The Bermuda Triangle: What's the Secret?
The Bermuda Triangle also known as Devil’s Triangle is
believed to be a mystery by some and not a mystery by some as well. It is
believed that many ships have been lost there. But how? And why? Would be the
subjective of this article.
Let’s explore!
Origination:
Initially some losses like the flight 19, a British Passenger
plane, the disappearance of star tiger, another passenger plane took place.
One of the most famous and the first disappearance is Flight 19. But what happened to it? Let’s have a look!
Disappearance of the Flight 19
It was the year 1945, 5th of December around 2:10 PM. Some 5 of the Torpedo bombers of the U.S. departed from Florida. The name of the mission was “Flight 19”. It wasn’t a special mission it was just a routine training mission. Around 14 people were in the flight and were led by LT. Charles C. Taylor as the leader. He was a very experienced pilot and also a veteran.
They flew in the east after taking off from the Florida. Everything was normal and weather was clear as well, but some 2 hours later when the group was beginning to move to north, difficulty began. Their compasses stopped working, they used their back up compasses but they didn’t work either. They asked other planes and their instruments were malfunctioning too. Because of that they were unable to determine their position.
Lt. Taylor who was the leader of Squadron was utterly confused after compasses stopped working and said “Both compasses are out and I’m trying to find Fort Lauderdale, Florida. I’m over land but it’s broken I’m sure I’m in the keys but I don’t know how far down and I don’t know how to get to Fort Lauderdale”.
By this time, the weather conditions started to worsen. At 4:56 PM Taylor believed that they were flying over the Gulf of Mexico, so that they need to fly in the east direction so they could get back to Florida. Thus he commanded rest of the planes to fly east. But some of the crew believed that they were already flying in the east so they’d have to fly westwards to get back to Florida.
Right after this order, a radio transmission was sent by one of those planes saying “Dammit, if we could just fly west we would get home; head west, dammit”.
It means that some of the crew members had doubt that they
should move westwards to go back home. The weather continues to worsen. The Sun
is about to set.
At this moment, the planes are believed to be flying 370 km
east of Florida.
Then at 7:04 PM, the last radio Transmission from Taylor was
received, he was heard saying “All the planes close up tight… we’ll have to
ditch unless landfall… when the first flight drops below 10 gallons (38
liters), we all go down together”. After this all of the five planes were lost
forever.
Till now, we have no clue about these planes and what
happened to them. After the loss of Flight 19 a Search-and-Rescue aircraft took
off with a crew of 13 people. The mission was to find Flight 19 but it
disappears as well. First the disappearing of 14 people and now other 13
people.
After this a large scale Air and Sea Search Operation was
conducted and it was one of the largest search operation of that time to look
for those both flights. But they couldn’t find anything.
They neither found a single body of any person nor any part
of the aircraft. Everything just disappeared.
The area where these both planes were disappeared is called Bermuda Triangle.
Bermuda Triangle is very mysterious part of the ocean where
more than 100 aircrafts and ships have gone missing and were never found.
This area is located between Florida, Puerto Rico and Bermuda
making a triangle. The tales of Bermuda Triangle are 500 years old.
Christopher Columbus was once on a voyage and passed by this
area, he reported that his compass stopped working.
Christopher Columbus also said that he saw a strange light up
in the sky like a large fireball which then crashed into the ocean.
From this point, the mystery of Bermuda Triangle begins. In
the upcoming centuries this area was given many names like “The Grave Yard of
the Atlantic”, “The Sea Doom”, “and Sargasso Grave Yard”, these type of names
were used in the 18th and 19th centuries. But the name
Bermuda Triangle was given in 1964 for the first time.
Another incident is about one of the ships of U.S. navy which
USS. Cyclopes which departed from Baltimore near Washington on March 4th,
1918. This ship was very important and one of the biggest ships. This ship was
going to Brazil and takes 9 days. These were 11,000 tons of Manganese with 306
people.
When this ship departed, everything was fine, weather was
clear as well. Ship sent a message “Weather Fair, All well” while departing but
this was the last message from the ship.
The ship began its journey after that it disappeared
suddenly. How this big ship of US navy can disappear? If you think this
incident is mysterious, the next incident will be more frightful!
