The Mysterious Bermuda Triangle

Hello KIDS! Welcome to KidsCast! As some of you may know the Bermuda Triangle is a very scary and a very mysterious place.

So first , what is the Bermuda triangle?

The Bermuda Triangle is located in sea in a region of the North Atlantic Ocean (roughly) bounded by the southeastern coast of the U.S., Bermuda, and the islands of the Greater Antilles (Cuba, Hispaniola, Jamaica, and Puerto Rico). The Bermuda triangle is a place where many planes and boats have disappeared .

Bermuda triangle incidents -

Reports of unexplained occurrences in the region date to the mid-19th century. Some ships were discovered completely abandoned for no apparent reason; others transmitted no distress signals and were never seen or heard from again. Aircraft have been reported and then vanished, and rescue missions are said to have vanished when flying in the area. However, wreckage has not been found, and some of the theories advanced to explain the repeated mysteries have been fanciful. Although theories of supernatural causes for these disappearances abound, geophysical and environmental factors are most likely responsible.

•  In 1945: December 5, Flight 19 (five TBF Avengers) lost with 14 airmen, and later the same day PBM Mariner BuNo 59225 lost with 13 airmen while searching for Flight 19.
• In 2017: February 23, The Turkish Airlines flight TK183 (an Airbus A330-200) was forced to change its direction from Havana, Cuba to Washington Dulles airport after some mechanical and electrical problems occurred over the triangle.
• In 2017: May 15, A private MU-2B aircraft was at 24,000 feet when it vanished from radar and radio contact with air traffic controllers in Miami. Plane wreckage was found later.
• 1980: On January 12, 1980, HMCS St. Laurent (DDH 205) sank off Cape Hatteras, the closest point on the North American mainland to Bermuda. The ship took on water after encountering the tail end of a hurricane.
• 1969: Great Isaac Lighthouse (Bimini, Bahamas) – Two keepers disappeared and were never found. (A hurricane passed through at the time of the disappearances).  WOAH!...Scary right?

Famous stories of the Bermuda Triangle

1. Mary Celeste

 This is possibly one of the most mysterious stories of shipwrecks, this ship is a tale of its own. Despite being found adrift in some other location in the Atlantic Ocean, the connection to the Bermuda triangle had been somehow invoked to find an answer to the mystery of its fate. Discovered on 4th December 1872 with everything right in the place except for the entire crew, the ship was found stranded on the sea days after it started its journey from New York to Genoa, Italy. There were seven crew members along with Captain Benjamin Briggs, his wife and their two-year-old daughter abroad the vessel which was loaded with raw alcohol. But, days after, when a passing British ship called Dei Gratia found Mary Celeste under partial sail in Atlantic, off the Azores Islands, the ship was unmanned with no crew abroad and the lifeboat was also missing. It was also found that nine of the barrels in the cargo were empty and there was a sword on the deck. No trace of the people abroad the vessel or the missing lifeboat has ever been found.

2. Ellen Austin

It is an unnerving triangle mystery associated with the American white oak schooner, Ellen Austin. In 1881, the 210 feet long Ellen Austin was on her way to New York from London when she stumbled upon a derelict near the Bermuda Triangle. Everything seemed fine with the unidentified schooner drifting just north of the Sargasso Sea, but the missing crew. Captain Baker of the Ellen Austin asked to observe the derelict for two days in order to make sure it’s not a trap. After two days with no response from the ship, the captain entered the abandoned vessel with his crew to find the well-packed shipment and no sign of the crew.

3. USS Cyclops

The disappearance of USS Cyclops, one of the Navy’s biggest fuel ships, marks the largest loss of life in the history of the US Navy in a single incident. In March 1918, this massive ship set out to sail from Brazil to Baltimore through the Bermuda region carrying 10,800 tons of manganese ore with about 309 crew members on board. Setting off on a fairly good day, the first and the only message sent by this ship indicated no sort of troubles.

However, the ship was never heard from again. An entire search of the area was put into action but nothing was ever found. No remains of the ship or any crew members aboard have ever been found. The captain of USS Cyclops never sent a distress signal and no one aboard responded to radio calls from other vessels in the vicinity.

Has the Bermuda triangle mystery been solved?

Well, if you are thinking about this and want the answer you are in the right place. Scientists often refer rogue waves as ‘extreme storm waves’. These waves can reach a height of up to 100 feet and are very spontaneous. Rogue waves were first observed in 1997 by a satellite off the coast of South Africa, The Sun reported. “The waves are more than twice the size of surrounding waves, are very unpredictable, and often come unexpectedly from directions.” Daily Mail quoted National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration in its report. Another scientist, Dr Karl Kruszelnicki, told News.com.au that according to Lloyds of London and US Coast Guard, the number of planes which go missing in Bermuda Triangle is just like everywhere in the world. Yet, the Bermuda Triangle remains a mysterious place with a high number of disappearances. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) agrees with Kruszelnicki and said that Bermuda Triangle has the same degree of air and sea traffic like any other place. ‘The ocean has always been a mysterious place to humans, and when foul weather or poor navigation is involved, it can be a very deadly place,’  the NOAA told DailyMail.

And with this, we come to the end of this article. Hope you liked it kids! We'll see you soon! Till then, Happy Learning!