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The following day, Lieutenant Commander G. W. Worley, a man with
a habit of walking around the quarterdeck clad in nothing but his
underwear and a hat and carrying a cane, reported how an attempted
mutiny by a small number of the 306-man crew had been suppressed
and that the offenders were below decks in irons. And that was the
last anybody ever heard from Captain Worley or any of his crew
. The 20,000-ton
Cyclops simply vanished from the surface of the sea, into thin air.
The conclusion at the time was the ship had been a victim of German
U-boat activity, but when investigations in Germany after the end
of the First World War revealed that no U-boats had been located
in the area, that theory was ruled out. Instead, speculation ranged
from the suggestion - proffered quite seriously - by a popular magazine
that a giant sea monster had surfaced, wrapped its tentacles around
the entire ship, dragged it to the ocean bed and eaten it, to the
rumour, UFO hysteria in full swing, that the vessel had been lifted,
via giant intergalactic magnets, into outer space.
And then, in 1963, eighteen years after the disappearance of Flight
19, it happened again. The SS Marine Sulphur Queen was on a voyage
from Norfolk, Virginia, to Belmont in Texas. On 3 February, the
ship radioed a routine report to the local coastguard to give her
position: she was, at the time, sailing close to Key West in the
Straits of Florida. Shortly afterwards she vanished. Three days
later the coastguard, searching for any sign of the missing vessel,
found a single life jacket floating in the sea. Since then, no other
evidence of the Marine Sulphur Queen, its cargo or the 39-man crew
has ever been found. Back in 1950, connections had already been
made between the disappearance of Flight 19 and of the USS Cyclops:
reporter E. V. W. Jones was the first to suggest mysterious happenings
in the sea between the Florida coast and Bermuda. Two years later,
Fate magazine published an article by George X. Sand in which he
suggested that the mysterious events - thousands of them, by his
calculation - had taken place within an area that extended down
the coast from Florida to Puerto Rico and in a line from each of
these to Bermuda, creating what he called a 'watery triangle'.
His views were shared by one Frank Edwards, who published a book
in 1955 called The Flying Saucer Conspiracy in which he claimed
that aliens from outer space were also operating in the same area;
hence the sky was incorporated into the 'watery triangle', which
became known as the 'Devil's Triangle'. In 1963, following the disappearance
of the Marine Sulphur Queen, journalist Vincent Gaddis wrote an
article for Argosy magazine in which he drew together the many mysterious
events that had taken place within the triangular area of sea and
sky. This proved so popular that he expaneded the article into a
book, which he called The Deadly Bermuda Triangle, thereby coining
the famous expression that was to become synonymous with unexplained
disappearances the world over. Eleven years later, a book by former
army intelligence officer Charles Berlitz, simply entitled The Bermuda
Triangle, sold over 20 million copies and was translated into thirty
different languages. In 1976 the book won the Dag Hammarskjöld International
Prize for non-fiction and the world became gripped by Bermuda Triangle
fever - and has been ever since.
But it is worth noting that even as recently as 1964 the Bermuda
Triangle, as we now know it, simply did not exist. Geographically,
the Bermuda Triangle covers an area in the western Atlantic marked
by, at its three points, Bermuda, San Juan in Puerto Rico and Miami
in Florida - although, on closer study of the locations of some
ocean disasters attributed to the myth, it would be easy to extend
that area halfway round the world. The Mary Celeste, for example
(see page 000), has even been connected to the Bermuda Triangle,
which would extend its boundaries closer to Portugal! But could
there be any truth in the myth - some more prosaic explanation to
account for the seemingly paranormal events? Is there anything about
the actual geography of the area that might cause so many ships
and aircraft to vanish apparently without a trace? To start with,
the sea currents in the area are heavily affected by the warm Gulf
Stream that flows in a north-easterly direction from the tip of
Florida to Great Britain and northern Europe.
