The Mystery Of Bermuda Triangle's Deadly Secret: What Happened To The Navy Ship USS Cyclops?

Some of the world's most famous unsolved disappearances have happened in the mysterious Bermuda Triangle, but none are as baffling as the unexplained vanishing of the USS Cyclops. In 1918, the USS Cyclops set sail from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to Baltimore, USA, making a brief stop in Barbados. After the vessel departed from Barbados on March 4th with 309 people on board, both the ship and its crew were never seen again. To this day, not a single piece debris from the ship has been found. So, how exactly did the massive USS Cyclops disappear without a trace? Let's go back in time and discover what happened. Built in 1910, the USS Cyclops was known as the largest collier in the US Navy. Colliers were coal-carrying ships that were used to transport the coal used for fuel to other ships. At around 540 feet long and 65 feet wide, the Cyclops was so big that it was the size of one and a half football fields. The massive steel-hulled collier was appropriately named the Cyclops, after the fabled one-eyed giants of Greek mythology. In April of 1917, the US entered World War I and the Cyclops was commissioned on May 1st, 1917, to join the US war effort. During the war, the ship was used to transport troops and resources, and help refuel warships of the Allied forces. On its last trip, the USS Cyclops left Rio de Janeiro loaded with between 10,000 to 11,000 tons- the exact tonnage is disputed- of manganese ore, a much heavier and denser cargo than it usually had to carry. Some port officials in Rio at the time believed the ship had exceeded its carrying capacity and appeared overloaded. It's also important to note that the crew had no familiarity with the ore, as this was the first time the USS Cyclops was carrying such cargo. Before the ship left Rio on February 15th, the ship's commanding officer reported that the starboard engine appeared to have a cracked cylinder and could no longer function. This reduced the speed and performance of the USS Cyclops from an average maximum speed of 15 knots to about 10 knots. A survey board that inspected the ship agreed with the commander's observation about the engine, and recommended that the Cyclops return to the US for repairs. So, the ship departed, making another stop in Bahia before leaving Brazil. Today, the Navy believes that there were 309 people on board, though contemporary accounts of the ship's disappearance list 293 people on board, including 15 officers, 221 crewmen, and 57 passengers. The passenger list included prominent figures such as Alfred L.M. Gottschalk, the American Consul General at Rio de Janeiro, who was returning to the US after a long-term post abroad. Though the USS Cyclops was supposed to head straight to Baltimore, the ship made an unscheduled stop in Barbados on March 3rd to resupply. To this day, it's still somewhat unclear why the ship made this stop, as the Cyclops should have had enough supplies to continue to Baltimore. Some think the captain was worried about the ship's cargo. A few inspectors in Barbados stated that the cargo wasn't stowed correctly. Instead of being level, it was piled up higher in the middle, rather than spread out evenly. Additionally, the water was over the ship's plimsoll mark, a line on the ship's side which indicates the legal limit of submersion, meaning the ship was overloaded. The USS Cyclops left Barbados the next day, March 4th, and was supposed to arrive at the port of Baltimore a week and a half later on March 13th. After sending out a transmission of weather fair all well just after clearing the port of Barbados, the USS Cyclops seemingly vanished, never to be heard from again. In the days after the ship disappeared, hundreds of American ships nearby made repeated radio calls to the USS Cyclops to try to establish its whereabouts. All the calls went unanswered. As the days passed, publications immediately started throwing around theories about the Cyclops' disappearance, and what might have caused it. Did a freak storm sink the enormous collier? Or did an enemy German U-boat torpedo the USS Cyclops and send it to a watery grave? Multiple magazines at the time, including Literary Digest, even suggested that a giant octopus might have risen from the sea, entwined the ship with its tentacles, and dragged it down to the bottom. Perhaps understandably, the Navy spent little time investigating this last theory, much to the relief of Cthulhu. What was the actual fate of the Cyclops? Could a simple tropical storm have sunk the ship? After all, one of the reasons the Bermuda Triangle has so many disappearances is because the weather in the area is notoriously unpredictable, and storms can