The Bermuda Triangle Mystery
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If you have ever traveled to the Caribbean from South Florida, be it by ship or plane, then you have ventured into the Bermuda Triangle. Are you scared yet?
Stretching from Bermuda to Miami to Puerto Rico, the Devil's Triangle, as it is also called, isn't recognized by any geographical organization. It's an imaginary zone where spooky stuff seems to occur. The fact is that an abundance of boats and planes have entered the triangle, never to be heard from again.
It was December 5, 1945. The war had ended and the world was once again at peace. Military personnel were back on training missions and this was precisely the case for the boys of Flight 19. The men from the Navy and the Marine Corps were to practice bombing submarines near the Bahamas.
After 2pm, the entire squadron of TBM Avengers left its base at Fort Lauderdale and soon began their diving runs. The single engine Avenger was a sturdy aircraft and had proven itself against Axis powers in previous years. The aviators believed themselves quite safe.
Lieutenant Robert F. Cox was an instructor pilot flying by the Florida coast. He was intending to join up with his squadron of students when just before 4pm, he heard about their disappearance. The boys were on the airwaves indicating that they were lost and that their compasses were malfunctioning. Attempts to redirect the planes to base failed and communication was lost after more than two hours. Flight 19 had disappeared forever.
At around 6pm, the Navy launched a number of aircrafts to locate the missing Avengers. Half an hour later, one of the PBM Mariners didn't report back. Another pilot maintained he had seen an explosion in mid-air and later a pool of oil on the sea surface. But the rescue plane was never found. It seemed that the Bermuda Triangle had claimed another victim. Twenty-seven men and six aircrafts were lost that day in an event the Navy still cannot explain.
What could be the secret of the Devil's Triangle? Giant octopi have been cited as being monsters that reach out and pull ships and aircrafts under the tide. Others believe the triangle is home to the lost civilization of Atlantis and crafts are being swiped through its magical power ray.
Yet, there's another theory that is widely popular. This one focuses on UFOs, which use a magnetic field to allow humans to travel to their dimension, a theory that was sponsored by Steven Spielberg's classic Close Encounters of the Third Kind, in which the lost Avengers reappeared and the pilots of Flight 19 returned.
More theories, and will the hype surrounding the Bermuda Triangle ever disappear? Find out...
It's always more intriguing to believe in myths and legends rather than the scientific data used to support theories. One such scientific theory states that the Bermuda Triangle, at the 80th meridian, is one of two spots on Earth where compass variation is unnecessary. At this agonic line, where actual north and magnetic north are aligned, sailors must compensate.
The region is also host to high magnetic activity, which could perhaps cause compasses to go wild. Meso-meteorological storms also share the blame. These weather systems are composed of thunderstorms, miniature cyclones and tornadoes, and they can appear without warning as they follow abnormal weather patterns.
Another explanation is that methane is often released from the planet's core, which diminishes the water's density and is said to cause a vessel to sink or capsize in an instant. This is what some believe happened to the USS Cyclops in March 1918. The ship was reported to have an eccentric captain at its helm, a man who would apparently pace along the quarterdeck in his underwear. It was this event that allegedly inspired Paul Gallico to write The Poseidon Adventure.
It is widely believed that most boats or crafts that disappeared suffered from human error. Even the men of Flight 19 could have made mistakes; had they known about the peculiar environment in this area, they probably could have saved themselves.
The fact is that the area covered by the Bermuda Triangle is one of the most frequented spots for pleasure boating in the world. Given the area's popularity, people want to know if they are in any danger should they choose to vacation there. Could you be the next victim? The term is likely searched as a precautionary measure.
And let's not discard the media frenzy over the matter. A week doesn't go by without one documentary or another popping up on cable somewhere, be it TLC, the Discovery Channel, or the History Channel.
The first media mention of the mystical phenomenon dates back to October 1952, when George X. Sand wrote a short article entitled "Sea Mystery at Our Back Door" in Fate magazine. Later, a string of articles appeared in the '60s that elaborated on the subject. It was Vincent Gaddis who first mapped the area and gave us its famous name in his article "The Deadly Bermuda Triangle," in the February 1964 issue of Argosy magazine.
Over the years, a dozen exploitative minor films have been released and as many books have been published. It seems that even if scientists have come up with reasonable explanations for the various disasters that have occurred, few people really want to accept them as fact. It's much more interesting to believe in unexplained incidents and speculate about them. And so the myth of the Bermuda Triangle is here to stay.
