Satellite High School

There is a part of the Atlantic Ocean that forms a triangle from Miami, Florida, to Bermuda, to Puerto Rico, then back to Miami. It is called the Bermuda Triangle. It is also called the Devil's Triangle, the Devil's Sea, the Triangle of Death, the Graveyard of the Atlantic, and the Limbo of the Lost. An unusually high number of ships and planes have been disappearing without a trace in this area for over 500 years. The area covers 440,000 square miles (about 6 times as big as Missouri or 1 1/2 times as big as Texas). Some 150,000 ships cross the Bermuda Triangle every year now. Of these, about 10,000 have big enough problems to send distress calls. About 100 of these boats and ships disappear without a trace.

Many planes and ships have disappeared in this area without leaving any wreckage, bodies, or oil slicks. Some people say the currents are so strong that they probably scatter the wreckage and carry it away long before searchers can find it. Others say there are mysterious forces at work in the Devil's Triangle and the ships, planes, and people are snatched away by some kind of alien presence.

The area has been known and feared by sailors for centuries. Christopher Columbus himself noticed odd happenings in the area. In his logs in the 1490s, he wrote that, while sailing through the area, his compass acted very strange and a "great flame of fire" fell from the sky into the sea. Throughout the 1800s and 1900s, many ships have been recorded as "lost" in the area. Searches for them, no matter how extensive, have revealed nothing. Even so, not much was thought about the mysterious disappearances until Flight 19, the famous disappearance of five Navy planes in 1945.

In 1945, there was a Navy base in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Planes routinely flew training missions from the base. On December 5, 1945, just a few months after the end of World War II, one of these missions was about to take place. It was a routine training mission, scheduled to leave Fort Lauderdale, fly west to the Grand Bahama Island and come back. The trip would take the planes right through the Devil's Triangle.

Five planes went on the mission. The planes were Navy Grumman TBM-3 Avenger torpedo bombers. Each one carried enough fuel to fly over 1,000 miles. Lieutenant Charles Taylor was the leader of the group. Taylor had been stationed in Miami before being transferred to Fort Lauderdale. He had over 2,500 hours of flying time. Each of the five planes had one officer as the pilot and two enlisted crewmembers. That should have made a total of 15 men; however, they were one short.

The day of the training mission, Marine corporal Allan Kosnar did not report to the flight line and he refused to go. Kosnar was an experienced pilot. He had been a pilot during the war and was only a few months away from retirement. Even so, he refused to go, saying, "I can't explain why, but for some strange reason I decided not to go on the flight that day." Kosnar was not the only one who may have had some type of premonition. Lt. Taylor himself arrived late at the preflight meeting and asked if someone else could take his place on the flight. He did not explain why he didn't want to go, he just said that he did not want to take part in the training mission. However, no one was available to take his place, so he went.

The planes took off at 2 p.m. Everything went as planned and the practice bombing run went smoothly. The planes were heading east at 3:15 p.m. when the radioman at the Fort Lauderdale Naval Air Station Tower started receiving unusual messages from Lt. Taylor. The actual messages were:

(Lt. Taylor) Calling tower. This is an emergency. We seem to be off course. We cannot see land. Repeat, we cannot see land. (Tower) What is your position? (Lt. Taylor) We are not sure of our position. We cannot be sure just where we are. We seem to be lost. (Tower) Assume bearing due west. (Lt. Taylor) We don't know which way is west. Everything is wrong... strange...we can't be sure of any direction--even the ocean doesn't look as it should.

From that time on, the radioman at Fort Lauderdale could hear the men in the five planes talking to each other, but the planes couldn't hear messages from him. The tower did hear messages that the planes sent to each other, indicating that all the compasses were acting strange and no one knew where they were. One of the messages was, "Both my compasses are out. I am trying to find Fort Lauderdale. I am sure I'm in the (Florida) Keys, but I don't know how far down." The tower heard messages that said fuel was running low and that every gyro and magnetic compass in all the planes was "going crazy," with each one showing a different reading.

By that time, rescue planes had already been launched. One of them was a twin- engine Martin Mariner flying boat patrol plane with a crew of 13. At 4 p.m., just two hours after the planes had left Fort Lauderdale, the tower overheard Lt. Taylor turning over command to a senior Marine pilot, Captain Stiver. Stiver said, "We are not sure where we are. We think we must be 225 miles northeast of base. We must have passed over Florida and we must be in the Gulf of Mexico." Stiver then decided to turn the group 180 degrees and head back east toward Florida. However, the transmissions immediately got fainter, indicating that they were heading away from Florida instead of toward it. They were heading farther out to sea. The last message came shortly afterward and was either, "It looks like we are." or "Entering white water.." That was the last message ever heard from any of the five planes.

