Bermuda Triangle

The Bermuda triangle is also known as Devil’s triangle. It is called so because of people’s superstitious beliefs. They believed that devil was at play on this stretch of ocean gobbling up anything that travels on it. For many years several hundred ships and planes have been vanishing in this area.

It is an imaginary area located off the southeastern Atlantic coast of the United States, which is noted for unexplained losses of ships, small boats, and aircraft. During the past century more than 50 ships and 20 aircraft sailed in this area and they disappeared. Nobody knows what happened to these ships and aircraft because they used to disappear without any trace.

The apexes of the Devil’s triangle are generally accepted to be Bermuda, Miani, Fla., and San Juan, Puerto Rico. A man named Vincent H. Gaddis came with the phrase "Bermuda Triangle". There is some inexplicable force within this area that caused ships and planes to vanish.

There are countless theories which attempted to explain these disappearances. The majority of disappearances might be due to the area's unique environmental features.

Many claim that Christopher Columbus bore witness to the Bermuda Triangle’s weirdness. First, on the "Devil's Triangle", the Columbus’s compass or the magnetic compass points towards 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 the earth. If this compass variation or error is not compensated, navigator could find himself in deep trouble.

Another factor is the character of the Gulf Stream. It is extremely swift and turbulent .The unpredictable Caribbean-Atlantic weather pattern also plays its role. Sudden thunder storms and water spouts often causes disaster to pilots and mariners.

The Bermuda Triangle became famous with the mysterious disappearance of Naval Air Flight 19. On December 5, 1945 five Avenger torpedo bombers left the Naval Air Station at Fort Lauderdale.They never returned home. No known wreckage of Flight 19 has been recovered. The Avenger bombers contained 14 men, 13 of those were trainees in the last stage of their training along with Lt. Charles Taylor. Lt. Taylor had no knowledge of flying over Bahamas which was the direction Flight 19 was headed in. Their mission on that day was to practice bombing at hens and chicken shoals fifty six miles away. Once that was accomplished, the Avengers were to continue eastward for another sixty seven miles, then head north seventy three miles. Then they would turn southwest and head for home. In other words they were flying through a triangular flight path, what would be called the Bermuda Triangle. They performed the operation as planned but were unknown to the danger they are going to face. They were totally horrified with whatever started happening with them in the Devil’s Land (Bermuda Triangle). They had no absolute idea where they were and where they were heading for. The communication with the base stations was totally lost and no frequency was helping them to re-establish the communication. Even the rescue aircraft which were sent in search for it were also lost.

The information about the mariner and the Flight 19’s disappearance soon began in the early 50’s. Stories about " a mysterious place where ships and planes disappeared into" and a " limbo of lost" caught the publics interest immediately, the legend of Bermuda Triangle began and is still carried on this day. It is believed that a person who started his journey having to traverse through this area could never reach his/her destination.

There are many stories of strange disappearances of both ships and planes either somewhere near or inside the Bermuda triangle. Even though it is believed that everything disappears within the imaginary boundaries of triangular area, the fact is that half the time the incidences occurred distance away from it but somehow got their disappearance linked with the Triangle. People came out with some weird theories that the triangle must have some kind of mysterious ocean powers which sucks down everything that comes over it. There have been many theories about the Bermuda Triangle, for example: waterspout, whirlpool, tornado, tidal wave, UFOs, quicksand, giant octopuses', etc.
For many years Bermuda Triangle has been successful in attracting people’s attention in such a way that it has been advertised in many articles, books, television series and movies and always portrayed as a very real and mysterious thing. It seems as if this is only a myth which has been over exaggerated. I guess with today’s advanced technologies, it might be possible to solve the mystery surrounding the Bermuda Triangle, and people will come to know the true reason behind the mishaps.
By Shalaka Bhosale