The Mysterious Bermuda Triangle

For years, many planes and ships have disappeared in the area of the Bermuda Triangle. In my essay I'm going to try to find out and tell you, my fellow students, why this phenomenon is occurring.

The Bermuda Triangle is an area in the world located to the Southeast of the United States and it is also referred to as the "Devil's Triangle". The triangle is formed by drawing imaginary lines from Melbourne, Florida, to Bermuda, to Puerto Rico, and back to Melbourne, Florida. The area of the triangle is 440,000 square miles.

One of the many controversial things about the Bermuda Triangle is that there have never been any wreckage or bodies found from any reported missing boat or plane. But there have been discoveries of planes with bodies in them on the bottom of the ocean off the coasts. None of the found planes were reported missing. That could be because of the numerous amounts of planes that disappear in the Bermuda Triangle. Charles Berlitz explains the number that disappear, "In the period 1974-76 more than six hundred yachts and other pleasure craft have disappeared off the coasts of the United States, a considerable percentage of these losses occurring within the Bermuda Triangle"(13). He also talks about an interview with the press, "Recently, during a press interview in San Francisco, I was asked by a reporter whether any disappearances had been noted recently. I replied that a plane had vanished the previous weekend suggesting that the disappearances in the Bermuda Triangle, far from being a footnote to the past history of the sea, are still continuing on the average of a plane about every two weeks and a ship or yacht almost weekly"(15).
There are many disappearances within the Bermuda Triangle that we can't be told about. (Only because they happen to the Navy or the Coast Guard.) "These probable reasons include the following: 1) Some incidents may take place in the vicinity of non-NATO ships or planes with potential international repercussions; 2) other incidents involving loss of communication contact, alteration from flight plan or course might be interpreted as lapses of professional expertise; 3) still others seem so fantastic that they are evidently simply removed from the ship's logs perhaps for the reason that an account of an unrelated incident would endlessly complicate and eventually obscure the report of the basic mission."(27)explains Charles Berlitz. The question of whether there are any famous people that have disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle has probably come up in your mind. Well the answer is, yes. Maybe not people that you should know, but it said that they are famous. They are listed here, each with the number of its disappearance from the enclosed sheet, along with a little more about them:

- Air Marshal, Sir Arthur Coningham on the "Star Tiger"(#70)

- Harvey Conover, world renowned yachtsman on the "Revonoc"(#89)

- Joshua Slocum, first solo circumnavigator of the globe on the "Spray"(#15)

- a would-be global circumnavigator, Donald Crowhurst on the "Teignmouth Electron"(#111). Others have disappeared like bankers, movie makers, priests, and other well-known people.

There are many theories that different people believe in that explain the unusual phenomenon of the Bermuda Triangle. Many different theories have been collected by Charles Berlitz in his book Without a Trace. The following explains a few.
One theory is that the Bermuda Triangle has a giant magnetic field in it. Whenever satellites go over the Bermuda Triangle any tapes or pictures that they try to take of it don't develop. That could be because tapes are magnetic and if magnetic forces are used on them, all of the information and data on them would be erased. The magnetic field would be really powerful if it actually exists. This supposed magnetic field does not interfere with the orbits of the satellites, but can erase magnetic tape8 miles from earth. The government says that the reason no pictures could ever be taken is that the user's tape is rewound. There is no auto-rewind. The scientist, Professor Meshejan, who submitted the idea of the magnetic field, still thinks that it is a magnetic field, not a malfunction with the recorder. But that doesn't explain any of the glowing water, fire balls, and other unexplained phenomenon that frequently occur.