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The Bermuda Mystery Remains Forever
One hypothesis says that the Bermuda Triangle is a time hole...
This article is about a place traditionally considered to be one the most horrible and mysterious places on the planet. This is a place where many ships and planes have disappeared forever. The majority of these accidents have occurred after the year 1945. Over one thousand people have been victims of this place over the last 26 years. However, there have never been a dead body or even a fragment found.
This description is a very typical when people start talking or writing about the Bermuda Triangle. The area between Florida, Cuba, and the Bermuda islands has been considered an anomalous, mysterious site for many years. Is it really that as horrible as depicted in movies and described in papers?
A thousand victims over a quarter of a century is definitely way too many. However, this does not seem really scary if you compare it to other facts. The number of victims of car accidents in Russia on an area of the same size is 15 times larger over the same period of time. It is reasonable to compare Bermuda Triangle and road victims, since the area of the Bermuda Triangle is rather a busy traffic site. Needless to mention, that the triangle does not kill every ship or plane that travels there. So, where does this fame come from?
Everything started after WWII. The phenomenon of the psychological situation of the American nation of that time period is still waiting for its researchers. The United States of America possessed a very powerful army during 1945-1949. The USA had nuclear weapons at its disposal, so it seems that the Americans should have felt superior over the rest of the world. However, the feeling of superiority was suppressed by fear. The Americans felt that they were totally unprotected in from other more powerful forces: Martians, aliens, ghosts, and so on. In 1947, America was gripped with a fear of aliens after someone saw another UFO somewhere in the United States. This was the time that gave birth to unconventional science of ufology. However, the story started two years earlier, with the fear of the "omnivorous ocean."
December 5th, 1945 was a usual day for the American Air Force base in Florida, Fort Lauderdale. There were many experienced pilots serving there, so air crashes or other such incidents were rare. Lieutenant Charles Taylor was one of those pilots. A group of pilots was given a very easy task: to fly over to Chicken Shoal, which is to the north of Bimini Island. The weather was superb, so five Avenger bomber planes took off and flew eastwards. The fuel that the planes had in their tanks was enough for 5.5 hours of flying.
No one ever saw them again. Only God knows what happened to them. There were many versions and hypotheses proposed to explain the mystery. However, they were all a big understatement: the missing planes were not found. The details of this story were taken from the investigation and publication materials of the official chronicles of Florida.
The planes were returning around 3:30 p.m. Several minutes later, their command received a strange message: "We have a state of emergency. Most likely, we have lost our way. We do not see the ground. I repeat, we do not see the ground." A flight control officer asked them to report their whereabouts. The answer from the pilots to such an easy question was really surprising: "We can not do this. We do not know where we are at the moment." It seemed that it was not an experienced pilot talking, but a perplexed amateur. At 6:45 p.m., Charles Taylor transmitted very strange information: "We are above the Gulf of Mexico." A flight control officer decided that the pilots were either confused or went mad. The planes eventually disappeared.
Reporter and writer A. Ford wrote that Taylor's last words were as follows: "Do not follow me. They look like they came out of the Universe." If there was such a phrase said, most likely, it was reinterpreted. Back in those days, people were used to saying "they came from Mars," rather than "they came from the Universe."
More and more mysterious stories started appearing one after another after the accident with Avengers. A simple disappearance was not enough for people, and there was a strong need for rumors. Newspapers were doing their business very well. As a matter of fact, the truth of all the commotion actually made up only ten or fifteen percent. The worst thing about it is the fact that no one can explain any of those incidents. That mysterious "something" never left any eyewitnesses. However, there could be other witnesses found: audio tapes, radar records, and so on.
As far as the Avengers are concerned, there can be one conclusion made. The pilots had to deal with something unusual and strange. That meeting was the first of its kind for them. They knew or heard nothing about it before, which may explain the reason for their perplexity. They said that the ocean looked strange, and that the water was white. This can definitely frighten common people, but not experienced pilots. The pilots were searching for land in the west for some 1.5 hours. Then they started seeking land both in the west an in the east. They failed. The pilots made a mistake: they spent all their fuel searching for the land in the west. Most likely, they landed on the water and then sank. One of those Avengers was found in 1987 on the shelf bottom of the Gulf of Mexico. Nevertheless, it is still not clear how the planes moved 700 kilometers westwards without being noticed by anyone?
