why Bermuda triangle is dangerous
Bermuda Triangle
A vaguely defined expanse of the Atlantic Ocean triangulated between Puerto Rico, Florida and Bermuda has enjoyed a rather sinister — though perhaps largely unearned — reputation for decades.
Dubbed the Bermuda Triangle, this area has been linked to a number of mysterious disappearances dating back to 1945, when a squadron of five U.S. Navy aircraft on a training mission vanished without a trace.
What, exactly, happened to those planes — and to the ships and aircraft that supposedly went missing in the Triangle since then — is a matter of much speculation, with popular theories that run the gamut from the supernatural to science fiction.
However, records kept by the Aviation Safety Network and the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) indicate that many of these disappearances can be linked to storm activity in the area, or to unsafe conditions on the vehicles themselves.
On the USCG website, the answer to the frequently asked question, "Does the Bermuda Triangle really exist?" is the statement, "In a review of many aircraft and vessel losses in the area over the years, there has been nothing discovered that would indicate that casualties were the result of anything other than physical causes."
In other words, normal ocean processes and simple human error are the likely culprits, and the Bermuda Triangle is no more mysterious, suspicious or dangerous than any other stretch of open ocean.
Down in the depths
Earth's seas cover approximately 70% of the planet, reaching depths of about 12,100 feet (3,700 meters) on average, and up to 36,200 feet (11,000 m) at the deepest point, according to the National Ocean Service.
The seas contain approximately 321 million cubic miles (1,338 cubic kilometers) of water, so it's no wonder that boats and airplanes can seemingly disappear into them and leave no sign of their passing.
In 1964, a reporter named Vincent Gaddis dubbed the roughly 500,000-square-mile (1.3 million square kilometers) zone off the southeastern U.S. Atlantic coast "the Bermuda Triangle." Gaddis came up with the title for a story that appeared in the pulp magazine Argosy describing the unexplained 1945 disappearance of Flight 19 — five Navy planes with 14 crewmembers aboard.
Another Navy aircraft with a 13-person crew that was sent to search for the missing Flight 19 also never returned, according to reporter and U.S. Navy veteran Howard L. Rosenberg, who wrote about the Bermuda Triangle in an article for the Naval History and Heritage Command (NHHC).
Rosenberg said the Flight 19 pilots likely became lost and then ran out of gas. If they crashed, the heavy planes probably would have broken up on impact and sank, and the water would have been too cold for the crew to last very long, even if they survived the crash.
And the rescue plane was a PBM Mariner, an aircraft model commonly referred to as a "flying gas tank" because it was so flammable. The possibility that the rescuers met a fiery accident of their own is high, Rosenberg suggested.
Since then, rumors about the Triangle have grown significantly, but the number of disappearances in the high-traffic area is not notably higher than in other well-traveled parts of the ocean.
The triangle area happens to be one of the most heavily traveled regions in the world, and the greater the number of ships or planes, the greater the odds that something will happen to some," Rosenberg wrote. [5 Real Hazards of Air Travel]
Stormy weather
Tropical storms and hurricanes are also common in this region of the Atlantic, which could account for many of the reported disappearances that have happened over the years in the Bermuda Triangle, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
Ships passing through the area in the past would have been more vulnerable to sudden and extreme changes in the weather than vessels today, which have access to more accurate forecasts, NOAA officials said in a statement.
Brief yet violent thunderstorms called meso-meteorological storms, which can also spring up at sea without warning, could have also played a part, disrupting ship communications and stirring up enormous waves, Rosenberg said.
The presence of many islands dotting the Caribbean Sea creates expanses of shallow water that could also spell trouble for large ships, the NOAA statement added. And if an accident were to occur, sharks and barracuda would make short work of bodies in the water, while the swiftly flowing Gulf Stream would quickly disperse any evidence of wreckage from the site of a crash or explosion.
"The ocean has always been a mysterious place to humans, and when foul weather or poor navigation is involved, it can be a very deadly place," NOAA officials said in a statement. "There is no evidence that mysterious disappearances occur with any greater frequency in the Bermuda Triangle than in any other large, well-traveled area of the ocean."
Maybe methane?
