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WorkTopic-Mystery of Bermuda TriangleMade by - Shekhar

Class and section- IX-C

The Bermuda Triangle

Learn more about the Bermuda Triangle mystery with our

interesting facts, secrets, history and theories. Are the reported

ship and aircraft incidents and disappearances related to some

kind of supernatural force or have the mysterious stories been

exaggerated?

Perhaps science can offer some answers, maybe the Bermuda

Triangle is actually no different from other parts of the ocean.

Enjoy our facts and information and decide for yourself.

The Bermuda Triangle, also known as

the Devil's Triangle, is an undefined

region in the western part of the

North Atlantic Oceanwhere a number

of aircraft and ships are said to have

disappeared under mysterious

circumstances. The triangle does not exist

according to the US Navy and the

name is not recognized by the US

Board on Geographic Names. Popular

culture has attributed various

disappearances to the paranormal or

activity by extraterrestrial beings.

The sinister reputation of the Bermuda Triangle may be

traceable to reports made in the late 15th century by

navigator Christopher Columbus concerning the Sargasso

Sea, in which floating masses of gulfweed were regarded as

uncanny and perilous by early sailors; others date the

notoriety of the area to the mid-19th century, when a

number of reports were made of unexplained disappearances

and mysteriously abandoned ships. The earliest recorded

disappearance of a United States vessel in the area

occurred in March 1918, when the USS Cyclops

vanished.

The incident that consolidated the

reputation of the Bermuda

Triangle was the disappearance in

December 1945 of Flight 19, a

training squadron of five U.S.

Navy torpedo bombers. The

squadron left Fort Lauderdale,

Florida, with 14 crewmen and

disappeared after radioing a series

of distress messages; a seaplane

sent in search of the squadron

also disappeared.

Aircraft that have disappeared in the area since this incident

include a DC-3 carrying 27 passengers in 1948 and a C-124

Globemaster with 53 passengers in 1951. Among the ships that

have disappeared was the tanker ship Marine Sulphur Queen,

which vanished with 39 men aboard in 1963. Books, articles,

and television broadcasts investigating the Bermuda Triangle

emphasize that, in the case of most of the disappearances, the

weather was favorable, the disappearances occurred in daylight

after a sudden break in radio contact, and the vessels vanished

without a trace. However, skeptics point out that many

supposed mysteries result from careless or biased consideration of

data.

For example, some losses

attributed to the

Bermuda Triangle

actually occurred outside

the area of the triangle

in inclement weather

conditions or in darkness,

and some can be traced to

known mechanical

problems or inadequate

equipment.

Documented evidence indicates that a significant percentage of the

incidents were spurious, inaccurately reported, or embellished by later

authors. 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.Contrary to popular belief, insurance

companies do not charge higher premiums for shipping in this area.

.

Paranormal associations with the Bermuda Triangle persist in

the public mind, however Sargasso Sea, oval region of the

western North Atlantic Ocean, between the West Indies and the

Azores. The Sargasso Sea is the only sea in the world bordered

by ocean currents rather than by land. The four great North

Atlantic currents—the Gulf Stream, the North Atlantic

Current, the Canary Current, and the North Equatorial

Current—flow in a clockwise direction around the Sargasso Sea.

Although its limits are indefinite, the name Sargasso Sea is

most commonly applied to the area between longitude 35° and

70° west and latitude 25° and 32° north.

The Sargasso Sea is noted for its

large expanses of comparatively still

water; this phenomenon is primarily

due to the fact that the North

Atlantic currents rotate around the

margins of the region. The Sargasso

Sea is named for one of the abundant

varieties of seaweed that float on its

surface, Sargassum natans, or brown

gulfweed. Brown gulfweed thrives in

this ocean region and creates beds that

support a number of life forms.

Because the sea has weak

currents, low precipitation, and high

evaporation, its waters are saltier than

those of other seas, making them

inhospitable to many species. However,

eels choose to spawn in the Sargasso

Sea, swimming across the Atlantic from

Europe and North America. After

laying their eggs deep in the sea, they

die. The young eels, or elvers, spend a

year or more in the Sargasso Sea, then

migrate back to Europe and North

America.

The Sargasso Sea has been associated with many maritime

myths, including that of the lost continent of Atlantis and the

Devil ’s Triangle, where a number of ships have disappeared or

been abandoned.The discovery of Bermuda is attributed to a

Spanish navigator, Juan de Bermúdez, who was shipwrecked here

in about 1503. No settlement was established, however, until

1609, when a party of English colonists under the mariner Sir

George Somers sailing for Virginia, was also shipwrecked here.

In 1612 the island group, known as Somers Islands, was

included in the third charter of the Virginia Company, and a

second group of English colonists arrived. This charter was revoked

in 1684, however, and the islands then became a crown colony.

