The Ever Mysterious Bermuda Triangle

The Ever Mysterious Bermuda Triangle

The Bermuda Triangle has been a topic of conversation and has generated much interest worldwide for over 100 years. Also known as the Devil’s Triangle, this imaginary area lies between the West Indies and the south eastern coast of USA and can be roughly outlined on a map. Within this area there have been a number of unexplained disappearances of ships and planes.

For many years, alien interception have been blamed for the strange events, which have caused the disappearance of 1000 lives along with their ships and planes as there appeared to be no other reasonable explanations. Today however, there are other explanations besides those of aliens with some saying accidents happen and while they have happened inside the imaginary triangle, so have they occurred outside of it. Today, there are still those who believe it has something to do with the paranormal.

During WWI in March 1918, the USS Cyclops vanished in the Bermuda Triangle which was recorded as a possible casualty of war, but when in December 1945, Flight 19 a training squadron of five US Navy torpedo bombers along with 14 crewmen disappeared after sending out several distress messages, this became the most notorious of disappearances associated with the Bermuda Triangle. The aircraft that was sent out to search for the missing squadron also vanished.

Very little details of these incidents were given out at the time of happening. For example, all the crew of Flight 19 were in training except for their patrol leader who had withdrawn from the flight due to feeling ill. The flight leader decided to navigate by landmarks below on the islands of the Florida Keys after his compass malfunctioned minutes into the flight. A sudden storm made visibility a problem causing the leader to become disorientated.  At this time, Flight 19 was still in radio contact with Fort Lauderdale air base, but after experiencing some mechanical problems, they failed to switch to an emergency frequency.
Recordings indicated that there were some conflicts about which direction they were heading with some of the crew believing they were heading over the Atlantic Ocean instead of the Gulf of Mexico as reported. The search plane that had been sent out was reported to have disappeared into the Bermuda Triangle along with Flight 19, in actual fact, it had exploded seconds after take off.

There have been many documented disappearances that have occurred in the Bermuda Triangle some of which are, a four engine Tudor IV airplane with all 31 aboard, a DC-3 carrying 27 passengers disappeared in 1948 a C-124 Globe master with 53 passengers in 1951, a British York transport plane disappeared 1952 with 33 people aboard, an American freighter the SS Sandra which sunk with a trace, a Lockheed Constellation aeroplane vanished in 1954 along with 42 people, a US Navy seaplane  in 1956 with a crew of 10 a French freighter in 1970  and a German freighter Anita lost in 1972 with a crew of 32.

The Mary Celeste disappeared in 1872, the Marine tank ship Sulphur Queen along with its 39 men disappeared in 1963 and in 1968 a nuclear powered submarine Scorpion with its crew of 99 was lost.

The Mary Celeste set sail from New York to Genoa, Italy and was found unmanned approximately 400 miles off course from the coast of Africa. All personal articles belonging to the crew were found and the food storage areas showed no signs that anything was wrong. A missing lifeboat and a torn sail suggested there had been a storm, but the ships log showed the last entry was nine days before it was found.   There was no mention of any trouble and no evidence that the Mary Celeste had ever entered the area of the Bermuda Triangle, but the questions of the fate of the Mary Celeste to this day remain unanswered.
Some of the theories as to why so many ships and planes have disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle are; the lost continent of Atlantis, Alien Interventions, time warps,  magnetic fields and holes in the sky.
Although there have been endless examinations and research into the disappearing crafts which have found that many of these incidents occurred during raging storms, story tellers and writers fail to mention this, stating the disappearances happened in calm weather and in daylight.

An area in the Pacific Ocean named the Devil’s Sea and the Bermuda Triangle are the only two places where a magnetic compass points true north.
Richard McIver a geochemist introduced his theory in 1981 of the role of methane gas hydrate plays in the disappearances in the Bermuda Triangle. He wrote that to the North of the Bermuda Triangle huge landslides occur on the continental shelf which results in sludge and large stone falling rapidly to the sea bed and ultimately rupturing the sea floor which covers a layer of gas. Once the sea bed is ruptured the gas is released quickly as well as methane which causes a huge surge of gas erupting from the surface of the water without warning.  Any ships or planes crossing this area at this time will be in immediate trouble because the water and air no longer have the same density causing the vessels to sink rapidly.
Although this theory is more viable, people still prefer to believe in the more extraordinary like a porthole into another dimension, world or even outer space.
What ever you choose to believe in, you will probably be apprehensive when traveling in the area just incase there is some truth in the stories.