Still, superstitions about the Triangle's "powers" have proven to be remarkably resilient and continue to loom in the public imagination. Some superstitions have even taken root recently, based on new geological discoveries.
In March 2015, research detailed a collection of craters in the Barents Sea off the coast of Norway. The study's authors suggested that these craters might have been caused by ancient methane explosions released after the end of the last ice age, 11,700 years ago. These "blowouts" happened when warming ocean temperatures led pressure to build up and methane to be released from gas hydrates, the solid icelike substance formed by gases combined with frozen water.
Some media coverage of the research suggested a link to the Bermuda Triangle, proposing that sudden and violent methane blasts could create sinkholes or form gas bubbles that would swiftly disable and sink ships. However, according to Carolyn Ruppel, a research geophysicist and chief of the U.S. Geological Survey's Gas Hydrates Project, that explanation is highly improbable.
"We do know that you see methane coming from the seafloor now that's pretty widespread," Ruppel told Live Science. But while slow methane leakage is common in the ocean, large-scale blowouts like those that may have taken place when the ice age wound to a close haven't been recorded since, she said.
Critical thinking
In light of the above, we should ask ourselves: if we don’t know what caused something, or if something appears entirely mysterious, should we look for the answer in the paranormal (such as ghosts or spirits) or the supernatural (such as magic or miracles)?
Some people do. They find such explanations exciting. This is what has happened for decades with the incidents in the Bermuda Triangle.
However, when we take the time to learn more about these events and not jump to conclusions, they start to look much more ordinary.
Take the disappearance of Charles Taylor and the five planes which the US Navy investigated. The investigation found that as it got dark outside and the weather changed, Taylor had navigated the planes to the wrong location.
Taylor also had a history of getting lost while flying. He had twice needed to be rescued in the Pacific Ocean. The navy itself had a good idea of what had happened ahead of the disappearance.
But the incident was ultimately described as “cause unknown” because Taylor’s mother, not wanting to blame her son for the disappearance, maintained if the navy couldn’t find the aircraft they couldn’t say for sure what had happened. Not wanting to blame Taylor for the tragedy, the navy agreed.
Most of the pilots involved in the incident were trainees. This means they weren’t properly taught how to use all the aircraft instruments when flying at night, or in bad weather.
What’s more, the aircraft they had been flying were known to sink in as little as 45 seconds if they landed in water. And once aircraft sink in the vast ocean (although this is extremely rare these days), they are often never found again.
This is true even now, despite big improvements in aircraft technology and search-and-rescue methods. For instance, only a small amount of debris from the missing Malaysia Airlines MH370 flight, which disappeared in 2014, has been found.
Moving on from old tales
Today, large passenger planes often fly through the Bermuda Triangle and none disappear. You can even track flights in the area live online.
In fact, from the mid-1940s to the mid-1980s, more small planes have crashed over the US mainland than in the Bermuda Triangle. But because they crashed on land where the wreckage was found, they were not considered mysterious.
It has also been shown the number of ships and aircraft reported missing in the Bermuda Triangle is not much larger, proportionally speaking, than in any other part of the ocean.
Sometimes, when an event is hard to explain, it’s tempting to say it was caused by the paranormal or supernatural.
But if 1,000 aircraft fly through the Bermuda Triangle and we can explain what happened to 990 of them, should we say the other 10 were supernatural cases? No.
All we can say is we don’t know what happened for sure – and we should try to learn more. Usually when we learn more, the mystery disappears.
Can you survive in Bermuda Taingle
on December 5, 1945, five Navy planes took off from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on a training mission. They flew over the Bermuda Triangle. The men, along with the planes, disappeared and were never seen again. From that day forward, people became fascinated with the Bermuda Triangle.
Over the years, numerous ships and aircraft have vanished with no apparent explanation. Are you WONDERing what the Bermuda Triangle is all about? Can humans ever survive a trip to the Bermuda Triangle?
There are many theories that try to explain the mystery of the Bermuda Triangle. The Bermuda Triangle is an area in the Atlantic Ocean that is twice the size of Texas. That's about 500,000 square miles.