Because of their strategic location, the Bermuda Islands

formerly served as the winter naval station for both the British

North Atlantic and West Indian squadrons. From 1941 to

1995, sites on the islands were leased to the United States for

naval and air bases. Bermuda became a self-governing dependency

in 1968. In 1995 voters in Bermuda soundly rejected a referendum

that would have made the island colony independent of the United

Kingdom. In the late 1990s international business grew into

Bermuda’s most important economic activity. The United

Bermuda Party (UBP) controlled the government from 1968

when Bermuda became self-governing until it lost the 1998

legislative elections.

The first written boundaries date from

a 1964 issue of pulp

magazine Argosy, where the triangle's

three vertices are in Miami, Florida

peninsula; in San Juan, Puerto

Rico; and in the mid-Atlantic island

of Bermuda. But subsequent writers

did not follow this definition. Every

writer gives different boundaries and

vertices to the triangle, with the total

area varying from 500,000 to 1.5

million square miles.

Consequently, the determination of which accidents have occurred

inside the triangle depends on which writer reports

them.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.The area is one of the most heavily

traveled shipping lanes in the world, with ships crossing through

it daily for ports in the Americas, Europe, and the Caribbean

Islands. Cruise ships are also plentiful, and pleasure craft

regularly go back and forth between Florida and the islands. It

is also a heavily flown route for commercial and private aircraft

heading towards Florida, the Caribbean, and South

America from points north.

Triangle writers have used a number of supernatural concepts to

explain the events. One explanation pins the blame on leftover

technology from the mythical lost continent ofAtlantis.

Sometimes connected to the Atlantis story is the submerged rock

formation known as the Bimini Road off the island

of Bimini in the Bahamas, which is in the Triangle by some

definitions. Followers of the purported psychic Edgar Cayce take

his prediction that evidence of Atlantis would be found in 1968

as referring to the discovery of the Bimini Road. Believers

describe the formation as a road, wall, or other structure, though

geologists consider it to be of natural origin.

Compass problems are one of the cited phrases in many Triangle

incidents. While some have theorized that unusual local magnetic

anomalies may exist in the area, such anomalies have not been

found. Compasses have natural magnetic variations in relation to

the magnetic poles, a fact which navigators have known for

centuries. Magnetic (compass) north and geographic (true)

north are only exactly the same for a small number of places –

for example, as of 2000 in the United States only those places

on a line running from Wisconsin to the Gulf of Mexico. But

the public may not be as informed, and think there is something

mysterious about a compass "changing" across an area as large

as the Triangle, which it naturally will.

One of the most cited explanations in official inquiries as to

the loss of any aircraft or vessel is human error. 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.

Hurricanes 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.

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. Laboratory experiments carried out in Australia have proven that bubbles

can, indeed, sink a scale model ship by decreasing the density of the water;any

wreckage consequently rising to the surface would be rapidly dispersed by theGulf

Stream Unusual features of the area had been noted since Christopher Columbus

sailed through the area on his first voyage to the New World, in which he reported

a great flame of fire (probably a meteor) crashed into the sea one night and that a

strange light appeared in the distance a few weeks later. He also wrote about

inconsistent compass readings, which later believed as natural phenomena happens in

places where True North (geodetics’ north pointing to the North Pole’s geographic

location) and Magnetic North (well-known as Compass North) lined up – the two

north are in fact have different scientific implications.

Has the Bermuda Triangle Mystery

been finally solved? According to Mike

Walters, a top researcher in the mystery

who has been exploring the area of the

triangle for more than 20 years, the answer

is yes.

Walter’s theory begins on a dive he took

around 20 miles southwest from the coast of

Bermuda where he claims he found a large

crystal that was mostly buried in the sand

underneath approximately 100 feet of

water. The crystal was very large and

Walters claims he thinks it is the biggest

one piece crystal ever found.

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.

The myth gained momentum after reporter E.V.W. Jones compiled a list of

"mysterious disappearances" of ships and planes between the Florida coast and

Bermuda. Two years later, George X. Sand wrote an article for "Fate"

magazine, titled "Sea Mystery at our Back Door." The article was about a

"series of strange marine disappearances, each leaving no trace whatever, that

have taken place in the past few years" in a "watery triangle bounded roughly

by Florida, Bermuda and Puerto Rico."

According to Norman Hooke, who

conducted marine casualty studies

for Lloyd's Maritime Information

Services, based in London, "The

Bermuda Triangle does not exist."

He instead says that disappearances

in the Triangle are typically weather-

related. So despite the theories of

why ships and planes disappear in the

area, insurance premiums are no

higher than for any other area of the

ocean.