The Triangle is an area of the Atlantic Ocean whose size varies by the author who happens to be writing about it; although its most common points are San Juan, Puerto Rico; Miami, Florida; and the island of Bermuda. It gains its fame from the large amount of ships and planes that have vanished without a trace within the last century.
The first known documentation of
strange anomalies in the Bermuda Triangle was recorded by the famed explorer Christopher Columbus in October 1492, when he and his crew was said to have passed through the area. On the eleventh of October of that year, Columbus recorded in his log book that his crew had seen “strange dancing lights on the horizon”, “flames in the sky”, and later recorded that he had observed bizarre compass bearings in the area.
This was the first known recording of any strange occurrences in the triangle leading to the discovery of the New World in 1492, but it was not the last. After the discovery by Spain and Portugal that the New World could be a source of valuable minerals and abundant resources, the countries sent galleons to transport the materials from the New World back to Europe.
It was recorded that many of these vessels, loaded with gold stolen from the North American natives, disappeared without a trace throughout the Atlantic and the Caribbean]. Some of these galleons have been recovered within the last century by modern researchers and salvage experts who have analyzed the ocean bottom-but the nature of their disappearances is yet to be explained with certainty.
The term “Bermuda Triangle” was popularized in a 1964 issue of Argosy Magazine by Vincent Gaddis; and in 1974 it largely achieved its fame through the publication of The Bermuda Triangle by Charles Berlitz. The book recounts the disappearances of many aircraft and ships, in particular, the loss of five U.S. Navy Avenger torpedo bombers in 1945, known as Flight 19.
Perhaps the most famous disappearance in the Triangle was that of Flight 19. The Saga began on December 15th, 1945 when five Avenger torpedo bombers lifted off from the Navel Air Station at Fort Lauderdale. The flight was meant to be a practice bombing run for thirteen students and a Commander, Lt. Charles Taylor. About an hour and a half into the flight had left; a transmission was picked up by Taylor. He indicated that his compasses were not behaving properly, but he believed himself to be over the Florida Keys (islands south of the Florida mainland).
The
flight coordinator urged him to fly north toward Miami if he was sure of his location to the south of Florida. Due to the lack of global positioning technology or other location-tracking devices, Taylor had to rely on the compass; and since it was acting strangely, he became confused as to his real location.
Taylor began flying northeast toward where he thought was the Naval Air Station, but he never returned in time, which brought speculation that he may have flown off course-to the northeast of Florida. The communications between Flight 19 and the mainland weakened, and as time went on, snatches of transmissions were received indicating that the other flight 19 pilots-the students-were attempting to persuade Taylor to change course.
“If we could just fly west”, one of the students said to another, “we are sure to get home.” He was right, because at 5:50 P.M. that day, the Com Gulf Sea Frontier Evaluation Center managed to get a fix on Flight 19's weakening signals. They were apparently east of New Smyrna Beach, Florida, but the communications were so poor that this information could not be passed on to the lost planes.
Searches were made for the lost planes, but to no avail. A PBM Mariner plane with a thirteen-man crew was sent out to search for the fliers, and it too never returned. Many theories have arisen surrounding the disappearance, including the possible capture by extraterrestrials, government cover ups, and invisible time warps.
The most common, viable explanation is that the fliers, heading out to sea, eventually ran out of fuel and went down into the ocean; where the planes would sink and the pilots would drown-possibly eaten by sharks.
The loss of Flight 19 is indeed ponderous, but it does not remain unexplained. In fact, every disappearance can be explained in both a theoretical or paranormal sense; although some of these explanations are not adequate enough to be accepted as a fact. One such disappearance is that of the U.S.S. Cyclops in March 1918. The ship vanished with 10, 800 tons of manganese and 309 men on board while en route from Barbados to Baltimore.
Theories of this disappearance ranged from mutiny at sea to a large boiler explosion which prevented any distress call. One magazine, the Literary Digest, speculated that a giant octopus rose from the sea, entwined the ship with its tentacles, and dragged it to the bottom.