The Bermuda Triangle has a triangular shape with ends — geometry teachers would call them vertices — in Miami, Florida, Bermuda, and Puerto Rico. Within this triangle of water, compasses often act strangely.
Most compasses don't point directly north toward the North Pole. Instead, they point to something called “magnetic north," which is in Canada. In the Bermuda Triangle, however, a compass will often point directly to the North Pole. That's mysterious!
Many people consider the Bermuda Triangle a dangerous place because of the people, airplanes, and ships that have vanished there for no apparent reason. One such incident occurred on March 18, 1918. The U.S.S. Cyclops, a large Navy cargo ship carrying over 300 men and 10,000 tons of manganese, sank in the Bermuda Triangle. The crew never called for help, and the wreckage of the ship was never found.
In August 1920, 11 crew members set sail on a ship called the Carroll A. Deering. They left Maine for a long voyage to South America. On their return trip to Maine, they stopped at Barbados on January 9, 1921. Twenty-two days later, their ship was discovered floating near the coast of North Carolina. Everyone on the ship had disappeared! No one ever heard a radio call for help from the ship. What happened to the crew? Why didn't they call for help?
On December 28, 1948, Captain Robert Lindquist was flying from San Juan, Puerto Rico, to Miami, Florida, on flight NC-16002. The aircraft had been having electrical and battery difficulties. When the flight was about 50 miles from Miami, Lindquist radioed the Miami airport to ask for landing instructions. When the airport responded with directions, there was no reply. The plane had disappeared!
There are many more mysterious incidents and unexplained disappearances besides these tragic stories. People have come up with many eccentric theories about the Bermuda Triangle. Some people believe aliens have abducted ships and planes. Other people believe that, in ancient times, the lost city of Atlantis sank to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean beneath the Bermuda Triangle. They think there are energy crystals in Atlantis that can confuse the controls on ships and planes. These theories are really outrageous!
There are also some believable theories to explain the mystery of the Bermuda Triangle. First, human beings make mistakes. It is possible that captains and pilots accidentally sank their ships or crashed their planes due to errors or miscalculations.
Secondly, there are often weird weather patterns in the Bermuda Triangle. Strong and highly dangerous storms can cause disasters. Also, since compasses often point directly to the North Pole rather than magnetic north, it can confuse planes and boats in the Bermuda Triangle. Some scientists believe that these magnetic forces can disrupt the controls and the radios of planes and ships, causing them to crash or sink. Many accept these theories as ways to explain the strange disappearances in the Bermuda Triangle.
So far, scientists have not come up with clear reasons to explain the mystery of the Bermuda Triangle. If you plan to travel across this stretch of water, don't worry. Most planes and ships don't crash or sink, and most travelers survive a trip through the Bermuda Triangle. But if you fly over this mysterious place, look out the window to see if you can see the remnants of the lost city of Atlantis lurking beneath the waters! And don't forget to check for aliens floating above you in their spaceships!
The mystery of the Bermuda Triangle may finally be solved
One of life’s great mysteries, the Bermuda Triangle might have finally found an explanation. This strange region, that lies in the North Atlantic Ocean between Bermuda, Miami and San Juan, Puerto Rico, has been the presumed cause of dozens and dozens of mind-boggling disappearances of ships and planes.
The Bermuda Triangle lore includes such stories as that of Flight 19, a group of 5 U.S. torpedo bombers that vanished in the Triangle in 1945. A rescue plane sent to look for them also disappeared. Other stories include the mystery of USS Cyclops, resulting in the largest non-combat loss of life in U.S. Navy’s history. The ship with a crew of 309 went missing in 1918. Even as recently as 2015, El Faro, a cargo ship with 33 on board vanished in the area.
Altogether, as far as we know, 75 planes and hundreds of ships met their demise in the Bermuda Triangle. Possible causes for the catastrophes have been proposed over time, ranging from the paranormal, electromagnetic interference that causes compass problems, bad weather, the gulf stream, and large undersea fields of methane.
A fascinating theory has been proposed by meteorologists claiming that the reason for the mysteries pervading the Bermuda Triangle area are unusual hexagonal clouds creating 170 mph air bombs full of wind. These air pockets cause all the mischief, sinking ships and downing planes.
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