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  1. 1 The Bermuda Triangle is a stretch of the western North Atlantic where ships, planes and people are alleged to have vanished mysteriously. NOAA
  2. 2 Britannica says more than 50 ships and 20 aircraft are said to have disappeared there. Britannica
  3. 3 Its edges are not universally agreed. Roughly, it is a triangle reaching from the Atlantic coast of Florida to Bermuda to the Greater Antilles. Britannica
  4. 4 Estimates of its area range from 500,000 to 1,510,000 square miles (1.3 million to 3.9 million square kilometres). Britannica
  5. 5 Reports of unexplained events there date back to the mid-19th century. Britannica
  6. 6 Some ships were reportedly found abandoned for no clear reason; others sent no distress signal and were never seen again. Britannica
  7. 7 There are no official maps of its boundaries, and the U.S. Board on Geographic Names doesn’t recognise “Bermuda Triangle” as an official name. NOAA
  8. 8 Vincent Gaddis, who popularised the name, described it as a line from Florida to Bermuda, another from Bermuda to Puerto Rico, and a third back to Florida through the Bahamas. Skeptical Inquirer
  9. 9 Larry Kusche’s map shows the Triangle as about a thousand miles on a side. Skeptical Inquirer
  10. 10 Boats and planes still cross the Triangle every day without trouble. Britannica
  11. 11 NOAA says there is no evidence that mysterious disappearances happen more often in the Bermuda Triangle than in any other large, busy area of ocean. NOAA
  12. 12 The U.S. Navy and U.S. Coast Guard say there are no supernatural explanations for disasters at sea: the forces of nature and human error are enough. NOAA
  13. 13 NOAA says environmental factors could explain many, if not most, of the disappearances. NOAA
  14. 14 Britannica says geophysical and environmental factors are the most likely cause. Britannica
  15. 15 Most Atlantic tropical storms and hurricanes pass through the Bermuda Triangle, and before better weather forecasting they claimed many ships. NOAA
  16. 16 The Gulf Stream can cause rapid, sometimes violent, changes in the weather. NOAA
  17. 17 The many islands of the Caribbean create shallow waters that can be treacherous for ships. NOAA
  18. 18 There is some evidence that in the Triangle a magnetic compass sometimes points to true north rather than magnetic north. NOAA
  19. 19 One idea is that pilots failed to allow for the agonic line, where no compass correction is needed, and made serious navigation errors. Britannica
  20. 20 Kusche, a pilot, argues the opposite: where the difference between true and magnetic north is near zero, navigation is simpler, because adjusting for zero is easy. Skeptical Inquirer
  21. 21 Another theory is rogue waves, which can reach up to 100 feet (30.5 metres). Storms from several directions can meet in the area, making them more likely. Britannica
  22. 22 Other ideas, NOAA says, are more scientific but lack evidence: methane gas bursting from the seabed, and disturbances in the Earth’s magnetic field. NOAA
  23. 23 NOAA lists aliens, the lost continent of Atlantis and vortices into other dimensions among the “whimsical ideas”. NOAA
  24. 24 Britannica says some of the theories put forward have been fanciful. Britannica
  25. 25 With foul weather or poor navigation, the ocean can be very deadly, and that is true all over the world. NOAA
  26. 26 The Gulf Stream is a strong, warm ocean current in the western North Atlantic. NOAA, Gulf Stream
  27. 27 It flows north along the coast of Florida, turns east off North Carolina and heads northeast across the Atlantic. NOAA, Gulf Stream
  28. 28 Its average speed is 6.4 km/h (4 mph). NOAA, Gulf Stream
  29. 29 It is fastest near the surface, typically up to about 9 km/h (5.6 mph). NOAA, Gulf Stream
  30. 30 It slows to about 1.6 km/h (1 mph) as it widens to the north. NOAA, Gulf Stream
  31. 31 It carries more water than all the world’s rivers put together. NOAA, Gulf Stream
  32. 32 The Sargasso Sea is an oval, fairly still area of the North Atlantic, strewn with floating Sargassum seaweed. Britannica
  33. 33 It lies between 20° and 35° North and 30° and 70° West; the Gulf Stream forms part of its western edge. Britannica
  34. 34 It is 1,500 to 7,000 metres (5,000 to 23,000 feet) deep. Britannica
  35. 35 The Sargasso Sea surrounds Bermuda. Columbus was the first to mention it, crossing it on his first voyage in 1492. Britannica
  36. 36 Early sailors feared getting tangled in the seaweed. Britannica says that fear was unfounded. Britannica
  37. 37 The seaweed floats on small berry-like bladders. Britannica
  38. 38 It is a biological desert, with very little plankton. Britannica
  39. 39 Shortly after 2pm on 5 December 1945, five TBM Avenger torpedo bombers left Naval Air Station Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on a routine navigation training flight. US Navy history (NHHC)
