Some of the world’s most famous unsolved disappearances have happened in the mysterious
Bermuda Triangle, but none are as baffling as the unexplained vanishing of the USS Cyclops.
In 1918, the USS Cyclops set sail from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil to Baltimore, USA, making
a brief stop in Barbados. After the vessel departed from Barbados on March 4 with 309
people on board, both the ship and its crew were never seen again. To this day, not a
single piece of debris from the ship has been found. So how exactly did the massive USS
Cyclops disappear without a trace? Let’s go back in time and discover what happened.
Built in 1910, the USS Cyclops was known as the largest collier in the US Navy. Colliers
were coal-carrying ships that were used to transport the coal used for fuel to other
ships. At around 540 feet (165 m) long and 65 feet (20 m) wide, the Cyclops was so big
that it was the size of one and a half football fields. The massive steel hulled collier was
appropriately named the Cyclops after the fabled one-eyed giants of Greek mythology.
In April of 1917, the US entered World War I, and the Cyclops was commissioned on May
1, 1917, to join the US war effort. During the war, the ship was used to transport troops
and resources, and help refuel warships of the Allied Forces. On its last trip, the USS
Cyclops left Rio de Janeiro loaded with between 10,000 to 11,000 tons - the exact tonnage
is disputed - of manganese ore, a much heavier and denser cargo than it usually had to carry.
Some port officials in Rio at the time believed the ship had exceeded its carrying capacity
and appeared overloaded. It’s also important to note that the crew had no familiarity with
the ore, as this was the first time the USS Cyclops was carrying such cargo.
Before the ship left Rio on February 15, the ship’s commanding officer reported that
the starboard engine appeared to have a cracked cylinder and could no longer function. This
reduced the speed and performance of the USS Cyclops, from an average maximum speed of
15 knots to about 10 knots. A survey board that inspected the ship agreed with the commander’s
observation about the engine and recommended that the Cyclops return to the US for repairs.
So, the ship departed, making another stop in Bahia before leaving Brazil. Today, the
navy believes that there were 309 people on board, though contemporary accounts of the
ship’s disappearance list 293 people on board, including 15 officers, 221 crewmen,
and 57 passengers. The passenger list included prominent figures such as Alfred L. M. Gottschalk,
the American Consul General at Rio de Janeiro, who was returning to the US after a long-term
post abroad.
Though the USS Cyclops was supposed to head straight to Baltimore, the ship made an unscheduled
stop in Barbados on March 3 to resupply. To this day, it’s still somewhat unclear why
the ship made this stop, as the Cyclops should have had enough supplies to continue to Baltimore.
Some think the Captain was worried about the ship’s cargo. A few inspectors in Barbados
stated that the cargo wasn’t stowed correctly – instead of being level, it was piled up
higher in the middle rather than spread out evenly. Additionally, the water was over the
ship’s Plimsoll mark, a line on a ship’s side which indicates the legal limit of submersion,
meaning the ship was overloaded. The USS Cyclops let Barbados the next day, March 4th, and
was supposed to arrive at the Port of Baltimore a week and a half later on March 13th. After
sending out a transmission of “Weather fair, all well”, just after clearing the port
of Barbados, the USS Cyclops seemingly vanished, never to be heard from again.
In the days after the ship disappeared, hundreds of American ships nearby made repeated radio
calls to the USS Cyclops to try to establish its whereabouts. All the calls went unanswered.
As the days passed, publications immediately started throwing around theories about the
Cyclops’ disappearance and what might have caused it. Did a freak storm sink the enormous
collier? Or sidid an enemy German U-boat torpedo the USS Cyclops and send it to a watery grave?
Multiple magazines at the time, including “Literary Digest”, even suggested that
a giant octopus might have risen from the sea, entwined the ship with its tentacles,
and dragged it down to the bottom. Perhaps understandably, the Navy spent little time
investigating this last theory, much to the relief of Cthulhu.
What was the actual fate of the Cyclops? Could a simple tropical storm have sunk the ship?
After all, one of the reasons the Bermuda Triangle has so many disappearances is because
the weather in the area is notoriously unpredictable, and storms can become very violent, very fast.
