Supernatural explanations
Triangle writers have used a number of supernatural concepts to explain the events. One explanation pins the blame on leftover technology from the mythical lost continent of
Atlantis. Sometimes connected to the Atlantis story is the submerged rock formation known as the
Bimini Road off the island of
Bimini in the Bahamas, which is in the Triangle by some definitions. Followers of the purported psychic
Edgar Cayce take his prediction that evidence of Atlantis would be found in 1968 as referring to the discovery of the Bimini Road. Believers describe the formation as a road, wall, or other structure, though geologists consider it to be of natural origin.
[19]
Other writers attribute the events to
UFOs.
[20] This idea was used by
Steven Spielberg for his
science fiction film Close Encounters of the Third Kind, which features the lost Flight 19 as alien abductees.
Charles Berlitz, author of various books on anomalous phenomena, lists several theories attributing the losses in the Triangle to anomalous or unexplained forces.
[8]
Natural explanations
Compass variations
Compass problems are one of the cited phrases in many Triangle incidents. While some have theorized that unusual local magnetic anomalies may exist in the area,
[21] such anomalies have not been shown to exist. Compasses have natural
magnetic variations in relation to the
magnetic poles, a fact which navigators have known for centuries.
Magnetic (compass) north and
geographic (true) north are only exactly the same for a small number of places - for example, as of 2000 in the United States only those places on a line running from
Wisconsin to the
Gulf of Mexico.
[22] But the public may not be as informed, and think there is something mysterious about a compass "changing" across an area as large as the Triangle, which it naturally will.
[11]
Deliberate acts of destruction
Deliberate acts of destruction can fall into two categories: acts of war, and acts of piracy. Records in enemy files have been checked for numerous losses. While many sinkings have been attributed to surface raiders or submarines during the
World Wars and documented in various command log books, many others suspected as falling in that category have not been proven. It is suspected that the loss of USS
Cyclops in 1918, as well as her sister ships
Proteus and
Nereus in
World War II, were attributed to submarines, but no such link has been found in the German records.
Piracy—the illegal capture of a craft on the high seas—continues to this day. While piracy for cargo theft is more common in the western Pacific and Indian oceans, drug smugglers do steal pleasure boats for smuggling operations, and may have been involved in crew and yacht disappearances in the Caribbean.
Piracy in the Caribbean was common from about 1560 to the 1760s, and famous pirates included Edward Teach (
Blackbeard) and
Jean Lafitte.[
citation needed]
False-color image of the Gulf Stream flowing north through the western Atlantic Ocean. (NASA)
Gulf Stream
The
Gulf Stream is an ocean current that originates in the
Gulf of Mexico and then flows through the
Straits of Florida into the North Atlantic. In essence, it is a river within an ocean, and, like a river, it can and does carry floating objects. It has a surface velocity of up to about 2.5 metres per second (5.6 mph).
[23] A small plane making a water landing or a boat having engine trouble can be carried away from its reported position by the current.
Human error
One of the most cited explanations in official inquiries as to the loss of any aircraft or vessel is human error.
[24] Whether deliberate or accidental, humans have been known to make mistakes resulting in catastrophe, and losses within the Bermuda Triangle are no exception. For example, the Coast Guard cited a lack of proper training for the cleaning of volatile
benzene residue as a reason for the loss of the tanker SS
V. A. Fogg in 1972[
citation needed]. Human stubbornness may have caused businessman Harvey Conover to lose his sailing yacht, the
Revonoc, as he sailed into the teeth of a storm south of Florida on January 1, 1958.
[25]
Hurricanes
Hurricanes are powerful storms, which form in tropical waters and have historically cost thousands of lives lost and caused billions of dollars in damage. The sinking of
Francisco de Bobadilla's Spanish fleet in 1502 was the first recorded instance of a destructive hurricane. These storms have in the past caused a number of incidents related to the Triangle.
Methane hydrates
Main article:
Methane clathrate
Worldwide distribution of confirmed or inferred offshore gas hydrate-bearing sediments, 1996.
Source:
USGS
An explanation for some of the disappearances has focused on the presence of vast fields of
methane hydrates (a form of natural gas) on the
continental shelves.
[26] Laboratory experiments carried out in Australia have proven that bubbles can, indeed, sink a scale model ship by decreasing the density of the water;
[27] any wreckage consequently rising to the surface would be rapidly dispersed by the
Gulf Stream. It has been hypothesized that periodic methane
eruptions (sometimes called "
mud volcanoes") may produce regions of frothy water that are no longer capable of providing adequate
buoyancy for ships. If this were the case, such an area forming around a ship could cause it to sink very rapidly and without warning.
Publications by the
USGS describe large stores of undersea hydrates worldwide, including the
Blake Ridge area, off the southeastern
United States coast.
[28] However, according to another of their papers, no large releases of gas hydrates are believed to have occurred in the Bermuda Triangle for the past 15,000 years.
i believe in science and therefore i believe in one of those explanations
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