The Bermuda Triangle

Amidst the vast expanse of the ocean, where the azure waves embrace the horizon, a sinister enigma shrouds the waters in an eerie veil of mystery. Whispers of maritime lore and chilling tales intertwine, casting an ominous spell upon all who dare to venture into its heart. This is the Bermuda Triangle, a realm where compasses spin wildly, navigational instruments falter, and ships and planes vanish without a trace. As night descends and the moon's pallid light flickers upon the undulating tides, the secrets of this treacherous triangle awaken, beckoning those with both curiosity and courage to unlock the riddles that lie within its unfathomable depths. 
Things are about to get strange.

Long before the myth of the Bermuda Triangle, it was called the Limbo of the Lost, The Devil’s Triangle, Hoodoo Sea, and the Twilight Zone. The general description of the Bermuda Triangle is that the boundaries are Miami, FL, San Juan, Puerto Rico, and Bermuda. Some people do dispute the clear definition on those exact locations outlining the triangle, with the total area verifying from 500,000 to 1,510,000 square miles, give or take. 
Columbus may have been talking about the Bermuda Triangle during his travels. He wrote in his log book about a haywire compass, weird lights, and a burst of light falling into the sea. Columbus, and those that came after him, encountered a stretch of ocean now known as the Sargasso Sea. Tales tell of sailboats stranded forever, Forever in a windless expanse of water, surrounded by the remnants of other unfortunate vessels. The earliest suggestion of the unusual disappearances in the Bermuda area first appeared in an article published in “The Bermuda Triangle” on September 17, 1950. It was written by Edward Van Winkle Jones. Two years later, Fate magazine published “Sea Mystery at Our Back Door”. It was a short article written by George Sand that covered the loss of several planes and ships. Sand’s article was the first to lay out the not familiar triangular area where the losses took place. In 1964, Vincent Gaddis wrote an article called the “The Deadly Bermuda Triangle” in the magazine Argosy, and then wrote a book to expand on the article called “Invisible Horizons.” 

Let’s talk about some of the disappearances that took place in the Bermuda Triangle.
The Spray - Joshua Slocum was considered one of the best sailors of his time. He was the first man to sail solo around the world in 1895. His boat, The Spray, was an old fishing boat that he rebuilt. Being such a great sailor, he should not have been lost as sea, but he was. Slocum left the east coast of the US in 1909 and headed to Grand Cayman for the winter. He was never seen or heard from again. He was not declared legally dead until 1924. Now it was never confirmed that he went down in the Triangle, but Bermuda Buffs claim Slocum’s story as a part of the legacy. 
Teignmouth Electron- It is assumed that people went mad on the Teignmouth Electron in 1969. On Halloween 1968,  Donald Crowhurst set sail from London in a triple-hulled boat design featuring his own safety innovations. He had great intentions to with the Sunday Times Golden Globe Race, a race that requires each participant to sail solo around the world. Even though Crowhurst was not that experienced as a sailor, he obtained the backing of an investor, who was very demanding. He got off to a slow start and considered turning around when his board was plagued with problems. He considered turning back. Instead of turning back, he kept going. He reported progress and incredible times to his publicist. When he began his journey back, he heard that his closest competitor sank. Fearing that the truth about his deceptions would be found out, Crowhurst apparently jumped overboard, taking his life as well as the falsified logbook.  The Electron was found abandoned in the Bermuda Triangle in July 1969, with the last entry of the correct logbook being June 29th. 
Star Tiger - A British South American Airways Tudor IV plane flying to Bermuda from England disappeared without a trace. On January 30, 1948. It was the Star Tiger, and it was commanded by Captain B.W. McMillan. On the 30th, McMillan reported that he expected to arrive in Bermuda at 5am. No one on board was ever heard from again. The official accident report suggested that the plane’s heater was unreliable and may have failed on the trip. It also stated that a compass was at fault. The pilot may have chosen to fly the route at lower altitude to keep the temperatures warmer. This burned the fuel faster. Flying that low would have left the pilot little time to signal for help if something happened.  
Star Ariel - A Tudor IV aircraft left Bermuda with 7 crew members and 13 passengers en route to Jamaica on January 17, 1949.  Captain J.C. McPhee reported that morning that the flight was going smoothly. Shortly after, another message came through from the captain, and this one was more cryptic. He reported that he was changing his frequency, and nothing was heard again. A search party was sent out to look for the Star Ariel, but no debris was ever found. After the Ariel disappeared, British South American Airways stopped production of the Tudor IV. 
USS Cyclops - During WW1, Lt. G. W. Worley commanded the USS Cyclops. It carried coal for the US Navy and stayed mostly off the East Coast of the US until 1918. Then it was sent to Brazil to refuel allied ships. The ship left Rio de Janeiro in February with 309 people on board, and reached Barbados in March. The Cyclops was never heard from again after that. The Navy stated in its official statement: “The disappearance of this ship has been one of the most baffling mysteries in the annals of the Navy, all attempts to locate her have been proved unsuccessful. There were no enemy submarines in the western Atlantic at that time, and in December 1918 every effort was made to obtain from German sources information regarding the disappearance of the vessel.” This tragedy stands as the single largest loss of life in US Naval history that did not involve combat. 
Flight 201 - On March 31, 1984, the Flight 201 left Ft. Lauderdale en route for Bimini Island in the Bahamas. It never made it. The passengers were all Cessna employees. Something went wrong despite the experience of the crew. The plane slowed its airspeed significantly, a little less than halfway to its destination. No radio signals were made from the plane to indicate distress. The plane suddenly dropped from the air into the water. It completely vanished from the radar. There was a woman on Bimini Island who reported seeing a plane plunge into the sea about 1 mile offshore. No wreckage has ever been found. 
There have been countless other wrecks and vanishes that have happened in or around the Bermuda Triangle. 

