The Weather In the Triangle

It's no accident that many ships, especially before the 1950s, sunk in that area.

The reason can be found in the weather patterns that affect that area. A perfect example of the volatile weather in that area came in the form of Hurricane Andrew. This devastating hurricane passed right through the heart of the Bermuda Triangle, and caused incredible amounts of damage in the northernmost Bahamas, and also in south Florida.

Many other devastating hurricanes have passed through this area over the past 30 years, and have caused several ships to sink, even in modern times.

Storm systems exiting the United States usually strengthen in the Bermuda Triangle during the fall and winter because the very warm water in that area helps to develop those storms very quickly and sometimes without warning.

The legend of the Bermuda Triangle actually started in the 1500s during the height of trading between Spain and the Americas.

The peak trading season was between June and October, which is also during Hurricane Season in the Atlantic Ocean. Many ships, loaded with gold and jewels for Spain, would set out into the Bermuda Triangle, and would either never return, or would arrive in Spain badly mauled by terrible storms, which the people on the ships claimed were attacked by sea monsters.

Actually, many of the ships sunk because the captains had no idea how powerful hurricanes could be, or how quickly storms could develop in that area. Today, with weather satellites, advanced radar, reconnaissance planes, and other observation methods, hurricanes and other storms are much more detectable and predictable.

Ships can be turned away from them before they get into trouble.
 

BERMUDA TRIANGLE

This area extends from Bermuda to the Southern tip of Florida, through the Bahamas past Puerto Rico, and then back to Bermuda.

Is best known for over 100 airplane disappearances and over 1000 lives lost since 1945. Critics argue that sea piracy or bad weather is often to blame; however not allot of bodies or debris has been recovered.

Some of the more interesting aspects of this area include: great ocean trenches of up to seven miles in depth, violent storms and hurricanes, unpredictable tidal like waves on calm seas generated by underground earthquakes, curious false bottom readings, and glowing streaks of luminescent fish or minerals. One general and common distress message which has been received during loss of ships and planes has been the reported observation of a spinning compass.

Ivan Sanderson another serious researcher mapped twelve areas on the earth with abnormal electromagnetic aberrations shown by the map below:

The Bermuda Triangle is supposedly a "gateway to other dimensions" (Carnegie), but it is not.

The Bermuda Triangle stretches from San Juan, Puerto Rico, to Bermuda, and then to Miami, Florida. It is 14,000 square miles(36,260 square kilometers). Some say that planes, boats, and people have "disappeared."

In fact about 50 people have supposedly "disappeared." Although, most of this can be explained by waterspouts, extreme air turbulence, electromagnetic storms, and powerful ocean currents, there are two major occurrences that started the myth: the major one, Flight 19, and the minor one, Mary Celeste.
 

A Brief History of the Devil's Triangle - Limbo of the Lost - The Twilight Zone - Hoodoo Sea - The Devil's Triangle

The vast three-sided segment of the Atlantic Ocean bordered by Bermuda, Puerto Rico and Fort Lauderdale, Florida, did not receive its most famous nickname until 1964, but reports of bizarre happenings there, or nearby, have been recorded for centuries.

In fact, many claim that Christopher Columbus bore witness to the Bermuda Triangle's weirdness.

As the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria sailed through the area in 1492, it is reported that Columbus's compass went haywire and that he and his crew saw weird lights in the sky, but these events have mundane explanations. From the account in Columbus's journal, it is thought that his compass's slight inaccuracy stemmed from nothing more than the discrepancy between true north and magnetic north.

As for the lights, Columbus wrote of seeing "a great flame of fire" that crashed into the ocean - probably a meteor. He saw lights in the sky again on October 11, which, of course, was the day before his famous landing.

The lights, brief flashes near the horizon, were spotted in the area where dry land turned out to be.

Supposedly five Navy Avengers and one Martin Mariner flight-bo disappeared without a trace. After that people started to blame the Bermuda Triangle, thinking,

"Twenty-seven men lost in the Bermuda Triangle. This cannot be a coincidence. Also, isn't that the place where Mary Celeste was abandoned. This is weird."

So, that is mainly how the rumor got started. In fact, the Martin Mariner flight-bo was never lost.

It actually blew up 23 minutes after it took off, but still, they sent some more planes out to look for them.

Now here is some more about the myth. Supposedly, all the pilots were experienced. It was a "clear" day when Flight 19 took off. Their route was "160 miles east, 40 miles north, and 120 miles straight." Each plane took three people, but one person did not come. There were five planes. Five times three equals fifteen, minus one equals fourteen men. Twenty-seven minus fourteen equals thirteen. That means that about thirteen men went searching for fourteen men, and never came back, or so we think.

Here are some more facts. Lt. Charles Taylor was the Patrol leader of Flight 19.

He was the only experienced pilot on the flight. He was leading the flight, and also had a hangover. So, when his compass went out, he thought he would fly by "Pilotage," and "dead reckoning." Later he thought he saw the Florida Keys, but it was actually an island of the Bahamas. So, then he flew north. It was raining, and after an hour he said to fly east. He had though that they were above the Gulf of Mexico, but they were heading to a very deep part of the Atlantic Ocean. Taylor also refused to switch to an emergency radio channel.

