I'm sure you've all heard of the Bermuda Triangle before - it's an area of the Atlantic ocean noted
for the unexplained disappearance of many ships and planes, spawning many theories that range
from geographical to supernatural in nature. As far as mysterious and spooky locations go,
the Bermuda Triangle might be second only to Area 51, but in some ways it's even more mysterious.
Everyone knows Area 51 and its association with aliens and UFO's, and you might have heard about
the Roswell crash site, or about people who have claimed to have worked at Area 51 and been witness
to alien technology, like Bob Lazar. And you probably know the official explanation of the
site being used for the testing of secret, experimental aircraft, like the Blackbird.
What's a little strange about the Bermuda Triangle is, everybody seems to know that it's a location
where mysterious things happen, but, when asked, most people probably couldn't give you even one
example. Like you, the viewer, you've probably heard of the Bermuda Triangle, right? Can you
name one ship that disappeared, one plane that vanished? Isn't it a bit odd that everyone knows
about this but can't seem to remember many details? Well, let's look at the details.
Firstly, the Bermuda Triangle, also known as the Devil's Triangle, doesn't really exist,
you won't find it on any world maps except perhaps novelty ones. It's just a vague area
of the globe that some people have decided is noteworthy. People don't even agree on the
exact location of the Bermuda Triangle, but it's generally thought to be somewhere around here;
a triangular area of the ocean whose points rest on the coasts of Florida, Puerto Rico and Bermuda,
covering an area of roughly 500,000 square miles. It's thought the infamous reputation of this area
dates back to early explorers, with sailors supposedly fearing shipwreck on Bermuda's
treacherous offshore reefs. In 1609, the ship Sea Venture was wrecked by a storm off Bermuda,
and this event is widely believed to have been the inspiration for Shakespeare's play, The Tempest.
But it wasn't until the 20th century that the myth of the Bermuda Triangle really blossomed,
with the first report that something unusual might be going on in the area appearing in
1950. This was based off disappearances that had occured in the preceeding years,
but since then, every unusual occurence in the area has added to the legend,
and this still goes on today. There's been dozens of reported incidents in
the Bermuda Triangle but let's just look at some of the more interesting ones.
1918 - having departed from Barbados, the USS Cyclops disappears along with its crew of 306
men. Carrying a load of ore at the time, no trace of the ship or its crew were ever found,
and the cause of the ship's disappearance is unknown. This incident remains the single
largest loss of life not involving combat in the history of the United States Navy.
1921 - the Carrol A. Deering is discovered run aground in North Carolina during a
voyage to deliver coal in Rio de Janeiro. Its captain and ten-man crew were never found,
and it's unknown what happened to them. 1941 - the USS Proteus, a sister ship
of the USS Cyclops is lost in heavy seas, along with its crew of 58, having departed the Virgin
Islands. Just like its sister ship, its wreck is never found and no cause is determined. The
following month, another sister ship, the USS Nereus, is lost with all 61 crew having also
departed from the Virgin Islands. No wreck discovered, no cause determined - although,
the fact that three sister ships all disappeared in similar circumstances might say more about the
seaworthiness of the vessels than anything else. 1945 - Flight 19, consisting of five US Navy
torpedo bombers loses contact over the Bermuda Triangle and disappears without a trace during a
training exercise. None of the five planes or their 14 crew members are ever found,
the cause is unknown. Later that day, a US Navy flying boat involved in the search for the five
bombers also disappears with its 13 crew. It's thought it may have exploded in the air,
as a nearby tanker reported seeing flames on the horizon around the same time and
place contact was lost with the flying boat. 1948 - passenger aircraft Star Tiger disappears
during a flight between the Azores and Bermuda. The craft is never found, leaving its 6 crew
and 25 passengers missing. The plane's airline, British South American Airways suffers another
loss the very next year in 1949, when the Star Ariel disappeared on a flight between Jamaica and
Bermuda. Search planes fly over one million miles before eventually abandoning the search, having
found no trace of the craft or the 20 on board. 1967 - Miami hotel owner Dan Burack sets out on
his cabin cruiser Witchcraft with his friend, Father Patrick Horgan, a priest. That night,
Burack radioes a distress call to the Coast Guard, telling them the boat's propeller had
struck something underwater and that they would need to be towed back to shore. When
the Coast Guard arrived, there was no sign of the boat, Burack or Horgan. So, a priest
on a boat called Witchcraft disappearing in the Bermuda Triangle is a real thing that happened.
2015 - cargo ship SS El Faro sinks off the coast of the Bahamas, killing all 33 crewmembers after
sailing into Hurricane Joaquin. So, that one's not really a mystery then.
