The Bermuda Triangle is a section of the Atlantic Ocean roughly bounded by Miami, Bermuda and
Puerto Rico, where dozens of ships and airplanes have disappeared over the centuries.
Today we present to you 11 mysterious Bermuda Triangle vanishings.
Number 11: The Five Navy Bombers December 1945, a squadron of five US Navy
bombers left Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
During their three hour exercise, flight leader Charles C. Taylor believed they were flying
in the wrong direction because he thought the compass was broken.
Their situation became worse when they were hit by a storm.
Taylor was convinced they had drifted over the Florida Keys.
The crew disagreed and there were arguments heard over the radio about which way to go.
The last thing anyone ever heard from Taylor was him preparing his men for a water landing
as they ran out of fuel.
2 search planes were dispatched to the area but they vanished from radar and were never
heard from again.
Number 10: The Ellen Austin In 1880 The Ellen Austin was sailing from
London to New York when they spotted a ship that looked as if it had been abandoned.
They got closer and boarded but found no one.
They decided to tow the ship with them.
A few men from the Ellen Austin stayed on the ghost ship to help steer her.
A storm came up and the two ships were separated.
By the time the storm clear there was no trace of the old ship or the crew members.
Number 9: Witchcraft December 22, 1967, Captain Burack and his
friend Patrick Hogan, a Catholic Priest, set sail from Miami in his luxury yacht.
A few minutes into the trip Burack radioed that he had hit something and requested a
tow back to shore.
Burack had installed a homemade flotation device in the boat making it virtually unsinkable.
The coast guard went out to rescue him but when they got there they couldn’t find the
boat.
They searched 24,500 miles of ocean and found no wreckage or sign that a boat had been there.
Number 8: The C-54 Skymaster July 3, 1947.
A C-54 Skymaster took off from Bermuda carrying Major Ralph Ward and 5 others.
They immediately went off course but neither the pilot nor the navigator were aware of
this.
They flew far south of their indented destination.
They changed course and headed north and then southwest right into the eye of a massive
storm.
The ground operator received a faint SOS call but they were so garbled that it couldn’t
be understood and was ignored.
Debris was later found floating 200 miles away from the last transmission which indicated
the plane had hit the water at such a speed that it disintegrated.
But the reason of why they went so far off course and flew into a storm they could have
easily avoided remains a mystery.
Number 7: The SS El Faro The most recent incident in the Bermuda Triangle
occurred on October 1, 2015.
The container ship SS El Faro was headed for Puerto Rico from Jacksonville, Florida with
33 men onboard.
The captain knew that hurricane Joaquin was in their path and charted a course around
it but by the next day the storm had changed direction and was circling the ship.
The ship was slammed with 90 mph winds and 40 foot waves.
The mainland lost contact with the ship and the search party found the ship weeks later,
in 1 piece, 15,000 feet below the surface but none of the 33 crew members were ever
found.
Number 6: Flight 441 1954, a U.S. Military plane flying Naval officers
and their families from Maryland to the Azores vanished.
No calls were made to the mainland, none of the 42 passengers were ever found, and there
was no debris in the water.
The investigators stated that it was possible there was a structural failure due to the
weather but the possibility was remote.
Number 5: Christopher Columbus The first European to cross the Bermuda Triangle
was Christopher Columbus during his famous voyage to the New World in 1492.
During Columbus’ first trip he allegedly saw a great fire crash into the sea and a
strange light in the area a few weeks later.
Columbus also reported his compass was malfunctioning, giving strange readings as they sailed through
the triangle region.
Fearing that his crew, who wanted to return to Spain, would panic he kept the anomaly
to himself.
A few days later they spotted a strange light rise out of the sea and hover.
It was this light that inspired them to continue on their journey.
The next day they discovered the Americas.
Number 4: The Star Tiger January 28th, 1948: British South American
Airlines passenger plane Star Tiger plans to fly from Lisbon to Bermuda with a refueling
stop in Santa Maria.
Before they even left Captain Brian W. McMillan ordered everyone off the plane due to a mechanical
issue with one of the engines.
Two hours later the plane took off.
The Star Tiger made it to Santa Maria but a storm caused Captain McMillan to postpone
the rest of their trip.
The next day they took off for Bermuda.
Captain McMillan kept the aircraft below 2,000 feet to avoid strong winds.
The plane made contact with Bermuda’s radio operator around 3:15 in the morning to get
their position.