By now the rain had turned into a huge storm. The planes could float for two minutes, if you had a perfect landing. You might even be able to get out of the planes, but that is only if the sea is calm.

Flight 19 probably sank over the Continental Shelf, which is over thousands of feet deep. It is very hard to find practically anything in that water.
 

Mary Celeste

Mary Celeste was a boat from the 1870's. It was abandoned, and no one, even to this day, knows why.

It is supposed that the captain thought that there was going to be a huge storm, launched the lifeboat, and left. It supposedly was in the Bermuda Triangle, but it really was not anywhere near the Bermuda Triangle.

It has been over 100 years, and still no one knows why, they just guess.
 

Other Disappearances

1609: mate Henry Ravens sailed in a long boat with a volunteer crew of 7 men. never made it to his destination

1812: the ship Patriot and its main passenger Theodosia Burr Alston, wife of the Governor Joseph Alston of South Carolina and daughter of the Former Vice President Aaron Burr.

1814: US Navy vessel the Wasp, commanded by Johnston Blakely.

1918: The USS Cyclops, captained by the eccentric Lieutenant Commander George W. Worley who frequented the bridge of the ship wearing long underwear and a bowler hat, left Barbados on March 4, 1918 to Baltimore. On March 13, when the ship was long overdue, a massive search ensued but no trace of the largest ship in the Navy or the 300 people on board were ever found.

1941: In late November and early December 1941, two the USS Cyclops's sister ships, Proteus and Nereus both vanished on separate runs from the Virgin Islands to the USA.

1945- Flight 19, 5 Navy Torpedo Bombers, 14 crewmen disappeared without a trace. A rescue plane with 13 crewmen was sent out and also disappeared without a trace.

1945: at Cecil Field in Jacksonville, Florida 24 skilled pilots A few hours later 10 planes returned out of the 12.

1947: Army C-45 Superfort vanishes 100 miles off Bermuda.

1948: Four-engined Tudor IV luxury liner lost with 31 lives. On January 30, 1948 the aircraft Star Tiger disappeared without a trace en route to Bermuda with 31 people on board, moments later the pilot radioed to ground crew that they would be shortly arriving on schedule.

1948: DC-3 lost with 32 passengers and crew. On December 28, 1948, a DC-3 carrying 35 people from Puerto Rico also disappeared shortly after the pilot radioed a similar message that it was just 80 km south of Miami.

1949: Second Tudor IV vanishes. Almost to the year, on January 17, 1949, the Star Tiger's sister, the Star Ariel, was about to switch from radio contact with its departure point in Bermuda to radio contact with its destination Jamaica, when it vanished. The pilot had reported perfect weather.

1949: a DC-3 carrying 30 men and women and 2 babies,

1950: Giant US Air Force Globemaster lost.

1950: American freighter, SS Sandra, 350 ft long, sinks without trace. The vessel and her 28-man crew were never heard from again.

1951- C-124 Globemaster with 53 passengers

1952: British York transport plane lost with 33 aboard.

1954: US Navy Lockheed Constellation vanishes with 42 aboard.

1956: US Navy seaplane, Martin P5M, disappears with crew of ten.

1962: US Air Force KB-50 tanker plane lost. A giant air force tanker took off from Langley Air Force Base in Virginia and never came back.

1963: Marine Sulphur Queen, 425-ft-long American freighter, vanishes with entire crew. No Mayday signals and no wreckage ever found. Two US Air Force giant stratotankers disappear on simple exercise. She routinely radioed her position and was not heard from again. Only one life jacket was found from the disappearance. C-132 Cargomaster also vanishes.

1967: Military YC-122, converted to cargo plane, lost.

1970: French freighter Milton Iatrides disappears.

1972: German freighter Anita, 20,000 tons, lost with crew of 32.

1973: the 33,000 ton German freighter

* An area called the "Devil's Sea" (below image) by Japanese and Filipino seamen, located off the East Coast of Japan, also exhibits the same magnetic characteristics. It is also known for its mysterious disappearances.

These were just a few of the disappearances that have been reported over the Bermuda Triangle but even if one were to accept the reasonable explanations purported about mutinies and bad weather and accidents and poor navigation, other occurrences in the same region are more hard to explain.

For instance, a National Airlines 727 passenger flight disappeared from radar screens at Miami International Airport for 10 minutes. On arrival the crew denied that anything odd had happened to them except that they had flown through a light fog for 10 minutes. All the timepieces on the plane were ten minutes slow though they had matched up in a time check with the airport shortly before their disappearance.

Several other pilots have related experiences of gaining impossible time after flying through sudden hazes.

Which of course, gives rise to other explanations, and ones that might better explain the Bermuda Triangle mystery, even if they go contrary to the natural laws of physics. That of an aberrant energy field that creates time warps or gaps. Another case that strengthens this theory is of a less fortunate pilot called Carolyn Casico and her passenger. Carolyn, a licensed pilot, took a charter flight to Turk Island in the Bermuda triangle.

