Mystery Of Bermuda Triangle

Most everybody has heard of the Bermuda Triangle, but the expression has become so clouded with popular hearsay and sensationalism that few can  really give an accurate account of what it is. The first  gut reaction many people give when asked about the Bermuda Triangle is “I don’t believe in it!” Yet what is it they don’t believe in? The Bermuda Triangle is actually two things. First off, it is a geographic area of the North Atlantic Ocean located off the SouthEast coast of the United States. It generally lies in and around three nodal points: the island of Bermuda, Miami, Florida, and San Juan, Puerto Rico. It can hardly be denied that this area of the Earth does exist. But, of course, when most refer to the Bermuda Triangle they really mean the enigma of the Bermuda Triangle.  This is the area’s great controversy. The enigma is that more ships and planes disappear in this area, in fair weather, more than in any other place in the world,  for no readily explainable reason. 

     For over 20 years now I have studied the Bermuda Triangle. For good or bad my name has become inexorably linked with the subject. My studies have proven to my satisfaction that the enigma is quite true. Anybody out there may form whatever opinion they wish on the subject, and even propose their own theories. That is a healthy thing to do. But these must be based on the facts to have any credence. And it is my hope that this site and my books help to bring those facts to everybody.

       As I am now redesigning this website and updating it, after 12 years of being the number 1 source on the web, it is best to lay some groundwork here that helps to start the reader off on the right foot. First, theories are NOT a part of the enigma. Some of them, especially the most esoteric, may give a chill up our collective spine, but theories and facts are not the same thing.  Many may immediately think of UFOs when the Bermuda Triangle is mentioned, or perhaps even Edgar Cayce’s Atlantis. But these are not contributors to the enigma. These are all a part of the legend of the Bermuda Triangle.

       The enigma and the facts go back long before the moniker “Bermuda Triangle” and a long time before air traffic. In fact, the general area was the center of almost all nautical mysteries, including the dereliction of sound and stable ships, since the beginning of recorded sailing. The first mention of the general area was in 1894. For over 7 years commander S.D. Sigsbee, of the US Navy, studied the phenomenon of derelict vessels in the North Atlantic Ocean. Sigsbee’s work could almost have inspired a Jules Verne fictional adventure with its details of mysteries. He noted that over the 7 years of 1887 to 1893 inclusive there were recorded 1,628 derelicts in the North Atlantic.  Most of these he wrote:

“Pilot Charts show that most of the derelicts are sighted in the Gulf Stream off the United States coast, north of 30 degrees north latitude, and west of 60 degrees west longitude. The number gradually decreases to the eastward along the transatlantic steamer routes. A number of those which remain afloat the longest time make the circuit of the Sargasso Sea. The majority of the derelicts were vessels which were abandoned near the United States coasts.”

     No better definition of the area of the Bermuda Triangle can be given. The US Hydrographic Office published Sigsbee’s work in 1894, preserving a wealth of information.  In this work Sigsbee notes that on an average 19 derelicts were afloat each month. Some of these were never boarded by other ships in order to determine why the crew abandoned them. Ships like the Fannie E. Wolston were afloat for years, making 2 or more complete circumferences of the Sargasso Sea. 

     Many of these derelicts have explanations. The  Drisko, for instance, which was found off Key West, was foolishly abandoned by her crew, who forgot that a wood vessel carrying lumber cannot sink. Many passing vessels sighted the derelict waterlogged but still afloat. The USS San Francisco finally had to sink it as a hazard. Other crews were found in their lifeboats and were picked up by other passing ships. But that does not diminish the conundrum. It is here, more than anywhere in the North Atlantic, and indeed the world, where crews lost their heads and their nerves and abandoned their vessel for a flimsy little lifeboat.

     Sigsbee believed that the number of derelicts increased over his 7 year period of study because the Hydrographic Office was perfecting its system of reporting and enlisting more ships in their network of relaying reports. This gives us an idea of how many derelicts were floating about the Atlantic long before his study. One brief window into this period is found in 1873. The New York Times commented on the case of the Abd-El Kader. She was sailing to America and encountered two derelicts at sea. The first (Robert C. Winthrop)was boarded and found shipshape, but a squall was brewing so the crew decided to leave the vessel to its fate. Then on approaching Boston yet another was come across (Kate Brigham). Exasperated, the Times reporter wondered what was causing American sailors to abandon their vessels. Was it the “Flying Dutchman” coming across their bow, the reporter jibed tongue-in-cheek?

     The phenomenon of abandoned, drifting vessels is often associated with the Sargasso Sea. This area lies in the middle of the North Atlantic, clutched in the surrounding grasp of very strong currents like the Gulf Stream, North Atlantic Drift, and the North Equatorial Current, among others. Together they seal off this area from the often tempestuous Atlantic. As a result it is an area of weak currents and, also, little wind. It was cursed by sailors since Columbus’ time, and later got the name of the Doldrums, from which we borrowed the expression for a fatigued depression. It was also called the Horse Latitudes, because the Spanish had to throw their horses over the side to conserve water while they drifted and waited for a wind to fill their vapid sails.

          

      The Sargasso Sea. Its westernmost part overlaps the Bermuda
 Triangle. It gets its name from the unique form of seaweed that
 grows over its surface called sargassum.

