What is the Bermuda Triangle?: The Unexplained

The Bermuda Triangle, also known as the Devil's Triangle, is located off the Southeastern coast of the United States in the Atlantic Ocean, with its apexes in the vicinities of Bermuda, Miami, Florida, and San Juan, Puerto Rico. It covers about 500,000 square miles of ocean with some interesting formations on the sea floor, including some of the deepest underwater trenches in the world, a yearly hurricane season, and the Gulf Stream which travels along the western edge of the triangle which itself can create hazardous weather conditions.

Christopher Columbus, in his ship’s logs, had noted unusual compass bearings in the Bermuda Triangle area. Numerous ships and planes have simply vanished, many without a trace. Vincent Gaddis was the first to call this imaginary area the Bermuda Triangle for a story about Flight 19 for Argosy magazine in August of 1964. The legend grew after reporter E.V.W. Jones compiled a list of unusual disappearances of both ships and planes between Florida and Bermuda. Future authors added to the mysterious lists of disappearances and as the legend of the Bermuda Triangle grew past disappearances were re-examined and added to legend. Five movies, beginning with the “Bermuda Depths” released as a TV movie in 1975 to the “Triangle” released in 2009 attest to public fascination with the myth surrounding this areas. Steven Spielberg, in his blockbuster, ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ utilized the Flight 19 disappearance as an example of alien abduction.

"The ocean has always been a mysterious place to humans, and when foul weather or poor navigation is involved, it can be a very deadly place. This is true all over the world. There is no evidence that mysterious disappearances occur with any greater frequency in the Bermuda Triangle than in any other large, well-traveled area of the ocean."

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/bermudatri.html

• 1492 Christopher Columbus – He reported strange lights and compass readings within the Triangle.
• 1609 The Sea Venture – It was wrecked during the first attempt to colonize Bermuda.
• 1814 U.S.S. Espervier – While carrying a peace treaty to end the war between America and the North African Barbary States, the ship and her crew disappeared never to be seen or heard from again.
• 1855 James B. Chester – This schooner was found floating in the Atlantic, crewless with no signs of struggle and with lifeboats still in place.
• 1881 Ellen Austin – An American schooner, the Ellen Austin met with another ship in the Triangle moving at full speed but strangely had no one on board. Part of the crew boarded it to sail with the Ellen Austin but it was lost, never seen or heard from again. Rumor spread that alien abduction was responsible for the missing crew.
• 1909 S.V. Spray – This derelict fishing boat was redesigned into an ocean cruiser by Joshua Slocum and used to single-handedly sail around the world In 1909 Slocum set sail for Venezuela from Vineyard Haven and neither he nor the ship were ever seen or heard from again.
• 1918 The U.S.S. Cyclops – scheduled to sail to Brazil to refuel British ships in the south Atlantic, she left Rio de Janeiro on February 16, 1918 and after stopping briefly in Barbados in early March, the ship, 306 passengers and crew were never seen or heard from again.
• 1941 The U.S.S. Proteus and the U.S.S. Nereus – Both ships vanished, never to be seen or heard from again along the same route taken by their sister ship the U.S.S. Cyclops.
• 1945 U.S. Navy Avengers Flight 19 – five highly experience student pilots led by Ltd. Charles Taylor set out on a sunny day when suddenly the tower received transmissions that the group was lost, their compasses were not working and “everything looked wrong” and even after extensive Navy investigation, they were never seen or heard from again.
• 1945 PBM Martin Mariner – two Martin Mariner planes were sent out to search for Flight 19. One came back, but the other was never seen or heard from again.
• 1947 C-54 Skymaster – It seemed to be a sudden thunderstorm that disintegrated the plane but the real question to be asked is: why did the C54 get into the eye of the storm when it could have easily avoided it?
• 1948 Tudor Star Tiger – A Mark-IV aircraft, it disappeared in the Triangle shortly before landing at the Bermuda airport.
• 1948 DC-3 Flight NC-16002 – On December 28, Captain Robert Lindquist was piloting a commercial flight from San Juan, Puerto Rico to Miami Florida when he radioed Miami from 50 miles away requesting landing instructions; however, when Miami radioed back instructions they did not receive a reply. Lindquist, however, had experienced electrical difficulties and required a battery recharge which Lindquist failed to do instructing the ground crew to refill the water in the batteries and replace them in the plane. It is thought that an electrical system failure made the aircraft’s radio and compass inoperative. As he did not communicate with the tower he failed to discover weather conditions which probably took him off course causing him to crash due to fuel running out. The plane was never seen or heard from again.
• 1954 Flight 441 – Flight 441, a Super Constellation Naval Airliner disappeared over the Bermuda Triangle in October, never to be seen or heard from again.
• 1963 The S.S. Marine Sulpher Queen – She was a tanker heading for Norfolk Virginia from Beaumont, Texas carrying 15,000 tons of molten sulphur in heated tanks. Her last message indicated she was near Key West in the Florida Straits. At her last known location, minimal debris was found identifying the ship and it is thought likely that leaking sulphur may have poisoned the crew preventing them from sending a distress call and caused an explosion. The ship and crew were never seen or heard from again.
• 1965 Milwaukee’s 440^th Airlift Wing, Plane 680 – They took off from Homestead Air Force Base in Florida at 7:47 pm and headed to the Bahamas. An expert maintenance crew on board suggest that there was no mechanical problem on board. The plane and crew were never seen or heard from again.
• 1967 Witchcraft – On the night of December 22, the owner of the Witchcraft took it offshore to watch the lights of the Miami shoreline and it was never seen or heard from again.
• 1968 U.S.S. Scorpion – In May, this nuclear-powered submarine disappeared in the area never to be seen or heard from again. Or has it? Today, the wreck of Scorpion is is said to be located on a sandy seabed at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean in about 3,000 m (9,800 ft) of water. The site is reported to be approximately 740 km southwest of the Azores Islands, on the eastern edge of the Sargasso Sea. The US government claims to be regularly testing the site for nuclear emissions.
• 1971 Sting-27 – A USAF Phantom jet, it vanished never to be seen or heard from again. Although details were never revealed, it was said to have suffered an impact of some kind.
• 1976 The Sylvia L. Ossa - A 590 foot ore carrier, it disappeared with a crew of 37 140 miles from shore never to be seen or heard from again.
• 1991 A Grumman Cougar jet – After a routine radio request to increase altitude, the aircraft gradually faded from radar and vanished never to be seen or heard from again.
• 1999 Genesis – A cargo freighter it sent a radio signal to a nearby vessel because of a problem with a bilge pump. Although the Coast Guard made a complete search, the ship and crew were never seen or heard from again.

Mayell. Hillary. Bermuda Triangle: Behind the Intrigue. Dec. 15, 2003. Feb. 9, 2012.

Obringer, Lee Ann. How the Bermuda Triangle Works. 02 August 2006. HowStuffWorks.com. Feb. 9, 2012.

"Strange Devices That Found the Sunken Sub Scorpion."Popular Mechanics, April 1969, pp. 66-71.