The warm current divides the balmy water of the Sargasso Sea and
the colder north Atlantic and is why the climate in northern Europe
is much more moderate than might be expected, considering that Canada
and Moscow are as far north as England. Once leaving the Gulf of
Mexico, the Gulf Stream current reaches five or six knots in speed
and this affects the heavy shipping in the area in many ways, including
navigation. Inexperienced sailors, especially in the days before
radar and satellite navigation, could very easily find themselves
many miles off course after failing to measure the ship's speed
with sufficient accuracy, especially in the days when this was calculated
by throwing from the bow of the ship a log attached to a rope and
timing the appearance of each of a series of knots in the rope as
it passed the stern. Failing to do this often enough while sailing
in the fast-moving Gulf Stream could quite speedily lead to the
crew of a ship becoming hopelessly lost in the vast Atlantic Ocean.
Another effect of the fast-moving current would be to scatter the
wreckage of lost ships and aircraft over a vast area, many miles
from the site of an accident, making it well nigh impossible for
rescue teams to locate survivors.
Then there is the North American continental shelf which is responsible
for the clear blue water of the Caribbean Islands. After only a
few miles, the shelf gives way to the deepest part of the Atlantic
Ocean, an area known as the Puerto Rico Trench. And at over 30,000
feet deep, nobody has ever been down there to clear up any mysterious
disappearances. And furthermore, the continental shelf is home to
large areas of methane hydrates (methane gases that bubble up through
the water after being emitted from the seabed). Eruptions from any
of these in the relatively shallow waters cause the sea to bubble
and froth, affecting the density of the water and hence the buoyancy
of vessels travelling on its surface. Scientific tests have shown
that scale models of ships will sink when the density of the water
is sufficiently reduced, which could account for the sudden disappearance
of various craft within the area. Added to which, any wreckage might
be carried away by the Gulf Stream and scattered across the Atlantic
in no time at all.
The Bermuda Triangle is also known to be an area of magnetic anomalies,
or unusual variations in the earth's magnetic field. Indeed this
area of ocean is one of the two places on earth where a magnetic
compass points to true north (determined by the North Star) rather
than magnetic north (located near Prince of Wales Island in Canada).
The only other place where true north lines up with magnetic north
is directly on the other side of the planet, just off the east coast
of Japan, an area known by Japanese and Filipino seamen as the 'Devil's
Sea'. In both these areas, navigators not allowing for the usual
compass variation between true and magnetic north will become hopelessly
lost, and mysterious disappearances are equally common in the Devil's
Sea. But locals there do not blame UFOs or sea monsters; they blame
human error. Christopher Columbus, the famous fifteenth-century
navigator credited with 'discovering' the Americas, was one of the
first people to recognize the difference between true and magnetic
north; and he wasn't at all fazed by the odd compass readings he
seemed to be getting as he sailed between Bermuda and Florida over
five hundred years ago.
Magnetic anomalies are also thought to be responsible for the fog
that appears to cling to aircraft and boats in the Bermuda Triangle
and Devil's Sea. In such cases, the fog gives the strange illusion
that it is travelling along with the craft rather than that the
vessel is travelling through it, creating a 'tunnelling' effect
for the passengers on board. Many reports have been made of the
disorientating effect of this curious fog. In one of the most celebrated
instances, the captain of a tug towing a large barge reported that
the sea was 'coming in from all directions' (due to methane hydrates,
no doubt) and that the rope attached to the barge plus the barge
itself, only a few yards behind the tug, appeared to have completely
vanished, presumably shrouded in magnetic fog. Another natural phenomenon
that might be held responsible for the strange disappearances in
the region are hurricanes, notorious in the area of ocean between
Bermuda and the Gulf of Mexico, in the middle of which lies the
Bermuda Triangle.
These must take their fair share of the blame in bringing down small
aircraft and swallowing boats, sending the wreckage to the floor
of the Atlantic in minutes and leaving no trace of the craft on
the surface. So what really happened in the case of Flight 19, the
USS Cyclops and the Marine Sulphur Queen? Let's examine the first
of these disappearances in a bit more detail. Squadron Leader Lieutentant
Charles Taylor, although an experienced pilot, had recently been
transferred to the air station at Fort Lauderdale and was new to
the area. Added to which, he was a known party animal and had been
out drinking the evening before the fateful day. A very hungover
Taylor then tried to find someone else to take over as leader of
the training flight - the only point of which was to increase the
flying hours of the four apparent novices - but no other pilot would
agree to stand in at such short notice. Shortly into the flight,
Taylor's compass malfunctioned and, unfamiliar with the area, he
had to rely on landmarks alone. After nothing but open sea, the
aircraft eventually flew over a small group of islands Taylor thought
he recognised as his home - Florida Keys.
