Mystery is one of those things which stuns the people who look upon it. There are a lot of mysteries in the world which are being examined by number of people from years and years ago. But still only few managed to reach their goals after lot of struggles and the rest are still trying to solve their mysteries.
One such mystery is The Bermuda Triangle. The Bermuda Triangle, also known as “The Devil’s Triangle” is popular for massive disappearances of aircrafts and ships. This Bermuda Triangle is a part of the Atlantic Ocean which is bounded by Bermuda, Miami and Puerto Rico. This covers about 500,000 to 1,500,000 square miles of the ocean off the southern-east tip of Florida, a state in United States. Many aircrafts and ships have not returned back after travelling through this area. In the past 100 years, it vanished almost thousands of lives. Even though it is not a very big number for having costed lots of deaths, the real mystery lies on how they actually died. Many people came upon and gave their own theories for its cause but none were acceptable.
ORIGIN
The first unusual disappearance in the Bermuda region which occurred on 17 September, 1950 came to people’s attention when Edward Van Winkle Jones published an article about this in “The Miami Herald”. Then, after two years, Fate magazine published an article “Sea mystery at our back door” by George Sand who narrated about many unusual disappearances of aircrafts and ships which includes the Flight 19 in which a group of five US Navy Torpedo Bombers with 14 men went on a training mission but were reported as missing. This article was the first to outlay the triangular area where the fading took place and it was the first to indicate a supernatural element in the Flight 19 incident. Then, as the time passed, the upcoming authors started to write about the Bermuda Triangle mystery.
In the year 1964, author Vincent Gaddis coined the name “The Bermuda Triangle” in his article and discussed about many ships getting disappeared without any trace. Since then, many writers had sticked to the idea of the presence of some supernatural powers in that area.
LOSSES
Some of the aircrafts and ships which disappeared mysteriously in the Bermuda Triangle are:
* Flight 19 * Ellen Austin
* USS Cyclops * Connemara IV
* Douglas DC-3 * Carroll A. Deering
* The Mary Celeste * Second Tudor IV
* Martin – p5m * Military YC-122
CENSURES
While these articles were being published, some people were claiming that The Bermuda Triangle is not a mystery but is due to other reasons. The first person to find fault with this mystery was Larry Kusche. Larry Kusche, the author of “The Bermuda Triangle Mystery: Solved” argued that many claims of Gaddis and other fellow writers were fishy, exaggerated and dubious. His research disclosed a number of inaccuracies and irregularities in the writer’s articles, who considered these accidents as a mystery. Kusche disagreed to the fact that “The Bermuda Triangle” is a mystery and he also argued that massive number of Triangle’s mystery often occurred outside it. Further, he added that none of the writers included the extreme weather conditions of the area which can also be a cause for those accidents. He also revealed that many of the accidents that were reported missing were not true. Kusche concluded by stating that this is not at all a mystery but the writers fabricated, either intentionally or ignorantly, these disappearances as a mystery. Subsequently, few people started to publish this in newspapers and television programs and claimed that these strange disappearances were not a mystery and each one gave suasible reasons.
Benjamin Radford, a sceptical author realized that it would be difficult to hunt for the disappeared ships in such a large area. He said that even though these disappearances are mysterious, they are not paranormal.
SCIENTIFIC JUSTIFICATION
The people who believed that this Bermuda Triangle mystery as a real phenomenon provided a number of explanations as follows:
- Paranormal Explanations:
Many Triangle writers applied the supernatural concepts to explain the mysterious phenomenon. Some other writers ascribe to the incidents of UFO’s (Unidentified Flying Objects).
- Natural Explanations:
- Compass Variations: –
Compass problems are the most quoted ones in the Triangle mysteries. Many theories were mentioned regarding the unusual compass variations that exist in that area but none of those were proved. The compasses have natural magnetic variations with respect to magnetic poles. But some people look this as if some supernatural power exists in the Triangle region due to which compass changes.
- Human Error: –
There are also many instances where the officials concerned did not enquire properly. There are also cases where the ships were incorrectly navigated due to human error.
- Violent Weather: –
In most of the Triangle losses, violent weather had a big share of causing the accidents. In one particular case (“Pride of Baltimore”), the group of sunken ship has mentioned that the velocity of wind suddenly increased from 32 km/hr to 97-150 km/hr. James Lushine, a National Hurricane Centre Satellite specialist said that “During unstable weather conditions, a windstorm of cold air can appear like a giant bomb.”
- Gulf Stream: –
The Gulf stream is a major source of current driven by Thermohaline circulations. It starts from Gulf of Mexico and flows through Straits of Florida in North Atlantic. An aircraft to be landed in the water and a ship having engine trouble can be taken off by the currents.
- Methane Hydrates: –
Some scientists also stated that the disappearances may be due to the presence of large number of methane hydrates present in that area. Experiments have proved that any wreckage that rise to the surface would be rapidly diffused by the Gulf Stream. It has been theorized that periodic methane eruptions have formed regions of frothy water due to which it is difficult to provide adequate buoyancy for the ships. If this had happened, then it causes the ship to sink very quickly without any sign.
- Electronic Fog: –
Electronic Fog theory was also responsible for the mysteries of Bermuda Triangle. This theory was proposed by Edward Gernon. Electronic fog is a greyish cloud of electromagnetic fields that can be established above the ocean. Many aircrafts have been reported as disappeared due to Electronic Fog. Gernon strongly believes that rare natural phenomenon is behind the paranormal activity.
- Underwater Earthquakes: –
Even though scientists have not recorded properly, but there are a lot of chances for a seismic activity. This can also create destructive Tsunamis.
Even though it has the most terrible and mysterious deaths of all the time, some natural phenomenon mentioned above are also held responsible for these deaths. For years there has been mysterious disappearances without any clue. It is to be noted that not more disappearances have took place lately as our world is now technologically developed. Many people believe that these are due to laws of physics, supernatural existence and many other things. Now this Bermuda’s Triangle is left for everyone’s own views and believes. Without any proper proof for the cause, the Bermuda Triangle remains mysterious forever.
By Shreya Ramakrishnan,Chennai
Very good article. I will be facing some of these issues as well..