The Mystery of the Bermuda Triangle Disappearances

Devil's Triangle

Since 1800, a considerable number of ships and planes have disappeared between the Bermuda archipelago and Florida. Weather, geological or paranormal phenomena, extraterrestrial abductions, these more or less plausible versions confront each other to elucidate the mystery of the Bermuda Triangle disappearances, also know as the Devil’s Triangle or Hurricane Alley.

History of the Bermuda Triangle

On December 5, 1945, the most serious disaster in the history of the United States military aircrafts occurred. Late in the morning, Flight 19 then commanded by Lieutenant Taylor, set off on a training mission between Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and Bermuda. During the flight, the squadron declares itself in difficulty. The airmen, mostly WWII veterans, are surrounded by clouds, losing visual contact with the land. Messages of distress - "The sea is weird", "We enter white water", "My compasses are out of order" - launched by the squadron commander leave the operators on the ground speechless. The signal becomes weaker and fades. The recovery seaplane sent in support soon after the first SOS also misses the call. Horrible weather conditions forces searches to be postponed to the next day. On December 6, no less than 240 aircraft of all kinds and thirty warships participate in the largest rescue operation ever undertaken by the US Navy. But the 6 planes and the 28 crewmen can not be found; no cabin debris is found. The event shakes public opinion and goes beyond the news item. Once emotion has dissipated, the American press draws a parallel between Flight 19 disappearance and that of a multitude of aircraft and ships in the same zone. The story is spreading and arouses the curiosity of the general public. Many novels, films, and works of art seize it, distorting reality to forge the legend of the Bermuda Triangle. On the map, the "cursed area" takes the form of a triangle connecting South Florida to Puerto Rico and Bermuda ... the Bermuda Triangle.

Bermuda Triangle area

In 1964 is pronounced for the first time the expression Bermuda Triangle and the area is described as a maritime and aerial cemetery. Historical research reveals an unsuspected proliferation of legends and narratives focused on this region of the globe since the first incursion of Christopher Columbus in 1492. A map of Bermuda Triangle dating back to 1550 christened the area "demon island". The playwright poet William Shakespeare, in his play The Tempest, evokes the Devil's Triangle with eternal torments. In the nineteenth century, an impressive record of missing ships was recorded: the most resounding Bermuda Triangle shipwrecks were those of the USS Pickering in 1800, the French three-master La Rosalie in 1814, the English schooner Bella in 1854, the three-master Swedish Lotta in 1866, the Spanish freighter Viego in 1868, the training ship Atlanta in 1880 and the Italian schooner Miramon in 1884. All entered the Bermuda Triangle and vanished without traces and neither the ship or the crew was ever found. Radio-transmission will thicken even a little more the mystery surrounding the disappearances. In 1902, the Freya, a German three-master, disappears off the Bahamas in mild weather. In 1918, the American charbroiler Cyclops suffered the same fate; as in most cases, no distress signal is emitted, as if the sinking had occurred abruptly. In 1925, we lost track of the Raifuu Maru, a Japanese freighter. The latter has time to send an SOS message to say the least strange: "Danger, dagger. Help ! Come quickly ! ". In 1983, the British Anglo-Australian cargo ship sent a final message - "ideal time, everything is fine" - before sinking body and soul.

Time gap and time distortion

From 1945 to 1977, about fifty ships disappeared in the Devil's Triangle. In 1974, an article in the Los Angeles Times listed the known disappearances. The history of the Bermuda Triangle area is impressive. According to journalist Howard Rosenberg, more than 190 ships and 80 aircraft would have died without a trace in the same area; he also claims that the US coastguard responded to nearly 8,000 distress calls in the area ... The Bermuda Triangle has a much higher than average accident rate. The planes are not spared. In 1947, an American Boeing B-29 Superfortress disappears. Then, on January 30, 1948, it was the turn of a four-engine civilian Star Tiger to volatilize around Devil's Triangle. His 33 passengers and 6 crewmen will never be found, any more than the aircraft. On December 28, 1948, a DC-3 from Puerto Rico suffered the same fate as it was preparing to land in Miami. On January 17, 1949, a four-engine flying Kingston-Miami was also missing. In 1949, a most intriguing event occurred. The control screens at Miami Airport are losing for a few minutes the echo of an Eastern Airlines plane approaching. It reappears and lands unhindered, but it is noticed that passenger watches and aircraft are delayed by ten minutes. The event revives the craze for ufology phenomena. The paranormal specialists are enthusiastic to explain that the Bermuda Triangle area is home to a fracture of space-time, a sort of time chasm precipitating ships and planes in a parallel world. In the 1980s, Professor Wayne Meshejian publicly stated that the National Oceanographic Administration's satellite broke down on each flyover of the Devil's Triangle.

Bermuda Triangle theories

To every age corresponds its sea hell vision. In the nineteenth century, a period deeply marked by the fantastic stories of Jules Verne, it is envisaged that a horde of sea snakes will haunt the depths of Bermuda. Later, at the beginning of the 20th century, imaginative minds firmly believe that the mythical lost city of Atlantis is in these latitudes. The Atlanteans, an underwater people living under glass bells, would attract their victims with the help of a mysterious force, for the sole purpose of taking "terrestrial" humans to study them. The discovery near the Bahamas of an alignment of immersed stone blocks resembling temples and recumbent walls has revived passions about the mythical lost city of Atlantis. For the scientists who have studied the phenomenon, the explanation is obviously more rational. The Devil's Triangle is believed to be the epicenter of underwater earthquakes with colossal forces. The result would be localized but very powerful tidal waves, moreover undetectable along the coasts. For others, the Bermuda Triangle area would house a fault in the Earth's magnetic field, responsible for the same events. The latest version is favorably received by a majority of researchers and enthusiasts: massive emissions of methane (a highly flammable gas) from the seabed would alter the density of the water and cause loss of buoyancy for boats. This gas, present in abundance, would be suddenly released by the cracks created by the intense seismic activity. Such "earthly flatulence" would sometimes produce huge whirlpools sucking up everything on the surface. Airplanes caught in these gas clouds could lose control of their flight instruments, and their engines break down.

The Devil’s Triangle, media invention ?

Beginning in 1975, counter-investigations attempted to demonstrate the inconsistencies and exaggerated character of the theses on the Bermuda Triangle. The most notable is that of writer and pilot Lawrence David Kusche, who has shown that many statements about this area are erroneous, distorted or unverifiable. First of all, the Bermuda Triangle area is huge - almost eight times the size of France. The famous Devil's Triangle is also one of the busiest maritime crossroads in the world. Finding the newspapers of the time relating the accidents and cross-checking the dates of the events with the meteorological archives, he found important contradictions. First, it seems that the number of missing ships and aircraft is not higher than elsewhere in terms of traffic. Some missing boats have actually returned to port without it being reported. Other Bermuda Triangle disappearances have never even taken place: thus Bella, Rosalie, Viego and Miramon - these last three would never have existed. Still others have sank, but in remote areas, such as the Freya, which disappeared in the Pacific Ocean, and the Cyclops, on the north coast of the United States. The Atlanta, a retired sailboat, sank well into the Devil's Triangle, but the wreck was predictable - dubbed "The Pendulum", it was deemed unstable. As for Bermuda Triangle plane crash, again, reports of transmissions presented in the press have been distorted to amplify the mystery. Kusche goes so far as to question the founding myth, the Flight 19 disappearance, which he believes would be due to a navigational error by Lieutenant Taylor, an experienced pilot who is unfamiliar with the Caribbean's volatile climate.