The Bermuda Triangle 
The
"Bermuda Triangle" or "Devil's Triangle" 
is an imaginary area located
off the southeastern Atlantic coast of the United States of America,
which is noted for a supposedly high incidence of unexplained
disappearances of ships and aircraft 
. The apexes of the triangle are
generally believed to be Bermuda; Miami, Florida; and San Juan, Puerto
Rico. The US Board of Geographic Names does not recognize the Bermuda
Triangle as an official name 
. The US Navy does not believe the Bermuda
Triangle exists. It is reported that Lloyd's of London, the world's
leading market for specialist insurance, does not charge higher
premiums for vessels transiting this heavily traveled area 
.
The most famous US Navy losses which have occurred in the area popularly known as the Bermuda Triangle are USS Cyclops in March 1918 and the aircraft of Flight 19 in December 1945 
. The ship probably sank in an unexpected storm, and
the aircraft ran out of fuel and crashed into the ocean -- no physical
traces of them have ever been found 
. Another well known disappearance
is the civilian tanker SS Marine Sulphur Queen carrying bulk molten sulfur which sank in February 1963. Although the wreck of Marine Sulphur Queen
has not been located, a life preserver and other floating artifacts
were recovered 
. These disappearances have been used to provide credence
to the popular belief in the mystery and purported supernatural
qualities of the "Bermuda Triangle." 
Since
the days of early civilization many thousands of ships have sunk and/or
disappeared in waters around the world due to navigational and other
human errors, storms, piracy, fires, and structural/mechanical
failures. Aircraft are subject to the same problems, and many of them
have crashed at sea around the globe. Often, there were no living
witnesses to the sinking or crash, and hence the exact cause of the
loss and the location of the lost ship or aircraft are unknown 
. A large
number of pleasure boats travel the waters between Florida and the
Bahamas. All too often, crossings are attempted with too small a boat,
insufficient knowledge of the area's hazards, and a lack of good
seamanship.
To
see how common accidents are at sea, you can examine 
some of the recent
accident reports of the National Transportation Safety Board for ships and aircraft.
One of the aircraft accident reports concerns an in-flight engine
failure and subsequent ditching of a Cessna aircraft near Great Abaco
Island in the Bahamas on 13 July 2003. This is the type of accident
that would likely have been attributed to mysterious causes in the
Bermuda Triangle if there had been no survivors or other eyewitnesses
of the crash .
A
significant factor with regard to missing vessels in the Bermuda
Triangle is a strong ocean current called the Gulf Stream . It is
extremely swift and turbulent and can quickly erase evidence of a
disaster. The weather also plays its role. Prior to the development of
telegraph, radio and radar, sailors did not know a storm or hurricane was nearby until it appeared on the horizon. For example, the Continental Navy sloop Saratoga was lost off the Bahamas in such a storm with all her crew on 18 March 1781. Many other US Navy ships have been lost at sea in storms around the world. Sudden local thunder storms and water spouts can sometimes spell
disaster for mariners and air crews. Finally, the topography of the
ocean floor varies from extensive shoals around the islands to some of
the deepest marine trenches in the world. With the interaction of the
strong currents over the many reefs the topography of the ocean bottom
is in a state of flux and the development of new navigational hazards
can sometimes be swift .
It
has been inaccurately claimed that the Bermuda Triangle is one of the
two places on earth at which a magnetic compass points towards true
north . Normally a compass will point toward magnetic north. The
difference between the two is known as compass variation. The amount of
variation changes by as much as 60 degrees at various locations around
the World. If this compass variation or error is not compensated for,
navigators can find themselves far off course and in deep trouble.
Although in the past this compass variation did affect the "Bermuda
Triangle" region, due to fluctuations in the Earth's magnetic field
this has apparently not been the case since the nineteenth century 
.
