What is the Bermuda Triangle: Fact or Myth?

For decades, the fabled Bermuda Triangle of the Atlantic Ocean has captured the human imagination with unexplained disappearances of ships, planes and people.

Some speculate that unknown and mysterious forces explain the unexplained disappearances, such as aliens capturing humans for study; the influence of the lost continent of Atlantis; vortices that suck objects into other dimensions; and other whimsical ideas. Some explanations are more based on science, if not evidence. These include ocean flatulence (methane gas bubbling up from ocean sediments) and disruptions in geomagnetic flux lines.

What is the Bermuda Triangle?

The Bermuda Triangle is made up of 1.1 million square kilometres of the open sea within an equilateral triangle (hence its name) formed by the tips of the islands of Bermuda, Puerto Rico and Miami in Florida, United States.

This imaginary triangle contains a secret inside: hundreds of boats have disappeared since this place is known, almost a hundred planes -it is known- and thousands of people. Are all of them at the bottom of the sea? Have they gone to another dimension? Are they sunk with the lost city of Atlantis? Probably not, but the human being has always liked to add a bit of legend to phenomena that he has not been able to demonstrate.

"Devil's Triangle"

A date that marks the beginning of this mystery: the year 1945. A crew of 5 United States Navy planes that were flying over the area disappeared. Even a sixth plane disappeared, a Martin Mariner emergency plane that came to the rescue of the first five. In total, 27 people disappeared without a trace. In the last communication with them, one of its members assured them that they were completely lost and did not know which way to go. Then nothing.

The first written news about this mystery dates back to 1950, written by tabloid journalist Edward Van Winkle Jones, who wrote in the Miami Herald newspaper about the strange disappearance of a large number of ships off the coast of the Bahamas.

Two years later, the writer George X. Sand joined this mystery, who stated that mysterious marine disappearances occurred in the area; Later, in 1964, the fiction article magazine Argosy Magazine published a complete article entitled "The Deadly Bermuda Triangle" in which it spoke of strange disappearances, paranormal phenomena and mysteries that made those who navigated those waters automatically disappear.

For decades, scientists from around the world have tried to make sense of what is happening in this part of the sea. According to 'National Geographic', the most famous theories affirm that the deaths are due to magnetic variations, caves (known as blue holes) and methane explosions. However, the most recent theory does not point to any of these points.

Karl Kruszenlnicki, a scientist from Australia, claims to have solved the famous mystery, providing a new hypothesis. As he himself told the British media 'Mirror', there is no secret to reveal, since the real reason why so many ships and planes have crashed has nothing to do with aliens or lost cities.

The Australian scientist explained that the reasons are simple and can be divided into three: human error, bad weather and the high traffic of ships and planes that frequent the area.

what is the reality of Bermuda?

Like the legends, the possible scientific theories are also many. Normally we tend to give a supernatural meaning to what we cannot explain, but reality can also end a good fictional story. These are some of the most likely theories.

Human errors

Unfortunately, human errors do happen. Many of the accidents that have occurred in these areas have to do with calculation errors, with technological failures typical of large devices or with poor decisions. It is something that can never be demonstrated, simply because they occur in areas that, being so extensive and far from the coast, make it practically impossible to recover remains.

Meteorology

Another possible theory goes through climatology. Typhoons, hurricanes and large storms that cause waves of hundreds of meters can easily be the cause of the accidents of large ships in the sea and planes in the sky.

Blue holes

The seafloor of the Bahamas has blue holes. And what are blue holes? Well, in the area there are caves that are thousands of years old and that create very strong currents that are capable of launching large tonnage ships adrift. They are very deep vertical caves. It is known that the deepest in the world, located in this area, is called the Sansha Yongle blue hole and is 300 meters deep. But these holes do not only exist here. There are also them in the Yucatan Peninsula and in the Lighthouse Reef of Belize, in Central America.

Methane explosions

A recent discovery, this year, in Norwegian waters, may provide a new theory about the Bermuda Triangle. In this area, in very deep craters - similar to blue holes - there would be large concentrations of methane gas. In the area of ​​the Bahamas, the heat of the tropical waters and that of the ships themselves would cause this methane to explode, forming not only virulent ocean currents but also destroying ships and boats as if they were made of paper.

Famous disappearances

Flight 19

By 1945, not only was the end of World War II declared, but also the beginning of all this mystery. A crew of five US Navy aircraft, known as Flight 19, disappeared while flying over the triangle on a routine training mission over the Atlantic. Both the ships and the 14 crew seemed to have vanished, as there was no trace of them.

"We searched all the islands for a week but we didn't find any remains," Lieutenant David White, who was a flight instructor at the base at the time, told the BBC. The scientist who analyzed the case assured 'Mirror' that although it was initially said that the planes were piloting in ideal flight conditions, the truth is that there were waves of more than 15 meters that would have influenced.

Also, the only pilot with certified experience, among the 14 people, was Lieutenant Charles Taylor, who could have made a human error that would have cost his crew their lives. The transcripts of that day, according to the scientist, show that the pilot did not know the exact place where he was. According to Taylor, his location was very close to the Florida Keys, but he was actually north of the Bahamas.

HMS Atalanta

HMS Atalanta sailed for England from Bermuda on January 31, 1880, and disappeared shortly after, with all 281 crew and travellers declared missing. Although there is no way to be sure what happened. Historians believe that the incident was probably caused by a combination of a powerful storm and the inexperience of the crew, who were almost all trainees.

USS Cyclops

The disappearance of the USS Cyclops and her crew resulted in the largest non-war loss of life in the US Navy. Sometime shortly after March 4, 1918, the ship, her crew of 309, and her entire cargo of manganese ore disappeared after leaving the island of Barbados. The prevailing theory is that the ship was not designed to carry such dense material, and as a result, she sank. The two sister ships of the Cyclops sank in the North Atlantic during World War II while carrying the same substance, which strengthens the theory.

Carroll A Deering

This five-masted schooner was found completely deserted on January 31, 1921 off the coast of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. The ship ran aground with no evidence of what happened to the crew. The waters off the coast of North Carolina are considered part of the Bermuda Triangle by some theorists.

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