Other super-fast flights were registered as well. All those occasions have one common fact. They all happened in some strange white clouds or fog. An airliner that was approaching Miami once vanished from radar screens and then appeared again in ten minutes. However, all clocks on board the plane were ten minutes behind the actual time. There was not even a passenger who noticed anything weird about it.
It goes without saying that the hypothesis about a time hole above the Bermuda Triangle stirred up more rumors, and more horrific stories appeared as a result. American News magazine published an article that told the story of an American submarine. The submarine was travelling under the water at the depth of 70 meters (200 feet). The submariners suddenly heard a strange noise. Then they sensed a vibration that lasted for about a minute. Afterwards, it was noticed that all members of the crew added some years to their age. When the submarine surfaced, the satellite navigation system showed that the submarine was in the Indian Ocean, 300 miles off the eastern coast of Africa and about ten miles off the Bermudas. However, making any conclusions about this story is a premature thing to do. The US Navy never confirmed or rejected the information.
The friends of the Avenger pilots still do not know why lieutenant Taylor gave the command to land on the stormy sea if the planes could fly for two more hours looking for the land. Taylor gave the order, and all the pilots executed it. It is only possible to understand this act of suicide if there was no fuel in the tanks. Probably, the pilots were alive after their planes sank into the ocean. Most likely, they were swimming in the water wearing life vests. Nevertheless, the sea won the battle.
It is worth mentioning that a Marine Mariner boatplane searched for the Avengers and disappeared as well. The last thing that the pilot of the boatplane mentioned was something about a strong wind at the height of 1800 meters. The victims of this story make up 27 people.
The most surprising piece of news about the Avengers appeared later. The bomber planes were found in the Atlantic Ocean, only ten miles from their airbase. The pilots' relatives said that they were extremely sorry to discover this piece of information. It was horrible for them to realize that their men died just a couple of minutes from home. At first, there were four planes found, then a fifth one, marked as 28. This was Taylor's number.
The Russian and American Press Center helped to discover the details of the incredible finding. The Deep Sea vessel of the Scientific Search Project was searching for a Spanish galleon in 1991. The crew of the ship were making jokes about the mysteries of the Bermuda Triangle. Four Avenger planes were found on the bottom of the sea, at a depth of 250 meters. The fifth one was a mile away from the others. The archives mention only that one group of five planes disappeared in December of 1945, although the number of air crashes in the Atlantic Ocean, which happened to Avenger-type planes, totaled 139 accidents. A further examination of the planes proved that they landed on the water. However, there were no bodies found in the cockpits.
The story was not over. Another sensation arrived in the summer of 1995. Specialists from the Deep Sea vessel made a conclusion based on their research. The numbers on the planes found were FT-241, FT-87, FT-120, and FT-28. The numbers of the missing planes were: FT-3, FT-28 (Taylor), FT-36, FT-81, FT-117. Only one number matched. The mystery remains. Where did the Avengers go? Where did those planes come from?
An official government committee concluded the following in 1996. First, the planes on the bottom of the sea were not real; they were models. Second, they were placed there on purpose, for a bombing exercise.
Only stupid people might believe that official proclamation. The divers were laughing their heads off about that delirium from the government. The divers' reports described the numbers of the planes, and it was said there that the propellers of the planes were curved due to the crash landing. Nothing like that could have happened to modeled planes. Any kind of bombing exercise is out of the question as well. The planes were lying at the depth of 250 meters. This is like shooting at a target that is behind the Great Chinese Wall. As can be seen, the mystery of the Bermuda Triangle will remain forever.
Bermudas Over the Baltic Sea
According to scientists, the phenomenon of the Bermuda Triangle appears in the Baltic Sea as well
Early morning, August 23, 1979, two fishing boats left the port of Hel in Gdansk for a fishing zone situated 70 kilometers offshore, near the boundary of Soviet territorial waters. Two Soviet trawlers already reached the area, and a merchant vessel was some distance from them.
The fishing started. Suddenly, several red balls appeared in the sky right above them. Although one of the fishing boats performed a zigzagged move by the order of its captain, one of the red balls repeated all the maneuvers of the boat; at that, the ball always remained ahead of it and exactly before the rostrum. Soon, members of the crew were gripped with unexplainable fear, and they had headaches and nausea; it was difficult to breath. Simultaneously, all electrical appliances on the fishing boat stopped functioning.
