BERMUDA TRIANGLE

BERMUDA TRIANGLE

Mystery clouds the waters of the western Atlantic Ocean off the Florida coast. Known as the Bermuda Triangle, the area is said to strike fear into the hearts of those traveling through it. Here, ships allegedly disappear without a trace, planes vanish off the radar never to be seen again, and strange lights hover in the sky. What on earth is happening?
Patriot, 1812
Theodosia Burr, the daughter of United States vice president Aaron Burr, was on the sailing ship Patriot, bound for New York City when it vanished without a trace.
Douglas DC-3, 1948
A Douglas airliner carrying 32 people vanished en route from Puerto Rico to Miami, Florida.
Star Tiger, 1948, and Star Ariel, 1949
Two passenger planes flying from Bermuda to Jamaica disappeared without sending a distress call.
Flight 19 TBM Avengers, 1945
Five TBM Avenger bombers vanished in a clear blue sky while on a training flight.
Mary Celeste, 1872
The ship Mary Celeste was found floating intact, but there was no sign of her passengers and crew.
USS Cyclops, 1918
The US battleship Cyclops disappeared with the loss of all its crew of 306.
USS Scorpion, 1968
The American nuclear submarine Scorpion was lost, apparently without a trace.
Raifuku Maru, 1925
The Japanese ship Raifuku Maru sank after sending a distress call, “Danger like dagger now. Come quick!”
Teignmouth Electron, 1969
Round-the-world yachtsman Donald Crowhurst’s yacht was found floating abandoned.

Many people have tried to explain the mystery of the Bermuda Triangle. Could it be a “natural” phenomenon? Ships might be engulfed by giant methane bubbles erupting from the seabed, or it could be that variations in the Earth’s magnetic field make compasses go haywire. Perhaps ships and planes are hit by the sudden, violent storms to which the area is prone. Some people think something far more disturbing is going on. Still-active death rays from the lost city of Atlantis, abductions by alien spacecraft, and time warps have all been suggested. In fact, there is no mystery at all. The shipping insurers Lloyds of London say the Bermuda Triangle is no more dangerous than anywhere else. The US Coast Guard agrees. In fact, hundreds of ships and planes pass through the Triangle every day without any problems. 


SO, WHERE DID THE LOST CRAFT AND MISSING PERSONS END UP?



Patriot
12.30.1812
Pirates were very active in the area at this time, so Patriot may have come under attack. Or, the ship may have been a casualty of the war of 1812 between the US and UK. No one knows what happened to the vice president’s daughter.
Douglas DC 3
12.28.1948

Documents at the time show the aircraft’s batteries were not fully charged before the flight, but the pilot insisted on taking off. However, there is no way of knowing if this had any effect on the plane, which was powered by gas engines.
Star Tiger and Star Ariel,
1948 and 1949 respectively
These were not the only Avro Tudor IV planes to disappear. In 1947, Star Dust also vanished over the Andes Mountains. The wreckage was found in 1998, and the evidence suggests the cause was pilot error or instrument failure.
Flight 19 TBM Avengers
12.05.1945
Piecing together various bits of evidence reveals that this group of aircraft got lost in a cloud and was blown by winds much farther out over the Atlantic than they realized. The probable explanation is that they ran out of fuel.
Mar y Celeste
12.05.1872
The Mary Celeste was actually found off the coast of Portugal, thousands of miles across the Atlantic, and not in the Bermuda Triangle at all. However, another ship, called the Mari Celeste, did sink near Ber muda in 1864— hence the mix-up.
USS Cyclops
03.04.1918
Although there were no signs of a battle, Cyclops was lost at the height of World War I— so enemy action cannot be ruled out. In 1975, there was a sighting of the ship’s wreck on the ocean bed off Virginia, where a powerful storm had occurred back in 1918.
USS Scorpion
05.26.1968
The Scorpion did not disappear in the Bermuda Triangle at all, but near the Azores, far to the east. The navy bathyscaphe Trieste later took pictures of the wreck. A court inquiry concluded that the USS Scorpion was destroyed by one of her own malfunctioning torpedoes.
Raifuku Maru
04.21.1925
There was nothing mysterious about the disappearance of the Raifuku Maru. It was caught in a severe storm some distance outside the Bermuda Triangle. Another ship, Homeric, witnessed the Raifuku Maru sinking and made an unsuccessful rescue attempt.
Teignmouth Electron
07.10.1969
Donald Crowhurst’s logbooks, recovered from Teignmouth Electron, reveal that he was in a very disturbed state of mind. He falsified his position in the round-the-world yacht race, so he wasn’t even in the Bermuda Triangle. He may have jumped overboard.