Bermuda Triangle

The Bermuda Triangle is an area of supposed mystery in a triangle roughly defined by Bermuda, Puerto Rico, and the southern tip of Florida. It is said that within this area a number of ships and planes have disappeared under highly unusual circumstances. The U.S. Coast Guard disagrees, however.

The first mention of any unusual disappearances in the area was made in 1950 by E.V.W. Jones as a sidebar on the AP wire service regarding recent ship losses in the area. Jones' article notes the "mysterious disappearances" of ships and planes in the region, and ascribes it the name "The Devil's Sea.". It was mentioned again in 1952 in a Fate Magazine article by George X. Sand, who outlined several "strange marine disappearances." The term "Bermuda Triangle" was popularized by Vincent Gaddis in a 1964 Argosy feature.

The area achieved its fame largely through the efforts of Charles Berlitz in his 1974 book The Bermuda Triangle. The book consists of a series of recountings of mysterious disappearances of ships and aircraft, in particular, the loss of a squadron of five U.S. Navy aircraft (see below). The book was a best-seller, and many interested readers offered theories to explain the nature of the disappearances. The list includes natural storms, transportation by extraterrestrial technology, high traffic volumes (and correspondingly high accident rates), a temporal hole, the lost Atlantis empire from the bottom of the ocean, and other natural and supernatural causes.

An explanation for some of the disappearances focuses on the presence of vast fields of methane hydrates recently discovered on the continental shelves. Periodic methane eruptions are capable of producing ship-sized bubbles, or regions of water so gasified they are incapable of providing adequate buoyancy for ships. [1] The effects of such eruptions are also consistent with reports which include accounts of mists, foamy water, changes in ship buoyancy, and extensive oil slicks.

A different description of the Bermuda triangle disappearances was proposed by Lawrence Kusche, who was a reference librarian with Arizona State University at the time of the "Flight 19" incident (see below). Intrigued by the number of students coming to him looking for information about the Bermuda triangle, he began an exhaustive follow-up investigation of the original reports. His findings were eventually published as The Bermuda Triangle Mystery: Solved.

Kusche's research revealed a number of inconsistencies between Berlitz' accounts and statements from eyewitnesses, participants, and others involved in the initial incidents. He noted cases where pertinent but late-arriving information went unreported. The Berlitz book included the disappearance of round-the-world yachtsman Donald Crowhurst as a mystery, despite clear evidence that Crowhurst had fabricated the accounts of his voyage, and that his diary strongly suggested he had committed suicide. An ore carrier Berlitz recounts as lost without trace three days out of an Atlantic port was actually lost three days out of a port of the same name in the Pacific Ocean. Kusche argues that a large percentage of the incidents attributed to the Bermuda triangle's mysterious influence actually occurred well outside it.

Kusche came to several conclusions:

With this area being one of the busiest shipping areas in the world, the proportion of losses was no greater than anywhere else.
In an area with frequent tropical storms, the total disappearance of some ships was not unlikely or mysterious, and the number of such disappearances was exaggerated by sloppy research, when a missing boat would be reported in the press, but not its eventual return to port.
In actual disappearances, the circumstances were frequently misreported in the Bermuda Triangle books: the number of ships disappearing in supposedly still, calm weather did not jibe with press weather reports published at the time.

While Kusche's analysis provides a skeptical counterbalance to Berlitz's book, we can still expect to see books and websites devoted to uncovering the "mysteries" of the Bermuda Triangle.

Table of contents

1 Flight 19
2 External Links
3 Further reading

Flight 19

The most infamous Bermuda triangle incident is the loss of Flight 19, a squadron of five Navy bombers on a training flight out of Ft. Lauderdale on December 5, 1945. According to Berlitz, the flight consisted of expert pilots who, after reporting a number of odd visual effects, simply disappeared. Furthermore, Berlitz claims that because the TBM Avenger bombers were built to float for long periods, they should have been found the next day considering what were reported as calm seas. However, not only were they never found, a Navy search and rescue plane that went after them was also lost. Adding to the intrigue is that the Navy's report of the accident was ascribed to "causes or reasons unknown."

While the basic facts of Berliz' version of the story are essentially accurate, some important details are missing. Flight 19 set out from Ft. Lauderdale at 2:10 in the afternoon. The flight was a training mission: all but the commander were students. Evidently, the commander became confused early on in the flight. In a radio call the commander indicated his compasses were not working and he believed they were flying over a small group of islands they assumed were the Florida Keys, implying that they were well off course and far to the west of where they should have been. A later re-creation showed that the islands in question were probably their bombing target, well east of the Keys. The commander, thinking he was on a heading toward Florida, guided the flight further north. Meanwhile the weather worsened and radio contact became more intermittent.

The squadron was in fact well out to sea east of the Florida peninsula. At 5:50 their position was fixed off the coast of central Florida, but the pilots could not be reached to give them this information. A flying boat was immediately dispatched to help guide the planes back, and two more planes joined the search later. In the meantime, darkness had fallen, and the weather had worsened. The last radio contact from Flight 19 was heard at 7:04; at which time the planes were low on fuel. There would be no choice but to ditch their planes into the rough ocean when fuel ran out; the pilots had agreed they would all ditch together when one of the planes ran out of fuel.

The search for Flight 19 survivors continued all night and the next day to no avail. This was not a surprise, however; the bombers were not likely to withstand a landing in a rough sea. The search plane that was lost was one of two Martin Mariners sent to the search zone. The Mariner, which had a reputation as a "flying bomb" or "flying gas tank" almost certainly exploded in mid flight. The crew of a merchant ship witnessed a mid-air explosion and passed through what they thought was an oil slick and floating airplane wreckage in the vincinity, although none of it was recovered. Little doubt remains, however, as to the fate of the missing search plane. The other Mariner arrived at the search zone as scheduled.

The story of Flight 19 is certainly a tragedy, but the image of a squadron of experienced pilots disappearing on a sunny afternoon is not accurate. Rather, it was a squadron of students forced to crash land into unknown stormy waters in the dark of night. As for the Navy's report, it is claimed that the original report blamed the accident on the commander's confusion, but the wording was changed in deference to the wishes of his family.

It is worth mentioning that the Bermuda triangle does still hold a mystery concerning Flight 19: what actually became of the planes. In 1991 the wreckage of five Avengers was discovered off the coast of Florida. At the time of the discovery nearly everyone assumed that the planes were the Flight 19 squadron, but it was found later that the serial numbers on the engine blocks did not match, so the whereabouts of Flight 19 remain unknown.