Over the past 500 years,
the Bermuda Triangle swallowed 50 ships and 20 planes.
There are a lot of theories but a scientist in the UK
thinks he's got the one answer we've all been waiting for.
It involves monsters, but not the kind that live under your bed.
Waves, giant terrifying monstrous waves.
Hey everyone. I'm Patrick Jones and welcome to Cheddar Explores.
The Bermuda Triangle is a 500,000 square mile patch of ocean bordered by Miami,
Puerto Rico, and Bermuda.
There have been a lot of
seemingly eerie disappearances like that of the USS Cyclops which was
a large military tanker that vanished without even sending
a distress signal presumably taking the lives of 309 sailors with it.
Disappearances like the Cyclops within the triangle have led to
a treasure trove of conspiracy theories that are frankly terrific.
Movies and TV like to get weird with those.
Ah!
The Bermuda triangle.
There are some aliens,
to parallel dimensions, to the lost city of Atlantis and back.
Science reporting has also been spotty with publications jumping on
flashy headlines only to have to back off shortly thereafter.
Claims of methane blasts and honeycomb shaped clouds are the most recent examples.
But there are actual disappearances and
there should be a logical reason for why they're occurring.
Dr. Simon Boxall and his team at the University of Southampton are blaming rogue waves,
monstrously sized waves, like 30 meters or
100 feet tall that can form during storms on the open ocean.
For smaller boats, they can be
impossible to get over like in the movie, The Perfect Storm.
We know that storms produce waves of this height.
The University of Delaware planted a buoy off the East Coast that recorded
at least 130 meter monster of a wave during that specific storm.
However, larger ships aren't exactly safe either.
Boxall's team ran simulations of
the USS Cyclops which disappeared in the triangle in March of 1980.
The Cyclops was 500 feet long and designed to haul 12,500 tons of coal.
It was a behemoth,
but so are these waves.
Boxall and his team ran a model Cyclops through
rogue waves and found that longer ships may get through the rogue wave,
but due to the fact that the waves can be so steep and come in sets,
the next wave would likely crash over the bow with tremendous force.
In fact, Boxall's team asserts that these waves can deliver
140 pounds per square inch of pressure.
Meanwhile, modern ships are designed to withstand only 21 PSI.
That math does not add up to you escaping Davy Jones' locker.
Going further, in the documentary,
The Bermuda Triangle Enigma,
Dr. Boxall said, "The bigger the boat gets,
the more damage is done."
If you imagine a rogue wave, a peak here,
a peak here and the ship is supported on both sides.
Then of course what happens,
is there's nothing in the middle.
Really heavy ships relies on water to support it,
and it snaps in two,
and if that happens, the ship can sink within two to three minutes.
The official cause of the disappearance is still a mystery.
It could have been torpedoed by a German new boat,
although Germany denies it and denies even knowing about the ship.
The point of the study was just to show how monstrously destructive these waves can be.
We haven't known about rogue waves for too long.
That's because, for starters,
when they do arise, they don't last particularly long.
They form due to the fact sea swells caused by storms can travel at different speeds,
meaning waves can catch up to one another and join forces causing
towering steep waves that can last from a few seconds to a few minutes.
Think of it like putting somebody on your shoulders.
Dr. Simon Boxall describes it as,
"On the open ocean storms can blow for days,
and of course you can get very strong winds.
So, that combination creates waves that when they come together they add up.
We get this constructive-destructive interference."
Rogue waves were thought to be myths of the sea like mermaids or the cracking.
It wasn't until the 90s when satellite data revealed these things do happen,
and we're getting more and more information on them every year.
Despite their name, rogue waves don't just happen out of nowhere,
they're the product of converging storms out in the open ocean.
Do rogue waves definitely account for all the disappearances?
Maybe. It would be safer to assume it causes some,
but also keep in mind that the Bermuda Triangle
is a heavily trafficked set of sea and sky.
According to the U.S. Coast Guard,
the rate of disappearances from the Triangle is no higher than anywhere else,
and then as far as planes going down,
some of those downed planes can be attributed to
inexperienced military pilots in planes not nearly as sophisticated as we have today.
Hey, if this wave theory is debunked,
there are always more conspiracy theories,
like the one that says there's a black hole under that stretch of sea,
or there's strange government testing going on.
There really is a conspiracy theory for everyone.
Enjoy. Hey guys.
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