Between truth and myth.. The Bermuda Triangle is the most controversial around the world
The Bermuda Triangle has always puzzled scientists and researchers and ignited the imagination of writers who wove countless myths and stories around it. But these myths did not come out of nowhere. In this vast area of the Atlantic Ocean along the southeastern coast of the United States; Ships have sunk never to be found, planes have disappeared from radar screens, and entire rescue teams are said to have drowned in the ocean while flying over the triangle.
Although the number of ships and planes that disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle area is unknown; Most unofficial estimates indicate that about 50 ships and 20 aircraft have disappeared in this region over the past 100 years, with many on board missing.
?Where is the Bermuda Triangle
The Bermuda Triangle occupies a large area of the Atlantic Ocean; Its total area ranges - according to estimates - between one million and 300 thousand square kilometers and between 3 million and 900 thousand square kilometers. It is bounded to the west by the southeastern coast of the United States, to the north by the Bermuda Archipelago and to the south by the Greater Antilles (Cuba, Hispaniola, Jamaica and Puerto Rico). This area takes the form of a strange triangle.
However, there are no official maps defining the boundaries of the area in which the Bermuda Triangle is located, and it has not been recognized as an official area in the Atlantic Ocean.
The Bermuda Triangle extends from the Bermuda archipelago in the north to the United States in the west and Puerto Rico in the south (Getty Images)
Mysterious disappearance in the Bermuda Triangle
Stories of the mysterious disappearance of ships and planes in the Bermuda Triangle go back to the 19th century. In 1880, a training ship sailing from the Bermuda Islands disappeared, as did its crew.
In 1918, a US Navy cargo ship called the USS Cyclops disappeared, and 308 crew members and passengers on board went missing after leaving Barbados. The ship was loaded with thousands of tons of manganese. The strange thing is that the ship and its passengers were not found.
In 1945, a squadron of 5 American "Flight 19" torpedo bombers disappeared while flying over the Bermuda Triangle area, and 14 pilots and assistants on board were lost.
The stories of the mysterious disappearance of ships in the Bermuda Triangle date back to the 19th century (Getty Images)
What added to the mystery was that the PBM Mariner rescue plane - which was sent to search for the five bombers and had 13 people on board - also disappeared over the triangle. US Navy investigators said the cause of the accident was "unknown".
After this incident and until the eighties of the last 20 century, 25 small planes disappeared while flying in the region, and no wreckage of any plane or ship was recovered from the Bermuda Triangle.
Bermuda Triangle..or the Devil's Triangle
Although the stories of mysterious disappearances in the region date back to the middle of the 19th century, the phrase “Bermuda Triangle” was not popular until 1964, when the American writer Vincent Gaddis coined this phrase in an article in the magazine “Argosy”. ), denotes a triangular area in the Atlantic Ocean. Since then, writers have spun conspiracy theories to explain Gaddis's ideas about the pattern of disappearances of ships and planes in the region.
In 1974, the American writer "Richard Winer" published the book "The Devil's Triangle", and the American writer "Charles Berlitz" published the book "The Bermuda Triangle", which was popular. Large, in which Berlitz alleged the involvement of the lost island of Atlantis in the disappearances of ships and planes. This interpretation sparked the imagination of others, who claimed that this imaginary city uses its inhabitants at the bottom of the ocean to "crystal energies" to pull ships and planes to the bottom.
In 1974, the American writer Richard Weiner published the book "The Devil's Triangle" (social networking sites).
Over the years, many conspiracy theories have spread to explain the mystery of the disappearance of ships and planes, such as the theory of the existence of time gates caused by a deviation in the fabric of space-time that may open in this spot, or that there are aliens who have established their bases at the bottom of the ocean.
While Kenneth McAll - psychiatrist and author in his book "Healing the Haunted" - claimed that the Bermuda Triangle area is inhabited by the souls of African slaves who were thrown into the water by sailors on their way to the United States, and that The voices of spirits can be heard while navigating these notorious waters.
Scientific explanations for the phenomenon of the Bermuda Triangle
On the other hand, accepted geological and scientific explanations for the disappearance of planes and ships in this region have also spread, although it was caused by very rare phenomena that only a few know.
methane bubbles
In 2003, scientists from Monash University in Australia demonstrated that huge methane bubbles could sink ships. The researchers built a model of a ship, released gas bubbles, and noticed that the ship lost its balance and sank in the water.
In 2014, a study published in the journal Science in Siberia concluded that methane hydrate releases may explain the disappearance of ships in the Atlantic Ocean. The researchers reported that there are pockets of gas - mainly methane - under the permafrost and some oceans. When the methane snow in the deep ocean turns into a gas, it releases huge bubbles in the air that can affect the water.
Lightning strikes may ignite a huge bubble of methane as it rises to the surface next to a ship or aircraft and cause it to sink. The researchers stated that the transformation of methane snow into gas may cause an explosion similar to a nuclear explosion, and release huge amounts of gas, and this causes the ocean to heat up and ships sink in gas-saturated waters, and this may be accompanied by severe air disturbances due to the saturation of the air with methane, which may lead to the crash of planes.
However, no evidence was found to prove this phenomenon, and scientists have not recorded any methane bubbles of this size in modern history. Evidence suggests that the last breakdown and release of gas from the decomposition of methane hydrates occurred at the end of the Ice Age, about 15,000 years ago, when sea levels were much lower.
rogue waves
There is another common theory that the disappearance of ships in this region is caused by what is called “rogue waves” or killers, which are exceptional, extreme waves that may form without introduction, and the length of one of them may reach 30 meters, and these waves are so strong that they can completely destroy ships and planes.