become very violent, very fast. Most experts believe that the storm theory doesn't hold water- pun very much intended- because the Cyclops made no distress calls, and there were no major storms reported in the area at the time of its disappearance. Others point out that there are smaller thunderstorms, known as mesometeorological storms, that are unpredictable and hard to identify, especially with 1918 technology. Storms like those can start at sea and completely dissipate before they ever approach land. According to meteorologists like Joanne Simpson, these storms form very quickly, especially over the Gulf Stream, which happens to travel right through the Bermuda Triangle, and they may just last a few minutes before vanishing. However, while the thunderstorms are brewing, they are particularly violent, causing giant, chaotic waves to form that put any nearby ships in danger. The lack of any distress call might be explained by these storms, as they sometimes also cause electrical disturbances that interfere with communication systems such as the radio transmission on the USS Cyclops. Without any thunderstorms definitively identified in the area, however, this theory remains just that, a theory. How about the Germans? Is it possible that they sunk the ship? The USS Cyclops was a great asset to the Navy during World War I, and it would have made an excellent target for Germany. However, there was no evidence that any German submarines were in the area of the Bermuda Triangle at the time. Furthermore, no proof has ever emerged that Germany was involved, even after US forces intercepted German communications and acquired German military intelligence. This makes it seem highly unlikely that a German military attack took down the USS Cyclops. However, part of the reason the theory about Germany destroying or capturing the Cyclops persisted is because of the ship's captain, Lieutenant Commander George W. Worley. Despite his English-sounding name, Worley was born in Germany as Johann Friedrich Weichmann, and changed his name after moving to the United States. Reports came out that some crew members referred to Worley as Damned Dutchman, a derogatory reference to his German heritage as the word Deutsch, meaning German, was confused with Dutch. Even while he commanded US naval ships, some thought he might have supported Germany during the war and turned over the Cyclops to the Germans. However, as with the theory of Germans destroying the USS Cyclops, this seems unlikely. The US military combed through German records after Germany was defeated in World War I, and no record of the Cyclops being captured or Worley working as a double agent was ever found. Even though Worley most likely wasn't some sort of German 007, the captain had other problems that attracted investigators' attention. At some point shortly before the ship vanished, there were unconfirmed reports of a mutiny against Captain Worley. Crew members allegedly accused him of being a drunk and completely unsuitable to steer the ship, both pretty undesirable traits in a sea captain. Several books and articles have described the captain as a strange character who had a habit of pacing the quarter deck wearing just a hat, a cane, and his underwear. After the alleged attempted takeover of the ship by the crew, Captain Worley was said to have reacted harshly, imprisoning the mutineers and even executing one. It's unclear whether he dressed up for the occasion or gave out the execution orders in his hat and underwear. In a letter to the State Department after the USS Cyclops' disappearance, even the U.S. Consul in Barbados said that the rest of the officers on the ship seemed to deeply dislike the captain. Offering their own theory on the disappearance, the consul wrote, "...while not having any definitive grounds, I fear fate worse than sinking, though possibly based on instinctive dislike felt toward the master." In addition to the consul, many other sources suspected a mutiny on the ship during the time of its disappearance. They assumed the crew of the USS Cyclops, tired of their captain's strange behavior and harsh punishments, decided to seize control of the ship. However, even if a mutiny occurred and the crew were able to take control, it still doesn't explain why the ship was never seen again. The fugitive crew would still have had to dock somewhere, and no records exist of a stolen U.S. naval ship showing up anywhere. There is also the possibility that the USS Cyclops' disappearance stems from a flaw in the ship's design. Some naval experts believe that the fate of the two Cyclops' sister ships provide the most support for the design flaw theory. The USS Cyclops had three sister ships, the USS Jupiter, the USS Nereus, and the USS Proteus. Sister