Tales of swashbuckling pirates, ghost ships, and shipwrecks are often said to happen far out in the oceans. Throughout nautical history, there have been several mysteries that plagued the oceans for centuries without ever being resolved. There’s a mythical region of ocean between Florida, Puerto Rico, and Bermuda with legends about planes and ships mysteriously disappearing, of which you’re pretty much aware. This region has recorded the most unresolved mysteries in nautical history. Ahoy mates, come aboard let’s cruise upon me vessel. Welcome to the Bermuda Triangle.
Related media: Bermuda Triangle’s Mystery Solved
Once Upon The Atlantic
The Bermuda Triangle — also known as “The Devil’s Triangle” — happens to be one of the most mysterious regions on Earth. It is a region located off the southeastern coast of the United States in the Atlantic Ocean that stretches between Florida, Puerto Rico, and (you guessed it) Bermuda. This region vaguely forms a triangular shape, hence the name. The exact boundary of the area isn’t fixed — ranging between 1,300,000 and 3,900,000 square kilometers (500,000 and 1,510,000 square miles).
However, it is a busy shipping route in the world, with several ships and planes that head to the Americas, Europe, and the Caribbean cruising and flying over each day. The region holds the legend of a large number of ships and planes mysteriously disappearing without a trace. This has ever been the most highly studied region on Earth, with several unresolved mysteries over the centuries. It has also been blamed for the disappearance of thousands of people in the past decades.
The legendary voyager Christopher Columbus sailed across the region on his first cruise to the New World, and he reported seeing a giant flame crash into the ocean one night that kept glowing in the distance for a few more weeks. Hmmm? He later reported erratic compass readings — the Bermuda Triangle at that time might have been a geographic point where the true north and magnetic north aligned. Who knows?
A play by William Shakespeare, ‘The Tempest,’ was alleged to be a real-life Bermuda shipwreck incident. Although there is a myriad of theories that’s been alleged as probable cause, none of them proves the mysterious disappearances that have plagued the ocean for decades. The term “Bermuda Triangle” wasn’t known until Vincent Gaddis first published it in an article in Argosy Magazine in 1964 — and ever since the name stuck.
The Mystery Afloat
This mystery has its origin centuries ago, nonetheless, reports of the sudden disappearances didn’t catch public attention until the dawn of the 20th century. In 1918, the USS Cyclops, a 165-meter (542 feet) long US Navy cargo ship, infamously disappeared with over 300 men and 10,000 tons of manganese ore aboard and probably sank between Barbados and the Chesapeake Bay. The Cyclops never sent out an SOS distress call despite being equipped to do so, and an extensive search found no wreckage, no survivors. Nothing!
“Only God and the sea know what happened to the great ship,” then US President Woodrow Wilson later said.
In 1941, two other sister ships of the Cyclops also disappeared without a trace around the same route at the Bermuda Triangle. Allegedly, this became a thing as more vessels that traversed the region would either disappear or were abandoned. And in December 1945, five Navy bombers which had 14 men aboard, took off from a Fort Lauderdale airfield in Florida for a bombing test over some nearby shoals.
But unfortunately, they went missing apparently due to the malfunctioning of a compass, and all five planes flew aimlessly until they ran low on fuel and had no option but to ditch at sea. And that same day, a 13-man crew aboard a rescue plane also disappeared. The official Navy report declared that it was “as if they had flown to Mars,” after several weeks the search-and-rescue team failed to turn up evidence.
The Conspiracy Theories
What is the drifting name of the ocean is causing this mystery? We know not. In a 1974 sensational bestseller published by Charles Berlitz, he wrote about the region as a legend. And ever since, there’s been several paranormal theories ranging from aliens to the lost city of Atlantis to sea monsters to time warps and reversed gravitational fields to who can guess what the heck else. Oh yes, there were alleged sea monsters, too.
However, there are also modern scientific maritime theories that suggest magnetic anomalies to waterspouts to huge eruptions of methane gas from the seabed. In summary, there is no single theory that resolves the mystery. Trying to find a cause for every disappearance at the Bermuda Triangle is no more logical than trying to find a common cause for every motor accident in Ghana. Kinda! Furthermore, tropical tides, reefs, and the Gulf Stream can cause significant navigational challenges, too.
The maritime insurance leader of the Lloyd’s of London claims the Bermuda Triangle isn’t a hazardous place; and neither does the US Coast Guard, too.
“In review of many aircraft and vessel losses in the area over the years,” they claim, ”there has been nothing discovered that would indicate that casualties were the result of anything other than physical causes. No extraordinary factors have ever been identified.”
There have been unexplained circumstances of ships and planes that seemingly vanished from the region in good weather without even radioing distress messages. So the legend of the Bermuda Triangle might be a mystery, after all.
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Written by: Nana Kwadwo, Mon, Aug 03, 2020.
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