  40. 40 The exercise, Navigation Problem No. 1, was to fly east, make practice bombing runs at Hens and Chickens Shoals, turn north over Grand Bahama Island, then fly back to base. US Navy history (NHHC)
  41. 41 The legs were 56 miles east to the shoals, 67 more miles east, 73 miles on a heading of 346 degrees, then 120 miles on 241 degrees back to Fort Lauderdale. NHHC H-Gram
  42. 42 The whole route was about 316 miles and should have taken about 2 hours 40 minutes. National Archives
  43. 43 It is often called the “Lost Patrol”, but Flight 19 was a routine training mission. NHHC H-Gram
  44. 44 The five planes carried 14 men: six Navy and eight Marines. NHHC H-Gram
  45. 45 The instructor, Lt Charles Carroll Taylor, was a combat veteran with 2,509.3 flying hours, 606 of them in the Avenger. NHHC H-Gram
  46. 46 It was the first time Taylor would lead this particular navigation exercise; he had recently arrived from NAS Miami. NHHC H-Gram
  47. 47 The four other pilots were much less experienced, averaging about 300 flying hours each. NHHC H-Gram
  48. 48 All five planes were missing their 24-hour clocks, a commonly pilfered item; pilots were supposed to have wristwatches. NHHC H-Gram
  49. 49 The fuel tanks were full: enough for 5.5 hours of flying. NHHC H-Gram
  50. 50 The flight took off at 14:10 and was due back at 17:23. NHHC H-Gram
  51. 51 At about 15:40 Taylor radioed that both his compasses were out and he was sure he was over the Florida Keys. NHHC H-Gram
  52. 52 In fact he was well northeast of Fort Lauderdale, not southwest as he thought. National Archives
  53. 53 Kusche, who flew the route himself, says parts of the small islands of the northern Bahamas do look like some of the Florida Keys. Skeptical Inquirer
  54. 54 Taylor called himself MT-28, a Miami call sign, rather than FT-28, which Kusche reads as a sign he thought he was flying from Miami. Skeptical Inquirer
  55. 55 Taylor was the instructor but not the most senior officer on the flight; that was Captain Edward Powers of the Marines. National Archives
  56. 56 Two students were heard on the radio saying that if they could just fly west they could get home. NHHC H-Gram
  57. 57 Radio direction-finding stations placed the flight north of the Bahamas and east of Florida, but no one thought to broadcast that position to the planes. NHHC H-Gram
  58. 58 By 5:30pm the sun had set, the weather was getting worse and the planes were low on fuel. National Archives
  59. 59 The last message heard, from Taylor at 7:04pm, said they would have to ditch unless they found land: “when the first plane drops below ten gallons, we all go down together.” National Archives
  60. 60 A British tanker in the area, the Viscount Empire, reported “tremendous seas and winds of high velocity”. NHHC H-Gram
  61. 61 The Navy’s historian says the most likely explanation is that the planes ditched together off Florida’s east coast, north of the Bahamas, as a severe weather front moved in. NHHC H-Gram
  62. 63 On 6 December more than 200 planes and 17 ships joined the search. Skeptical Inquirer
  63. 64 It was one of the largest air and sea searches in history, and no confirmed trace has ever been found. NHHC H-Gram
  64. 65 Fourteen men were lost on Flight 19 and 13 more on the flying boat sent to search for them: 27 in all. US Navy history (NHHC)
  65. 66 The search plane, a PBM Mariner flying boat called Training 49, took off from NAS Banana River with 13 men and made its last radio call at 19:30. NHHC H-Gram
  66. 67 At 19:50 the tanker Gaines Mills saw a burst of flames, apparently an explosion, with flames 100 feet high. NHHC H-Gram
  67. 68 The carrier USS Solomons was tracking the Mariner on radar when it suddenly vanished from the screen at the same position. NHHC H-Gram
  68. 69 Mariners were nicknamed “the flying gas tank”, because petrol fumes could collect inside them. NHHC H-Gram
  69. 70 A Mariner carried almost 2,000 gallons of fuel. Skeptical Inquirer
  70. 71 The Navy concluded that a faulty fuel system caused the Mariner to explode. National Archives
  71. 72 The board of inquiry admitted: “We are not able to even make a good guess as to what happened.” NHHC H-Gram
  72. 73 The Navy’s investigation blamed pilot error, saying Taylor was “uncertain as to in what position lay the Peninsula of Florida”. National Archives
  73. 74 Taylor’s mother challenged that verdict. The Navy’s records board found an injustice, cleared him of blame and changed the cause to “unknown”. NHHC H-Gram
  74. 75 The Navy’s historian adds that it most certainly wasn’t due to aliens or the Bermuda Triangle. NHHC H-Gram
  75. 76 The National Archives says the loss of the five planes and 14 men is a fact and undisputed; that is where the conspiracy theories begin. National Archives