Flight 19 was in constant touch with Flight Control and was told
to head directly north which, Taylor thought, would take him straight
back to base. But Flight 19 was not over Florida Keys in fact; it
was over the Bermudan Islands - exactly where it should have been.
Heading north simply sent the stricken aircraft out into the open
Atlantic. Crew members were heard to suggest to each other they
should immediately head west, as their compasses were actually working,
but none of the trainees dared to contradict their leader. With
a storm gathering and the sun not visible through the cloud, Taylor
refused to listen to his subordinates, accepting the instruction
from Flight Control instead. But when told to switch to the emergency
radio channel, Taylor declined, stating that one his pilots could
not tune in to that particular channel and that he did not want
to lose contact with him. As a result of this, contact between Flight
19 and Fort Lauderdale became increasingly intermittent. After an
hour of flying due north, and with no land in sight, Taylor reasoned
he must be over the Gulf of Mexico, and with that made the right-hand
turn, due east, he thought would bring his team back to the west
coast of Florida.
But instead, an hour north of Bermuda and flying over the Atlantic
with Flight Control believing them to be close to the Gulf, this
manoeuvre only served to take them further out to sea. Flight 19,
miles away from where anybody believed them to be, would then have
run out of fuel, ditched into the sea beyond the continental shelf,
and been broken within minutes by the storm. The Mariner sent to
look for them was, in fact, one of two that were sent to assist.
The first arrived back at base safely but the second exploded shortly
after take-off. (The Mariners, notorious for fuel leaks, were nicknamed
'flying gas tanks'.) Radio contact had been lost twenty-five minutes
into the flight and debris floating in a slick of spilt oil was
found in the exact location the plane was though to have come down.
In short, there was nothing mysterious about the accident after
all. The official report at first stated that flight leader error
was to blame for the loss of Flight 19, but this was then changed
to 'cause unknown', giving rise to the mystery. Contrary to the
fictitious version of events, nobody has ever stated, in an official
capacity, that the aircraft simply vanished 'as if they had flown
off to planet Mars'.
The disappearance of the USS Cyclops does remain a mystery, however,
although heavy seas and hurricanes were reported in the area at
the time. It is now thought that a sudden shift in its eleven-thousand-ton
metal cargo was to blame, causing the ship to capsize with all hands
on deck and sink to bottom of the ocean. In the case of the SS Marine
Sulphur Queen, something Triangle enthusiasts rarely mention is
that the cargo was made up of 15,000 tons of molten sulphur sealed
in four giant tanks and kept at a heat of 275 degrees Fahrenheit
by two vast boilers connected to the tanks via a complex network
of coils and wiring. They also do not tell us that the T-2 tankers
such as the Marine Sulphur Queen had a terrible record for safety
during the Second World War and that within the space of just a
few years three of them had previously broken in half and sunk.
Indeed, a similar sulphur-carrying ship had vanished in 1954 under
less mysterious circumstances, having spontaneously exploded before
any distress call could be made.
But what clinches it for me is one particular detail: the fact that
officers on a banana boat fifteen miles off the coast of San Antonia
near Cuba reported a strong acrid odour in the vicinity. The conclusion
at the time, but overlooked later by Triangle enthusiasts, was either
that leaking sulphur must have quickly overcome the entire crew
and a spark then ignited the sulphur cloud, causing a fire that
the unconscious crew were unable to put out, or that an explosion
had torn through the boat, depositing the crew in the shark- and
barracuda-infested waters. Either way, investigators decided the
ship must have gone down just over the horizon from the banana boat
whose crew had detected the sulphurous odour. In addition to natural
phenomena, there are manmade ones to consider too when it comes
to the Bermuda Triangle. Indeed, the Caribbean and southern Florida
have long been a favourite haunt for pirates and it's not exactly
in their interests to report the ships they've sunk after looting
their cargo or crew they've murdered in the process. Many unexplained
disappearances would be far better explained by pirate activity
than by extraterrestrial abduction or sea monsters lurking in the
deep. The pirates of the Caribbean were not heroes but vicious murderers
who took no prisoners and left no evidence of their piracy, and
don't let Johnny Depp or Keira Knightly seduce you into thinking
otherwise.