Most experts believe the storm theory doesn’t hold water, pun very much intended, because
the Cyclops made no distress calls, and there were no major storms reported in the area
at the time of its disappearance. Others point out that there are smaller thunderstorms,
known as meso-meteorological storms, that are unpredictable and hard to identify, especially
with 1918 technology. Storms like these can start at sea and completely dissipate before
they ever approach land. According to meteorologists like Dr. Joanne Simpson, these storms form
very quickly, especially over the Gulf Stream, which happens to travel right through the
Bermuda Triangle, and they may last just a few minutes before vanishing. However, while
the thunderstorms are brewing, they are particularly violent, causing giant, chaotic waves to form
that put any nearby ships in danger. The lack of any distress call may be explained by these
storms, as they sometimes also cause electrical disturbances that interfere with communications
systems, such as the radio transmission on the USS Cyclops. Without any thunderstorms
definitively identified in the area, however, this theory remains just that: a theory.
How about the Germans? Is it possible they sunk the ship? The USS Cyclops was a great
asset to the Navy during World War I, and would have made an excellent target for Germany.
However, there was no evidence that any German submarines were in the area of the Bermuda
Triangle at the time. Furthermore, no proof has ever emerged that Germany was involved,
even after US forces intercepted German communications and acquired German military intelligence.
This makes it seem highly unlikely a German military attack took down the USS Cyclops.
However, part of the reason the theory about Germany destroying or capturing the Cyclops
persisted is because of the ship’s captain, Lieutenant Commander George W. Worley. Despite
his English-sounding name, Worley was born in Germany as Johan (Yo-an) Frederick Wichmann
and changed his name after moving to the United States. Reports came out that some crewmembers
referred to Worley as a “damned Dutchman”, a derogatory reference to his German heritage,
as the word “Deutsche”, meaning German, was confused with Dutch . Even while he commanded
US naval ships, some thought he might have supported Germany during the war and turned
over the Cyclops to the Germans. However, as with the theory of Germans destroying the
USS Cyclops, this seems unlikely. The US military combed through German records after Germany
was defeated in World War I, and no record of the Cyclops being captured or Worley working
as a double agent was ever found.
Even though Worley most likely wasn’t some sort of German 007 (double O seven), the Captain
had other problems that attracted investigators’ attention. At some point shortly before the
ship vanished, there were unconfirmed reports of a mutiny against Captain Worley. Crewmembers
allegedly accused him of being a drunk, and completely unsuitable to steer the ship - both
pretty undesirable traits in a sea captain.
Several books and articles have described the Captain as a strange character who had
a habit of pacing the quarterdeck wearing just a hat, a cane, and his underwear. After
the alleged attempted takeover of the ship by the crew, Captain Worley was said to have
reacted harshly, imprisoning the mutineers and even executing one. It’s unclear whether
he dressed up for the occasion or gave out the execution orders in his hat and underwear.
In a letter to the State Department after the USS Cyclops’ disappearance, even the
US Consul in Barbados said that the rest of the officers on the ship seemed to deeply
dislike the Captain. Offering their own theory on the disappearance, the Consul wrote, “while
not having any definite grounds I fear fate worse than sinking, though possibly based
on instinctive dislike felt toward the master.”
In addition to the Consul, many other sources suspected a mutiny on the ship during the
time of its disappearance. They assumed the crew of the USS Cyclops, tired of their Captain’s
strange behavior and harsh punishments, decided to seize control of the ship. However, even
if a mutiny occurred and the crew were able to take control, it still doesn’t explain
why the ship was never seen again. The fugitive crew would still have had to dock somewhere
and no records exist of a stolen US naval ship showing up anywhere..