Meanwhile, Lt. Come had sent a message to the tower shortly after he took off in the Martin Mariner rescue plane. That was the only message he ever sent. Shortly after takeoff, the Martin Mariner, with its crew of 13 men, disappeared as well.

Coast Guard vessels searched all day and all night long. At dawn the next day, one of history's biggest searches began. Over 300 planes, four destroyers, several submarines, 18 Coast Guard ships, hundreds of private planes and boats, and Royal Navy units from the Bahamas searched the area. The total search time was 4,100 hours. Over 167 flights were flown every day from dawn to dusk, flying about 300 feet above the water.

An exhaustive search of 380,000 square miles of land and sea, including the Atlantic Ocean, the Caribbean, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Florida mainland and nearby islands, revealed nothing. No life rafts, no wreckage, no oil slicks, and no survivors. In all, 6 planes and 27 men had disappeared without a trace.

A Naval Board was convened to investigate the disappearances. The members of the board could not reach any logical explanation. Board members said things like, "This unprecedented peacetime loss seems to be a total mystery, the strangest ever investigated in the annals of naval aviation."

Many theories have been developed. It has been suggested that somehow Lt. Taylor got confused. He believed he was over the Florida Keys when he was really over Great Sale Cay island. If he thought he was over the Keys, he would have flown east to reach Florida again. However, if he was really over Great Sale Cay, flying east would have taken him farther and farther out into the Atlantic Ocean until his plane ran out of fuel and crashed into the sea. Experts say that his type of plane would have sunk in less than 5 minutes, leaving no time for anyone to get out.

As for the rescue plane, witnesses say they saw a huge fireball in the sky about the time the plane took off. That type of plane carried a lot of extra fuel so that it could search for long periods of time. It's possible that the extra fuel ignited and the rescue plane blew up. Is that what happened? Did Lt. Taylor get lost and confused and lead his men out to sea, to their deaths? Could all of their instruments malfunctioned at the same time? Did the rescue plane blow up? Could 6 planes and 27 men have disappeared without a trace? Even today, no one knows what happened to Flight 19. However, the world-wide attention it drew began a closer examination of the mysterious disappearances in the Bermuda Triangle.

There have been too many mysterious disappearances of planes and ships to list them all here. However, some of the more fascinating stories have been included. The ones that are listed here are the ones that had several people on board, so their disappearances without a trace or a single survivor cannot be so easily dismissed as a boating accident or as being sunk in a storm.

7. On March 26, 1910, the Charles W. Parker became the second steamship to vanish in less than a month.

9. In January, 1921, the Carroll A. Deering was found abandoned, except for two cats that were still on board.

11. In November, 1941, and December, 1941, the Proteus and Nereus, sister ships of the Cyclops, both disappeared.

15. In April 1948, the Wild Goose was being towed by another ship when it disappeared with 4 people on board.

16. On December 28, 1948, a DC-3 passenger plane disappeared only 50 miles from Miami with 35 people on board.

17. On November 4, 1951, the Sao Paulo, a 20,000 ton Brazilian cruiser was being towed by another ship when it disappeared with 8 people on board.

18. On August 28, 1963, two Air Force KC-135 jets disappeared with 11 crewmembers.

19. On August 4, 1969, two lighthouse keepers disappeared from their posts in the Bahamas.

20. On March 22, 1973, the yacht Defiance was found abandoned and adrift. When the sailors who found it tried to tow it back to land, it disappeared again.

21. On July 17, 1973, a Haitian refugee ship in a convoy of ships disappeared with 45 people on board.

22. On April 30, 1975, an outboard boat called the Magnum was found abandoned, but its motor was still running.

Hundreds of other cases are on record of ships and planes disappearing in this area. Many of them disappeared shortly after sending messages that everything was fine and they would be arriving shortly. After several of the disappearances, massive air and sea searches have been conducted, involving hundreds of ships and planes, but nothing was ever found. An unusually high number of disappearances occurred a few weeks before or after Christmas. Almost no disappearances are preceded by SOS or Mayday messages.

At the end of 1944, Dick Stern took part in a wartime flight bound for Italy. The flight consisted of seven bomber planes. About 300 miles off Bermuda, his plane experienced sudden and violent turbulence. It pitched so much that the crew was thrown to the ceiling. The plane lost so much altitude that it almost crashed into the sea. Stern's plane was forced to turn back and land in the United States. When he landed, he learned that no messages had been received from the other six planes, which had disappeared without a trace. No wreckage or survivors were ever found. This disappearance occurred in December, one year before Flight 19.

On December 28, 1948, a DC-3 disappeared en route from San Juan, Puerto Rico, to Miami with 36 people on board. The last message received from the plane was at 4:13 a.m. and said, "We are approaching the field. Only fifty miles out to the south. We can see the lights of Miami now. All's well. Will stand by for landing instructions." The plane then disappeared in an area where the ocean depth is only 20 feet.

