The Triangle Area
The boundaries of the Triangle vary with the author; some stating its shape is akin to a trapezium covering the Straits of Florida, the Bahamas, and the entire Caribbean island area east to the Azores; others add to it the Gulf of Mexico. Some authors stretch it as far as the Irish coast. The more familiar, triangular boundary in most written works has as its points Miami, Florida; San Juan, Puerto Rico; and the mid-Atlantic island of Bermuda, with most of the accidents concentrated along the southern boundary around the Bahamas and the Florida Straits.
The area is one of the most heavily-sailed shipping lanes in the world, with ships crossing through it daily for ports in the Americas and Europe, as well as the Caribbean Islands. Cruise ships are also plentiful, and pleasure craft regularly go back and forth between Florida and the islands. It is also a heavily flown route for commercial and private aircraft heading towards Florida, the Caribbean, and South America from points north.
The Gulf Stream ocean current flows through the Triangle after leaving the Gulf of Mexico; its current of five to six knots may have played a part in a number of disappearances. Sudden storms can and do appear, and in the summer to late fall the occasional hurricane strikes the area. The combination of heavy maritime traffic and tempestuous weather makes it inevitable that vessels could founder in storms and be lost without a trace — especially before improved telecommunications, radar, and satellite technology arrived late in the 20th century.
History Of Disappearances
There have been many disappearances in this area, including the WWII airplane squadron Flight 19. Other pilots have reported seeing little balls of light flying next to their airplanes. Some pilots have reported seeing wakes on the water caused by boats,(hundreds of them) but there were no boats in the water. The Mary Celeste was found with no one on board. Some of these mysteries have been linked to science, but what happened to Flight 19 ? There was never any evidence of airplane wreckage.
Many people have tried experiments, but no sure answer has been found. Christopher Columbus said that he saw lights in the sky, and his compass wasn't showing guidance at all. Some scientists believe that the light that they saw go into the water was just a comet that crashed into the ocean, and the compass problem might have been caused by wind or someone with a magnet.
Some scientists explain some disappearances caused by natural phenomenon such as lightning or whirlpools. Some people even believe that there are under water causes that sunk some ships. One ship was found in a cave. Other people think that some ships went underwater and sunk into sand and are totally covered. The water is so deep that investigators may never know if that happened.
People think that air planes are sucked into a black holes and just disappear. The Black Hole hides behind a cloud. Although some people cross through it everyday, like military carriers and jets and cruises, people are still afraid to even go through it. Other people believe that UFOs have flown down and have captured all of the ships. No one has proved this, but many people have tried. People think that a small UFO has flown down and shot the space shuttle Challenger.
FLIGHT 19
In January, 1945, five U.S. Navy Bombers vanished over the Bermuda Triangle. At 3:45 PM , the flight leader Lieutenant Charles C. Taylor, radioed the control tower.
"Calling tower. This is an emergency . We seem to be off course. We can not see land ... repeat ... we can not see land ."
"What is your position ?," the tower radioed back.
"We're not sure of our position. We can not be sure just where we are. We seem to be lost."
"Assume bearing due west."
"We don't know which way is west. Everything is wrong... strange. We can't be sure just where we are. We are not sure of any direction. Even the ocean doesn't look as it should."
Lieutenant Robert Cox, senior flight instructer at Fort Lauderdale, had been preparing to land, when he over heard the messages and he thought he knew where Flight 19 was. He radioed,"Flight 19 what is your alttitude? I'll fly south to meet you."
Taylor should have welcomed any assistance, but for a few minutes he was silent before he cried, "Don't come after me! They look like ...." After that there was silence.
The time was 4:30 p.m. As the last message was being received, a huge Martin Mariner sea plane was sent on a rescue mission heard the bombers last estimated position. The mariner plane sent one message and then followed the bombers' into the oblivian. Within a few hours six Navel Aircrafts had vanished.
Marine Sulphur Queen
In February, 1963, a tanker of 503 feet, the Marine Sulphur Queen, was carrying a large crew and a cargo of sulphur.
All went fine and Norfolk received regular routine radio calls. Then when the ship sailed into the Bermuda Triangle they lost contact with the ship. A few life jackets were found in the area but they could not tell if they were the ones on that fateful ship.
Some people claim that the sulphur on board caused an explosion on the Marine Sulphur Queen but no sign of wreckage was reported in the area.
STAR TIGER
In January, 1948, a British airliner called,"Star Tiger" was coming to the end of a routine flight from Azores to Bermuda. The plane was expected to arrive on time, but it didn't arrive at all. A search was being made to look for survivers or wreckage, when a radio station picked up a faint message supposedly to be from the aircraft.
Cyclops
In March 1918, a ship with the length of 504 feet and weighing 14,500 tons disappeared in the Atlantic Ocean. It was carrying a full cargo of coal and a crew of 109.
It was moving from Barbados to Norfolk, Virginia, to transport coal for the Navy. Its voyage took it right through the Bermuda Triangle.
On March 13th Cyclops was reported missing in from Norfolk. Norfolk had reported no trouble from the Cyclops and their radio. Thousands of miles of sea were searched. No trace of the ship was ever found.
After President Woodrow read the article on the missing ship he recalled, "Only God and the sea know what happened to the great ship."
Since America was at war with Germany at the time, people believed that the ship was torpedoed but no sign of wreckage was ever found.
Popular Theories
The following theories have been used in the past by the Triangle writers to explain the incidents:
Atlantis
An explanation for some of the disappearances pinned the blame on left-over technology from Atlantis. Reputed psychic Edgar Cayce claimed that evidence for Atlantis would be discovered just off Bimini in 1968. New Agers view the Bimini Road as either a road, wall, or pier meant to service ships bound for Atlantis from Central and South America, or a breakwater built to protect fishing boats. The wall may also have a natural origin.
UFOs
Some theorists claim extraterrestrials are the reason of disappearances by abducting ships and aircraft. This was given a boost when topics like ESP, telekinesis, clairvoyance, and the like flowered in the middle-to-late 1960s, and was used as storylines for popular films like "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" and "The UFO Incident".
Time Warp
The proponents of this theory state that the many ships and planes entered a time warp to a different time or dimension on the other side, meaning that their crews could still be alive there, living new lives in another time period of the past or the future – or even possibly in a parallel universe. Usually, the ship or aircraft in the story enters this dimension by way of a cloud. This has been a popular subject in science fiction, for example, the movie "The Final Countdown," in which a modern aircraft carrier is 'returned' to World War II.
The Devil's Triangle
The Bermuda Triangle, because of its history and the mysteries associated with it, has also come to be known as the Devil's Triangle. Although a substantial documentation exists showing numerous incidents to have been inaccurately reported or embellished by later authors, there is no doubt that many ships and airplanes have been lost in the area.