All of a sudden, after numerous changes of the boat's course, the red ball soared upwards and disappeared. At that very moment, the electrical appliances started operating. Both fishing boats veered and headed for the port of Hel. Members of the crew were immediately examined by doctors of the naval base; however, the doctors found only nervous disorders and exhaustion.
A Polish military newspaper reported on March 5, 1992 that a diabolic triangle appeared in the Baltic Sea. This was said to be the reason for a mysterious fishing boat wreck. The tragedy occurred under clear and windless weather conditions. The boat and all the appliances on it were in good shape, but when the fishing was over, the boat drifted. The crew was taking the fish out of the fishing net. Suddenly, without any visible reason, the boat almost flipped over. The motorist rushed to the engine room to start the engine. However, it was too late: the boat flipped over and went down. Seven members of the eight-man crew remained alive, but the brave motorist died.
One of Poland's leading UFO experts, Robert Lesnjakewic, thinks that UFOs have a connection with similar tragedies in the Baltic Sea (as well as in the Bermuda triangle). The tragedies probably developed the following way: a UFO hovers over a boat; it emits its energy, which paralyzes the boat's crew and puts all technical appliances out of operation. The ufologist thinks that one of the following variants may occur:
- the boat is carried into the time-space dimension of some other world;
- the boat is carried away to some other planet or to an internal underground world of the planet (this is in accordance with the hypothesis saying on the existence of the city states of Agarta and Shambala underground);
- UFO pilots take people from the boat and sink the boat itself;
- UFO pilots take the crew off the boat and don't touch the boat itself; the latter turns into a Flying Dutchman drifting without any visible damage.
Thirteen days after the UFO appeared over the fishing boats, on September 5, 1972 to be more exact, a glowing red ball appeared over an ambulance car on the coast of the Gdansk bay early in the morning. Four doctors in the ambulance and two pedestrians observed the red ball. However, it didn't cause harm to the people.
Krestyanin newspaper
Rostov-on-Don
Translated by Maria Gousseva
Bermuda Triangle: Behind the Intrigue
Hillary Mayell
December 5, 2002
On a sunny day 57 years ago, five Navy planes took off from their base in Florida on a routine training mission, known as Flight 19. Neither the planes nor the crew were ever seen again.
Thus was a legend born. The Bermuda Triangle is an area roughly bounded by Miami, Bermuda, and Puerto Rico. No one keeps statistics, but in the last century, numerous ships and planes have simply vanished without a trace within the imaginary triangle.
Unusual features of the area had been noted in the past. Christopher Columbus wrote in his log about bizarre compass bearings in the area. But the region didn't get its name until August 1964, when Vincent Gaddis coined the term Bermuda Triangle in a cover story for Argosy magazine about the disappearance of Flight 19. The article stimulated a virtual cottage industry in myth-making.
Many exotic theories have been propounded to explain what happened to the missing travelers.
The disappearances have been attributed to the machinations of enormous sea monsters, giant squid, or extra-terrestrials. Alien abductions, the existence of a mysterious third dimension created by unknown beings, and ocean flatulencethe ocean suddenly spewing great quantities of trapped methanehave all been suggested as culprits.
The reality, say many, is far more prosaic. They argue that a sometimes treacherous Mother Nature, human error, shoddy craftsmanship or design, and just plain bad luck can explain the many disappearances.
"The region is highly traveled and has been a busy crossroads since the early days of European exploration," said John Reilly, a historian with the U.S. Naval Historical Foundation. "To say quite a few ships and airplanes have gone down there is like saying there are an awful lot of car accidents on the New Jersey Turnpikesurprise, surprise."
Lieutenant A. L. Russell, in the U.S. Coast Guard's official response to Bermuda Triangle inquiries, writes: "It has been our experience that the combined forces of nature and the unpredictability of mankind outdo science-fiction stories many times each year."
Disappearance of Flight 19
The legend of the Bermuda Triangle will be forever tied to the fateful flight that took place on December 5, 1945.
Flight 19 originated at the U. S. Naval Air Station in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Five TBM Avenger Torpedo Bombers carrying 14 men took off at roughly 2:10 in the afternoon that day on a routine navigational training mission.
Led by instructor Lieutenant Charles Taylor, the assignment was to fly a three-legged triangular route with a few bombing practice runs over Hen and Chickens Shoals.
Taylor, in an age before the Global Positioning System (GPS) became commonplace for navigation, got hopelessly lost shortly after the bombing run. Pilots flying over water in 1945 had to rely on compasses and knowing how long they'd been flying in a particular direction, and at what speed.