This is the mystery of Ellen Austin. In 1881 a 210 feet long
ship was travelling from London to New York. It was pretty normal thing. At
that time many ships like this used to travel from London to New York.
But on its way the ship Ellen Austin found an unidentified
ship near Bermuda Triangle.
Although the Ship was pretty normal from outside but there
wasn’t any human inside, no crew, no people. So the captain of Ellen Austin thought
to go on that ship to see what happened to it.
First he waited for 2 days. He placed the ship next to the
other unidentified ship and waited for someone to give a signal or any response
if there’s someone on the other ship but they got no response.
Then the captain of Ellen Austin set foot on the other ship,
he saw a lot of stuff on that ship. Everything on the other ship was arranged
and in its place.
At that time people were afraid of pirates that they don’t
get attacked and steal their stuff but it wasn’t the subject to the other ship.
So the captain of Ellen Austin decided that he’ll some of his
crew on the other ship and both ships will continue their journey together. For
the first 2 days everything was smooth but then came a storm, both were separated
and the unidentified ship disappeared.
After the storm the captain of Ellen Austin tries to find the
other ship and saw that unidentified ship at some distance from his spy glass
and when they reached near it, they found that there’s no one on the ship, the
crew they sent on the other ship also disappeared. Don’t know where did they go
or what happened to them.
But the ship was still the same. It is said that the captain
tried the same thing again, he sent some of his crew on the other ship again so
that both of the ships continue their journey together. Everything was fine for
first 2-3 days then again a storms comes and ship disappears and when they find
the ship they see that there’s no one on the ship, not even the crew they sent.
Ellen Austin returns, the owner of the ship was so terrified
after hearing to the story, that he sells the ship to German Company. That
German Company changes the name of the ship to “Meta”. Yup, that’s right, the
way Mark Zuckerberg renamed Facebook into Meta. Isn’t that an intriguing and a
legendary story?
But unfortunately, this incident is most probably just a
story. Since the incident is too old that it is impossible to verify it that is
it true or not. The stories which are pretty popular historically and is passed
down to generations but can’t be verified properly are called “Urban Legends”
or “Legend”.
Many Rational thinkers believe that Bermuda Triangle is also
a legend.
But then if Bermuda Triangle is a legend, what could be the
reason that lies behind its mystery? Let’s figure it out!
There are a lot of theories related to it. Some blame aliens
that aliens abducted the ships and aircrafts. Some believe there’s a sea
monster under the ocean who is behind the disappearance of these things. Some
claim that because of the ocean peculiar these ships and aircrafts drown.
These theories are very weird but we’ll focus on those which
sound more scientific.
One of the explanations is based on magnetism. Actually the
thing is that the north pole of Earth and magnetic North pole of Earth both are
distinct points.
When you look towards north on a compass, the compass points
towards the magnetic north pole. But the real north pole is some different. It
is called Geographic North Pole.
Normally when people use a compass or those who have been
using it since ages take this into account.
But on Earth there are such points on also where when you’ll
use a compass you would find the magnetic and Geographic North Pole at the same
time and place.
The places where this happens are called “Agonic Lines”.
Although these lines change position but from the past
200-300 years the line of 0◦
has been around
Bermuda Triangle.
2. Another special thing that one of the highest hurricane
rates are in this area in the world.
If you see that in which countries there are the highest
number hurricanes China is at first then USA and then Cuba which also lies in
this area.
And in the USA, in the state of Florida there are most
hurricanes which lies in the area of Bermuda Triangle.
So hurricanes and water sprouts are more frequent in this
area.
3. Some give explanation related to Methane hydrates. In the
ocean there are some large fields of Methane hydrates. Methane Hydrates is
basically a solid substance and it is formed when the molecules of Methane (CH4)
are trapped in a crystal structure of water.
A lab experiment was conducted in Australia and they found
that when there’s exceeding amount of methane bubbles in the water the density
of water gets lower and the buoyancy of a ship can’t be maintained and as a
result the ship will drown in the sea.
