Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
THE BAFFLING
Bermuda Triangle
The area known as the Bermuda Trian-
gle encompasses 2,414,016 sq. km
(932,057 sq. miles) of open sea between
Bermuda, Puerto Rico, and the south-
eastern shoreline of the U.S. This bit of
the Atlantic is the source of the most
famous, and certainly the most baffling,
legend associated with Bermuda.
Tales of the mysterious Bermuda Tri-
angle persist, despite attempts by skep-
tics to dismiss them as fanciful. Below
are three of the most popular.
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In 1881, a British-registered ship,
the
Ellen Austin,
encountered an
unnamed vessel in good condition
sailing aimlessly without a crew.
The captain ordered a handful of
his best seamen to board the mys-
terious vessel and sail it to New-
foundland. A few days later, the
ships encountered each other
again on the high seas. But to
everyone's alarm, the crewmen
who had transferred from the
Ellen Austin
were nowhere to be
found—the ship was completely
unmanned.
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Another tale concerns the disap-
pearance of a merchant ship, the
Marine Sulphur Queen,
in February
1963. It vanished suddenly without
warning, and no one could say why.
The weather was calm when the
ship set sail from Bermuda, and
everything onboard was fine—the
crew never sent a distress signal. In
looking for explanations, some have
theorized that the ship's weakened
hull gave way, causing the vessel to
descend quickly to the ocean floor.
Others attribute the loss to more
mysterious forces.
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The most famous of all the legends
concerns an incident in 1945. On
December 5, five U.S. Navy bomb-
ers departed from Fort Lauderdale,
Florida, on a routine mission. The
weather was fine; no storm of any
kind threatened. A short time into
the flight, the leader of the squad-
ron radioed that they were lost,
and then the radio went silent. All
efforts to establish further com-
munication proved fruitless. A res-
cue plane was dispatched to search
for the squadron—but it, too,
disappeared. The navy ordered a
search that lasted 5 days, but there
was no evidence of any wreckage.
To this day, the disappearance of
the squadron and the rescue plane
remains a mystery as deep as the
waters of the region.
How do those who believe in the Ber-
muda Triangle legend account for these
phenomena? Some contend that the
area is a time warp to another universe;
others think the waters off Bermuda are
the site of the lost kingdom of Atlantis,
whose power sources still function deep
beneath the surface. Still others believe
that laser rays from outer space are per-
petually focused on the region, or that
underwater signaling devices are guid-
ing invaders from other planets, and
that these aliens have chosen the site
for the systematic collection of human
beings for scientific observation and
experimentation. (Smacks of
The X Files,
doesn't it?) Some, drawing upon the
Bible's Book of Revelation, are fully per-
suaded that the Bermuda Triangle is
really one of the gates to Hell (in this
version, the other gate lies midway
between Japan and the Philippines, in
the Devil's Sea).
No matter what your views on these
mysteries, you're bound to provoke an
excited response by asking residents
what they think about it. On Bermuda,
almost everyone has an opinion about
the island's biggest and most fascinat-
ing legend.
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