Ongoing · The Atlantic Ocean

Triangle of Bermuda
For more than a century, ships and aircraft have been disappearing in the waters of the ocean between Florida, Bermuda, and Puerto Rico.

Put a triangle on the map. [Place a dot on Miami, Florida.] The second was sent to Bermuda, out in the Atlantic. The third dropped Puerto Rico in the Caribbean. That sweep of the triangle, about 500,000 square miles of ocean, has claimed more ships and planes than any other similar body of water on the planet. And no one can explain it to anyone to their complete satisfaction.

They’ve been disappearing for generations. In the 19th century, ships disappeared without explanation in the triangle. It was the 20th century, however, that truly secured the region’s reputation for terror.
On December 5, 1945, five US Navy torpedo bombers departed Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on a routine training mission. All five planes were in good repair. The pilots were men of experience. The weather is nice. There were 14 men on what was known as Flight 19. It’s due back in two hours.
Halfway through the flight, the flight leader’s radio crackled into life: their compasses were going haywire. They had no way to the west. They weren’t able to find the coast. They were lost, circling some part of the Atlantic, burning up fuel. The radio communications became more and more frantic, then ceased. All five planes were history. A search-and-rescue plane to find them was also lost, a Martin Mariner with 13 men.

One afternoon 27 men and 6 planes had disappeared.

The Navy’s official inquiry found “causes or reasons unknown.” The phrase has haunted the triangle ever since.

Scientists who have studied the area have suggested various natural explanations: sudden violent weather systems; magnetic anomalies, which might interfere with compasses; large underwater deposits of methane, which might, in theory, sink ships by reducing the density of the water; and the powerful currents of the Gulf Stream, which might carry wreckage thousands of miles away. Statistically, the Bermuda Triangle is no more dangerous than any other heavily traveled stretch of ocean, the US Coast Guard says.

But tell that to the families of the men of Flight 19, whose bodies were never found, whose planes were never found, and whose last desperate radio calls still echo through history.
Estimates indicate that over 1,000 people have died in the past 100 years in the Bermuda Triangle. Whatever the explanation—mundane or extraordinary—the disappearances are very real—and they still happen today.