Schooner Carroll A. Deering, as seen from the Cape Lookout light vessel on January 29, 1921, two days before she was found deserted in North Carolina. (US Coast Guard)
US Navy Avengers, similar to those of Flight 19
3.Flight 19
Flight 19 was a training flight of five TBM Avenger torpedo bombers that disappeared on December 5, 1945, while over the Atlantic. The squadron's flight plan was scheduled to take them due east from Fort Lauderdale for 141 mi (227 km), north for 73 mi (117 km), and then back over a final 140-mile (230-kilometre) leg to complete the exercise. The flight never returned to base. The disappearance was attributed by Navy investigators to navigational error leading to the aircraft running out of fuel.
One of the search and rescue aircraft deployed to look for them, a PBM Mariner with a 13-man crew, also disappeared. A tanker off the coast of Florida reported seeing an explosion and observing a widespread oil slick when fruitlessly searching for survivors. The weather was becoming stormy by the end of the incident.According to contemporaneous sources the Mariner had a history of explosions due to vapour leaks when heavily loaded with fuel, as it might have been for a potentially long search-and-rescue operation.
4.Star Tiger and Star Ariel
G-AHNP Star Tiger disappeared on January 30, 1948, on a flight from the Azores to Bermuda; G-AGRE Star Ariel disappeared on January 17, 1949, on a flight from Bermuda to Kingston, Jamaica. Both were Avro Tudor IV passenger aircraft operated by British South American Airways.Both planes were operating at the very limits of their range and the slightest error or fault in the equipment could keep them from reaching the small island.
5.Douglas DC-3
On December 28, 1948, a Douglas DC-3 aircraft, number NC16002, disappeared while on a flight from San Juan, Puerto Rico, to Miami. No trace of the aircraft, or the 32 people on board, was ever found. A Civil Aeronautics Board investigation found there was insufficient information available on which to determine probable cause of the disappearance.
6.Connemara IV
A pleasure yacht was found adrift in the Atlantic south of Bermuda on September 26, 1955; it is usually stated in the stories (Berlitz, Winer) that the crew vanished while the yacht survived being at sea during three hurricanes. The 1955 Atlantic hurricane season shows Hurricane Ione passing nearby between 14 and 18 September, with Bermuda being affected by winds of almost gale force.In his second book on the Bermuda Triangle, Winer quoted from a letter he had received from Mr J.E. Challenor of Barbados:
On the morning of September 22, Connemara IV was lying to a heavy mooring in the open roadstead of Carlisle Bay. Because of the approaching hurricane, the owner strengthened the mooring ropes and put out two additional anchors. There was little else he could do, as the exposed mooring was the only available anchorage. ... In Carlisle Bay, the sea in the wake of Hurricane Janet was awe-inspiring and dangerous. The owner of Connemara IV observed that she had disappeared. An investigation revealed that she had dragged her moorings and gone to sea.
7.KC-135 Stratotankers
On August 28, 1963, a pair of US Air Force KC-135 Stratotanker aircraft collided and crashed into the Atlantic 300 miles west of Bermuda.Some writers say that while the two aircraft did collide there were two distinct crash sites, separated by over 160 miles (260 km) of water. However, Kusche's research showed that the unclassified version of the Air Force investigation report revealed that the debris field defining the second "crash site" was examined by a search and rescue ship, and found to be a mass of seaweed and driftwood tangled in an old buoy.
Mystery Of The Disappearing Facts
A journalist named Larry Kusche asked exactly that question, and came to a surprising answer: there is no mystery about strange disappearances in the Bermuda Triangle. Kusche exhaustively re-examined the "mysterious disappearances" and found that the story was basically created by mistakes, mystery mongering, and in some cases outright fabrication — all being passed along as fact-checked truth.
In his definitive book "The Bermuda Triangle Mystery- Solved," Kusche notes that few writers on the topic bothered to do any real investigation -they mostly collected and repeated other, earlier writers who did the same. Unfortunately, Charles Berlitz's facility with language did not carry over into credible research or scholarship. His books on the paranormal and on the Bermuda Triangle, specifically -were riddled with errors, mistakes, and unscientific crank theories. In a way, the Bermuda Triangle is largely a creation of Charles Berlitz's mistakes. Kusche would later note that Berlitz's research was so sloppy that "If Berlitz were to report that a boat were red, the chance of it being some other color is almost a certainty."
In some cases there's no record of the ships and planes claimed to have been lost in the aquatic triangular graveyard; they never existed outside of a writer's imagination. In other cases, the ships and planes were real enough — but Berlitz and others neglected to mention that they "mysteriously disappeared" during bad storms. Other times the vessels sank far outside the Bermuda Triangle.