Here are a few explanations explaining the mystery of the Bermuda Triangle:
Atlantis - The underwater city may be to blame for the occurrences. Believers argue that the “energy crystals” that fulled the city to interfere with navigation equipment. Others have more evidence. They state that the Bimini Road, a rock formation composed of uniform, sculpted towers of rock off the coast of the Bahamian Island of Bimini, may be to blame. 
Aliens/ UFO’s- A crashed alien ship that is underwater at the Bermuda Triangle could be using their technology to target passing ships and planes. Because why wouldn’t a crashed UFO attack because they are defensive? 
Magnetic fields - When inside the Bermuda Triangle, compasses are apparently spinning out of control. Why? Who knows, but it could be the reason.
Methane Hydrates - There are methane pockets that are unlocked by seismic activity that can unleash a cloud of methane gas into the water and air. This reduces the density enough for planes and ships to instantly drop. This is what the theory says. Methane hydrates actually exist all over the world, and in a lot more numbers than those in the triangle. 
Pirates - Although not confirmed, it could be a reason why so many ships went missing during the Golden Age of Piracy, which was from 1650-1730. 
A time vortex, or “Electronic Fog”- Floridian Bruce Gernon and his father were going from Andros Island (in the Bahamas) to Bimini Island (an island just east of Miami) in 1970. They came across a weird cloud that they said grew rapidly and then turned into a tunnel. They flew into the tunnel, and when they came out, they were hundreds of miles off course. And the amount of distance they traveled could not have been done in that short of time. 
A downed comet that is 11,000 years old - Theorists believe that a comment may have crashed into the Atlantic more than 11,000 years ago in the location of where the triangle is today. They speculate that it has otherworldly electromagnetic properties that may disrupt navigation equipment. There is no proof that this comet exists. 
The government-The government’s Atlantic Undersea Test and Evaluation Center, or AUTEC,  is located on Andros Island in the Bahamas right in the middle of the Bermuda Triangle. The Navy tests out subs, weapons, and sonar here. Theorists believe that the government has been working with aliens and that AUTEC is actually a testing ground for reverse-engineered alien technologies.

Let’s talk about Larry Kusche. He was a librarian at Arizona State University. In 1975, he decided to investigate the claims made by the articles and books about the Bermuda Triangle. What he found he published in his own book titled, “The Bermuda Triangle Mystery-Solved.” He had carefully researched records other writers had ignored or neglected. He found out that the strange accidents in the Bermuda Triangle were not so strange after all. Often, a writer would say that a ship would sink during calm seas, but it was actually during a bad storm. Others said that ships just mysteriously disappeared, but in actuality, the remains of the ships were found and the cause of the sinking was found. In one case, one writer stated that a ship sunk in or near the Bermuda Triangle, but it actually sank about 3000 miles away. The author confused the name of the Pacific port the ship had left with a city of the same name of the Atlantic coast. He also concluded that the number of aircraft and ships reported missing in the Bermuda Triangle was not significantly higher, proportionally speaking, than in any other part of the ocean. 

FUN FACTS:
Bermuda already had a reputation as an enchanted island by early travelers. It was nicknamed “The Devil’s Islands”. Really they were frightened by the squeals of wild pigs and the sounds of the cahow birds from shore. Also called “The Bermuda petrel” it is the second rarest seabird on the planet. 
Shakespeare may have written about the Triangle in The Tempest. It is a tale of shipwreck and sorcery in “the still vexed Bermoothes.” 
In a 2013 study, the World Wide Fund for Nature identified the world’s 10 most dangerous waters for shipping. The Bermuda Triangle was not among them.
The Coast Guard is officially skeptical of the Triangle. They collect and publish a lot of documentation contradicting the incidents of the writers that talk about the Bermuda Triangle.