The most mysterious Bermuda triangle
World Famous BERMUDA TRIANGLE
he Origin Of The Mystery
The name “Bermuda Triangle” was given to this region by writer Vincent Gaddis in 1964. He came up with the phrase while writing for the men’s pulp magazine called Argosy. Still, he was not the one that made this region famous and gave it international notoriety. Charles Berlitz was the one that did that, a man whose family was behind extremely popular language learning courses.
He was obsessed with the paranormal and believed that Atlantis was real and was connected to the Bermuda Triangle. He talked about this theory in his book, fittingly titled “The Bermuda Triangle,” and it became a bestseller. After that huge burst of popularity, many other media outlets started to talk about it, and the mystery became common knowledge.
Surreal Explanations
Many people tried to explain the mystery throughout the years. Other writers tried to expand upon the idea that the region was connected to Atlantis. They believed that this mythical city could be found at the bottom of the ocean, and it used its legendary crystal energies to sink boats and airplanes. Other theories were even more interesting.
One suggested that the Bermuda Triangle was a time portal, although no one could explain why a rift in the fabric of space-time appeared exactly on that spot. Others tried explaining it by involving extraterrestrials, but those theories were completely unconvincing. Still, when it comes to the Bermuda Triangle, anything is possible.
Trying To Make Sense Out Of It
Naturally, some tried giving a more realistic explanation, mostly dealing with geology. Scientists suggested that these airplanes and ships were destroyed by flammable methane gas. Pockets filled with this gas can be found near the bottom of the ocean in many places, which is a well-known fact, and these people suggest that an electrical spark or lightning ignited a bubble of methane that came to the surface and caused the ships to sink. Still, this theory is not completely valid, since methane can be found all over the world, and nowhere else did these types of accidents happen.
The Simplest Explanations Could Be True?
There are also far simpler explanations such as the appearance of sudden tidal waves. That could be a viable explanation, although it leaves plenty of other questions. On the other hand, some suggest that there was a weird geomagnetic anomaly that somehow caused problems with the navigation and confused pilots. This somehow made them plunge the airplanes into ocean .
One such disapperance was of Flight 19 .In 1950, an article was published in multiple American newspapers highlighting numerous unexplained disappearances between the coast of Florida and an island of Bermuda. The article explained about five separate incidents over the previous half-decade in which one boat, nine planes, and over 135 civilians and crewmen vanished without a trace. It was the first time when this particular region of the ocean was suspected of being abnormally prone to nautical disappearances and thus, a proactive mystery was born. A 1964 issue of the American fiction magazine, Argosy, featured a cover with a caption “Lost in the Bermuda Triangle”. The article inside covered many of the same incidents but with an embellished narrative complete with fictitious quotes and alarming suppositions which is exactly what you would expect from a magazine predominantly about fiction. From then on, the Bermuda Triangle has always been a precursor of multifarious mysteries.
On this note, I would like to throw some light on one such incident which is considered among the most mysterious, publicized and dramatic narratives of the disappearance of the whole squadron. Many contemporary theories and ideologies were put forward to conclude their cause. What made Lieutenant Taylor take this confusing decision even when he was so skilled? Even after so many efforts were put forth what made them not able to solve the puzzle? What was the fate of those five Avenger torpedo bombers?
Flight 19 was the code name of a group of five Avenger torpedo bombers that disappeared over the Bermuda Triangle on December 5th, 1945 after the communication gap during an overwater navigation training flight from Naval Air Station Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The flight was scheduled to take them due east for 120 miles, north for 73 miles, and then back over a final 120-mile leg that would return them to the naval base but they never came back. Flight 19 was scheduled to take three-hour training inferred as “Navigation Problem No. 1”. They were meant to perform the technique of bombing runs at a place called Hens and Chicken Shoals. The squadron was headed by experienced Lt. Charles Carroll Taylor.