According to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), these waves are formed when the waves formed by storms collide with the usual waves, and then the waves fuse with each other and form waves like mountains. The Bermuda Triangle is located in an area where storms from different directions converge and the chances of killer waves increase.
The majority of Atlantic storms and hurricanes pass through the Bermuda Triangle, and many ships were destroyed before meteorology developed. The Gulf Stream - a fast warm current that originates in the Gulf of Mexico and extends to the tip of Florida - may cause violent and rapid changes in the weather.
There is evidence that the magnetic needle in the Bermuda Triangle sometimes points to the “terrestrial” north and not the “magnetic” north, and this means that the compass does not point to the exact north in this region.
Hexagonal clouds
In 2016, a team of meteorologists analyzed a picture taken by a NASA satellite, and noticed hexagonal clouds over the western tip of Bermuda, ranging in width from 32 to 88 kilometers, about 240 kilometers from the coast of Florida.
Randy Cerveny - from the University of Arizona - told Science that these clouds are actually "air bombs" that hit the ocean, generating huge waves that soon overlap with each other.
The team observed similar clouds over the North Sea along the coast of the United Kingdom, and noted that they are associated with winds of up to 160 kilometers per hour, and these winds are sufficient to generate waves of more than 14 meters in height.
As for the disappearance of wrecks of ships and planes, finding the wrecks of planes in this region - which embraces the Puerto Rico Trench, the deepest point in the Atlantic Ocean - is not easy. The depth of the water in the trench reaches 9 thousand and 200 meters.
Human errors are not tolerated by the Bermuda Triangle
Perhaps the disappearance of these ships and aircraft in this region is due to “human errors.” The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration stated that the combination of the forces of nature and human error is beyond the imagination of science fiction writers.
A report in the St. Petersburg Times in 1929 stated that the Cyclops was overloaded at the time of World War I.
The report of the investigators into the disappearance of the five US military aircraft squadron “Flight 19” in 1945 indicated that the squadron commander, Charles Taylor, had deluded that the small islands he had seen along the coast were the Florida Keys archipelago after the compass malfunctioned, and he thought that if he headed east he would reach Florida, which led to The five planes kept off land until they ran out of fuel.
After nightfall and bad weather, the five planes plunged into the ocean. Taylor was heard saying, “We are entering white water. Nothing seems right.” The report indicated that Taylor had lost his way twice before in the Pacific Ocean. However, the report concluded that the cause of the accident was unknown, so that Taylor would not be solely responsible for the fall of the five planes.
And when planes fall into the vast ocean, their wreckage is rarely found. A good example of this is the Malaysian Airlines plane that disappeared in 2014. Few of its wreckage have been recovered, despite the great developments in aircraft technology and search and rescue methods. As for the rescue plane that set out to search for the missing planes, eyewitnesses said that they witnessed an explosion and severe storms during the accident.
Debunking conspiracy theories about the Bermuda Triangle
The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration stated that there is no evidence to prove that the mysterious disappearances that occurred in the Bermuda Triangle region exceed those that occurred in any other vast area of the ocean traversed by many ships and planes.
From the mid-1940s to the mid-1980s, more planes crashed over land in the United States than over the Bermuda Triangle, but they are no longer mysterious accidents, because their wreckage has been found.
It should be noted that the Bermuda Triangle is one of the most frequented sea routes in the world. It is logical that more ships were sunk in it than in less frequented roads, as is the case in the Pacific Ocean.
Bermuda is not one of the most dangerous bodies of water
In 2013, the World Wildlife Fund WWF - a non-governmental organization concerned with the conservation of the environment and wildlife - conducted a study on maritime shipping routes, and concluded that the Bermuda Triangle was not among the 10 most dangerous water bodies for shipping ships in the world. .
Larry Kusche - the American writer and researcher, author of the book "The Bermuda Triangle mystery: Solved" - wrote in 1975 that many of the incidents around which myths and stories were woven about the influence of the mysterious Bermuda Triangle occurred in located outside the so-called triangle area.
And the “Lloyd’s” marine insurance market in London and the “US Coast Guard” (USCG) confirmed that many of the ships that allegedly sank in the Bermuda Triangle area did not sink there. Indeed, the number of alleged disappearances in the Triangle is negligible compared to the number of ships and planes that pass through this area regularly.
Marine insurance companies - led by Lloyd's - do not recognize that the Bermuda Triangle is a dangerous place, and do not impose higher insurance premiums on ships passing through the region.
Last year 2020, a team of divers found the wreck of a ship that allegedly disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle in 1925. The team reported that the ship was hit by a strong storm with strong winds near the shallow waters.
Despite the stories and myths that were woven around the area called the “Bermuda Triangle”; Planes are still flying over it, as evidenced by the “Flightradar24” website, which displays the movement of aircraft in the region in an up-to-date manner.
Air traffic controllers back up pilots if the navigation systems fail. In recent years, meteorology has witnessed a great development, which allows forecasting the weather before planes take off to avoid storms and huge waves. Bill Dillon, a geologist from the US Coast Guard, says that the mystery of the Bermuda Triangle is nothing more than a fairy tale.
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