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The Bermuda Triangle, sometimes known as the Devils Triangle, is an area of the Western
Atlantic drawn between Bermuda, the coast of South Florida and Puerto
Rico. This notional zone covers an area of approximately 1,140,000 sq
kilometres (440,000 square miles).
Since navigational logs were first kept, there have been
reports of many maritime disasters within the area and, as a result, it has acquired a sinister
reputation.
Columbus noted the Sargasso weed that, in the 15th century, was so prolific as to resemble low islands and struck great fear in his
men, who believed that their ships would be trapped by the matted
vegetation and held fast while they expired from thirst and hunger.
In the 19th century, there were several reports of unexplained
disappearances and mysteriously abandoned ships. In
this issue we will start with the larger United States vessels and
aircraft known to have been lost in the area.
The earliest recorded disappearance of an American ship
within the 'Devil's Triangle' was in March 1918, when the U.S.S. 'Cyclops'
vanished. Ships sent to search the area where the 'Cyclops' was known to
have been, discovered no wreckage, flotsam, oil, lifeboats, life vests or bodies.
In December 1945 a United States Navy torpedo bomber squadron, Flight
19, hat had left Fort Lauderdale on a training exercise, with fourteen Crewmen,
disappeared after radioing distress messages. The United States Navy blamed the disaster on inexperienced pilots and low fuel but refused to comment on the seaplane, that was dispatched to search for Flight 19, that also
disappeared.
The U.S. Navy seek and rescue planes are manned by most experienced pilots and are unlikely to have taken off with insufficient fuel for their
mission. Further searches of the area revealed nothing but an empty sea.
Observers noted that although the crews would all have been fitted with automatically inflating life vests, and inflatable
boats would have deployed themselves automatically on contact with the
water, none were found.
Many aeroplanes have been lost in the area, including, in 1948, a
civilian twin-engine DC-3, carrying twenty seven passengers which just vanished. A search of it's known flight path revealed nothing.
In 1951 a C-124 Globemaster another twin-engine civil aircraft, with fifty three passengers on board,
disappeared, a search revealed no wreckage.
Among the ships that have vanished in the area was an oil tanker,
the 'Marine Sulphur Queen', in 1963, with a crew of thirty nine. No
bodies, wreckage, lifeboats or, remarkably, oil, were found in the subsequent
search. In another inexplicable disappearance, a fully commissioned nuclear-powered submarine, the U.S.S.
'Scorpion' vanished, in 1968, with a crew of ninety nine hands.
There have been several television documentaries ,sundry books and many articles
written, that have all attempted to unravel this phenomena. The most
often repeated observation is the fact that nearly all these disappearances
occurred in daylight and in favourable weather, after a sudden break in radio contact.
Most reporters and technical investigators are disturbed by the refusal of authorities to accept
that there is something strange about these incidents.
We, too, until a few months ago, would have been inclined to accept the
likelihood that all of the events described here, and those that will be
described in future issues, were no more than unusual coincidences.
Something that occurred during our last voyage from
Bermuda to the Azores, leaving on the 31st of August and arriving on the
4th of October 2000 (apart from the vast magnetic anomaly that suddenly
put our compass rose 70º away from our actual heading), obliged us to face the likelihood that something,
far beyond the known reaches of man's official accumulated knowledge thus far,
may at work in that troubled triangle...
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In the next issue, we will recount the details of
an event that, even now, we would not believe possible, had we not
witnessed it, in broad daylight and total sobriety, with our own eyes. In
that issue, we will also list some of
the British vessels lost in the area.
In
the meantime, if you are able to help, by directing us towards sources
of information, from any country that has
lost one or more vessels, of any description, in the area, we would very
much appreciate it. If you, too,
have witnessed something in that area that appeared to defy belief, you
may rest assured that we will take seriously any information given,
provided that you can furnish us with documentary evidence of your
having been in the area at the time, e.g. photocopies of relevant stamps
in your passport or other travel documents, a witnessed statement from
the captain of a vessel upon which you were travelling at the time or
other similar proof of the authenticity of your stated
whereabouts. We are, for obvious
reasons, particularly interested in cases where more than one person
witnessed an event. We are not in a
position to offer any kind of reward, therefore your only motive in
offering information would have to be the desire to help establish what
the nature of the phenomenon is, if that is possible. Before
anyone considers sending in any sort of fabricated 'tale', for whatever
reason, we would like it to be known that little green men, spaceships
and other such possibilities have nothing whatsoever to do with the
phenomena witnessed by us in September 2000. We
have not had the time, nor the resources to do more than start enquiring
into the known disappearances over the years. There are doubtless
sources of information on the Internet. If you are able to supply
addresses of relevant websites and authorities on the subject, we would
appreciate the information. In the
meantime, lest you be alarmed, we have to say that we would travel the
same track again without hesitation, any time. There is nothing to fear, over and
above our natural human tendency to be fearful, as far as we could
determine at the time.
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