The Truth About the Bermuda Triangle
The Bermuda Triangle is a large area of ocean between Florida, Puerto Rico, and Bermuda.
Over the last few centuries, it’s thought that dozens of ships and planes have disappeared
under mysterious circumstances in the area, earning it the nickname “The Devil’s Triangle.”
People have even gone so far as to speculate that it’s an area of extra-terrestrial activity
or that there is some bizarre natural scientific cause for the region to be hazardous; but
most likely, it’s simply an area in which people have experienced a lot of bad luck—the
idea of it being a “vortex of doom” is no more real than Bigfoot or the Loch Ness
Monster as you’ll soon see. The Bermuda Triangle’s bad reputation started
with Christopher Columbus. According to his log, on October 8, 1492, Columbus looked down
at his compass and noticed that it was giving weird readings. He didn’t alert his crew
at first, because having a compass that didn’t point to magnetic north may have sent the
already on edge crew into a panic. This was probably a good decision considering three
days later when Columbus simply spotted a strange light, the crew threatened to return
to Spain. This and other reported compass issues in
the region gave rise to the myth that compasses will all be off in the Triangle, which isn’t
correct, or at least is an exaggeration of what is actually happening. Despite this,
in 1970 the U.S. Coast Guard, attempting to explain the reasons for disappearances in
the Triangle, stated: “First, the “Devil’s Triangle” is
one of the two places on earth that a magnetic compass does point towards true north. Normally
it points toward magnetic north. The difference between the two is known as compass variation.
The amount of variation changes by as much as 20 degrees as one circumnavigates the earth.
If this compass variation or error is not compensated for, a navigator could find himself
far off course and in deep trouble.” Of course, despite this now being repeated
as an explanation for disappearances in the Triangle on numerous documentaries and articles
since then, it turns out magnetic variation is something ship captains (and other explorers)
have known about and had to deal with pretty much as long as there have been ships and
compasses. Dealing with magnetic declination is really just “Navigation by Compass”
101 and nothing to be concerned about, nor anything that would seriously throw off any
experienced navigator. In 2005, the Coast Guard revisited the issue
after a TV producer in London inquired about it for a program he was working on. In this
case, they correctly changed their tune about the magnetic field bit stating,
“Many explanations have cited unusual magnetic properties within the boundaries of the Triangle.
Although the world’s magnetic fields are in constant flux, the “Bermuda Triangle”
has remained relatively undisturbed. It is true that some exceptional magnetic values
have been reported within the Triangle, but none to make the Triangle more unusual than
any other place on Earth.” The modern Bermuda Triangle legend didn’t
get started until 1950 when an article written by Edward Van Winkle Jones was published by
the Associated Press. Jones reported several incidences of disappearing ships and planes
in the Bermuda Triangle, including five US Navy torpedo bombers that vanished on December
5, 1945, and the commercial airliners “Star Tiger” and “Star Ariel” which disappeared
on January 30, 1948 and January 17, 1949 respectively. All told, about 135 individuals were unaccounted
for, and they all went missing around the Bermuda Triangle. As Jones said, “they were
swallowed without a trace.” It was a 1955 book, The Case for the UFO,
by M. K. Jessup that started pointing fingers at alien life forms. After all, no bodies
or wreckage had yet been discovered. By 1964, Vincent H. Gaddis—who coined the term “Bermuda
Triangle”—wrote an article saying over 1000 lives had been claimed by the area. He
also agreed that it was a “pattern of strange events.” The Bermuda Triangle obsession
hit its peak in the early 1970s with the publication of several paperback books about the topic,
including the bestseller by Charles Berlitz, The Bermuda Triangle.
However, critic Larry Kusche, who published The Bermuda Triangle Mystery: Solved in 1975,
argued that other authors had exaggerated their numbers and hadn’t done any proper
research. They presented some disappearance cases as “mysteries” when they weren’t
mysteries at all, and some reported cases hadn’t even happened within the Bermuda
Triangle. After extensively researching the issue, Kusche
concluded that the number of disappearances that occurred within the Bermuda Triangle
wasn’t actually greater than in any other similarly trafficked area of the ocean, and
that other writers presented misinformation—such as not reporting storms that occurred on the
same day as disappearances, and sometimes even making it seem as though the conditions
had been calm for the purposes of creating a sensational story. In short: previous Bermuda
Triangle authors didn’t do their research and either knowingly or unintentionally “made
it up.” The book did such a thorough job of debunking
the myth that it effectively ended most of the Bermuda Triangle hype. When authors like
Berlitz and others were unable to refute Kusche’s findings, even the most steadfast of believers
had difficulty remaining confident in the sensationalized Bermuda Triangle narrative.
Nevertheless, many magazine articles, TV shows, and movies have continued to feature the Bermuda
Triangle. Because the number of disappearances in the
Bermuda Triangle is no greater than any other similarly trafficked area of the world’s
oceans, they don’t really need an explanation. But if you’re still convinced that the Triangle
is a ship graveyard, relative to other regions that get around the same number of travelers,
here are some natural explanations from the Coast Guard to combat some of the “alien”
and other fantastical theories. “The majority of disappearances can be attributed
to the area’s unique features. The Gulf Stream, a warm ocean current flowing from
the Gulf of Mexico around the Florida Straits northeastward toward Europe, is extremely
swift and turbulent. It can quickly erase any evidence of a disaster.
The unpredictable Caribbean-Atlantic storms that give birth to waves of great size as
well as waterspouts often spell disaster for pilots and mariners. (Not to mention that
the area is in “hurricane alley.”) The topography of the ocean floor varies from
extensive shoals to some of the deepest marine trenches in the world. With the interaction
of strong currents over reefs, the topography is in a constant state of flux and breeds
development of new navigational hazards. Not to be underestimated is the human factor.
A large number of pleasure boats travel the water between Florida’s Gold Coast (the
most densely populated area in the world) and the Bahamas. All to often, crossings are
attempted with too small a boat, insufficient knowledge of the area’s hazards and lack
of good seamanship.” Bonus Facts:
• Whatever the rumours might have you believe, insurance companies don’t actually charge
higher premiums for shipping in the Bermuda Triangle.
• Another mysterious “triangle” is the Michigan Triangle—an area stretching between
Michigan and Wisconsin over the centre of Lake Michigan where disappearances have occurred.
One disappearance was Captain George R. Donner who supposedly simply vanished from his cabin
on the O.S. McFarland as it carted coal to Wisconsin. On April 28, 1937, his second mate
went to tell him they were approaching port, but no one could find him anywhere aboard
the ship. In another instance, a plane was flying above the triangle and *apparently*
just disappeared. Small amounts of debris were found floating in the water, but the
rest of the wreckage and bodies of passengers weren’t found. If you guessed that little
credence is given to this triangle being an area of unusual activity for similar reasons
as the Bermuda Triangle misrepresentations, you’d be correct.