As she approached the island, ground staff saw her circling aimlessly.

The airport manager received no response to radio contact, when he heard her exchange words with her passenger.

"I can’t understand it. This should be Grand Turk but there is nothing there. It’s the right place on the map, the shape is right, but this island looks uninhabited - no buildings... roads ...nothing”.

After a few more circles, she turned back and flew away. Carolyn and her passenger were never seen or heard from again ......

Also known as the "Devil's Triangle", this unexplained phenomena has provided an ample battlefield for a fierce controversy that has raged since the early 60's.

First reported as an AP dispatch in 1950 by E.V.W. Jones as a side note to the many ships lost in the area, and reiterated two years later in an Fate magazine article, by George X. Sand. Books on UFOs in the late 50's also spoke of the triangle, suggesting that it was alien in nature.

The term "Bermuda Triangle" was not coined until 1964, when it was brought to light as "The Deadly Bermuda Triangle", an article in Argosy magazine by Vincent H. Gaddis.

Bermuda Triangle fever peaked in 1974, with a number of books (mostly just re-written versions of the older books) getting national press.

Some believe that the Bermuda Triangle Phenomena is caused by the Lost City of Atlantis, sunk thousands of feet below the water's surface. The advanced state of Atlantis at the time of it's submersion, relied on the power of energy crystals. It is possible that these crystals are still at the bottom of the ocean, in a somewhat altered state, sending out rays of energy that either confuses the instrumentation of vehicles, or disintegrates them all together.

Lastly, many believe the Bermuda Triangle to be a man-made energy field using Tesla based technologies.

A VLF-Resonance transmitter (a technology many believe to be in use by the North American Air Defense Command, or NORAD) would have an antipode directly in the middle of the Bermuda Triangle.

This hypothetical system would be capable of recharging speculated secret electric-powered submarine classes, and would definitely provide enough interference to scramble signals that airplanes and boats rely upon.
 

The Lost Blue Hole

Perhaps the most unusual dive site in the Bahamas, this natural hole extends about 100' across, drops to about 200', with its perimeter, dotted with isolated coral heads, starting at a depth of 40'.

Most shops permit a maximum 80' depth. Along the perimeter divers may see large schools of reef fish, including Chromis, Angelfish, and Sergeant Majors, each circling around each coral head.

Also found nearby will be large Groupers, giant Southern Stingray, eels and numerous sharks.

Nearby are these:

• The Shark Buoy / Deer Island Buoy - used by the U.S. Navy for submarine exercises, tethered in 6,000 feet of water. Its mass floating on the surface attracts a wide variety of pelagic marine life such as Dolphinfish, jacks, Rainbow Runner, and Silky Sharks. Visibility usually in excess of 150 feet, offering great u/w photography.
   

• The Vulcan Bomber - used in "Thunderball", is now a simple framework draped with a kaleidoscope of colorful gorgonians and sponges.
   

• Tears of Allah - wrecked freighter where James Bond eluded the Tiger Shark in "Never Say Never, Again"; sits in 40 feet of water; good u/w photography site.
   

• Tunnel Wall - network of crevices and tunnels, starts in 30 feet, exits along the vertical precipice at 70 or 80 feet.

Cay Sal Bank

There are few places in the world that can equal the diving you will find in Cay Sal.

With pristine water and unparalleled wall diving it's no wonder so many people going there every year. Typically these trips last seven days, although six days trips can be arranged.

Upon clearing Bahamian Customs & Immigration in Bimini we journey south, diving as we go. Stopping at sites like Tuna Alley, Victory Reef, Hogfish City and finishing with Wanyes Shark Hole where it is not unusual to find sleeping reef sharks, or a pod of spotted dolphins

The Captains drive late into the night making way to remote Cay Sal. Anchoring at the Blue Hole, starting at 25 to 30 feet deep this hole cuts back then opens into huge bowl which extends beyond sight.

The Red Hole, another dive site, is small enough to swim around and has an interesting cave off to one side. After a day of blue hole diving you head for Elbow Cay. where lush wall dives await you. You will spend the next few days doing wall dives, exploring deserted islands, enjoying super snorkeling with all the swim through and hidden caves.

The Fire Demon is one such cave; viewed at the right time of day pillars of fire appear to dance across the cave floor.

But the walls are why you came. Elephant Rock, Eagle, Last Rock & The Chimney, wall dives that are teaming with marine life. This is no accident; because the gulf stream passes so close by there is a constant supply of fresh water circulating. This clean water also produces 150' plus visibility.

Beginning at 65' these walls then drop off to (???.)

Often you will find the wall to be inverted, so lush is the overgrowth. As you drift along the wall be sure to watch for eagle rays, sharks, tuna or even mammals like ocean dolphins off in the distance. Amongst the coral you will find colorful tropical fish, eels, and huge lobster.

Take time to explore the many chimneys that start at the top of the reef and open somewhere on the wall.

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