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The Bermuda Triangle is an area of supposed mystery in a triangle roughly defined by Bermuda, Puerto Rico, and Florida. Within this area it is said that a number of ships and planes have disappeared under highly unusual circumstances.
Shakespeare never visited Bermuda, but he was fascinated by it, and set his play The Tempest with Bermuda as a model.
The area was first mentioned in 1950 by E.V.W. Jones as a sidebar on the AP wire service regarding recent ship losses in the area. Jones' article notes the "mysterious disappearances" of ships and planes in the region, and ascribes it the name "The Devil's Sea.". It was mentioned again in 1952 in a Fate Magazine article by George X. Sand, who outlined several "strange marine disappearances." The term "Bermuda Triangle" was popularized by Vincent Gaddis in a 1964 Argosy feature.
It achieved true fame largely through the efforts of Charles Berlitz in his 1974 book The Bermuda Triangle. The book consists of a series of recountings of mysterious disappearances of ships and aircraft, in particular, the loss of five U.S. Navy aircraft. The book was a best-seller, and many interested readers offered theories to explain the nature of the disappearances. The list includes natural storms, transportation by extraterrestrial technology, high traffic volumes (and correspondingly high accident rates), a temporal hole, the lost Atlantis empire from the bottom of the ocean, and other natural and supernatural causes.
An explanation rapidly gaining support as of this writing focuses on the presence of vast fields of methane gas hydrates recently discovered on the continental shelves. Periodic methane eruptions are capable of producing ship-sized bubbles, or regions of water so gasified they are incapable of providing adequate buoyancy for ships. [1] The effects of such eruptions are also entirely consistent with reports which include accounts of mists, foamy water, changes in ship buoyancy, and extensive oil slicks.
Lawrence Kusche, a reference librarian with Arizona State University at the time of the Navy incident, was intrigued by the number of students coming to him looking for information about the Bermuda triangle, and he conducted an exhaustive follow-up of the original reports. His findings were eventually published as The Bermuda Triangle Mystery: Solved.
Kusche's research revealed a number of inconsistencies between Berlitz' accounts and statements from eyewitnesses, participants, and others involved in the initial incidents. He noted cases where pertinent but late-arriving information went unreported. The Berlitz book included the disappearance of round-the-world yachtsman Donald Crowhurst as a mystery, despite clear evidence that Crowhurst had fabricated the accounts of his voyage, and that his diary strongly suggested he had committed suicide. An ore carrier Berlitz recounts as lost without trace three days out of an Atlantic port was actually lost three days out of a port of the same name in the Pacific Ocean. A large percentage of the incidents attributed to the Bermuda Triangle's mysterious influence actually occurred well outside it.
The most well-known incident remains the loss of Flight 19, a squadron of Navy bombers on a training flight out of Ft. Lauderdale. According to Berlitz, the flight consisted of expert pilots who reported a number of odd visual effects before simply disappearing, never to be found. A Navy search-and-rescue plane sent out to find them also disappeared. The TBM Avenger bombers were built to float for long periods, so they should have been found the next day considering what were reported as calm seas.
Later reports fill in the end-notes. Having set out, Flight 19 got lost. A radio call noted that the pilots were flying over a small group of islands they assumed were the Florida Keys, implying that they were well off course and far to the west of where they should have been. A later re-creation showed that the islands in question were their bombing target, and that they were exactly on course. Over the course of the next few hours, the lead pilot, thinking he was on a heading toward Florida, guided the flight further and further east. In fact, the squadron was already far out to sea off the east coast.
After many hours of flying away from land, they ran out of fuel and were forced to ditch in heavy seas. Witnesses report seeing the PBM Mariner sent to rescue them, and with which they were in radio contact for much of the flight, explode in the air. The Mariner was considered a workhorse of the U.S. Navy, but it had a reputation as a "flying gas tank." [2]
Kusche came to several conclusions:
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