The Bermuda Triangle

Today is the 60th anniversary of the loss of Flight 19 in the Bermuda Triangle, perhaps the most famous disappearance in that mysterious area of sea. The Bermuda Triangle was all the rage in the '70s, and various "explanations" were given for the disappearances of both planes and ships--UFO abductions, strange electro-magnetic fields, etc. Located off the southeastern coast of the United States, it overlaps the Sargasso Sea, a doldrums heavy with seaweed that was first reported by Columbus.

Flight 19 was a group of five planes that took off from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on a training flight piloted by one experienced flight instructor and four students (who were nonetheless qualified but less experienced pilots). The instructor seems to have gotten lost and believed himself to be south of the Florida peninsula when he was actually east. He thought that flying north and east would get him home, but it actually flew him further out to sea. Either that, or they flew into Close Encounters of the Third Kind. When a rescue plane also disappeared, that just added to the mystery.

The Bermuda Triangle was first named in an article in Argosy by Vincent Gaddis in February 1964 (I was hoping to find a copy of that online but came up empty) and was popularized as a supernatural mystery by John Wallace Spencer in Limbo of the Lost (which I read avidly more than thirty years ago) and Charles Berlitz in The Bermuda Triangle. It didn't take long, though, until all our scary-stories-around-the-campfire-fun was ruined by The Bermuda Triangle Mystery-Solved, in which University of Arizona librarian Larry Kusche took a no-nonsense approach to debunking the stories, which turned out to be not quite as mysterious as previously claimed. I guess he turned out to be pretty much right, though, at least judging from the fact that his book is still in print and the others are not (although a quick look in Barnes & Noble reflects a few new ones on the scene).

The U.S. Navy weighs in with FAQs on both the Bermuda Triangle and Flight 19. As you might expect, they have no time for paranormal speculation:

The Coast Guard is not impressed with supernatural explanations of disasters at sea. It has been their experience that the combined forces of nature and unpredictability of mankind outdo even the most far fetched science fiction many times each year.

If you are intrigued by unnatural implications of some of these disappearances, navigate around www.bermuda-triangle.org. Although their home page is confusingly laid out, they've got some interesting pages on Columbus and the Sargasso Sea, various theories of what causes the phenomenon (if, indeed, there is a phenomenon), lists of aircraft and ships that have gone missing, and lots more. They even debunk the debunker.

And just for good measure, here are the lyrics to Blondie's "Bermuda Triangle Blues (Flight 45)."