Both of the compasses on Taylor's plane were apparently malfunctioning. Transcripts of in-flight communications suggest he wasn't wearing a watch. There are no landmarks in the middle of the ocean.
The planes flew in one direction then another as balmy daylight turned to stormy seas in the darkness.
Taylor is heard formulating a plan; as soon as the first plane's fuel level dipped below 10 gallons, all five planes were to ditch at sea.
The Avenger was known as an extremely rugged plane. Pilots sometimes called them "Iron Birds" or Grumman ironworks, said Mark Evans, a historian at the Naval Aviation History branch of the Naval Historical Center.
"They were built like tanks," he said. "Time and again they'd come back from battle all shot up and still functioning. Pilots loved them."
They were also very heavy, weighing more than 10,000 pounds (4,535 kilograms) empty. When ditched, the Avenger would go down hard and fast. The possibility of anyone surviving a landing in high seas was slim, the chance of surviving the night in the cold waters was nil, the likelihood of the wreckage making a quick descent to the bottom was high.
A massive land and sea search was mounted, but neither bodies nor wreckage were ever found.
Adding to the tragedy, one of the rescue planes also disappeared along with its 13-man crew. Their plane, a PBM Mariner, was nicknamed the "flying gas tank"; the slightest spark or a lit match could cause an explosion. A ship in the area reported seeing a huge fireball and crossing through an oil slick at the exact time and place where the plane would have been. The Navy halted production of that plane in 1949.
In the Navy's final report, the disappearance of Flight 19 was blamed on pilot error. Taylor's family protested and, after several reviews, the verdict was changed to "causes or reasons unknown."
Graveyard of the Atlantic
The Bermuda Triangle region has some unusual features. It's one of only two places on Earththe other being an area nicknamed the Devil's Sea off the east coast of Japan, which has a similar mysterious reputationwhere true north and magnetic north line up, which could make compass readings dicey [sidebar].
It is also home to some of the deepest underwater trenches in the world; wreckage could settle in a watery grave miles below the surface of the ocean. Most of the sea floor in the Bermuda Triangle is about 19,000 feet (5,791 meters) down; near its southern tip, the Puerto Rico Trench dips at one point to 27,500 (8,229 meters) feet below sea level.
Treacherous shoals and reefs can be found along the continental shelf. Strong currents over the reefs constantly breed new navigational hazards, according to the Coast Guard.
Then there's the weather.
"The biggest issues in that area normally are hurricanes, but it's not particularly a spawning area for storms," said Dave Feit, chief of the marine forecast branch of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Marine Prediction Center.
However, Feit pointed out, the Gulf Stream travels along the western edge of the triangle and could be a factor. The Gulf Stream is like a 40- to 50-mile-wide (64- to 80-kilometer-wide) river within the ocean that circulates in the North Atlantic Ocean. The warm water and two- to four-knot currents can create weather patterns that remain channeled within it.
"If you have the right atmospheric conditions, you could get quite unexpectedly high waves," said Feit. "If wave heights are eight feet outside of the Gulf Stream, they could be two or even three times higher within it. Sailors can sometimes identify the Gulf Stream by the clouds and thunderstorms over it."
The Coast Guard also notes that unpredictable Caribbean-Atlantic storms can yield waterspouts that often spell disaster for pilots and mariners.
Still, given a choice between the horrifying idea of a giant squid's tentacles wrestling an innocent ship to the sea floor, or an alien abduction, versus human error, shoddy engineering, and a temperamental Mother Naturewho could resist the legend of the Bermuda Triangle?
More Information:
Navigation Problem 1
The Bermuda Triangle is also known as the Devil's Triangle, HooDoo Sea, and the graveyard of the Atlantic.
In the region, a magnetic compass points toward true north. Normally it points toward magnetic north. The difference between the two is known as compass variation. The amount of variation changes by as much as 20 degrees as one circumnavigates Earth. If this compass variation or error is not compensated for, a navigator could become far off course quite quickly.
Flight 19's assignment was known as Navigation Problem 1. The plane crews were to fly east to Hen and Chickens Shoals, take a few bombing practice runs, continue east another 67 miles (107 kilometers), turn north and fly 73 miles (117 kilometers), then turn southwest and fly for 120 miles (193 kilometers) to return to their base at Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
U.S.S. Cyclops
Another famous disappearance is that of the U.S.S. Cyclops, a supply ship first launched in 1910 operating with the Naval Auxiliary Service of the Atlantic Fleet in the Baltic and Caribbean Seas. During troubled conditions in Mexico in 1914 and 1916, the Cyclops supplied coal to ships on patrol there and received the thanks of the State Department for cooperation in bringing refugees from Tampico to New Orleans.