The main explanation for the mysterious events of the Bermuda Triangle
is sheer invention. Indeed there are many examples of writers bending
facts to suit their stories (notably in the case of the Loch Ness
Monster and the Mary Celeste or indeed pretty much every story I've
covered in this book), which is hardly surprising since mysterious
and ghostly goings-on can be very profitable (as I hope to find
out), as everyone loves a good mystery. One of my favourite examples
of this is the story of the incident in 1972 of the appropriately
named tanker V. A. Fogg that was said to have been found drifting
in the Triangle without a single crew member aboard. Everybody had
vanished apart from the captain whose body was found sitting at
his desk with a steaming mug of tea in front of him and a haunted
look upon his face. He had died from shock - or so the story goes.
The truth is rather different, although not lacking in drama. The
V. A Fogg had just delivered a cargo of benzene at the Phillips
Petroleum Depot at Freeport in Texas.
As it returned through the Gulf of Mexico with its skeleton crew
(and I mean that metaphorically in case you've still got those Caribbean
fellows on your mind) cleaning out the fuel tanks, the ship suddenly
exploded and sank. The blast created a 10,000-foot-high pall of
smoke and, on further investigation, the US Coastguard found the
vessel broken in two on the seabed, one hundred feet below the surface.
Their photographic record, including the bodies recovered from the
sea, is at complete odds with the story told for the benefit of
the Bermuda Triangle mystery, plus, of course, the Gulf of Mexico
is not even in the Bermuda Triangle. I don't mean to be a mystery-buster,
but we do need to get our facts straight. To resolve the mystery
of the Bermuda Triangle once and for all, I decided to adopt my
failsafe research method of getting to the bottom of things - finding
out who has the most money at stake. I don't mean documentary makers,
newspapers or television companies; I'm talking about the insurance
industry.
Because it is very much in their interests to have carried out meticulous
research into accidents at sea, we can be fairly certain that they
will have looked into any so-called mysteries with considerable
care. Starting with the largest, and oldest, shipping insurance
company in the world, Lloyds of London, we discover that they certainly
did take notice of the Bermuda Triangle reports during the early
1970s and issued a statement to Fate magazine, published on 4 April
1975. The statement declared that '428 vessels have been reported
missing throughout the world since 1955 and that there is no cause
to suspect the Bermuda Triangle is swallowing more ships then any
other section of the oceans'. So if Lloyds of London believe there
is no mystery to be found in the Bermuda Triangle, then nor should
we. But, just in case people with minds immeasurably greater than
ours are wrong, or even lying to us, then let's do a few calculations
of our own. We could start by considering that the surface of the
earth comprises 71 per cent water, an area of 13,900,000 square
miles. The Bermuda Triangle at its smallest - , depending on which
author you believe, as many extend the area to cram as many disappearances
into their version of the Triangle as possible - is around 500,000
square miles so that is about 3.6 per cent of the world's sea area.
During the last century over fifty ships, large and small, and twenty
aircraft of all shapes and sizes have come to grief in the Bermuda
Triangle. If we use those figures and apply the same principle across
the planet, we should expect to have lost around two thousand aircraft
and boats in total over the last one hundred years, which sounds
a little too high. But are twenty accidents per year, small or large,
around the world, unreasonable to imagine? Are the events attributed
to the Bermuda Triangle any greater in number than they would be
in any other section of the ocean of comparable size? Other mystery
makers point to the statistic of one thousand craft lost in the
Bermuda Triangle since records began. But they fail to remind readers
that records began many centuries ago when Christopher Columbus
first sailed west in 1492, which works out at an average of less
than two disappearances per year. That sounds about right to me.
That combined with the fact that coastguards have known the reason
for the loss of a craft in almost every case - if people would only
bother to ask them - should stop the fuss once and for all. This
isn't an unusually high percentage of accidents for this area at
all in comparison with other parts of the world. The only real surprise
is that Lloyds made any statement at all - if they'd kept quiet,
they could have put their premiums up for shipping in that now infamous
stretch of sea.
Albert Jack - 2007
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