It's also important to note that the area within the Bermuda Triangle is heavily traveled with cruise and cargo ships; logically, just by random chance, more ships will sink there than in less-traveled areas such as the South Pacific.
Despite the fact that the Bermuda Triangle has been definitively debunked for decades, it still appears as an "unsolved mystery" in new books — mostly by authors more interested in a sensational story than the facts. In the end, there's no need to invoke time portals, Atlantis, submerged UFO bases, geomagnetic anomalies, tidal waves, or anything else. The Bermuda Triangle mystery has a much simpler explanation: sloppy research and sensational, mystery-mongering books.
Theories Based On Bermunda Triangle
1. Methane Gas Theory
Large amount of methane gas is known to exist below the ocean floor trapped in the sediments in form of methane hydrates. If such gas finds its way out and starts rising through the water, it can significantly reduce the density of water in that area. And ships passing over that area can sink in no time. Such gas release can also create explosions and saturate the atmosphere with methane gas causing planes to crash.
2. The Sargasso Sea
Sargasso sea is a strange area within Bermuda Triangle that has no shores but bounded by ocean currents on all sides. This has been the trap for many sailing vessels in the past. Many sailing boats and ships are believed to have become completely motionless while passing through this area and later found in derelict conditions without a soul on them. Dense seaweed on water surface and exceptionally low winds have been the main cause of making vessels motionless in this area.
3. Hexagonal clouds forming Air Bombs
Scientists have noticed formation of strange hexagonal shaped clouds with straight edges on Bermuda Triangle. This is a strange and rare phenomena. Meteorologists confirm from other such formations of cloud at North Sea and evidences shown by satellite images that they are like air bombs. The air bombs can blast and send out winds to the ocean beneath at speeds of up to 170 miles per hour which can be dangerous for aircraft or ships passing through it. Additionally such air bomb explosion can create gigantic waves as high as 45-foot and ocean surface wind of about 100 miles per hour which too can be extremely dangerous.
4. Electronic Fog: A Hutchison effect
It has been heard several times that ships and aircraft get engulfed in some kind of electronic fog and the fog keeps moving along with the ship or the plane. And eventually, all the electronic equipment and other instruments start malfunctioning. Then the ships and airplanes either disintegrate or disappear without a trace. Vancouver based scientist John Hutchison through his experiments has shown occurrence of Electronic Fog that causes some strange phenomena.
5.The Treacherous Underwater Reefs
The Bermuda Island, also known as the 'Isle of the devils', forms one corner of the triangle and is located about 650 miles off the east coast of the US. It is a well known fact that the island is almost completely ringed by numerous shipwrecks that lie at the ocean floor near its shores. In fact there are more than 300 ships that wrecked within 200 square miles of water area surrounding Bermuda. So why the ocean floor here has become a ships' graveyard? The answer is known... there are numerous underwater reefs surrounding Bermuda that rise from the bottom of the sea and remain dangerously hidden under the water surface. Not too long ago the captains of the ships had to rely solely on compass and navigational charts (and some times on the position of the stars) to navigate through the sea to reach their destinations. And unknowingly when the ships passed over such hidden reefs, often the hulls of the ships were torn apart by treacherous reefs, sinking them in no time.
With advancement of technology and use of modern GPS systems, these reefs can now be spotted and avoided. Many of such wrecks today are famous sites for scuba diving.
6. The Whirlpools and the Blue Holes
A strange phenomenon has been noticed in Bahamas which is located at the western corner of Bermuda Triangle and about 50 miles off the coast of Florida. There are whirlpools here with very strong tidal currents flowing in and out of them. Any ships passing over them can easily get sucked in and into the endless depths here.
In fact such phenomena has been known to the natives here since ages and an ancient belief says there is an underwater monster that breathes in and out. During inhalation it can suck in human beings easily or even ships. However the real facts have now been known.
There are actually many Blue Holes in Bahamas water area... these are large underwater caves or cavities which have been formed through geological transformations. These bottle shaped caves that have their openings near the water surface can have depths of 100s of feet. The largest such Blue Hole in Bahamas (and second deepest in the world) is Dean's Blue Hole. It has a depth of 663ft.
Divers have discovered that deep below in the Blue Holes, there are many lateral tunnels that have originated from the walls of the blue hole (i.e. from walls of the main underwater cave) and they run for miles in different directions. Water flows in and out of these lateral tunnels during tide change and that actually causes the tidal currents on the ocean surface and the whirlpools. And these whirlpools can be extremely dangerous for ships passing over them or even near their edge.