With America's entry into World War I, Cyclops was commissioned on May 1, 1917, with Lieutenant Commander G. W. Worley in command. The ship joined a convoy headed for St. Nazaire, France, in June 1917, then returned to the east coast in July.
In January 1918 Cyclops was assigned to the Naval Overseas Transportation Service and sailed to Brazilian waters to fuel British ships in the South Atlantic. It put to sea from Rio de Janeiro on February 16, 1918, and after touching at Barbados on March 3 and 4, was never heard from again. The loss of the ship without a trace is one of the sea's unsolved mysteries.
Another mysterious disappearance is that of the S.S. Marine Sulphur Queen. Bound for Norfolk, Virginia, from Beaumont, Texas, the tanker was last heard from on February 3, 1963, when it routinely radioed its position near Key West.
The only sign ever found was a single life jacket about 40 miles southwest of the tanker's last known position. The waters there are infested with sharks and barracuda. The tanker was carrying 15,000 long tons of molten sulfur contained in four metal tanks, each heated to 275 degrees Fahrenheit by a network of coils connected to two boilers. An explosion is a likely possibility.
In December 1954, a converted Navy LST, the Southern District, was heading up the North Carolina coastline when it disappeared without a trace or distress call. Its cargo was powdered sulfur.
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Service memorializes 'Lost Patrol' that vanished in Bermuda Triangle
By Jonathon King
staff writer
Posted December 6 2002
He recalls a clear day, flying in against a southwest wind, his own torpedo bomber slipping home to Fort Lauderdale after a training flight. But something was missing, something that set the crew on edge.
"When we were coming in, we would usually rendezvous with Flight 19 going out," said Dave Philipp, 76, the radioman on his own Grumman Avenger on that day 57 years ago. "But we didn't see them and we knew something was wrong."
No one, in fact, would ever see Flight 19 again -- not a single survivor from the five-plane group, not a sliver of wreckage.
On Thursday afternoon, nearly 100 people gathered in the shadow of the control tower at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport for a memorial service for the 14 fliers of the legendary "Lost Patrol" who went missing on Dec. 5, 1945.
On a routine, two-hour training mission, the five Navy blue Avengers were scheduled to fly 56 miles that day to a bombing range in the Bahamas. After the practice bombing run, they were supposed to fly a triangular course back to Fort Lauderdale.
"It still seems strange to me," said Philipp, who was a teenager serving at Naval Air Station Fort Lauderdale at the time. "We went out on rescue flights for the next 10 days. Everybody thought we'd find them. We were all trained how to survive if we had to ditch. But we never saw a thing, no wreckage, nothing."
Ninety minutes after the flight took off at 2:10 p.m., squadron leader Lt. Charles C. Taylor radioed that both of his compasses were out and he was lost. A little more than three hours later, the last garbled radio message was received and the squadron was never heard from again.
Thursday's ceremony, replete with the placing of a memorial wreath and a solemn recitation of the names of the missing aviators, is conducted each year by the Naval Air Station Fort Lauderdale Historical Association. Thousands of fliers were trained at the station during World War II, including former President George Bush.
Many of those military veterans returned to the area after the war, fueling the population boom that helped create a modern South Florida.
"We have a great history and an outstanding naval presence here in Fort Lauderdale, and the Flight 19 story is one of our most enduring events," said association President Allan McElhiney. His group was joined by the Broward County Aviation Department and the Fort Lauderdale and Everglades councils of the U.S. Navy League in honoring the missing fliers.
The legend of the Lost Patrol popularized the myth of the Bermuda Triangle, the area between Fort Lauderdale, Bermuda and Puerto Rico where dozens of boats and planes have mysteriously vanished. Tales of a supernatural phenomenon or otherworldly abduction have long surrounded what is still considered one of the biggest mysteries in naval aviation history.
But special guest speaker Capt. James A. Symonds reminded the gathering on Thursday that despite the technology of 60 years ago and today, "Humans are still running the show, and humans make mistakes."
Symonds, a Navy pilot and the officer in line to become commander of the new aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan, said he has been lost in flight over open water and "any aviator who says he hasn't been in that spot isn't telling the whole story."
