Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 21
Ten Things You Can
Forget
In This Chapter
Booting the Bermuda Triangle
Leaving The Land of the Midnight Sun behind
Shuffling aside the Seven Seas
Canceling membership to the Flat Earth Society
I f reading about all of this geography stuff has left your brain low on disk space, then you may wish
to delete some files and free up some memory. Accordingly, here are ten geography-related items you
can relegate to the recycle bin.
The Bermuda Triangle
The Bermuda Triangle is an imaginary area off the southeastern coast of the United States that has
allegedly witnessed a disproportionately high number of strange and unexplained disappearances of
boats, ships, and airplanes. Disagreement abounds as to its exact location. Most commonly, the Tri-
angle is depicted as a hunk of Atlantic Ocean bounded by a line that extends from Bermuda to Miami
to San Juan, Puerto Rico and back to Bermuda. The U.S. Board of Geographic Names does not recog-
nize “Bermuda Triangle” and has never indicated where it may be. This gives you complete license to
place the Bermuda Triangle anywhere your little heart desires, and that is precisely what some people
have done. Indeed, on some maps the Triangle isn't even triangular.
The term first appeared in a February 1964 article (“The Deadly Bermuda Triangle”) in
Argosy
magazine. Several other articles on the subject subsequently appeared (along with topics and TV docu-
mentaries), many suggesting the region is mysterious and dangerous. If you've seen some of this stuff
and found the whole thing rather spooky, rest assured you are not alone. Given widespread public in-
terest in paranormal activity, the Bermuda Triangle has become something of a geographical poster
child for enthusiasts of the occult.