     Sea lore turned the Sargasso Sea into the “Port of Missing Ships.” According to the legend, it is here where all sorts of derelict vessels could be found drifting in the languid currents, lifeless and haunted. It has been said that the Bermuda Triangle mythos grew out of that of the Sargasso Sea’s. But Sigsbee’s work shows us how this is not possible. Most derelicts actually happened in the area of the Bermuda Triangle and the result is that the vessels drifted out and along the powerful currents that clutch the Sargasso Sea. One such case is the tern Wyer G. Sargent. She was sighted first on March 31, 1891, at 34 degrees of latitude in the Triangle. She was spotted again at only 35 degrees of latitude 615 days later. It would seem she had barely drifted. However, from reports of some 32 ships, it was made plain that the vessel drifted around the entire Sargasso Sea and was already on its second course around it. It had drifted 5,500 miles in those days and was still going strong like the Fannie Wolston.

     Those ships that drifted into the Sargasso Sea were perhaps preserved longer or simply idled in a general area longer than those that drifted in the fast currents. Because of this the Sargasso Sea rightly received the moniker “Port of Missing.” But for the most part, the mysteries began in the Bermuda Triangle.

     With so many derelicts afloat for years haunting the North Atlantic it is hardly surprising that a legend of mystery developed. Even if the crews escaped these sound ships safely, for whatever reason, many of the crews that spotted the vessels never knew that.  As far as witnesses were concerned these ships were truly cursed drifters, and entire crews continued to avoid them. The Fannie Wolston had drifted over 7,000 miles when last reported, and Sigsbee noted that this range, the longest and furthest on record, would be increased as she was still drifting at the time of his report’s publication.

   The modern legend that this area of sea had more ghost ships than others was hardly without its kernel of truth. It deserved to be studied, as the Hydrographic Office was attempting. The legend didn’t need to be sensationalized. Obviously, it was in some accounts. The concentration of derelicts inspired many stories of the Sargasso Sea. But modern scholars were surprised when Sigsbee’s work was again republished today and we discovered the salient fact that more derelicts occurred in the precise area where the modern legend of missing ships and aircraft should also be centered.

     This is not simply a mathematic probability in heavily crowded shores off the United States. Sigsbee broke down the stats to show that American and British ships constituted the higher percentage (160  American and 134 British respectively) but also that 95 Norwegian ships, 24 German, 20 Italian, 11 French, 10 Swedish and even 9 Russian ships, among other nationalities, join the list of vessels where their crews fled safe ship for treacherous waters.

     Sigsbee’s studies, and those reports of independent Hydrographic bulletins, reveals a genuine enigma. The area we today call the Bermuda Triangle has always stood out for mystery. Whether many of these derelicts can be explained or not does not change the overall enigma. It is here where crews took flight more than elsewhere, and this must be explained, for it is a pattern and a pattern that overlaps the pattern of disappearances of entire ships and planes.   Further reports from ships, including the now-infamous Mohicanin 1904, have only added to possible reasons why crews have panicked. A connection with today’s enigma of the Bermuda Triangle is underscored by the fact that old accounts like the Mohican had long been buried and forgotten. Yet long before this old newspaper account was rediscovered in the 21st century, we had published accounts from those who sailed the Triangle and reported encounters with electromagnetic “forces.” They, too, spoke about unusual clouds and “electronic fogs” that caused compasses to go haywire, power to be drained, the horizon to disappear, and all electronic gear to malfunction.

     To what extent do these “forces” have to do with disappearances? That can only be determined by continuing to gather and collate data, as I continue to do. But as for the enigma of the Bermuda Triangle, we can safely say that it is quite real. Unusual electromagnetic aberrations do happen there, and there are more disappearances than elsewhere. However, we cannot let theories replace facts or let favorite guesses solve what is not solved. Supernatural explanations cannot be allowed to wipe out the genuine and intriguing enigma this sea really holds. Mystery is an invitation to look and to learn, not to deny and mock.

     Disappearances by the hundreds have joined the derelicts. They add an even greater tangibility to the Triangle’s enigma. A disappearance of materiel as big as ships and airliners is  not a subjective mystery, such as sightings of UFOs or Bigfoot. These ships and aircraft existed. They had people aboard, and now they are missing. They exist by registration number in archives and official registers, and investigations were made of most of the cases, so that it is possible to go back centuries and find records where an investigator puzzled over why a ship disappeared.

     In the aviation age, however, mystery intensified.  Aircraft travel relatively quickly compared to ships. Their flight paths are carefully vectored. Their  ETAs are known. Yet they disappear as often as ships. They present many more mysteries than ship disappearances. They are not subject to piracy in mid-air. Seaquakes will not upset them. Whales cannot harm them. They often don’t vanish far from our eyes either. Radar has captured them. One moment they are there. A sweep of the scope— 20 seconds— they are gone.  Many vanished over shallow water and left no trace. And, most of all, rescuers have come quickly to the suspected scene and yet, even minutes later, find nothing.  

     Some 50 plus years has now elapsed since people sought the cause of all this. Truth and error has intermixed, but together they have revealed enormous potential about our planets and brought to our attention intriguing discussions and possible solutions.

       Study carefully for yourself.  Theories and speculation will vary, but in the end all will agree that the enigma is quite true.