The Theory of Nothing

Is the Bermuda Triangle responsible for paranormal events?

Is the Bermuda Triangle responsible for paranormal events?

This is another hot-button issue among paranormal fans. The Bermuda Triangle is a roughly triangular area with apexes at Miami, Florida peninsula, San Juan, Puerto Rico, and Bermuda. It has been the locale of many ship and aircraft disappearances, gaining it a nefarious reputation and causing it to be designated as the Devil’s Triangle. The mysterious vanishings have been attributed to extraterrestrials, black holes, portals to other dimensions, and even a gate into Hell.

What’s so strange about this is that phenomenon in this region has only been attributed to the paranormal as recently as 1950. The fact is that the number of ship and aircraft disappearances in the Bermuda Triangle is no worst than in any other part of the ocean. In fact, there are other mysterious triangles all over the Earth. It’s just that the Bermuda Triangle has become the center pin of controversy.

So, how did the Bermuda Triangle gain its mysterious reputation? The answer to this is the movies and TV such as a 1992 British TV series ‘The Bermuda Triangle’.

For us Yanks, the main incident happened on December 5, 1945 when Flight 19, a squadron of Avenger torpedo bombers, became lost in the Atlantic Ocean. This was only a training flight that was scheduled to go no further than 140 miles from Fort Lauderdale, but the planes never returned, and the Mariner aircraft sent out to locate them also was lost. This incident has been blown out of proportion and has become the rallying cry of the paranormal enthusiasts. Fair enough. Most experts believe that the flight ditched in the ocean when they ran out of gas while flying east instead of west like they were supposed to. The aircraft sent out to find them was known to have a problem with leaking fuel that caused it to explode.

A notable ship loss was the USS Cyclops, a ship that departed Barbados carrying a load of manganese and went missing without a trace with a crew of 309 on March 4, 1918. This could have been a capsizing because of overloading.

Not all naval disappearances involve a commercial ship. The Connemara IV, a pleasure yacht was found adrift on September 25, 1955 with the crew missing. This could have been the result of a hurricane in the area.

Some have attributed these losses to the advanced technology of the Lost City of Atlantis. I’m not sure how that would work. Some believe these incidents have supernatural explanations. Others attribute them to UFO’s.

There are a number of natural causes that could be possible. Compass variations caused by magnetic abnormalities in the Triangle region. The Gulf Stream is strong and could carry ships off course. Human error is always possible. The best explanation is powerful storms, which are particularly bad in the Bermuda Triangle area.

The problem is that when a ship or an aircraft goes missing, the Navy or the Coast Guard investigates the incident and tries to determine a natural cause, but this is not always possible. What has happened in the case of these incidents in the Bermuda Triangle is that when there is no data or information on a loss the incident has been turned into a pseudoscience explanation. In other words, if one cannot explain the loss, it has to be one of the paranormal causes. That’s not scientific, and it’s the main reason there is so much skepticism and even criticism of these pseudoscience explanations.

However, this doesn’t preclude a paranormal explanation, so there could be UFO aliens out there waiting to get us if we venture into their favorite play area on the planet Earth. Beware humans!

Thanks for reading.