Bermuda Triangle-An unsolved puzzle

The Mystery Of Bermuda Triangle
You won't find it on any official map and you won't know when you cross the line, but according to some people, the Bermuda Triangle is a very real place where dozen of ships, planes and people have disappeared with no good explanation. 

Many think of the Bermuda Triangle, also known as the Devil's Triangle, as an "imaginary" area. The U. S. Board of Geographic Names does not recognize the Bermuda Triangle and does not maintain an official file on it. However, within this imaginary area, many real vessels and the people aboard them have seemingly disappeared without explanation.

The Bermuda Triangle is located off the Southeastern coast of the United States in the Atlantic Ocean, with its apexes in the vicinities of Bermuda, Miami, Florida, and San Juan, Puerto Rico. It covers roughly 500,000 square miles.

Over the past 100 years, the Bermuda Triangle has seen what some say is a significant and inordinately high number of unexplained disappearances of planes, ships and people. Some reports say that as many as 100 ships and planes have been reported missing in the area and more than 1,000 lives have been lost.

The mystery of the Triangle probably took hold with the first well-publicized disappearance in 1945, when five Navy Avengers disappeared in the area. The cause of the disappearance was originally "pilot error," but family members of the pilot leading the mission couldn't accept that he had made such a mistake. Eventually they convinced the Navy to change it to "causes or reasons unknown."

As more incidents occurred, the reputation grew and past events were reanalyzed and added to the legend. In 1964, "Argosy Magazine" gave the triangle its name in an article titled "The Deadly Bermuda Triangle" by Vincent Gaddis. Argosy magazine's tagline a "magazine of master fiction," but that did nothing to halt the spread of the myth. More articles, books, and movies have appeared, suggesting theories ranging from alien abductions to a giant octopus.

Next, we'll look at some early well-known incidents that have been attributed to the area.

Well-known Disappearances

The U.S.S. Cyclops, 1918

During World War I, the U.S.S. Cyclops served along the eastern coast of the United States until January 9, 1918. At that time, she was assigned to the Naval Overseas Transportation Service. The Cyclops was scheduled to sail to Brazil to refuel British ships in the south Atlantic. She set out from Rio de Janeiro on February 16, and, after a brief stop in Barbados from March 3 to 4, was never seen or heard from again. All 306 passengers and crew were gone without a trace.

The USS Cyclops anchored in the Hudson River on October 3, 1911

U.S. Navy Avengers Flight 19, 1945

The most famous Bermuda Triangle story is the mystery surrounding five missing Navy Avengers in 1945. The story of Flight 19 is usually summarized this way: a routine patrol set out on a sunny day with five highly experienced student pilots. Suddenly, the tower began receiving transmissions from the flight leader that they were lost, compasses were not working, and "everything looked wrong." They were never seen again, and extensive Navy investigations turned up no clues to explain the disappearance.

A U.S. Navy Grumman TBF Avenger

More Disappearances

DC-3 Flight NC-16002, 1948

On December 28, 1948, Captain Robert Lindquist of flight NC-16002 was piloting DC-3 commercial flight NC-16002 from San Juan, Puerto Rico to Miami, Florida. He radioed Miami when they were 50 miles away and requested landing instructions. Miami radioed back with the instructions, but got no reply. The plane never arrived and was never heard from again.

A Douglas DC-3, the same model that disappeared over the Bermuda Triangle in 1948

Farfetched Theories

Aliens and Atlantis

As an area with one of the highest incidences of UFO sightings, it's no wonder that alien abductions have been a popular explanation for disappearances in the Bermuda Triangle. But abductions aren't the only theory; some also have theorized that the Bermuda Triangle area is a portal to other planets. But why this area?

            The "Bimini Road," or the "Atlantis Stones," a rock formation off the coast of Bimini Island in the Bahamas.