"That fact in no way diminishes the service or the honor of those men," Symonds told the group of veterans and active servicemen and women and their families. "They made the ultimate sacrifice to keep us all safe and free, and that will never be forgotten."
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A KB-50 Bomber Disappeared
In Bermuda Triangle
One Bermuda Triangle mystery solved?
Mark Greenblatt
NAPLES, May 26, 2003 Almost 60 years ago, a group of World War II airmen disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle, never to be heard from again. Now a south Florida author and nephew of one of the missing men thinks he's finally solved the mystery of their disappearance.
The fabled triangle falls in the area between the southern tip of Florida, Bermuda, and San Juan Puerto Rico It's where hundreds of planes and boats have vanished without a trace over the years.
In January of 1945, 19-year-old Sgt. William Geary set off on a classified army training mission. Twelve planes, including Geary's B-29, took off from Kansas flying towards Puerto Rico. But Geary, along with 15 other airmen, never made it to the U.S. province.
"Eleven planes landed in Puerto Rico. My uncle's was the 12th, it was lost in the Bermuda triangle. It's been a mystery ever since," said Tim Geary.
The mystery grew larger when 200 search planes couldn't find a single sign of wreckage. But 50 years later, Tim Geary got curious about what really happened to his uncle, William. So he began a mission of his own to write a book about it.
The author's journey began 12 years ago. While searching through his grandmother's attic, he discovered historic treasures, like baseball cards from 1912 of hall of famers like Home Run Baker, and Cy Young a card worth $100,000 in some circles. But it was the documents he found next to the cards that provide clues to his uncle's disappearance.
The documents led Geary on a trail through history and heroes, and eventually to the priceless answers and the story his family had waited for for more than half a century.
The major clue was a formerly classified weather report from the Army that showed his uncle's plane apparently hit a severe storm just before landing.
"It was so intense that they flew through hail and severe lightning and winds over 100 miles per hour, which drove all the planes off course," Geary said.
Geary put the rest of the pieces together and wrote them down his book "B-29, The Lost Flight of 428," published just in time for Memorial Day.
"He gave his life for our freedom. I think that's extremely important to you, me, and everyone," Geary said.
Pivotal role in history
The surviving members of the 29th Bomb Group eventually went on to play a pivotal role in the bombing of Tokyo. One of them won a Congressional Medal of Honor for bravery.
Click here for more on B-29: The Lost Flight of 428
Bermuda Triangle Is Not a Mystery Perhaps
06/04/2003 10:35
Some people believe that accidents do not happen in the mysterious place at all
The area of the Bermuda Triangle is called the Devil Sea, the Atlantic Graveyard, the Sea of the Cursed, because there is no particular geographic name for this area. The territory of the mysterious triangle does not have precise borders either. It is generally believed that the Bermuda Triangle is formed with Bermuda Islands, Puerto-Rico and Miami, Florida. Yet, some people stretch the border to the Azores and even farther.
So what is the main thing that attracts so much attention to this small piece of the planet? People are excited with the idea that too many ships wrecked and too many planes crashed in the Bermuda Triangle. Eyewitnesses say that they saw either an UFO or silvery fog before a breakdown happened. Twenty-two planes crashed in the area of the Bermuda Triangle during the period of 1945-1971; 38 ships sank during 1840-1973.
The Bermuda Triangle is the area, in which a lot of sea and air routes cross. Hundreds of planes and vessels travel on those routes, some of them collide with each other sometimes, but only a very small part of those accidents is true. Ships would lose control and sink, but one should bear in mind the fact of the powerful Gulf Stream current in the area of the islands. The current may cause navigation problems for vessels, change its location and it can also affect weather conditions, causing frequent fogs.
As far as science fiction suppositions about alternating gravitation fields and sea monsters are concerned, one may just say that the Bermuda part of the Atlantic Ocean has been studied thoroughly. Shipwrecks have always happened before and they will happen in the future as well, especially on such a busy and vast territory of one million square kilometers. The majority of accidents happened in the Bermuda Triangle in the 1950s-1970s. That was the Cold War period, the period of the industrial growth in a lot of countries, when vessels were widely used as the cheapest way of transportation.
Although, accidents with small private yachts were rather unusual. They would be found abandoned at sea - no people on board, although things and life boats remained intact. However, there is no need to shift the blame on aliens here: let' just assume that a storm happened and the crew was safe and sound on board a larger ship. It is not ruled out that a yacht was not damaged after the storm and continued sailing at sea. People do not rush to pack their things during a storm, they try to save their lives, especially if there is a ship nearby.