  76. 77 Some of the official records, including the Navy’s investigations at the time, are kept at the National Archives at Fort Worth. National Archives
  77. 78 In April 2017 a plaque to the crew of Training 49 was put up at the old NAS Banana River seaplane ramp. NHHC H-Gram
  78. 79 Older retellings include dramatic radio messages such as “It looks like we are entering white water”; the Navy’s own overview page still repeats them. US Navy history (NHHC)
  79. 80 The Navy’s historian says numerous accounts have embellished the story, and sticks to the official record. NHHC H-Gram
  80. 81 Kusche traced fictionalised, dramatised radio messages back to a 1962 American Legion Magazine article by Allan W. Eckert; later writers attributed them to Flight 19. Skeptical Inquirer
  81. 82 Flight 19 was the most significant event behind the Bermuda Triangle myth. NHHC H-Gram
  82. 83 Kusche argues that if Flight 19 had returned safely, the idea of the Bermuda Triangle would never have been created. Skeptical Inquirer
  83. 84 USS Cyclops was named after the one-eyed giants of Greek myth. DANFS
  84. 85 She was a collier, a coal-carrying fuel ship, launched on 7 May 1910 by William Cramp and Sons of Philadelphia. DANFS
  85. 86 She was 542 feet long, displaced 19,360 tons and had a complement of 236. DANFS
  86. 87 She helped carry refugees from Tampico, Mexico, to New Orleans. DANFS
  87. 88 She was commissioned on 1 May 1917, when the U.S. entered the First World War. DANFS
  88. 89 In 1918 she sailed to Brazil to refuel British ships in the South Atlantic. DANFS
  89. 90 She left Rio de Janeiro on 16 February 1918, called at Barbados on 3 and 4 March, and was never heard from again. DANFS
  90. 91 She vanished with all hands in early March 1918, on her way back from Brazil. US Navy Museum
  91. 92 Many ships searched for her. At first she was thought to have been sunk by a German submarine. US Navy Museum
  92. 93 Her wreck has never been found, and the cause of her loss remains unknown. US Navy Museum
  93. 94 Britannica says she went missing in the Bermuda Triangle area; there were no survivors. Britannica
  94. 95 The official Navy ship history calls her loss one of the sea’s unsolved mysteries. DANFS
  95. 96 Kusche says E.V.W. Jones of the Associated Press, on 16 September 1950, was the first to write about the region as a place of mysterious disappearances. Skeptical Inquirer
  96. 97 George X. Sand expanded on it in Fate magazine in October 1952. Skeptical Inquirer
  97. 98 In the 1950s, best-selling UFO books suggested Flight 19 had been captured by aliens. Skeptical Inquirer
  98. 99 The catchy name came from Vincent H. Gaddis, in an article called “The Deadly Bermuda Triangle” in Argosy magazine in February 1964. Skeptical Inquirer
  99. 100 Gaddis wrote that the disappearances were “far beyond the laws of chance”, but gave no figures. Skeptical Inquirer
  100. 101 The article became a chapter, “The Triangle of Death”, in Gaddis’s 1965 book Invisible Horizons. Skeptical Inquirer
  101. 102 In 1975 the librarian and pilot Larry Kusche published The Bermuda Triangle Mystery—Solved. Skeptical Inquirer
  102. 103 He went back to the earliest reports, newspapers and the official Navy report, and conducted 92 interviews about Flight 19. Skeptical Inquirer
  103. 104 He found that no one who had called Flight 19 paranormal or UFO-related had used the official Navy report. Skeptical Inquirer
  104. 105 Larry Kusche found that roughly half of the so-called unsolved mysteries happened far from the Triangle, some thousands of miles away. Skeptical Inquirer
  105. 106 One ship found dismasted and lying on its side in the Pacific Ocean had been counted as a Triangle mystery. Skeptical Inquirer
  106. 107 Mystery writers rarely mentioned anything that spoiled the mystery, especially hurricanes and other severe weather. Skeptical Inquirer
  107. 108 Kusche found no credible evidence for the oft-repeated tales of a ship with only a canary on board, or still-warm meals on the table. Skeptical Inquirer
  108. 109 He called the Triangle a “manufactured” mystery, built on poor research and copied, embellished stories. Skeptical Inquirer
  109. 110 One book’s plane that “seemed to be landing as if buoyed up by a cushion of air” was simply ground effect, extra lift near the ground or water that any pilot knows. Skeptical Inquirer
  110. 111 In the 1977 film Close Encounters of the Third Kind, the Avengers suddenly appear in the Mojave Desert. Skeptical Inquirer
  111. 112 The National Archives says lurid books, articles and films have blamed magnetic disturbances, whirlpools, sea monsters and aliens. National Archives
  112. 113 The name has entered the language: in baseball, a hit that can’t be caught is said to have gone into the Bermuda Triangle. Skeptical Inquirer