On June 7, 1964, Carolyn Cascio was flying a small plane with one passenger from Nassau to Grand Turk Island, Bahamas. When she got to where Grand Turk Island should have been, she radioed that she couldn't find her direction and she was circling over two unfamiliar islands. She said, "Nothing is down there" and "Is there any way out of this?" Her plane was never found. Oddly enough, at the same time, people on Grand Turk noticed a small plane circling the island for about half an hour before it disappeared. If that was Cascio's plane, how could the people on the island see her if she couldn't see the island?

Other things besides ships and planes have disappeared in the triangle. More than one submarine has disappeared in the area, taking its crew with it. Scuba divers have disappeared while being watched by other divers or people on their boats. One hot air balloonist disappeared over the area. Finally, two lighthouse keepers disappeared from their post near the shore in the triangle area. Storms, wrecks, or freak coincidences cannot easily explain these other disappearances.

Some people believe that there are mysterious, unexplained forces at work in the Bermuda Triangle. They say that the number of ships and planes lost and the odd circumstances surrounding the losses support the theory that something is going on in the area.

Some believe UFOs and aliens are to blame. They believe they are gathering human specimens to study. Some believe the lost civilization of Atlantis is at the bottom of the sea in the Bermuda Triangle; perhaps some weapon from that civilization is still working and disintegrates vessels and planes. Some believe a mini black hole exists in the area and leads to another dimension in space or time. (A black hole is a collapsed star. Its gravity is so strong that even light rays can't get out of the area.)

Others blame a more likely source-- extreme magnetic tendencies in the area cause instruments aboard the planes and ships to malfunction. That causes the vessels to lose their way or to crash. This tendency for magnetic problems is well-known and documented. However, if this last reason is true, why are so many vessels abandoned but unharmed?

Skeptics say none of these reasons are true. They say nothing has happened that can't be explained logically. They say the vanished ships and planes sank or crashed without leaving wreckage or survivors. They blame violent storms, hurricanes, tidal waves, underwater volcano activity, tectonic plate movements, whirlpools, and blue holes for the disappearances. They say many of the smaller boats that have vanished were probably run over unknowingly by larger boats.

Skeptics go on to say that the high number of lost ships and planes is merely a freak coincidence that the media exaggerates to an overexcited public. They say book writers and movie makers exaggerate the incidents to make more profits. Some evidence exists to support this idea. The official position of the Coast Guard and Navy is that nothing is unique or wrong in the area. They say that no atmospheric aberrations exist in the area. Fleet aircraft and patrol flights are conducted regularly in the area without incident. However, they do admit that a compass variation as well as a radio "dead spot" exist in a section of the Bermuda Triangle.

In addition, other investigators have tried to show that facts about some of the cases have been distorted or simply aren't true. For instance, many of the ships that were lost disappeared during violent storms or hurricanes, and are assumed to have capsized. The Japanese freighter Raifuku Maru is often listed as disappearing. However, the Homeric picked up its distress call and got to the area just in time to see the Raifuku Maru sink in huge seas with all hands aboard. Flight 19 is thought to have been in the wrong area and flew out to sea instead of toward Florida.

The DC-3 that disappeared in December 1948 while approaching Miami had a defective radio, so it might not have been able to send a distress call. The pilot had been compensating for a strong wind during the flight. As he approached Miami, the wind shifted again. If he did not know that and correct for it, he would have flown right past the end of Florida and on into the Gulf of Mexico, where the water is up to 5,000 feet deep. His plane could have easily crashed there, leaving no wreckage behind.

Believers and skeptics alike say that electromagnetic disturbances do occur in the area. In this regard, the Bermuda Triangle is not unique. Ivan T. Anderson has found that 12 such areas or vortices exist on our planet. In these 12 areas, disappearances of ships and planes are too high to be coincidental.

One of these vortexes is off the coast of Japan. It is called the Devil's Sea. For hundreds of years, small fishing vessels have disappeared there. However, the Japanese became particularly alarmed when nine freighters disappeared there between 1950 and 1954. In 1955, the survey ship Kaiyo Maru No. 5 was sent, with a team of scientists aboard, to investigate the region. To everyone's horror, the Kaiyo Maru and her crew vanished. As a result, the Japanese declared the region an official danger zone. Some reports say that the Japanese ship, the Kaiyo Maru No. 5, really disappeared in 1952 while observing the birth of an island thrust up from the sea bed by volcanic activity. However, it is true that the area has been declared an official danger zone.