Many believe that the Bermuda Triangle area is home to the lost city of Atlantis and remnants of its advanced technologies. Famous psychic Edgar Cayce said that Atlantis had many modern-day technologies, including a death ray weapon, which he claims ultimately destroyed the city. Some even say that the people who lived there were an alien race from the Pleiades star cluster.

Cayce had predicted that researchers would discover the western edge of Atlantis near the coast of Bimini, in the Bahamas, and they did find a "road" of stones there in 1968. The initial researchers and archeologists who studied the site, known as the "Bimini Road," immediately regarded it as naturally occurring. Recent investigations, however, have found evidence that appears to support the idea that the stones were shaped and placed there as a wall. The additional finding of a possible underwater city near Cuba adds fuel to the fire for those supporting the Atlantis idea.

According to legend and speculation, the city of Atlantis relied on the power of special energy crystals that were extremely powerful. Cayce supported this idea, and the discovery of a great underwater pyramid and crystal by Dr. Ray Brown in 1970 reinforced it. Brown was scuba diving in the Bahamas when he claims to have found a large pyramid made of mirror-like stone. He entered the pyramid and saw a brassy metallic rod with a multi-faceted red gem hanging from the apex of the room. Directly below this rod was a stand with bronze hands holding a crystal sphere four inches in diameter. Brown removed the crystal and kept it secret until 1975, when he exhibited it at a psychic seminar in Phoenix, Arizona. He reported that when gazing into the crystal form, you can see three pyramidal images, one in front of the other with each decreasing in size. Some people have seen a fourth pyramid in front of the other three after entering into deep meditative states.

Plausible Theories

Weather Patterns and Topography

The area is subject to violent and unexpected storms and weather changes. These short but intense storms can build up quickly, dissipate quickly, and go undetected by satellite surveillance. Waterspouts that could easily destroy a passing plane or ship are also not uncommon. A waterspout is simply a tornado at sea that pulls water from the ocean surface thousands of feet into the sky. Other possible environmental effects include underwater earthquakes, as scientists have found a great deal of seismic activity in the area. Scientists have also spotted freak waves up to 100 feet high.

Sea surface roughness in the Gulf Stream, captured by NASA's Terra satellite

The underwater topography of the area may also be a factor. It goes from a gently sloping continental shelf to an extremely deep drop-off. In fact, some of the deepest trenches in the world are found in the area of the Bermuda Triangle. Ships or planes that sink into these deep trenches will probably never be found.

The Gulf Stream, where the Triangle is located, is extremely swift and turbulent. It can pose extreme navigational challenges, especially for inexperienced sailors. The Gulf Stream has been reported to move faster than 5 mph in some areas - more than fast enough to throw sailors hundreds of miles off course if they don't compensate correctly for the current. It can also quickly erase any evidence of a disaster.

Methane Gas Hydrates

This theory appears to hold promise for at least some of the disappearances in the Bermuda Triangle. Scientists at Cardiff University have discovered the presence of large concentrations of methane gas trapped in the ocean floor. This gas is due to dying and decomposing sea organisms. The sediment contains bacteria that produce methane, which accumulates as super concentrated methane ice, calledgas hydrates. The layer of ice traps the methane gas, and scientists are studying it as a potential energy source.

Crystalline methane hydrate deposits

Within seconds of a methane gas pocket rupturing, the gas surges up and erupts on the surface without warning. If a ship is in the area of the blowout, the water beneath it would suddenly become much less dense. The vessel could sink and sediment could quickly cover it as it settles onto the sea floor. Even planes flying overhead could catch fire during such a blowout. Although he doesn't agree with the methane hydrate theory as an explanation for the Bermuda Triangle, Bill Dillon, a research geologist with the United States Geological Survey said that, "On several occasions, oil drilling rigs have sunk as the result of [methane] gas escape."

The Unsolved Mystery

Among many theories proposed, none is reliable. Maybe this is kept secret by government or there is a different world(as suppossed in "Gulliver's Travel"), but there is no reasonable explaination. This Triangle is something whose three ends can't be located yet and no sign in near future.

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