THE BERMUDA TRIANGLE STILL A MYSTERY? - Learning Hub

 

You might have heard about the Bermuda Triangle and some creepy and interesting stories about this. Well, does it really exist? And are the tales we hear about it are all true? Let’s explore the truth of Bermuda Triangle today.

The plane that gone missing

On 5^th December, 1945, five torpedo bomber planes took off from Florida towards east for a routine training. This flight was called flight 19. It consisted of 14 crew members and was led by an experienced pilot Lt. Charles Carroll Taylor.

Just after 2 hours of the takeoff the squadron leader reported that his compass (as well as the back up compass) failed. Other’s instruments had stopped working too. Subsequently they lost contact with each other and were flying without knowing their position. Thus there was also a dispute among the members about their actual position and towards which direction they should turn to return safely.

But surprisingly the planes disappeared and were never found. The rescue flight, Mariner which was supposed to find the flight 19, also vanished with its 13 crew members. And till now nothing has been found about those flights and those crew members.

Well, that was one of the mysterious stories about Bermuda triangle, which is also known as the Devil’s Triangle. This triangle is roughly the region in the West part of the North Atlantic Ocean with its boundaries – Florida, Puerto Rico and Bermuda – spanning over 500,000 square miles. Over 100 aircrafts and ships have been reported to be disappeared in this region and were never found.

Source: Dictionary

What is Bermuda Triangle?

The mystery is said to have originated from the experiences of Christopher Columbus in 1492, when he was passing through this region. It is said that he claimed of seeing some ball of fire falling into the ocean. And since that several names are given to this area – Graveyard of Atlantic, The sea of Doom, Cargrasso Graveyard and of course the Bermuda Triangle.

The name ‘Bermuda Triangle’ was first used by Vincent H. Gaddis in a magazine ‘Argosy’. He mentioned all the disappearances that happened and created a mystery about this place in the ocean.

The missing USS Cyclops

Another mysterious disappearance was of one of the then biggest and fastest ship of US Navy – USS Cyclops. In 1913, it began its journey for Brazil with 306 members along with 11000 tonnes of manganese. But it suddenly disappeared and no traces were found since then.

USS Cyclops

The Unidentified Ship sailing alone in the ocean

One of the most frightful and mysterious incident was of the ship ‘Ellen Austin’. It was sailing to New York from London. During the journey, around the Bermuda triangle region, it found an unidentified ship. The captain waited for 2 days, near the ship, but no response came. Then he decided to step into the ship himself. And they found a lot of stuffs neatly arranged. This was strange because it was clearly not attacked by pirates but had no human in it.

The Ellen Austin encounter

The captain sent some crew members into that ship and started to sail together. But a storm forced them to divert from each other. After it passed, the captain tried to find that ship, and he found it – but shockingly again with no humans in it. It is also said that the captain tried to sail along that ship again but the same thing repeated. Isn’t that interesting?

But but but, may be these are only legends and not actual events. Well, there can be several scientific and logical theories that can be made against these mysteries.

Theories behind the Mystery

Firstly if we talk about the unverified theories – some say that aliens might have taken those planes and ships away. Some say it’s some supernatural power of that place. Well, most of the people wouldn’t believe it, right? Even I don’t.

But Karl Kruszelnicki, a fellow at Sydney University theorised that – “according to Lloyd’s of London and the US Coastguard the number of ships and planes that go missing in the Bermuda Triangle is the same as anywhere in the world on a percentage basis. It is close to the equator, near a wealthy part of the world – America – therefore you have a lot of traffic.”

Another logical theory that can be made is that all those incidents were only because of powerful storms or hurricanes. If you look at the stats, USA and Cuba faces the most number of hurricanes just after China. And Florida is the city which gets the most number of hurricanes. Well, both Florida and Cuba lies in this region.

Another scientific theory states that actually the magnetic North pole and the geometric North pole are different. But there are some places where these two merges. Now the places here this happens change with time but around some 200-300 years, Bermuda triangle region has been one of those places.

There is yet another popular theory that states that there are some places in the ocean where large fields of methane hydrates are present. And when this methane hydrate is concentrated in water, the water density becomes very low and any ship sailing though that ocean may sink.

Most probable explanation

Well these are not actual proven theories. These are just more logical ad scientific. But the most probable theory is about the human psychology – Baadar Mein hoff effect or the frequency illusion. When we notice something for the first time, the tendency to notice the same thing again and again is more.

So basically when people heard about the Bermuda Triangle mystery, they started to pay more attention to the disappearances in this region. But in reality many such incidents are heard around the globe - not only that particular region.

A journalist Larry Kusche also claimed that the stories were “created by mistake, mystery mongering and in some cases outright fabrication – all being passed along as fact checked truth”.

Hope you got to learn something new.