Charles Berlitz has written, "Large and small boats have disappeared without leaving wreckage, as if they and their crews had been snatched into another dimension... in no other area have the unexplained disappearances been so numerous, so well-recorded, so sudden, and attended by such unusual circumstances, some of which push the element of coincidence to the borders of impossibility." Is Berlitz right? Is some strange, unknown, force at work in the area, or is it just coincidental that so many ships and planes disappear there? You decide. But, before you do, ask yourself if you would be willing to travel through the Bermuda Triangle.

The homework assignment is shown below. Students would complete the multiple-choice study questions, then use them as a study guide to prepare to take a test over this chapter’s material.

Each ½ credit course consists of 16 chapters with homework assignments/exams, two quarter exams, and a semester final.

Each 1 credit course consists of 32 chapters with homework assignments/exams, four quarter exams, and a course final.

____1. About this many ships now cross

the Bermuda Triangle each year.

a. 73,000

b. 17,000

c. 150,000.

____2. Ships and planes have

been disappearing in

the Bermuda Triangle for

a. 500 years

b. 50 years

c. 45 years.

____3. The Bermuda Triangle is

just off the coast of

a. Florida

b. Louisiana

c. California.

____4. The Bermuda Triangle

is in this ocean.

a. Indian

b. Pacific

c. Atlantic.

____5. Today, this many ships

in the Bermuda Triangle

send out distress calls.

a. 3 out of 100

b. 1 out of 15

c. 2 out of 50.

____6. The Bermuda Triangle is

1 1/2 times as big as

a. Missouri

b. Texas

c. Virginia.

____7. About this many ships

still disappear each year

in the Bermuda Triangle.

a. 14

b. 34

c. 100.

____8. This disappearance made the

Bermuda Triangle famous.

a. the Mary Celeste

b. Amelia Earhart

c. Flight 19.

____9. Flight 19 took off from

a. Miami

b. Fort Lauderdale

c. Havana.

____10. Ships and planes disappearing

in the Bermuda Triangle usually

leave this wreckage behind.

a. nothing

b. oil slicks

c. bodies.

____11. Flight 19 included

a. 5 bomber planes

b. 19 cargo ships

c. 35 passengers.

____12. This many people disappeared

on Flight 19.

a. 14 b. 15 c. 35.

____13. He wrote about strange problems

in the Bermuda Triangle.

a. Sir Francis Drake

b. Christopher Columbus

c. Francisco Coronado.

____14. Flight 19 disappeared in

a. 1937

b. 1956

c. 1945.

____15. Flight 19's rescue plane

a. had engine trouble

b. immediately disappeared

c. found wreckage in the Gulf.

____16. Many planes that disappear

in the Bermuda Triangle

report trouble with their

a. engines

b. compasses

c. fuel supply.

____1. The first steamship to vanish

in the Bermuda Triangle was the

a. Monitor

b. Santa Maria

c. Nina.

____2. The Wild Goose disappeared in

the Bermuda Triangle while it was

a. radioing for help

b. sitting at the dock

c. being towed home.

____3. When the Haitian refugee ship

disappeared in 1973, it was

a. being chased by the Coast Guard

b. part of a convoy

c. just 5 miles from Cuba.

____4. When the Deering disappeared

in 1921, this was the only

thing left on it.

a. a smoking pipe

b. two cats

c. hot food.

____5. In 1800, the Pickering disappeared

with this many people on board.

a. 42 b. 90 c. 313.

____6. This ship weighed 19,000 tons

and vanished in 1918 with 308

Navy sailors on board.

a. Cyclops

b. Argonaut

c. Simpson.

____7. These two people were not

even in the water when they

disappeared on August 4, 1969.

a. lighthouse keepers

b. fishermen

c. ship builders.

____8. Most ships that disappear

in the Bermuda Triangle

send SOS signals first.

a. true b. false.

____9. In 1964, Carolyn Cascio saw

this in the Bermuda Triangle.

a. two strange islands

b. a large UFO

c. no lights at the airport.

____10. They have disappeared in

the Bermuda Triangle while

in plain sight of others.

a. animals

b. large fish

c. scuba divers.

____11. Before the Defiance disappeared

in 1973, it was

a. caught in a squall

b. talking to an airplane

c. abandoned and drifting.

____12. In 1944, Dick Stern lost 6 planes

but survived in the Bermuda

Triangle after going through

a. a strange light

b. a flock of geese

c. violent turbulence.

____13. This ship disappeared in the

Bermuda Triangle with 308 people

on board; there were no survivors.

a. Cyclops

b. Wasp

c. Atalanta.

____14. When Carolyn Cascio disappeared in

1964, people on Grand Turk Island

a. couldn't hear her radio

b. saw her circling above

c. offered a big reward.

____15. This seems to be the most

dangerous time to travel

in the Bermuda Triangle.

a. around Christmas

b. at night

c. during the summer.