ships are the ships of the same class that are built following almost identical designs, so if there was a structural flaw in the design of the Cyclops, there would likely be one in its sisters as well. The USS Jupiter was sunk by a Japanese aircraft in World War II, so the cause of its demise is known, but the other two ships suffered similar fates as the USS Cyclops, albeit decades later, both vanishing somewhat mysteriously in the Bermuda Triangle in 1941. At the time, U.S. Navy Admiral George Van Doors thought the ship might have sunk because their design was incompatible with their cargo. Both ships, like the USS Cyclops, were designed to carry coal, yet while they vanished again like the USS Cyclops, both the Nereus and the Proteus were carrying ore, though it was bauxite instead of manganese ore. Some thought this cargo might have weakened the ship's structures. Additionally, Van Doors believed that support beams of the ship might have been eroded after years of carrying acidic coal, exacerbating any weaknesses in the design. No matter what happened to the USS Cyclops, one of the most perplexing pieces of the puzzle is the lack of any debris or trace of the ship's wreckage, even decades after its disappearance. Thanks to better technology and search tactics, more historical shipwrecks are being discovered year after year, yet the USS Cyclops still evades detection. Some scientists think it's possible the Cyclops disappeared in the Puerto Rico Trench, which is the deepest point of the Atlantic Ocean. Located at the southern tip of the Bermuda Triangle, the trench reaches down to 27,500 feet below sea level at its deepest point, just 1,500 feet shy of the height of Mount Everest. Shipwreck aficionados believe that not only the USS Cyclops, but many other shipwrecks have been lost in time to this deep sea trench. However, because the exact day and time of the Cyclops' disappearance is uncertain, Navy investigators aren't sure if the wreck is actually in the trench or someplace else along the Atlantic coast. Relatives of the 309 people lost on the USS Cyclops are still searching for answers to this day. They are hopeful that the Cyclops will turn up as search technology continues to improve, and give them some answers for what happened to their relatives over a century ago. In fact, in the 1960s, an experienced Navy diver named Dean Hawes stumbled upon a massive wreck off the coast of Cape Charles, Virginia. Hawes was reportedly stunned by the enormous size of his find, and claims to have seen, among other things, a bridge on steel stilts while exploring the wreck, which is consistent with the design of the Cyclops. He surfaced with the hope of going back down and re-examining the wreck along with his dive team, but bad weather forced the crew to abandon the area and sail back to shore. After a few years, Hawes happened to read an article about the USS Cyclops, and recognized the ship in the photo as the wreck he had found off the coast of Virginia. Excited by his discovery, Hawes convinced the Navy to lead another investigation at the site of the shipwreck he had found all those years ago. Unfortunately, a follow-up search of the area turned up a different wreck altogether, and no evidence of the USS Cyclops was found. There are also some, like astronaut Gordon Cooper and treasure hunter Daryl Miklos from the Discovery Channel, who believe that aliens may be abducting ships in the Bermuda Triangle. Using maps of the earth drawn from space that his friend Cooper gave him, Miklos found a giant submerged object in the Triangle's waters in 2018, which he couldn't definitively identify as a shipwreck or a natural formation. He believes it may be an alien craft. In Miklos' view, the Bermuda Triangle is an alien abduction hotspot, which explains why ships like the USS Cyclops go missing. What happened to the USS Cyclops remains a mystery for now. However, regardless of the reason for the ship's sinking, the disappearance of the Cyclops was undoubtedly a huge tragedy. According to the U.S. Naval Institute, it remains the largest loss of life for the U.S. Navy in peacetime. So, did the USS Cyclops meet a similar fate of that of her sisters due to a major design flaw, or perhaps the answer lies in some combination of the different theories around the ship's disappearance. Maybe a mutinous crew, weakened structures, an overload of dangerous dense ore, and a freak thunderstorm all coincided and proved fatal for the USS Cyclops and its passengers. We won't know for sure, but we'd love to know what you think. And now we've got something else for you to do. Choose one of these two videos. This one is incredibly interesting, while this one is entertaining. You can't lose! So go, click now, before it's too late!