The Strange Truth About The Bermuda Triangle

Stretching from Bermuda to Puerto Rico to Florida, the mysterious patch of the Atlantic Ocean known as the Bermuda Triangle has supposedly swallowed up over a thousand ships and planes since the 17th century. Why exactly do so many people seem to go in, but never come out? Here's a look at the strange truth of the Bermuda Triangle. Mysterious disappearances Exactly how many people have supposedly vanished into the Bermuda Triangle is unclear. Mysterious incidents and disappearances have been plaguing the region for centuries, but it wasn't until the 20th century that people really started noticing the patterns, thanks in part to the publicity surrounding the fate of the USS Cyclops, which left Barbados on March 4, 1918, with 309 souls on board, and was never seen again. The Navy suffered another mysterious loss on December 5, 1945, when a group of planes on a training mission, led by Lieutenant Charles Taylor, flew into the Triangle and never emerged. Taylor ignored pleas from his men to turn back west towards land, and refused to switch on the rescue radio, which would have led them to safety. Compounding the mystery is the fact that a rescue plane sent to locate the missing pilots also vanished into the Triangle and was never seen again. All told, 27 men disappeared, with the Navy Board of Investigation saying, "...we are not able to even make a good guess as to what happened." And the legend of the Triangle grew even more later that decade, with three commercial flights disappearing off the face of the Earth between January 1948 and January 1949, resulting in the loss of 83 people. Since then, numerous small craft have also vanished in the Bermuda Triangle, including a highly publicized incident on May 15, 2017, where four people presumably died when their twin-engine plane crashed on a flight from Puerto Rico to Florida. The legend grows. So how did the Bermuda Triangle become, you know, a thing? According to the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, reporter E.V.W. Jones was the first to write about the phenomenon back in 1950, while the term Bermuda Triangle first appeared in 1964, in a story by writer Vincent Gaddis for Argosy magazine. But it was the 1974 bestseller The Bermuda Triangle by Charles Berlitz that really turned it into a full-fledged phenomenon. In a decade full of mysticism and crazy nonsense, Berlitz's theory that the disappearances were connected to the lost city of Atlantis or UFOs helped propel the Bermuda Triangle into a pop culture happening. And where were these UFOs supposedly coming from? "...from a point much closer to us in our own world, allowing ships from another dimension to slip into the time-warp window suspected of being located in the Triangle." Oh, that explains it. Scientific theories Numerous scientific studies have been conducted in an attempt to discover just what is going on in the Bermuda Triangle, if anything is going on at all. Among the most popular theories are the ideas that methane gas bubbles are capsizing ships and creating turbulent air patterns, or that the warmer waters of the Gulf Stream lead to sudden gigantic rogue waves or dangerous microbursts that could sink ships or crash planes. Another popular theory that has endured for centuries is the idea that a magnetic disturbance in the Bermuda Triangle causes compasses to go haywire, leading pilots to become disoriented. This was actually once true, but according to the Navy, due to fluctuation in the Earth's magnetic field, this has apparently not been the case since the 19th century. Tornadoes, Atlantis, and time portals For every semi-scientific theory about the Bermuda Triangle, there are five more that sound absolutely nuts. Psychic Ed Snedeker, for instance, believes the region is filled with invisible tornadoes, while disciples of writer Charles Berlitz still insist the lost city of Atlantis is down there, filled with powerful energy crystals that destroy any foolish humans who venture too close to the undersea ruins. There are also a few theories suggesting the Bermuda Triangle acts like a doorway into new dimensions. Some say the area opens up into the pits of hell, but according to Ivan T. Sanderson, The Triangle is one of 12 spots around the world known as vile vortices. And then there's Bruce Gurnett, who claims he actually once flew through a space-time wormhole in the Bermuda Triangle that spat him out above Miami, shaving 30 minutes off his flight time. Needless to say, like those actual scientific theories about the Bermuda Triangle, none of these ideas have been proven yet, either. The truth about the Triangle While it's fun to discuss wormholes, microbursts, and Atlantis, the truth behind the Bermuda Triangle is much more shocking. It doesn't actually exist. That's right, the Bermuda Triangle was just an idea invented and propagated by writers like Vincent Gaddis, Charles Berlitz, and others. Actual authorities have investigated and found nothing, like the Coast Guard, which says the Coast Guard does not recognize the existence of the so-called Bermuda Triangle as a geographic area of specific hazard to ships or planes. 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. No extraordinary factors have ever been identified. Really, it all boils down to just one simple fact. The Bermuda Triangle isn't any creepier than anywhere else in the world, it just has a really good PR team. Thanks for watching! 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