A scientist has waded into the enduring hype surrounding the mystery of the Bermuda Triangle, suggesting he has uncovered the answer to all the enigmatic disappearances of ships and aircrafts reportedly attributed to the area.
Shane Satterley, a PhD candidate at Griffith University, Australia, suggests that a more profound study of the records pertaining to all those incidents linked with the area, also known as the Devil's Triangle - a loosely defined region in the western part of the North Atlantic Ocean, between Florida, Puerto Rico and Bermuda - could help explain the phenomenon.
Satterley is cited byThe Conversation as making a reference to what is believed to be one of the biggest recorded losses in the area.
In 1945 five US Navy Avenger torpedo bombers flying from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, to Bimini Island went missing.
The disappearance happened after a radio call from the 14 men on board to say their compasses were no longer working. The flight’s leader, Lieutenant Charles Taylor, was heard over the radio saying:
“We are entering white water, nothing seems right. We don’t know where we are, the water is green, not white.”
Three rescue planes also disappeared.
"Take the disappearance of Charles Taylor and the five planes which the US Navy investigated. The investigation found that as it got dark outside and the weather changed, Taylor had navigated the planes to the wrong location. Taylor also had a history of getting lost while flying. He had twice needed to be rescued in the Pacific Ocean,” says the scientist.
Satterley believes that the US Navy also had a good idea of what actually led to the disappearance.
"But the incident was ultimately described as “cause unknown” because Taylor’s mother, not wanting to blame her son for the disappearance, maintained if the navy couldn’t find the aircraft they couldn’t say for sure what had happened. Not wanting to blame Taylor for the tragedy, the navy agreed.”
The scientist echoes earlier suggested theories of those seeking to dismiss the more outlandish explanations for the happenings.
Most of the pilots in the recorded incident were trainees, and possibly unfit to deal with challenging weather conditions or flying at night.
Furthermore, according to the expert, the aircraft they had been flying were known to “sink in as little as 45 seconds if they landed in water”.
Satterly concludes that in incidents dating back decades, if aircraft sank in the vast ocean, they were often never found again.
Finally, Satterley addressed all conspiracy theorists, referencing data that suggests the number of ships and aircraft reported missing in the Bermuda Triangle “is not much larger, proportionally speaking, than in any other part of the ocean."
The Aura of Mystery
Stories of tragic disappearances in the Bermuda Triangle have long captivated the public.
The list of incidents involving a large number of ships and planes in the area which is part of a busy shipping route, and blamed on the enigmatic patch of ocean, dates back decades.
In 1964 the actual name “Bermuda Triangle: was first used by American author Vincent Gaddis in Argosy magazine.
One of the more notable incidents linked with the Devil's Triangle in the 20th century involved the USS Cyclops, a 542-foot-long Navy cargo ship with over 300 men on-board. It reportedly sank somewhere between Barbados and the Chesapeake Bay.
At least 1,000 lives are believed to have been lost in the ill-fated section of the ocean the last 100 years.
The official accounts of many of the disappearances in the “triangle” described them as due to “cause unknown”, feeding into the frenzy of speculations and wild theories, ranging from the paranormal to supernatural.
It has even been suggested that aliens or the mythical underwater lost city of Atlantis were the culprits.
Nevertheless, documented evidence through the decades suggests a significant percentage of the incidents were inaccurately reported or embellished.