The Bermuda triangle, or the devil’s triangle, is an imaginary area located off the south-eastern Atlantic coast of the United States. It is the greatest modern mystery of our supposedly well understood world. It is noted for a very high incidence of unexplained losses of ships, small boats, and aircraft. The tips of the triangle are generally thought to be Bermuda, Miami, Fla., and San Juan, Puerto Rico. Many theories attempting to explain the many disappearances have been offered throughout the history of the area. The most practical seem to be environmental and those that involve human error. Some reports even go as far as to saying that there are UFO’s kidnapping ships and planes, and that the lost city of Atlantis is below the Bermuda triangle.
Weird disappearances and sightings in the Bermuda triangle date back to 1492, when the first voyage to America took place. Christopher Columbus when sailing through the imaginary place called the Bermuda triangle wrote of weird sightings in the ship log. He recorded that he and his crew had observed a large ball of fire fall into the sea and that the ship’s compass was behaving differently. On October 11, which is the day Columbus landed on Cuba, Columbus and another man saw a light over the water, which disappeared suddenly. Within hours land was sighted. These incidents have been thought to be the first known indications that the Bermuda Triangle is filled with bizarre happenings. Columbus himself was not apparently bothered by what he had seen. The ball of fire might have been a meteor, a fire on the shore, a torch in a boat or even a hallucination. Whatever it was, Columbus provided the Bermuda Triangle with a five hundred year story.
There are many theories to these unexplained losses of ships and planes. A lot of disappearances can be because the area’s unique environmental features. First, the ‘Devil’s Traingle’ is one of the two places on earth that a magnetic compass does point towards true north. Normally it points toward magnetic north. The difference between the two is known as compass variation. The amount of variation changes by as much as twenty degrees as one circumnavigates the earth. If this compass difference is not compensated for, a navigator could find himself far off course and may be even lost. Compass variation does not mean that the compass needle points somewhere else. The compass always points to Magnetic.
The environmental factor is the ways of the Gulf Stream. It is extremely fast and dangerous and can destroy any evidence of a disaster. The unpredictable Caribbean-Atlantic weather pattern also plays it’s a factor. Sudden thunder storms and waterspouts are often in the triangle causing problems for ships and planes. The Ocean floor is different from the shoals around the islands to some of the deepest marine trenches in the world.
Not to be under estimated is the human error factor. A large number of boats travel the waters between Florida’s Gold Coast and the Bahamas. Many people try to sail across the Bermuda in too small of boat, with lack of knowing area’s hazards, and a lack of good seamanship.
The Great Bermuda Triangle is one of the biggest mysteries still alive today. It has created many stories, some true, some untrue; there have been many unexplained disappearances in this imaginary place. Peoples lives have been lost, and ships and planes seemed to enter and never come out. Whatever it is, it will always be a mystery, a mystery of the Great Bermuda Triangle.
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