Ghost Stories of Geography: Bermuda Edition

This week on Oceans Seven I am taking you further southeast than any place we’ve gone in my past blogs. I wanted to try something new, so I thought I would delve into one of the pop culture ghost stories used in North America: the Bermuda Triangle!

The Triangle’s lethality is blamed on all sorts of phenomena ranging from Otherworldly StormsAliens to the birthplace of Atlantis.

To give you some introduction knowledge on the area, the Bermuda Triangle is a section of the Atlantic Ocean over 500,000 square miles long and is tipped at 3 points by Miami, Bermuda, and Puerto Rico; forming a triangle as pictured in the photo above. Since the early 1900s, dozens of ships and airplanes have disappeared in the waters, but half of them remain unexplained as to how they disappeared. Despite these suspicious scenarios, their frequency here is no different than planes/ships disappearing in any other section of the ocean.

https://www.businessinsider.com/what-is-bermuda-triangle-myths-mysteries-disappearances-vanishes

https://www.express.co.uk/news/weird/878063/aliens-ufo-bermuda-triangle-flight-19-christopher-Columbus

https://www.businessinsider.com/what-is-bermuda-triangle-myths-mysteries-disappearances-vanishes

One of the most famous incidents (coined Flight 19) took place in 1945 and involved five U.S. Navy bombers carrying fourteen men from Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Their original plan was to practice some bombing runs on a nearby area but apparently, the flight leaders’ compass began to malfunction and he was lost from the rest of the squadron, resulting in the rest of the planes flying aimlessly with no navigation until they ran out of fuel and were lost at sea. A few hours later a rescue plane with a thirteen-man crew disappeared as well. After weeks of searching with no evidence, the Navy concluded the investigation with no answers.

Flight 19 crew.

How Does it Work?

One of the most common explanations for the Bermuda Triangle is magnetism! Our planet’s magnetic North isn’t the same as its geographic North; meaning that compasses don’t exactly point true North unless they are being read along an agonic line. Coincidentally enough, one of these lines runs from Lake Superior down to the Gulf of Mexico (near Fort Lauderdale, FL which is one of the points of the triangle as mentioned above). With this knowledge, one can assume that back then, sailors would account for discrepancies in their compass readings because they would think they’re close enough to the agonic line that throws them off. I have attached a video below that delves into magnetic declination and agonic lines.

For More Information:

Sources: The Mysterious Disappearance of Flight 19, Featured Image, Bermuda Triangle, Bermuda Triangle History, What Science Can Tell Us.