There is also the possibility that the USS Cyclops’ disappearance stems from a flaw
in the ship’s design. Some naval experts believe that the fate of two of the Cyclops’
sister ships provide the most support for the “design flaw” theory. The USS Cyclops
had three sister ships: the USS Jupiter, the USS Nereus, and the USS Proteus. Sisters ships
are ships of the same class that are built following almost identical designs; so if
there was a structural flaw in the design of the Cyclops, there would likely be one
in its sisters as well. The USS Jupiter was sunk by Japanese aircraft in World War II,
so the cause of its demise is known, but the other two ships suffered similar fates as
the USS Cyclops, albeit decades later, both vanishing somewhat mysteriously in the Bermuda
Triangle in 1941.
At the time, US Navy Admiral George van Deurs thought the ships might have sunk because
their design was incompatible with their cargo. Both ships, like the USS Cyclops, were designed
to carry coal. Yet, when they vanished, again like the USS Cyclops, both the Nereus and
the Proteus were carrying ore, though it was bauxite ore instead of manganese ore. Some
thought this cargo may have weakened the ships’ structures. Additionally, van Deurs believed
the support beams of the ships may have been eroded after years of carrying acidic coal,
exacerbating any weaknesses in the design.
No matter what happened to the USS Cyclops, one of the most perplexing pieces of the puzzle
is the lack of any debris or trace of the ship’s wreckage, even decades after its
disappearance. Thanks to better technology and search tactics, more historical shipwrecks
are being discovered year after year, yet the USS Cyclops still evades detection.
Some scientists think it’s possible the Cyclops disappeared in the Puerto Rico Trench,
which is the deepest point of the Atlantic Ocean. Located at the southern tip of the
Bermuda Triangle, the trench reaches down to 27,500 feet (8,380 m) below sea level at
its deepest point, just 1,500 feet (460 m) shy of the height of Mount Everest. Shipwreck
aficionados believe that not only the USS Cyclops, but many other shipwrecks have been
lost to time in this deep-sea trench. However, because the exact day and time of the Cyclops’
disappearance is uncertain, Navy investigators aren’t sure if the wreck is actually in
the trench or someplace else along the Atlantic coast.
Relatives of the 309 people lost on the USS Cyclops are still searching for answers to
this day. They are hopeful that the Cyclops will turn up as search technology continues
to improve, and give them some answers for what happened to their relatives over a century
ago.
In fact, in the 1960s, an experienced navy diver named Dean Hawes stumbled upon a massive
wreck off the coast of Cape Charles, Virginia. Hawes was reportedly stunned by the enormous
size of his find, and claims to have seen, among other things, a bridge on steel stilts
while exploring the wreck, which is consistent with the design of the Cyclops. He surfaced
with the hope of going back down and re-examining the wreck along with his dive team, but bad
weather forced the crew to abandon the area and sail back to shore.
After a few years, Hawes happened to read an article about the USS Cyclops, and recognized
the ship in the photo as the wreck he had found off the coast of Virginia. Excited by
his discovery, Hawes convinced the navy to lead another investigation at the site of
the shipwreck he had found all those years ago. Unfortunately, a follow up search of
the area turned up a different wreck altogether, and no evidence of the USS Cyclops was found.
There are also some, like astronaut Gordon Cooper and treasure hunter Darrell Miklos
from The Discovery Channel, who believe that aliens may be abducting ships in the Bermuda
Triangle. Using maps of the Earth drawn from space that his friend Cooper gave him, Miklos
found a giant submerged object in the Triangle’s waters in 2018, which he couldn’t definitively
identify as a shipwreck or a natural formation. He believes it may be an alien craft. In Miklos’
view, the Bermuda Triangle is an alien abduction hotspot, which explains why ships like the
USS Cyclops go missing.
What happened to the USS Cyclops remains a mystery for now. However, regardless of the
reason for the ship’s sinking, the disappearance of the Cyclops was undoubtedly a huge tragedy.
According to the US Naval Institute, it remains the largest loss of life for the US Navy in
peacetime.
So, did the USS Cyclops meet a similar fate to that of her sisters due to a major design
flaw? Or perhaps the answer lies in some combination of the different theories around the ship’s
disappearance. Maybe a mutinous crew, weakened structures, an overload of dangerous, dense,
ore, and a freak thunderstorm all coincided and proved fatal for the USS Cyclops and its
passengers. We won’t know for sure, but we’d love to know what you think.
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