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July 2003

By Prabhath P

The Bermuda Triangle became one of the world’s best-known mystery power spots when several ships and aircraft disappeared in this stretch of sea

December 5, 1945: Five Navy Avenger Bombers were on a routine training mission over the Atlantic Ocean in the Bahamas. They were headed by Lt Charles Taylor, a senior and greatly experienced flight instructor. All five bombers vanished without a trace. A rescue plane that went in search never returned. They had all accidentally strayed into the stretch of ocean known as the Bermuda Triangle.

Now infamous the world over, the Bermuda Triangle is an imaginary triangle stretching from the East Coast of Florida to the island of Bermuda back to Puerto Rico. The ocean lying within the Triangle is a peculiar power spot on the planet, suspected to be filled with electromagnetic and gravitational energy anomalies. Not only do aircraft disappear, they also resurface—verified radio messages have been received from pilots who were long lost. This has led to speculation of the Triangle being a gateway to another dimension, where those entering it get trapped. Those venturing near it have also reported encounters with strange clouds and mists below cloud level and malfunctioning of electrical machinery.

Fame and Notoriety

The Bermuda Triangle entered popular imagination first with an Associated Press dispatch in 1950. E.V.W. Jones wrote of “mysterious disappearances” of ships and planes. In 1952, George X. Sands in Fate magazine noted an unusually large number of strange accidents there. Vincent H. Gaddis first used the term ‘Bermuda Triangle’ in an article for Argosy magazine in 1964. In 1969, John Wallace Spencer wrote a book called Limbo of the Lost and, later, a feature documentary, The Devil’s Triangle, was released.

These, along with the bestseller, The Bermuda Triangle, by Charles Berlitz published in 1974, made the Triangle extremely popular. Movies and fictional accounts followed suit. An aircraft disappearance earned a mention in the Steven Spielberg classic, Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Recently, the cult TV series X-Files featured an episode in which FBI special agents Mulder and Scully find themselves on a ship caught in a time warp in the Triangle.

A historical event attributed to the Triangle is the 1892 disappearance and reappearance of the vessel Mary Celeste. The crew was missing, but their supplies and personal belongings were safe. According to official reports, during the 20th century, more than 50 ships and 20 aircraft were swallowed by the Triangle, including the Indian passenger ship Kairali.

The Scientific Explanation…

Most scientists attribute the disappearances to tricky ocean currents, hostile weather and human or technical error. In the Triangle area, compasses point to the geographical North Pole rather than the magnetic north, which some think makes navigation difficult causing accidents. Dr Ben Clennel of Leeds University popularized the theory that methane locked below the sea sediments reduces the density of water making ships sink. He also claimed that the highly combustible gas could also ignite aircraft engines, blowing them up.

The US Navy proposed the possibility of electromagnetic and atmospheric disturbances. Larry Kusche, the author of The Bermuda Triangle Mystery Solved, argued that the accidents were not strange but only hyped up by the media and irrational sensationalists.

…debunked!

Gian Quasar, who has investigated the Triangle since 1990, points out that the rationalistic attempt to deny the mystery or fit it into the existing scientific framework fails like the wild theories they reject. Quasar says the magnetic compass variation explanation is false because the Argonic line (the area of difference in calculation) moves with the rotation of the earth and is not always inside the Triangle to cause accidents. The methane gas theory also falls flat since the Triangle area does not have vast gas reserves.

Futuristic, New Age and spiritual theories add colour to the Bermuda Triangle mystery, but do not agree on an answer. American psychic Edgar Cayce’s readings indicate that the area beneath the Triangle was part of the mythical lost continent Atlantis and that Atlantean electromagnetic machines were hidden there. Charles Berlitz thought there was a magnetic vortex in the Triangle. Psychic Ed Snedeker believes that the atmosphere above the Triangle is filled with invisible tunnels, which suck in the aircraft, ships and people.

Supernatural Portal

According to a theory based on physics, the ships and planes mysteriously travel from this world to the anti-matter world where everything has a counterpart. This happens due to a ‘split’ in one world coming close to a ‘split’ in the other world. This could be plausible since scientists have recently discovered a hole consisting of anti-matter in our solar system. New Agers think that the Triangle is a supernatural corridor or planetary energy chakra used by spiritual beings of other dimensions.

Dr Michael Preisinger, a German historian cum scuba diver, concludes that deviations in magnetic and gravitational fields off the coast of Bahamas could be caused by micro-wormholes. Prof John Wheeler, of Princeton University, USA, believes these wormholes might be ‘transit tunnels’ between different dimensions of reality. Small underwater caves, called ‘blue holes’, have been found in the Triangle area and it is possible that the popping in and out of existence of micro-wormholes formed them. UFO enthusiasts cite these theories to argue that the Triangle is a ‘Star Gate’ used by extraterrestrials for inter-galactic travel.

Another speculation points to time warps in the Triangle where different temporal dimensions might overlap with our timeline causing ships and aircraft to disappear into the past or the future. Conservative Christians consider the Bermuda Triangle as the gateway to hell, hence the name ‘Devil’s Triangle’. A quantum mechanical explanation sees it as a meeting point of parallel worlds that normally exist separately. But an area of interpenetration could make objects and beings from one world cross over into another.

Energy Anomaly

Despite the conflicting explanations, there is an underlying thread—the probable presence of strange but powerful energy anomalies in the Bermuda Triangle that even some scientists admit. But nobody knows for sure why and how it became a power spot. As Gain Quasar concludes: “I don’t know how one can dogmatically assert any theory since, without doubt, nothing is left from a disappearance upon which to build any unassailable evidence… It is the only honest standpoint.” This is a humbling lesson for humanity. Despite science’s efforts to create a Theory of Everything, earth still holds secrets that we can’t fathom. As Goethe said: “What we know is nothing. What we don’t know is immense.”