Evoking the name of the Bermuda Triangle causes a chill in a hidden place of our mind. Not surprisingly, it is one of the most famous paranormal mysteries of our day. Disappearances without response, strange accidents, enigmatic messages from pilots and a crew who never see each other again in this world. No one has ever found them .
Where are they? What happened to them?
We will look for answers following the investigations of the expert Charles Berlitz, who has dedicated his life to studying the phenomenon.
What is the Bermuda Triangle?
Facing the southeastern coast of the United States, in the Western Atlantic, there is a geographical area that forms a kind of triangle. It extends from Bermuda, by the North, to the south of Florida ; It goes east, to a point located across the Bahamas, beyond Puerto Rico, about 40 degrees west longitude, and then returns to Bermuda . This area occupies a disturbing, almost incredible place, in the catalog of the unsolved mysteries of the world . It is usually called the Bermuda Triangle, where more than one hundred ships and planes have disappeared in the middle of a transparent atmosphere.
Most of the disappearances have occurred since 1945, and since then more than a thousand human lives have been lost there, without being able to recover a single body, not even a piece of the wrecked aircraft or ships . Although travel by sea and air today is much more frequent, investigations are more thorough thanks to the most scrupulously carried out technology and records, disappearances continue to occur in apparently increasing numbers.
Many of these planes were lost while they were in radio contact with their bases or with their places of destination, contact that was normally maintained until the moment of the disappearance. Others sent the most extraordinary messages, implying that they could not operate their instruments, that their compasses turned wildly, that the sky had turned yellow and misty (on a clear day) and that the ocean (serene in the surroundings) “ it didn't seem normal ”, without specifying mostly what was abnormal.
On December 5, 1945, a group of five planes that formed a squadron of Avengers TBM of the United States Navy, and that traveled in mission from the Fort Lauderdale air base, plus the Martin Mariner sent to their rescue, they disappeared and were the subject of one of the most intense maritime-terrestrial search operations ever carried out. Despite this, wrecks could never be found, not even a lifeboat, or oil stains. Other planes, including passengers, have disappeared while receiving instructions to land. As noted in the summaries of the Naval Research Board, it seems that they had flown through an open hole in the sky. Large and small ships have been lost without a trace. As if they and their crews had been dragged into another dimension. Some very large ones, such as the 129-meter-long Marine Sulfur Queen freighter, or the 19, 000-ton Cyclops, with 309 passengers on board, simply vanished. Other boats and boats have been found adrift within the Triangle, sometimes with an animal as a survivor, a dog, or a canary, which could not explain what happened.
The losses of ships and airplanes in the Bermuda Triangle continue to occur today, although inexplicably they are not given the same media publicity as other less mysterious disappearances.
When airplanes or boats disappear in this area, there is a growing number of people who feel invaded by persistent doubt as to whether the losses have been normal . If they have occurred due to abnormal weather conditions, fatigue or pilot error, command failure, structural or engine defects, or if there is an external force that often seems to snatch airplanes and air from the sky Sea surface to the boats.
John G oodwin in This Baffling World (This amazing world), commenting on the public acceptance of such a possibility, notes that the American and British authorities have never officially proclaimed the area of the Triangle as a Dangerous area, and adds: However, privately, both the Navy and Aviation experts have confessed that they could face an environmental phenomenon, and not before a chain of technical accidents . Goodwin also observes that, whatever it may be, what is happening could be as unknown to today's people as the power of radio for the alchemists of the fifteenth century . He adds that, although one cannot be sure that there is a relationship between the planes and missing ships, all these ships were within the same narrow geographical boundaries.
Main disappearances
Main aircraft disappearances in the Bermuda Triangle area
December 5, 1945 : five Avenger TBM bombers in training flight from Fort Lauderdale, Florida; crew total, fourteen; normal flight duration: two hours; lost approximately 360 km northeast of the base.
December 5, 1945 : Martin PBM bomber; dispatched with a crew of thirteen men to assist the TBM patrol; Twenty minutes later the radio contact was lost and the plane disappeared.
1947 : A C-54 of the United States Army disappeared 180 km from Bermuda.
January 29, 1948 : Tudor IV, Star Tiger, four-engine. Radio communication was lost, after the last contact, 600 kilometers northeast of Bermuda; The plane was lost with 31 passengers and crew.
December 28, 1948 : DC-3 rental, private. I was going from San Juan from Puerto Rico to Miami; It carried 32 passengers plus the crew.
January 17, 1949 : Star Ariel, twin apparatus of the Star Tiger; He went from London to Santiago, Chile, via Bermuda and Jamaica; Radio communication was lost 600 km southwest of Bermuda, on the route to Kingston.
March 1950 : Globemaster (North American); disappeared on the northern edge of the Triangle, en route to Ireland.
February 2, 1952 : York (British) transport; disappeared north of the Triangle, en route to Jamaica, with 33 passengers on board.
