerto Rico; and the mid-Atlantic island of Bermuda, with most of the accidents concentrated along the southern boundary around the Bahamas and the Florida Straits.
The area is one of the most heavily-sailed shipping lanes in the world, with ships crossing through it daily for ports in the Americas, Europe, and 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
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. 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.
An explanation for some of the disappearances focuses on the presence of vast fields of methane hydrates on the continental shelves. A paper was published by the United States Geological Survey about the appearance of hydrates in the Blake Ridge area, offshore southeastern United States, in 1981. Periodic methane eruptions are capable of producing ship-sized bubbles, or regions of water with so much dissolved gas, that the fluid density is no longer capable of providing adequate buoyancy for ships to float. If this were the case, such an area forming around a ship could cause it to sink almost directly and without warning. Experiments have proven that a methane bubble can indeed sink a ship by decreasing the density of the water.
Methane gas can also crash planes. The less dense air causes planes to lose lift. Also, the altimeter of planes, the instrument that measures the altitude, functions on the density of air. Because methane is less dense, the altimeter assumes the plane is climbing. Planes at night or in the clouds, where they can’t see the ground, assume that they are climbing and dive, causing them to crash. Also, methane in the engine throws off the mix of fuel and air. Aircraft engines burn the fuel with oxygen provided by the air. When the ambient oxygen levels drop, combustion can stop, and the engine stalls. All of these effects of methane gas have been shown experimentally.
The Comet Theory proposes that a comet, of unknown composition, crashed to Earth 11,000 years ago and embedded itself in the area of the Bermuda Triangle, beneath the ocean floor. If such an object exists there, it could still possess electromagnetic properties that we don’t entirely understand causing the anomalies in the Bermuda Triangle.