You can take an easy example that when you add salt in water
the density increases like Dead Sea where bodies don’t drown because density is
high, the same thing in reverse is happening there if there’s methane in water.
These are some interesting scientific explanations but there isn’t
any direct evidence of all the disappearances in the Bermuda Triangle, that
there could be any exact incident because of Methane. It’s just a
scientifically proven thing that exists but there isn’t any proof of a
disappearance because of methane.
5. The fifth explanation is related to human psychology which
is important. It is known as “Baader-Meinhof Effect”. It is a psychological
effect that when we start noticing things more, then we start finding those
things more often around us.
It is the thing that is also said about the Bermuda Triangle.
This is true that many of the big aircrafts and ships have disappeared in
Bermuda Triangle, but if you’ve noticed, in many different areas of many oceans
such disappearances have been happened where there’s no Bermuda Triangle. You
can take example of the Malaysian Flight MH-370 which disappeared mysteriously
but not in Bermuda Triangle. Because the thing is that when people heard about
the mystery of Bermuda Triangle, people focused only on the disappearances of
Bermuda Triangle. But they didn’t paid much attention to the similar incidents
outside Bermuda Triangle.
A journalist Larry Kusche wrote a book “The Bermuda Triangle
Mystery Solved”. He says that initially the incidents took place but with the
passage of time when the mystery of Bermuda Triangle started to become
prominent some people started to create their own stories. They did
mystery-mongering and some of the stories were even completely absurd like the
story of Ellen Austin told before in the article.
America’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says
that there isn’t any evidence that any kind of mysterious incidents that
happened in the Bermuda Triangle didn’t took place somewhere else.
It means that there are a lot of mysterious incidents that
happened in the world, Bermuda triangle isn’t alone. Many incidents are seen in
many other oceans in the world.
United States Coast Guard says that “The Coast Guard does not
recognize the existence of so-called Bermuda Triangle as a geographic area of
specific hazard to ships or planes”.
So The Coast Guard of US doesn’t even recognizes Bermuda
Triangle as a harmful area. They say that Bermuda Triangle is heavily
trafficked which could be a reason of such incidents. Also notice that there
are more hurricanes and Shallow water in Bermuda Triangle.
So if you consider these things:
1.
Heavily Trafficked.
2.
Hurricane-Prone
3.
Shallow Waters.
You just got the answer of Bermuda Triangle’s mystery.
So basically there’s no relation of Bermuda Triangle with these incidents. And if you ask that what was the thing that Christopher Columbus saw like a fireball in the sky which is told earlier in the article. So the scientists believe that it was just a meteor which Columbus saw.Over the years, numerous theories have emerged attempting to explain the mysterious disappearances within the Bermuda Triangle. Some suggest that sudden and violent weather patterns, such as rogue waves reaching heights of up to 100 feet, could overwhelm ships and aircraft without warning. These massive waves, though rare, have been known to occur in the open ocean and could account for some of the unexplained vanishings.
Another hypothesis revolves around
the presence of methane hydrate deposits beneath the ocean floor. If these
deposits were to suddenly release gas, it could reduce the water's density,
causing ships to lose buoyancy and sink rapidly. Similarly,
the release of methane into the atmosphere could potentially disrupt aircraft
engines, leading to catastrophic failures.
Magnetic anomalies have also been
cited as a possible cause. Some researchers believe that
fluctuations in the Earth's magnetic field within the Triangle could interfere
with navigational instruments, leading pilots and sailors off course. However, studies have shown that the magnetic variations in this
region are not significantly different from those in other parts of the world.
Despite these scientific
explanations, the allure of the Bermuda Triangle's mystery persists. Stories of time
warps, alien abductions, and underwater cities continue to capture the
imagination, adding to the legend's enduring appeal. While many of these tales lack empirical evidence, they
contribute to the rich tapestry of folklore surrounding this enigmatic region.
In recent years, advancements in
technology and navigation have led to a decrease in unexplained incidents
within the Bermuda Triangle. Improved weather forecasting, GPS
systems, and communication tools have enhanced the safety of travel through
this area. Nevertheless, the Bermuda Triangle
remains a symbol of the unknown, reminding us of the ocean's vastness and the
mysteries it still holds.