It was a routine navigation exercise that should not have posed a problem for these 14 experienced pilots and crewmen. At that time, the flights had more than one hour’s fuel supply. Some two hours into the exercise, the squadron was supposed to be heading back when the pilot of the leading plane reported that he had become disoriented as both of his compasses were malfunctioning. This was certainly alarming but over time, the officials learned that this happened due to an effect known as ‘Magnetic Declination’. Magnetic declination is the angle between magnetic north and true north and varies over time and location. Multiple stations maintained sporadic contact with Flight 19 attempting to determine their current location with little to no success. Communications between the five planes were also intercepted and they could be heard arguing over directions and bearings. All fourteen airmen were lost. Consequently, thirteen crew members of the Martin PMB Mariner flying boat were made to approach Flight 19.
As the minutes passed, the signal between the towers and Flight 19 gradually weakened and it became increasingly difficult to maintain a stable line of communication. Roughly hours after takeoff, navy was able to approximate the flights’ current location at some 200 km north of their intended flight path. As mentioned above, one of the PBM mariner designations Trainer-49 was consequently dispatched to this location but after routine transmission, it also inexplicably disappeared.
“Lost in the Bermuda Triangle”
An official investigation was opened up to get to the bottom of the strange disappearances. The PMB aircraft was known to accumulate flammable gasoline vapors in its bilges and professional investigators assumed that PBM most likely exploded while searching for the flights. Navy investigators could not determine the exact cause of the loss of Flight 19. Five hours after takeoff a final transmission was intercepted. It was simply a failed attempt by one plane to contact another and Flight 19 was never seen or heard from again. As you read radio logs and testimonies by navy personnel, it becomes evident that Taylor confused the islands in the Grand Bahama for the islands in the Florida Keys.
The search for Flight 19 involved hundreds of ships and planes and was declared at that time as one of the largest air and sea rescue effort ever made in history. The ships covered almost 200,000 miles of the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico, while in Florida, they tried to solve the puzzle of “The Lost Patrol”. Combined units joined in the search as the officials were investigating the missing planes. In addition, many navy officers and coast guards joined the hunt. Frank Dailey, a Naval Reserve Captain recalls that for “three days, six hours a day, they plowed up the whole coast of Florida, looking for wreckage but never saw a thing”.Taylor had previously been stationed as a flight instructor at the naval air station in Miami and the training exercises launched from Miami took place over the Florida Keys. So it’s entirely possible that Flight 19 was Taylor’s first time flying this route over the Bahamas. This growing confusion of what he knew from experience and what he saw outside his windows was likely why he came to distrust his instruments as it’s highly unlikely that both his compasses malfunctioned simultaneously. As Taylor thought he was in the Keys he continued flying north in an attempt to reach land but this had the opposite effect of taking them further into the sea. He also didn’t turn west as Taylor’s perspective would have taken them into the Gulf of Mexico. In reality, turning west would have saved their lives.
Meanwhile, the weather was getting worse, the sun was setting, visibility was poor, and the sea grew increasingly violent. At one point Taylor informed his students to “fly in close formation when one plane drops to ten gallons of gas all planes will land together”, suggesting that even in the event of a crash, they would remain as a group. “I suggest we fly due east until we run out of gas. We have a better chance of being picked up close to shore.” At this point, they’re flying away from the coast out towards the open ocean. All the available evidence suggests that Flight 19 crashed into the ocean once they ran out of fuel. Lt. Taylor was initially found guilty of mental aberration and held responsible for the loss of life. Later, Taylor’s mother was successful in exonerating him of wrong-doing.
Flight 19, featured in the 1977 sci-fi movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind, is possibly the most famous aviation mystery connected to the Bermuda Triangle. So then where did this flight go? I’m going to take a wild stab at this and say that they went right into the ocean. As it is already established, a catastrophe at sea and buoyancy are not just the best of friends. Moreover, if the Bermuda Triangle was anything but a legend, why is it not marked on publicly available maps and nautical charts? If the U.S. coast guard is so concerned with the safety of others, don’t you think they have a responsibility to warn the populace about this abnormally dangerous region of the ocean? Yet they and every other relevant authority willfully allow hundreds of ships and planes to sail and fly through the region every single day without as much as a warning. After all, the region that is the Bermuda Triangle is a highly trafficked region of the ocean. So what happened was just a fluke? Maybe we will never know.
So till now we dont know that we would ever know the key to these mysteries .
Thank you
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