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C1 Advanced
20 True Facts About The Bermuda Triangle
Imagine you are flying a plane and suddenly your compass starts spinning wildly. You can only trust one of the following instruments to save your life. Discuss with your partner which one you choose and why:
Its secrets extend back throughout history and continue to puzzle people today.
Are you ready to get lost? There’s no more captivating or mysterious place than the Bermuda Triangle. It’s said to swallow every plane or ship that passes over it. Not just legend, there are very real geographical mysteries about the triangle that connects San Juan, Miami, and (of course) Bermuda. Its secrets extend back throughout history and continue to puzzle people today.
The Bermuda Triangle has popped up in pop culture since the 60’s. It’s as if the whole concept was just made up for a Scooby Doo episode. A mysterious triangle of islands that makes giant ships, high-flying planes, and wayward travelers disappear without a trace? That’s downright ghoulish.
The reputation of the Bermuda Triangle inspired a board game in 1976 for families with odd senses of humor and later provided the spooky setting of a video game for the original ATARI gaming system. A 10,000 reward was advertised in the 1970’s to movie-goers, offering the prize to anyone who could solve the Bermuda Triangle mystery after watching a Vincent Price-narrated documentary about it. Nobody did, but many people tried. Books, films, songs, and more, the Bermuda Triangle built a cult following of curious minds and conspiracy theories.
With so much fiction floating around out there, what’s the truth? We’ve untangled decades of rumors and speculation to bring you 20 solid facts about what has gone down in this legendary patch of the Atlantic Ocean. See whether you’ve been duped by the hoaxes and learn the truth with our fact roundup. Trips
When you think of the Bermuda Triangle, you might picture a weird little zone in a remote part of the Atlantic Ocean. In reality, this geographical triangle encompasses somewhere between 440,000 to 1,510,000 square miles of ocean! Reports of its exact measurements have changed over the years (it’s hard to pin down aquatic square footage), but it’s always been huge.
The huge size of the triangle contributes to the difficulty–and often impossibility–of recovering any debris or wreckage from the ships and planes that have crashed within it. If finding your phone in your apartment can be a tough task, imagine how impossible it is to find clear evidence of a plane crash in 500,000 square miles at sea.
Just like its size can’t be precisely pinned down, its effects are also hard to put borders around. The triangle’s strange weather, electromagnetic issues, and other phenomena can be experienced a bit outside the borders of its geographical markers. Depending on the weather or time of year, the boundaries of the triangle can extend beyond where it’s been drawn on a map.
Even though Miami, San Juan, and Bermuda are definitely fixed locations, the Bermuda Triangle is not as stable. Think of it as a triangular shape hovering above these geographical points, blowing here and there with the rough sea winds.
Something with that name can’t be anything but bad news. In the 1950’s, when people started experiencing the strangeness of the region for themselves on commercial flights, a bunch of new nicknames for the area came to life. The most dramatic is probably “Limbo of the Lost,” referencing the triangle’s ability to hide bodies that can’t be confirmed as dead or alive.
The term ‘Bermuda Triangle’ was first used in an article by Vincent H. Gaddis for a pulp fiction magazine in 1964. The National Geographic Society reprinted some of Gaddis’ work, giving credibility to his choice of name for the region. Now, ‘Bermuda Triangle’ is the preferred term of scientists and conspiracy theorists alike.
He may not have known it, but William Shakespeare’s play The Tempest was directly inspired by what we now know as the Bermuda Triangle. He came up with the idea for his shipwreck plot from the 1609 Bermuda Wreck, a terrible incident of a ship ran asunder in the waters between Bermuda and Florida.
News didn’t travel fast in those days, but propaganda about the Bermuda Wreck was circulated in Britain while Shakespeare wrote The Tempest, and historians have drawn many connections between his words and the ones in the propaganda. “The direful spectacle of the wreck” indeed!
The Bermuda Triangle is one of very few places on Earth that do not point compasses toward Magnetic North. Instead, it causes them to point toward true north, which veers in a slightly different direction. It makes sense when you remember that Earth rotates on a tilted axis. Magnetic north is tied to the metal of the Earth’s core, which tilts and shifts with the planet. True north deals with the actual North Pole. You know, where Santa lives.
Ships and planes navigate using magnetic north, but when they encounter the Bermuda Triangle, the region pulls their compasses to point toward true north instead, causing a lot of confusion. This is one of the scientific reasons behind the triangle’s strangeness.
Ask them to say what they remember, and what they think about the information they read. After that keep on reading.
It is not proven that aliens are involved in the Bermuda Triangle mysteries, but it is a true fact that many paranormal investigators believe that they are. Alien abduction is their best guess as to where the missing machines and individuals have gotten to after going missing from the Bermuda Triangle. UFO sightings reported by people on the islands surrounding the triangle add fuel to their theory.
The idea that aliens are behind it all is not our favorite explanation, but this has gotten a lot of traction over the years. Steven Spielberg even explored the idea in his film Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Read on to learn about the naval flight crew that inspired his characters.
One of the Bermuda Triangle’s earliest and most deadly mysteries involves a gigantic 542-foot-long cargo ship called the USS Cyclops. In March of 1918, this ship was carrying more than 300 men and 10,000 tons of manganese ore across the Atlantic. Somewhere between Barbados and the Chesapeake Bay, the entire ship and all of its crew/cargo completely disappeared.
People freaked out because it was a state-of-the-art ship equipped with radios that could have signaled for help, but no SOS distress call was ever sent. An extensive search found absolutely nothing. In former president Woodrow Wilson’s words, “Only God and the sea know what happened to the great ship.” (Later, two of the Cyclops’ sister ships vanished along the same route.)
In the 1940’s, loads of war planes flew over the Atlantic to fight alongside allies in Britain or the USA. A few of them were reported to fly over the Bermuda Triangle and disappear without a trace. The most famous of these include the British South American Airways ‘Star Tiger’ and ‘Star Ariel’ planes, along with the ‘Douglas DC-3’ flown by the British Royal Air Force.
These three planes were the height of technology in their day, capable of flying through all of World War II’s roughest skies. Their strength made their disappearances in the triangle even stranger. No distress messages were heard and a Civil Aeronautics Board found no explanations, so these flight disappearances remain unsolved to this day.
In December of 1945, five American Navy bomber planes carrying 14 men took off from Fort Lauderdale, Florida for some practice runs in the clear skies off the coast of Miami. The leader of this mission reported compass/navigation troubles back to the airfield and led the team of planes aimlessly over the waters looking for a place to land until they ran out of fuel.
A rescue plane with a crew of 13 more men was dispatched to recover them that day, but they themselves also got lost and disappeared. Weeks of searching led to no answers. So, what does the Navy’s official report of the event say happened? “It’s as if they had flown to Mars.”
Ask if they have any questions or doubts.
Let's test your memory. Match the missing vessel to its description by clicking on the items.
Do you think Hollywood directors have influenced on spreading the mystery of the Bermuda Triangle?
Which of the 10 cases we read today do you consider more intriguing?
Have you read other type of stories about this mystery?
Have you seen movies about this?
Do you think this is an interesting topic?
Is there another topic that you would like to talk about?
Based on everything we've read today, write a 2-sentence "Final Verdict" in your notebook. Is the Bermuda Triangle a paranormal hotspot, or just a series of unfortunate natural accidents amplified by the media?
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