October 30, 1954 : Super Constellation (Marina); It faded north of the Triangle, with 42 people on board.
November 9, 1956 : Martin P5M patrol amphibious aircraft, of the Navy; He disappeared with his ten crew members near Bermuda.
January 8, 1962 : KB-50 airliner, of the Air Force; He was going from Langley Field in Virginia to the Azores.
August 28, 1963 : two four-engine Stratotankers KC-135 of the Air Force, new; they went from Homestead base, of the Air Force, in Florida, to a secret refueling radius in the Atlantic; they disappeared 480 km southwest of Bermuda.
June 5, 1965 : Flying Boxear C-119; with ten passengers on board; It was lost to the southwest of the Bahamas.
April 5, 1956 : B-25 transformed into civil freighter, with four passengers; It was lost in the Gulf Stream, between Palm Beach and the Grand Bahama.
January 11, 1957 : Chase YC-122, transformed into freighter, with four people on board; lost in the Gulf Stream, between Palm Beach and the Grand Bahama.
September 22, 1963 : Cargomaster C-132, disappeared en route to the Azores.
Main ships missing or found adrift in the Triangle area
1840 : Rosalie, a great French ship, was found on her route from Havana to Europe, within the Triangle area, with the sails deployed, the cargo intact and all the missing personnel.
January 1880 : Atalanta, a British frigate; He left Bermuda to England with 290 people on board; It vanished in a region presumably not far from Bermuda.
October 1902 : Freya, a German ship with three sticks; It was found shortly after leaving Manzanillo, in Cuba, showing a strong inclination to the side, only with a part of its masts and with the anchor hanging; The captain's cabin calendar indicated October 4, the day after his departure.
March 4, 1918 : Cyclops, a supply ship of the United States Navy, 150 meters long and 19, 000 tons of displacement; I was sailing from Barbados to Norfolk with 309 passengers; the weather was good; there were no radio messages nor were wrecks ever found.
1925 : Cotopaxi steam ; It vanished on its route from Charleston to Havana.
April 1932: John and Mary, a two-stick vessel with New York registration; It was found floating but abandoned, 80 km south of Bermuda, with the sails folded and the newly painted hull.
February 1940 : the yacht Gloria Colite, from Saint Vincent, British Antilles; He was found abandoned, with all its elements in order, 320 km south of Mobile, Atlanta.
October 22, 1944 : Rubicán, a Cuban freighter; He was found by the Coast Guard in the Gulf Stream, off the coast of Florida; It was desert, except for the presence of a dog.
June 1950 : Sandra, a 106-meter cargo steamer that was heading from Savannah, Georgia, to Puerto Cabello, in Venezuela; it carried a load of 300 tons of insecticide; St. Augustine passed in Florida, and then disappeared without a trace.
September 1955 : Cannemara IV, a yacht; It appeared mysteriously abandoned, 640 km southwest of Bermuda.
February 2, 1963 : Marine Sulfur Queen, a 130-meter freighter; disappeared without sending any message and without being able to find any clue about what happened; no wreck was found; He was en route to Norfolk, Virginia, from Beaumont, Texas, with full crew; The last time he heard about him was near Dry Turtles.
July 1, 1963 : Sno 'Boy, a 20-meter fishing boat with 40 people on board; I was sailing from Kingston, Jamaica, to Northeast Cay, 128 km south; He disappeared with all his men.
1924 : Raifuku Maru, a Japanese freighter; He sent a radio message asking for help between the Bahamas and Cuba, and then disappeared.
1931 : Stavenger, a freighter with a crew of 43 men; The last time he heard about it was near Cat Island in the Bahamas.
March 1938 : Anglo-Australian, a freighter with a crew of 39 men; his last message, received from the Azores, said: "All good."
December 1967 : Revonoc, a 15-meter racing yacht. He disappeared while in sight of the earth.
December 24, 1967 : Witchcraft, cruise ship; the owner and a passenger disappeared while the ship was tied to a buoy in the harbor, 1, 600 meters from Miami.
April 1970: Milton latrides, a freighter that was traveling from New Orleans to Capetown.
March 1973 : Anita, a 20, 000-ton freighter, with 32 crew, sailing from Newport News to Germany.
Looking for a logical explanation
The eagerness to minimize the impact of the Bermuda Triangle, or even to deny its existence, has made it asserted on some occasions that there is no such mystery, since ships and airplanes usually disappear throughout the world. If a triangle were projected on any area of important sea routes, the result would be a disturbing incidence of losses, if we made the triangle wide enough. In addition, the ocean is huge, the boats are relatively small and the waters are in perpetual motion, both on the surface and in the underwater currents. There are boats and small planes that have been lost between the Bahamas and Florida, where the The Gulf Stream flows northward to more than four knots, and then they have appeared so far from the point where they were last seen, that they have been taken for granted. However, the speed of this current is known by the Coast Guard, whose search and rescue missions take it into account, as do the deviations due to the winds, when they track the approximate area of the disappearance of a ship. When you start a search, you immediately establish a circular tracking radius that covers 8 kilometers if it is a large ship, 16 in the case of an airplane, and 24 in the case of a smaller vessel. Next, other radios are determined that cover the first one, according to the currents, the winds and the direction or direction of the ship.