There are several other unusual, albeit rather real versions about the Bermuda mystery. For example, there is a version that says that waves generate an ultrasound during a storm, which exerts a negative influence on the human nervous system. As a result, crewmembers panic, the fear suppresses the common sense and people jump overboard. After that, they find abandoned yachts and ships, where everything was left untouched. This version has not been proved yet, so why making up fairy tales, if there is no answer to a normal explanation yet?
However, it is a lot harder to prove anything when it comes to plane crashes in the Bermuda Triangle. They fall down and drown in the Atlantic Ocean, sometimes they fall into pieces in the air. All flight recorders are resting on the seafloor, so it is impossible to find out any reasons. A plane crash may be caused with a lot of reasons, and there may be no reason at all too. A lot of accidents have not been documented. The most discussed air crash is the accident that happened to with several Avenger planes. A group of Avenger aircraft performed a training sortie early in the morning on December 5th, 1945. A very strange message was transmitted in two hours: "We do not know, where we are, they came from the Universe, we are in great danger." The connection with the planes was lost soon after that, and no one saw those planes again. The investigation failed to find out anything, although it is clear that the planes had drowned.
Physicians say that lighting often cause a twisted cone of steam, air and water. It is invisible, it moves at a very high speed and has a very large power. If a could is full of water, a tornado occurs. If there is no water in a cloud, a whirl exists on its own. If a plane finds itself inside such a whirlwind, it will come out of control totally and then it will eventually crash. Most likely, this happened to a group of five Avengers, which came across the invisible whirlwind incidentally.
Ancient Romans loved impressive shows most of all. Modern people want the same. The Bermuda Triangle is still playing the role of an impressive show, providing numerous rumors and legends. Maybe, it is an anomalous zone, maybe UFOs have caused it all to happen? Speaking of Avengers: a newspaper supposed that the planes had moved three hours in the past.
Triangle of mystery
By LUKE SAYER
07sep03
IS it Australia's answer to the Bermuda Triangle, or were they really UFOs behind the disappearance of at least 18 people over Bass Strait?
Whatever the answer, Tasmania features in a number of stories in the new book Great Australian Mysteries.
The book, by former newspaper journalist and author John Pinkney, focuses on a number of unexplained events and unsolved crimes.
Among those is the "Puzzle of the Disappearing Pilot", which makes up a chapter of the new book, and looks at a series of mysterious disappearances in Bass Strait.
In October, 1978, young Melbourne pilot Frederick Valentich disappeared without a trace while flying to King Island, to pick up some crayfish as a surprise for his parents.
Wreckage from the Cessna was not found, and Pinkney gives a rundown of the eerie radio traffic between Valentich and the Melbourne Flight Service at Tullamarine. He reported a series of unidentified green lights, and then a strange aircraft hovering above him.
A grinding metal sound was heard before Valentich's radio went dead.
People from King Island and along the southern Victorian coast reported strange, green lights that very night -- but no concrete explanation for Valentich's disappearance has ever surfaced.
But Valentich's wasn't the first aircraft to disappear mysteriously over Bass Strait.
The first recorded was the Miss Hobart in 1934. Flying from Launceston to Melbourne, it vanished from the sky carrying two crew and 10 passengers.
Less than a year later, another airliner, The Loina, also went missing flying from Melbourne to Western Junction. Three passengers and two crew were never heard from again.
King Island Mayor David Brewster, a pilot himself, says there is an air of mystery to the island, and the Bass Strait Triangle is something people like to talk about.
"A few aircraft have come to grief, but more boats," Mr Brewster said. "But these things happen, and apart from Valentich, most are quite explainable."
He said not that long ago an aircraft wheel was found washed up on the island's coast.
It was found to be from a Russian plane, and he said there was really no explanation how it came to be on King Island.
Another Tasmanian mystery featured in the book is the giant sea monster, which washed up on a remote beach on the West Coast in 1960.
Pinkney's book tells how the discovery and subsequent investigations created scientific intrigue. However, few answers were given until almost 40 years later when another creature was discovered, on a beach not much further south than the original discovery.
Great Australian Mysteries is published by Five Mile Press and also includes speculation about the disappearance of Prime Minister Harold Holt, asks the question "Did Breaker Morant survive the firing squad?" and has other mysteries.