At 3:50 the Bermuda operator checked back but there was no answer.
The operator tried again at 4:05 and 4:40 but there was no response.
The United States Air Force started a 5-day rescue mission but it turned up nothing.
There was no debris, no floatation devices, nothing that indicated that the plane had
crashed.
It just simply vanishes with all 25 of its passengers.
Number 3: Walt Wayatt Not all people who have harrowing experiences
in the Bermuda Triangle vanish.
In December, 1986 Walt Wyatt set off from Nassau to Miami in his twin engine Beechcraft.
He didn’t realize until too late that his compass was broken.
He soon ran into some bad weather and was flying blind.
The Coast guard reached out to him and was helping him navigate back to Miami when his
plane ran out of fuel.
The plane crashed into the ocean.
The force of the impact caused Wyatt to hit his head on the dashboard.
Wyatt grabbed a life vest and exited the plane which sunk seconds after he got out.
Wyatt knew that if he wasn’t found within the hour the probability of his survival would
drop.
Because of the storm the Coast Guard could not find him and gave up.
After an hour of floating in the choppy water Wyatt’s life vest deflated.
Then he saw the water light up.
It was phosphorous in the water being stirred up by the storm, a phenomenon often reported
in the Bermuda Triangle.
Then he heard the sound of dogs barking.
Things got worse as sea leeches began latching onto his legs.
Wyatt had given up any hope of anyone finding him and hoped that someone would at least
find his body but even that was unlikely.
He placed his ID card in the pocket of the deflated life vest in hopes that it would
eventually be found.
Sharks began to circle him, attracted by the blood from his head wound but because of the
choppy water they were unable to hone in on him.
The next morning Wyatt heard a plane flying above him.
He waved his life vest.
The plane flew back and forth over the area for several minutes.
A half hour later a ship found him and he was rescued.
Number 2: The Cloud December, 1970: Bruce, his father, and a friend
take off from Andros Island shortly after 3 p.m.
Not long after they were in the air Bruce noticed a long elliptical cloud in front of
them hovering just above the water.
He had seen clouds like this before but not this low.
As they got closer the cloud morphed into a huge cumulus cloud.
They started going higher and the cloud seemed to follow them at the same speed.
The mysterious cloud caught up with them and engulfed the plane.
They continued to climb and eventually broke free at 11,500 feet.
They accelerated away from the cloud.
When Bruce looked back the cloud appeared as an enormous squall that was extending in
a semicircle around them.
They soon lost sight of the cloud and continued on their way.
It wasn’t long before they spotted a similar cloud in front of them except this one appeared
to emanate from the surface of the Earth.
They had no choice but to fly directly into it.
Inside the cloud visibility was about 4 or 5 miles.
Strange flashes of bright light illuminated the area that did not behave like lightning.
The further they flew into the cloud the more intense the flashes became.
They turned left and tried to exit the cloud.
As they flew on the cloud seemed to curve.
Bruce realized that it was part of the same cloud they ran into earlier.
It had somehow formed a huge ring and they were flying around it.
Then they saw an opening in the cloud with clear blue sky on the other side.
Bruce headed for it but the walls began to close in on them as they got closer.
As soon as they were free of the cloud the opening closed and all of their electrical
equipment began to malfunction.
Bruce radioed to Miami and told them their location but the radar controller said he
could not find them.
Bruce noticed that the sky was no longer blue.
It was grayish haze that had reduced visibility to 2 miles.
They could not even see the ocean.
Bruce referred to this as “electronic fog”.
They flew blindly for 3 minutes until Miami radioed them and said he could see a plane
flying over Miami Beach.
Bruce knew it was impossible for it to be their plane; they had only been flying for
a half-hour and by his calculations should be 90 miles southwest of Miami.
The strange fog began to dissipate and Bruce saw the barrier islands of Miami Beach below
them.
The trip had taken them 47 minutes.
Bruce thought something must have been wrong with the plane’s timer but all 3 of the
men’s watches showed that it was 3:48.
Bruce had flown that route many times and it had never taken less than 75 minutes.
Somehow they had flown 250 miles in forty-seven minutes.
Number 1: The USS Cyclops March, 1918: the USS Cyclops sets sail through
the Bermuda Triangle with 309 crew members on board.
During its voyage she sent only 1 message, which did not indicate any trouble.
But the ship and the crew were never heard from again.
A massive search of the area turned up nothing.
To this day, the incident remains one of the highest human losses on a non-combat ship.