THE BERMUDA TRIANGLE

CONTEST: THEORIES

HUMAN ERRORWEATHER

SUPERNATURAL EXPLAINATIONS

The Bermuda Triangle, also known as the Devil's Triangle, is an undefined region in the western part of the North Atlantic Ocean, where a number of aircraft and ships are said to have disappeared under mysterious circumstances. According to the US Navy, the triangle does not exist, and the name is not recognized by the US Board on Geographic Names.[1] Popular culture has attributed various disappearances to the paranormal or activity by extraterrestrial beings.[2] Documented evidence indicates that a significant percentage of the incidents were spurious, inaccurately reported, or embellished by later authors.[3][4][5] In a 2013 study, the World Wide Fund for Nature identified the world’s 10 most dangerous waters for shipping, but the Bermuda Triangle was not among them.[6] Contrary to popular belief, insurance companies do not charge higher premiums for shipping in this area.[3]

INTRODUCTION

THEORYWe've all heard myths about compasses in the Bermuda

Triangle spinning wildly out of control. Legend has held that the Bermuda Triangle is one of only two places on the planet where a compass points true north, as opposed to

the magnetic north.Now, navigators know that a compass must be calibrated

to compensate for the deviation depending on the location on the globe. While the Bermuda Triangle was once, during

the 19th century, a place where a compass pointed true north with no variation, the Earth's magnetic field is

constantly changing, and along with it, compass variations.These days, the Bermuda Triangle does not sit in any kind of strange magnetic area, and pilots and sailors know well to adjust their compasses to compensate for the variation, called declination, between magnetic north and true north.

There are plenty

HISTORYThe earliest allegation of unusual disappearances in the Bermuda

area appeared in a September 17, 1950 article published in The Miami Herald (Associated Press) [8] by Edward Van Winkle

Jones.[9] Two years later, Fate magazine published "Sea Mystery at Our Back Door",[10] a short article by George X. Sand covering the loss of several planes and ships, including the loss of Flight 19

, a group of five U.S. Navy TBM Avenger bombers on a training mission. Sand's article was the first to lay out the now-familiar

triangular area where the losses took place. Flight 19 alone would be covered again in the April 1962 issue of American Legion

magazine.[11] In it, author Allan W. Eckert wrote that the flight leader had been heard saying, "We are entering white water,

nothing seems right. We don't know where we are, the water is green, no white." He also wrote that officials at the Navy board of

inquiry stated that the planes "flew off to Mars."[dubious – discuss] Sand's article was the first to suggest a supernatural element to

the Flight 19 incident

HUMAN ERROROne of the most cited explanations in official inquiries as to the

loss of any aircraft or vessel is human error.[30] Human stubbornness may have caused businessman Harvey Conover to

lose his sailing yacht, the Revonoc, as he sailed into the teeth of a storm south of Florida on January 1, 1958.[31]

Violent weatherTropical cyclones are powerful storms, which form in tropical waters and have historically cost thousands of lives lost and

caused billions of dollars in damage. The sinking of Francisco de Bobadilla's Spanish fleet in 1502 was the first

recorded instance of a destructive hurricane. These storms have in the past caused a number of incidents related to the Triangle.A powerful downdraft of cold air was suspected to be a cause in

the sinking of the Pride of Baltimore on May 14, 1986. The crew of the sunken vessel noted the wind suddenly shifted and increased velocity from 20 mph to 60–90 mph. A National Hurricane Center

satellite specialist, James Lushine, stated "during very unstable weather conditions the downburst of cold air from aloft can hit the

surface like a bomb, exploding outward like a giant squall line of wind and water."[32] A similar event occurred to the Concordia in

2010 off the coast of Brazil.

METHANE HYDRATES

An explanation for some of the disappearances has focused on the presence of large fields of methane

hydrates (a form of natural gas) on the continental shelves.[33] Laboratory experiments carried out in Australia have proven that bubbles can, indeed,

sink a scale model ship by decreasing the density of the water;[34][35][36] any wreckage consequently rising

to the surface would be rapidly dispersed by the Gulf Stream. It has been hypothesized that periodic

methane eruptions (sometimes called "mud volcanoes") may produce regions of frothy water that are no

longer capable of providing adequate buoyancy for ships. If this were the case, such an area forming

around a ship could cause it to sink very rapidly and without warning.

WEATHERA powerful downdraft of cold air was suspected

to be a cause in the sinking of the Pride of Baltimore on May 14, 1986. The crew of

the sunken vessel noted the wind suddenly shifted and increased velocity from 20 mph to

60–90 mph. A National Hurricane Center satellite specialist, James Lushine, stated "during very unstable weather conditions the downburst of

cold air from aloft can hit the surface like a bomb, exploding outward like a giant squall line of wind and water."[32] A similar event occurred to the Concordia in 2010 off the coast of Brazil.

Methane hydrates

STAR TIGER AND STAR ARIEL

Both were Avro Tudor IV passenger aircraft operated by

British South American Airways.[44] Both planes were operating at the very

limits of their range and the slightest error or fault in the equipment could

keep them from reaching the small island. One plane was not heard from long before it would have entered the

Triangle.[17]

TRIANGLE AREAThe first written boundaries date from a 1964 issue

of pulp magazine Argosy,[7] where the triangle's three vertices are in Miami, Florida peninsula; in

San Juan, Puerto Rico; and in the mid-Atlantic island of Bermuda.[4] But subsequent writers did not follow

this definition.[4] Every writer gives different boundaries and vertices to the triangle, with the

total area varying from 500,000 to 1.5 million square miles.[4] Consequently, the determination of which

accidents have occurred inside the triangle depends on which writer reports them.[4] The

United States Board on Geographic Names does not recognize this name, and it is not delimited in any

map drawn by US government agencies.[4]

MYSTERY SOLVEDComputer studies of ocean floors around the world, particularly the

area known as The Bermuda Triangle, reveal evidence of massive methane explosions in the past. For years, believers in the

paranormal, aliens, and other outlandish theories pointed to the the disappearance of ships and aircraft as an indicator of

mysterious forces at work in the "Devil's triangle." Scientists have finally pointed the rest of us to a more plausible cause.

The presence of methane hydrates indicates enormous eruptions of methane bubbles that would swamp a ship, and projected high into

the air- take out flying airplanes, as well.Any ships caught within the methane mega-bubble immediately

lose all buoyancy and sink to the bottom of the ocean. If the bubbles are big enough and possess a high enough density they

can also knock aircraft out of the sky with little or no warning. Aircraft falling victim to these methane bubbles will lose their engines-perhaps igniting the methane surrounding them-and

immediately lose their lift as well, ending their flights by diving into the ocean and swiftly plummeting.

IMAGES

CONCLUSIONTHE MYSTERY WAS NOT SOLVED I THINK IT IS

BECAUSE OF METHANE HYDRATES AND HUMAN ERROR AND BAD WEATHER.

HARIKRISHNAN.M

CLASS:9TH

PRESENTED BY