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.[24]

Other writers attribute the events to UFOs.[25] This idea was used by Steven Spielberg for his science fiction film Close Encounters of the Third Kind, which features the lost Flight 19 aircrews 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.[13]

light 19 � d o � �/ ppearances were part of a pattern of strange events in the region.[7] The next year, Gaddis expanded this article into a book, Invisible Horizons.[11]

Others would follow with their own works, elaborating on Gaddis' ideas: John Wallace Spencer (Limbo of the Lost, 1969, repr. 1973);[12] Charles Berlitz (The Bermuda Triangle, 1974);[13] Richard Winer (The Devil's Triangle, 1974),[14] and many others, all keeping to some of the same supernatural elements outlined by Eckert.[15]

Origins

The earliest allegation of unusual disappearances in the Bermuda area appeared in a September 16, 1950 Associated Press article by Edward Van Winkle Jones.[8] Two years later, Fate magazine published "Sea Mystery at Our Back Door",[9] a short article by George X. Sand covering the loss of several planes and ships, including the loss of Flight 19, a group of five U.S. Navy TBM Avenger bombers on a training mission. Sand's article was the first to lay out the now-familiar triangular area where the losses took place. Flight 19 alone would be covered again in the April 1962 issue of American Legion magazine.[10] In it, author Allan W. Eckert wrote that the flight leader had been heard saying, "We are entering white water, nothing seems right. We don't know where we are, the water is green, no white." He also wrote that officials at the Navy board of inquiry stated that the planes "flew off to Mars."[dubious – discuss] Sand's article was the first to suggest a supernatural element to the Flight 19 incident. In the February 1964 issue of Argosy, Vincent Gaddis' article "The Deadly Bermuda Triangle" argued that Flight 19 and other disappearances were part of a pattern of strange events in the region.[7] The next year, Gaddis expanded this article into a book, Invisible Horizons.[11]

Others would follow with their own works, elaborating on Gaddis' ideas: John Wallace Spencer (Limbo of the Lost, 1969, repr. 1973);[12] Charles Berlitz (The Bermuda Triangle, 1974);[13] Richard Winer (The Devil's Triangle, 1974),[14] and many others, all keeping to some of the same supernatural elements outlined by Eckert.[15]

Triangle Area

The first written boundaries date from a 1964 issue of pulp magazine Argosy,[7] where the triangle's three vertices are in Miami, Florida peninsula; in San Juan, Puerto Rico; and in the mid-Atlantic island of Bermuda.[4] But subsequent writers did not follow this definition.[4] Every writer gives different boundaries and vertices to the triangle, with the total area varying from 500,000 to 1.5 million square miles.[4] Consequently, the determination of which accidents have occurred inside the triangle depends on which writer reports them.[4] The United States Board on Geographic Names does not recognize this name, and it is not delimited in any map drawn by US government agencies.[4]

The area is one of the most heavily traveled shipping lanes in the world, with ships crossing through it daily for ports in the Americas, Europe, and the Caribbean Islands. Cruise ships are also plentiful, and pleasure craft regularly go back and forth between Florida and the islands. It is also a heavily flown route for commercial and private aircraft heading towards Florida, the Caribbean, and South America from points north