There are many more instances of craft being lost to the Bermuda Triangle, and you might think;
"is nobody doing anything about this? Don't we know why this place is so dangerous?" and the
answer is no, but there are a few theories. There's obviously the supernatural stuff,
like UFOs or strange auras in the area. An interesting one suggests the mythical lost
city of Atlantis is located somewhere beneath the waves here, and its leftover technology
interferes with our machines. Well, let's put wild, unfounded speculation aside for a
moment and look at some more reasonable theories. The first concerns navigation, more specifically
compasses. As you're probably aware, a compass utilises the earth's magnetic field to determine
which direction is North. What you may not know, is that magnetic North and true geographical North
are not always the same. Magnetic declination is the angle between magnetic north and true north,
and it varies from place to place and also with the passage of time. These lines represent the
magnetic declination of places with respect to time, the lines marked zero are known as
agonic lines - if you're on one of those lines, magnetic declination is zero and magnetic north
is the same as true north. You'll notice an agonic line passing over the Bermuda Triangle,
and some believe this has caused some navigational issues for captains and
pilots in the area. This doesn't really make sense though, as you can tell from this map,
if you travel long distances you're likely to encounter variances in magnetic declination,
so nobody travelling the Bermuda Triangle would be surprised by the reading on their compass, unless
there were some other magnetic anomoly present. A more sensible theory would be the effect of the
Gulf Stream, which is kind of like a river flowing through the ocean, from the Gulf of Mexico into
the North Atlantic. The Gulf Stream could carry things away in its current, perhaps explaining
why so many craft that go missing in the Bermuda Triangle are never found. That makes some sense,
but it doesn't really explain why these craft went missing in the first place,
like what was it that got them into trouble? Well, this is a fairly tropical area,
and that means it's sometimes subject to tropical storms, cyclones, hurricanes... The location also
means that multiple weather events that might not be that threatening on their own could come from
different directions and converge in this area, suddenly becoming much more intense and violent.
There are also large deposits of methane gas on the ocean floor. A methane eruption on the
ocean floor would result in methane bubbling up to the surface, and researchers experimenting
with model ships have determined that bubbles could decrease the density of the water and
cause a boat to sink. So some people think this methane is coming up, sinking ships as it escapes
into the air and perhaps igniting in plane engines in the sky, causing them to explode.
Ah, mystery solved, more or less, it's got to be one of those theories or a combination of them
that makes the Bermuda Triangle so dangerous right? Well, this whole time I've just been
playing along but it's time to reveal the truth - the Bermuda Triangle is statistically no more
dangerous than any other part of the ocean. You see, the Bermuda Triangle isn't some weird
twilight zone in the arse end of nowhere, it's here, this is obviously a very well travelled
part of the world, in fact, it's one of the most heavily travelled shipping lanes in the world.
When you've got so much traffic, inevitably you're going to get a lot of accidents too,
but it's not like the Bermuda Triangle sees a disproportionate amount of accidents. In fact,
an extensive study of maritime shipping lanes conducted in 2013 by the World
Wildlife Fund identified the world's most dangerous bodies of water for shipping,
and the Bermuda Triangle wasn't even in the top 10. Mystery ruined, but at least now you
can be a smartass the next time the scary Bermuda Triangle comes up in conversation.
And, I suppose there is still some mystery to the Bermuda Triangle, like how the hell
did it become so infamous? Why have we as humans collectively decided that this is a spooky place,
feared all over the world; I mean virtually everyone is familiar with the Bermuda Triangle's
reputation, even though it doesn't really exist. I don't really know how this came to be but I'd
guess it's purely because we made it like that. Now that I've told you some of the incidents that
occurred there, you can see that there is some level of mystery to them. Some of these stories
are genuinely interesting and perplexing, and I suppose as soon as it was first suggested that
there was some unexplained link between them and the area, the conspiracy theorists were off to
the races and a lot of media was created that spectacularised and over-exaggerated events,
and some that outright spread misinformation. This all just built up public interest,
like any other urban legend or myth or conspiracy theory, until the Bermuda
Triangle had cemented itself in pop culture. Really the Bermuda Triangle is just a collection
of mysteries that are probably unrelated but we've decided they should all be lumped together. But
is that fair? I mean there are a huge number of mysteries that have occured in the United States,
for example, but that doesn't mean that we all assume that the United
States is this strange place where crazy things happen all the time and... well,
this might actually be a bad example, but I think you know what I'm getting at. The
Bermuda Triangle might not be all that mysterious, but some very strange things have occured there.