In addition, some ships have sunk to reappear later in another place, as happened with A. Ernest Miles , who was shipwrecked with a load of salt off the coast of Carolina. When the salt dissolved, the ghost ship returned to the surface and was immediately recovered. The Dahama , another lost ship, or ghost, which resurfaced from the bottom of the sea, is frequently mentioned in relation to the Triangle. He was taken down in April 1935 and his passengers were rescued by Rex steam . However, shortly after the Aztec He found it adrift in front of Bermuda . The Aztec crew He did not know that he had sunk before, nor that his passengers had been rescued, and they believed that the Dahama was a lost ship until the news of the Rex arrived , back at its port in Italy.
However, the way the ship returned to the surface is still a mystery.
When considering the hundreds of disappearances of the Bermuda Triangle, it is noted that the only feature they have in common is the fact that airplanes and ships have disappeared completely, or that ships have been found without passengers or crews . Some of these mysterious cases have occurred in isolation and could be explained by the extraordinary circumstances in which they occurred, or by the coincidence of human failures and meteorological disorders, but instead, as many incidents of the Bermuda Triangle have occurred in the midst of transparent waters, near ports, beaches or landing bases, which are incomprehensible, according to our current knowledge.
The history of the Bermuda Triangle encompasses events that are already mired in the haze of ancient and modern legends; Unexplained aberrations caused by seemingly intermittent natural forces, and theories of the field of physics that could revolutionize our previous conceptions. The Bermuda Triangle makes us think of lost or submerged lands such as Atlantis, forgotten civilizations such as Hyperborean loss, and beings that have visited Earth for centuries, coming from inner or outer space, and whose origin and purposes are unknown .
Instead of developing theories to explain what currently has no explanation, it is perhaps easier to say that the Bermuda Triangle exists only in the imagination of mystics, fanatics, superstitious and sensationalists. It has been said that: " Those who believe in the Bermuda Triangle also believe in sea snakes ... ".
But the seeker of the Truth knows that it cannot be affirmed that the Triangle does not exist because marine snakes do not exist either, nor that if one of those monsters were definitively identified, the other oceanic legends would automatically become more plausible. .
In general, people tend to be reluctant to face mysteries that cannot be explained satisfactorily or that do not find a theoretical justification in terms that are understandable. It is much more comforting to feel able to recognize what we have in front of us, within the radius of the physical world, than to face an unknown threat. If the phenomenon cannot be explained, the best answer is to ignore it, which is a much more reassuring and, in a way, more innocent attitude as well. However, the era of scientific innocence has passed, as well as the sense of security it gave us. They were finally over on July 16, 1945, in Alamogordo, New Mexico, when atomic theory conclusively proved that it was no longer a theory.
We live in a world in which the lines of science and patience begin to converge ; a world that was once magical and in which the dreams of magicians have been accepted by science and have become acceptable for scientific nomenclature . Now biologists can produce life; Biologists who are experts in hibernation will soon be able to preserve human life indefinitely, by freezing living bodies; the possibility of transmitting the thought images to films has been demonstrated; Psychokinesis (or telekinesis), which consists of moving objects through the force of will, is no longer a subject of levitation, but the object of serious scientific research; The two space powers are conducting experiments with telepathy, to and from outer space. The transmutation of matter, the alchemists' dream, is no longer impossible, and the only impediments to transforming quantities of lead into gold are that it would be too expensive.
Speaking already in cosmic terms, the firmament of scientific truths has suffered such cracks, that many of those who prefer to rely on solid and familiar land feel stunned and disoriented. The possibility of the existence of antimatter, the curvature of space and time, the new concepts about gravity and magnetism, the presumed existence of dark planets in our own solar system, exploding suns, novae and small particles of matter more heavy than an entire planet, the quasar and the black holes of space, an endless Universe, which grows larger the longer our telescopic vision extends, leading us to millions of undiscovered galaxies. These are the mysteries of knowledge that await us, as we move forward at such a rapid pace that no "mystery" should surprise us by the mere fact that it does not seem logical.
The Bermuda Triangle, an area located within the familiar territory of our planet, although perhaps related to forces that still (and perhaps not for a long time) are unknown, could be one of those mysteries. As a species, we are approaching the Truth . We cannot abandon the search for new knowledge or explanations, whether in this world or beyond it.
SOURCE: "The Bermuda Triangle" and "Without a Trace" by Charles Berlitz
