The shroud of mystery surrounding the Bermuda Triangle is an enigma that has fascinated tens of dozens of people – writers and scientists alike – for decades together.

The Bermuda Triangle is also referred to as the, “The Devil’s Triangle.”  It is a region located in the western part of the North Atlantic Ocean. This area has captured the human imagination for decades with its unexplained disappearances of  hundreds of ships, surface vessels, aircraft and people. These mysterious disappearances have been variously attributed to the paranormal and to bizarre theories related to space portals and extraterrestrials/aliens capturing humans for study; the influence of the lost continent, “Atlantis”; vertices that suck objects  into other dimensions and to other whimsical and fantastic ideas. Documented evidence suggests however that several of the cases reported were fake, inaccurately reported or embellished by other authors. The U. S. Board of Geographic Names does not recognize the Bermuda Triangle and does not maintain an official file on it. Neither does the U.S. Coast Guard or Navy recognize the existence of the so-called Bermuda Triangle as a geographic area of specific hazard to ships or planes. They consider it, in fact, as being a mythical geographical area. Over the years, several writers have written copious reviews to assess the cause of the apparent high incidence of  the unexplained losses of ships, small boats and aircraft in these strange seas  – no extraordinary factors were identified however and the casualties were thought to be arising from physical, credible causes.

Does this imply that there is no real truth to the various odd experiences that so many people have reported in this, “imaginary area”? Well, not necessarily. Scientists have documented deviations to the norm in this area and they discovered interesting formations on the sea floor that fall within the boundaries of the Bermuda Triangle.

The area of the Triangle varies from about 500,000 to 1.5 million square miles. It is an area that is so vague and so much in flux that many people have ventured different opinions concerning its coverage. There is no official map to indicate the exact location of the Bermuda Triangle and most people never even know that they have crossed it. Vincent H. Gaddis was the first writer to aptly coin the phrase, “Bermuda Triangle” for this enigmatic region in his article that featured in the, “Argosy” magazine in 1964. This magazine gave the first written account of the boundaries of the Triangle  – its three vertices are in Miami, Florida peninsula; in San Juan, Puerto Rico; and in the mid-Atlantic island of Bermuda. However, even as early as in 1952, George Sands reported a large number of strange accidents in that region, in his report in the “Fate” magazine. This  area consists of one of the most heavily traversed shipping lanes in the world – a huge traffic of ships, cruise ships and pleasure craft ply this stretch to reach ports in North or South America, Europe or the Caribbean Islands. This region is also a large air traffic zone for commercial and private aircraft that are flying towards Florida, the Caribbean and South America from the North

Some explanations for these strange disappearances are attributed to science, if not in evidence. These include oceanic flatulence (methane gas erupting from ocean sediments) and disruptions in geomagnetic lines of flux. Environmental causes could account for many – if not most – of these disappearances. The majority of storms, like the Atlantic tropical storms and hurricanes have claimed several ships, before the times of improved weather forecasting. The Gulf Stream can cause rapid and sometimes violent changes in weather. The large number of islands in the Caribbean Sea create many areas of shallow water that tend to be treacherous to ship navigation. Some evidence also exists that the Bermuda Triangle is a place where a ‘magnetic’ compass sometimes points towards “true” north, as opposed to the “magnetic” north – misguiding ships and planes in this way. The U.S. Navy and U.S. Coast Guard attribute these disappearances to the combined forces of nature and human error and fallibility – all other reasoning is just part and parcel of the most incredulous science fiction. There are no supernatural explanations for the disasters at sea – of that they are certain.

The ocean has always been a fascinating, yet mysterious place for most humans and when foul weather and poor navigation are involved, it can easily become as deadly and forbidding as a lonely graveyard. This is a fact that is known and recognized all over the world. It is believed that the Bermuda Triangle may have been been named after its Bermuda apex – since Bermuda was once known as the “Isle of Devils.” Treacherous reefs surround Bermuda and they have ensnared many a ship sailing too close to its shores. Hundreds of shipwrecks have been reported in the area surrounding it.  Again – 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.

John Wallace Spencer wrote a book, in 1969, called Limbo of the Lost specifically about the Triangle. Later, in 1971, a feature documentary on the subject, The Devil’s Triangle, was released. These, along with the bestseller The Bermuda Triangle, published in 1974, permanently registered the legend of the “Hoodoo Sea” within popular culture.

In 1975, Larry Kusche, a librarian at Arizona State University, reached a totally different conclusion. He published his theory in a book entitled “The Bermuda Triangle Mystery-Solved“.  Kusche discovered that the accidents that were reported as being so strange, by so many writers, were not so strange, after all. These authors had written that ships or planes had disappeared, without a trace,  whilst in ‘calm seas’ but the real record showed that a vicious storm had raged at that time. The remains of ships that were labeled as having ‘mysteriously vanished’ had actually been found and the cause of their sinking had been explained. In another case, a ship listed missing in the Triangle, actually had disappeared in the Pacific Ocean some 3,000 miles away! It had been inaccurately reported by the author due to some misunderstanding on his part. It shows how writers and journalists can and will promote any amount of sensationalism to make their story sell.

In retrospect, despite the fact that dozens of cases of  unexplained disappearances of ships, aircraft and people have been reported in this region, there is still a reasonable and plausible explanation to each of these odd experiences. It does seem that the Bermuda Triangle is not as mysterious, as it is made out to be, now is it?

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