7. Gulf Stream
The Gulf Stream is an ocean current that originates in the Gulf of Mexico, and then moves through the Straits of Florida, into the North Atlantic and passes through Bermuda Triangle area. It is like a river with warm water within an ocean and can easily carry floating objects down its flow. A small plane making a water landing on the Gulf Stream or a boat having engine trouble will be easily carried away. It actually happened to the Cabin Cruiser Witchcraft on December 22, 1967, when it reported engine trouble near the Miami buoy marker one mile from shore, but was not there when a Coast Guard cutter arrived.
8. Compass Variation
Do you know that magnetic and absolute North are not the same. Which means that the north where a compass points and the absolute geographic north which is the north pole are different. So ships need to make adjustment for this difference to keep to the right direction. But in Bermuda Triangle, there is a narrow strip where both these North's become the same. Some claim that such Compass Variation could have been the cause for fatal accidents as ships failed to determine the correct direction.
9. Strange Weather & Hurricanes
At times there are violent storms in the Bermuda Triangle area. These short but intense storms can build up quickly and go away so fast that even a satellite can't detect them properly. But these storms are strong enough to destroy ships or planes completely. There are also waterspouts seen in this area. A waterspout is like a tornado at sea that sucks water from the ocean thousands of feet into the sky.
Hurricanes are extremely powerful swirling storms that sometimes appear in the Atlantic near the equator. They usually originate from south eastern Atlantic and pass through the Bermuda Triangle area towards the south eastern coast of the US. June to November is the time when possibility of such hurricane occurring is the most. Such hurricanes have historically been the cause for loss of many lives and extensive damage. The sinking of Francisco de Bobadilla's Spanish fleet in 1502 was the first recorded instance of such destructive hurricane. Hurricanes have in the past caused a number of fatal damages to the sailing vessels passing through the area.
10. Freak Waves
Very large waves can appear suddenly even in calm seas. One such rogue wave caused the Ocean Ranger, then the world's largest offshore platform to capsize in 1982. Research has shown that freak waves up to 30m high & capable of sinking a large ship within moments, can and do happen. Although these are very rare, in some areas ocean currents indicate that they happen more often than normal.
11. Unusual Seafloor
The seafloor in Bermuda Triangle area is also found to be quite strange. The technology of Sonar Mapping (using sound waves) has been used by the scientists to understand the depth of the seafloor at various places in the triangle. Some unusual formations have been found. At various places from a gentle slope the seafloor takes a sudden deep drop. In fact, some of the deepest trenches in the world are found in this area. Ships or planes that sink into these deep trenches will probably never be found as they are virtually inaccessible.
One such area is at Bahamas which is located at the western corner of the triangle. It has been found that at some specific water areas here, the seafloor suddenly dips to an enormous depth of 15,000ft.
Scientists also speculate that there can be large deep ocean craters on the sea floor of Bermuda Triangle. This can be caused by large amount of oil leaks or bursting of Methane gas that were trapped at different layers below the sea floor. Such giant craters (about half a mile wide and 150ft deep) have already been discovered at Barent Sea off the coast of Norway in March 2016. Similar such deep ocean craters are likely to exist in Bermuda Triangle as well because the sea floor in the area is known to contain large amount of Methane gas. If a ship is wrecked due to Methane blow out or any other reason and drops into the crater, it can easily disappear without leaving any trace.
12. Human Error
Human mistakes can not be ruled out in this area. More so because the vast water area in Bermuda Triangle has so many islands that look so similar. It is easy to make a mistake confusing one with another. And in such confusion if the captain takes a wrong turn or direction, then he can slowly but surely get to such water area where it would be too late to turn back and reach a land to refuel. And then eventually it'll be a question of how long the ship can sustain the foul weather.
13. Supernatural Theories
There are also explanations based on some supernatural theories like the lost city of Atlantis, UFOs and Aliens. Check out Supernatural Theories to know about such explanations that try to explain the disappearances.
14. Skeptic's Theory
And like in any other subject, there are skeptics and critics here who do not believe that Bermuda Triangle area has any mystery to be solved at all. They say there is nothing unusual about all these disappearances... it's nothing different from any other ocean area where such incidents also take place in similar numbers, and most can be explained with science or some logic.
15.More Theories
Strange magnetic fields from the bottom of the ocean causing compass to malfunction, pirates capturing ships, explosive cargo destroying vessels etc are also believed to be other causes. Another possibility is underwater earthquakes. Scientists have actually observed a great deal of seismic vibrations taking place in the Bermuda triangle area and under the seafloor.
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