Interesting Facts of the Bermuda Triangle

The Bermuda Triangle also known as the Devil’s Triangle or Hurricane Alley, is a loosely defined region in the western part of the North Atlantic Ocean where more than 200 aircrafts and 2,000 ships along with several humans are said to have disappeared under mysterious circumstances. The Bermuda Triangle does not appear on any world maps as the U.S Board of Geographic Names does not recognize the Bermuda Triangle as an official region of the Atlantic Ocean. The facts surrounding the Bermuda Triangle are very intriguing and several naval research scientists are engaged in solving the mystery. In this post I have highlighted three incidents in the fabled Bermuda Triangle which captivate my interest.

A survivor Pilot Bruce, had two passengers, his father and business partner. They took off from Andros Island in the Bahamas and headed north west for the Florida coast. It was December 4th 1970. Pilot Bruce’s plane was within the Bermuda triangle’s hungry grasp. But this was a typical flight Bruce had made dozens of times before. The trip usually took about an hour and a half, with no hiccups or mysterious phenomena whatsoever. The men were no more concerned than you would be during your daily commute to work, but this time would be different. They would face very unusual circumstances indeed. 

Bruce took off and started gaining altitude, strange things started happening right from the get go. At an altitude of about a thousand feet, he noticed a small cloud right up ahead, but it kept growing, not from the plane getting closer to it, this was actually growing bigger in size. Bruce had to fly through it and he came out the other end just fine. Another mysterious cloud appeared at 11,500 feet, this one was massive, however Bruce had no choice but to fly through it too. So he concentrated, took a deep breath and in they went. At that moment it became as dark as night all around the aircraft, not a single sliver of sunshine got through. But this wasn't a storm cloud and it wasn't raining. 

Bruce was starting to get worried, and then… BAM!! He saw flashes of white light. They would appear and vanish quickly like lightning, but this pilot knew this certainly was no lightning. The flashes were so bright they lit up the whole space around them. Bruce kept flying for another thirty minutes when he realized this was the same cloud he had gone through earlier. But now the cloud was cylindrical and the plane was flying through its center. It was about one mile wide and seemed endless, but a minute later he saw light at the end of the tunnel. He was almost out of this nightmare, but all of a sudden unexplainable things started happening again, the walls of the cloud tunnel were becoming narrow as if they were closing in on the plane, the navigational instruments were winging out, the compass was spinning by itself counter clockwise, the electronic instruments were all malfunctioning. It was like the plane was being operated by something else or it was moving inside some kind of current, all of Bruce’s attempts to take control were to no avail. 

He kept flying through the tunnel bound to get out of it and lived to tell the tale. Bruce was running out of time he had to get out of this place fast, the next twenty seconds were the most intense of his life but then he burst out of this foggy trap. As Bruce described later he felt weightless for five seconds. Then he immediately grabbed the radio and contacted ground control, Bruce wanted them to determine his location. But when the dispatcher looked at the green screen his face became contorted with confusion, Bruce’s plane wasn’t on the radar. It was as if the plane was invisible. But then the dispatcher said that the aircraft was already in Miami airspace, Bruce was flabbergasted by this information; it just couldn't be true. 

The aircraft was supposed to cover a distance of about 250 miles, just to recap, the whole trip usually took about 90 minutes but this time it just took about 47 minutes to get to the destination. This model of aircraft can only fly 180 mph { miles per hour}. Anyone would understand that this was physically impossible. The dispatcher must have made a mistake. But when the clouds parted, he saw that he really was over Miami. The plane landed safely. 

In 1945 a total of five planes went missing in the Bermuda Triangle all at once. The group of five General Motors Eastern Aircraft Division TBM Avenger torpedo bombers was designated Flight 19 that disappeared over the Bermuda Triangle on December 5, 1945, after losing connection during a United States Navy overwater navigation training flight from Naval Air Station Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Shockingly, all 14 crew members on the flight were lost, as were all 13 airmen of a Martin PBM Mariner flying boat that subsequently launched from Naval Air Station Banana River in pursuit of Flight 19. The PBM aircraft was known to accumulate flammable gasoline vapors in its bilges, and professional investigators have assumed that the PBM probably exploded in mid-air while searching for the flight. Many people assume they ran out of fuel, this is likely to have caused the incident but the circumstances were very strange. The trainees were under the supervision of an experienced Lieutenant who had 2200 flight hours, he would never let a bunch of newbies go so far that they'd get lost. Even now there's a debate about what could have triggered such a ghastly incident. 

Three years later a passenger jet headed to Miami from Puerto Rico vanished in the same area. There were 29 passengers and 3 crew members on board. The weather was clear throughout the flight, but experts believe when the aircraft was about 50 miles off the coast of Miami it could’ve been hit by a strong wind that knocked it off course. Years later, divers found a similar looking plane in the waters, but since it was lacking some details and registrations no one could confirm that it was the missing Miami aircraft. The mystery of this plane along with countless others, remains unsolved.