Bermuda Triangle Research Summary
By Simeon Beeken
The Bermuda Triangle is a mysterious place with history and superstition surrounding it. The Bermuda Triangle, also known as the Devil’s Triangle, has three sides, Miami, Puerto Rico, and Bermuda. In this ‘summary’, we will explore incidents that have happened on the Bermuda Triangle from 1492 to 2020. The first incident in written records is with the Santa Maria, recorded by Christopher Columbus’ ship log, reporting strange lights, unusual compass readings, and even a large fire flame falling into the sea. Many theories have risen about this encounter like the flame was likely a meteor, the lights were likely from fatigued eyes, and they could have simply messed up the North. Unlike many of the other incidents on the Bermuda Triangle, no one was harmed or went missing. Before we go on to more incidents that happened in the Bermuda Triangle, we have to understand that hundreds of ships and lives have been lost and never been found, resulting in a lot of superstition and theories as to how these things came to be. While there are many theories about the mysterious Triangle, none have been scientifically proven to be true.
Now, let’s move onto more incidents. One of the more famous happenings on the Devil’s Triangle was Flight 19. On December 5th, 1945, a flight departed from Fort Lauderdale, with 14 airmen in 5 Avenger Torpedo Bombers. The flight was simply a training procedure where they would take on “Navigation Problem Number One”, a three hour exercise. In the exercise, the pilots had to go East and conduct a bombing run and then turn North and go to the Bahama islands and finally turn around and go back to base. The squad took off at 2:10 PM to begin the exercise. So, at 2:30, the flight reached their first destination without trouble, and then turned to their second destination. This is when the troubles started. The flight’s leader, Charles C. Taylor started worrying, convinced that his compass was messed up and he had been leading them the wrong way. To add to this confusion, a storm blew in and started causing even more disorientation. “I don’t know where we are,” one of the pilots said over the radio. “We must have got lost after that last turn.” Robert F. Cox was a pilot flying near the flight, heard the transmission and informed the base, then he asked the flight if they needed help. “Both my compasses are out and I’m trying to find Ft. Lauderdale, Florida,” Taylor said, his voice sounding anxious. “I’m over land, but it’s broken. I’m sure I’m in the Keys, but I don’t know how far down.” This claim sounded near impossible because the flight had gone to their first destination, close to the Bahamas but he believed he had flown hundreds of miles off and ended up in the Florida Keys. In a desperate attempt to locate the peninsula, he steered them North-East, only leading them farther out to sea. “Dammit,” one man griped over the radio. “If we would just fly west, we would get home.” Once Lieutenant Taylor was finally persuaded to go West, they traveled that way until a little after 6, where he became worried they hadn’t gone far enough east, and after that, things became fuzzy. Taylor told them to go East, and they probably argued, and one plane might have even broken off to their own way. That’s when they realized they were low on fuel. Lieutenant was heard preparing the flight for a crash landing into the ocean. “All planes close up tight,” he said. “We’ll have to ditch unless landfall…when the first plane drops below ten gallons, we all go down together.” A few minutes later, the Avengers’ comms were jammed with an eerie static. At 7:30, the base sent a PBM Mariner carrying 13 men was dispatched to look for the missing flight. But, not even 20 minutes later, they followed suit to Flight 19 and mysteriously disappeared. Sea planes like the PBM are notoriously accident prone, literally nicknamed flying gas tanks. As soon as possible the next day, they sent 300 boats out, covering 300,000 square miles. Wild theories still speculate around this event, and this will cover those soon, so stay tuned.
Our second mysterious disappearance is the USS Cyclops, the largest collier in the US at 540 feet long and 65 feet wide, and was literally referred to as a “floating coal mine” by one of the papers. In March of 1918, the USS Cyclops was returning from Salvador, Brazil to Baltimore, Maryland. Keep in mind, this ship was sailing during World War I, so it was fitted with 50 caliber guns and shuttled doctors and medical appliances to France. The commander of the ship was Lieutenant Commander George W. Worley. After porting in Brazil with 9,960 tons of coal, the ship loaded up with 10,000 tons of ore for munition for a way of traveling back. Although there were no scheduled stops, the ship stopped in Barbados for engine problems. The ship would finally depart for their destination, roughly 1,800 nautical miles away, but never made it to the harbor. This may have happened because of their engine and cylinder problems, but no lifeboats or evidence have been found of this boat.
Our final incident is of two boys of age fourteen that disappeared on a Florida fishing trip on July 24, 2015. The two boys, Perry Cohen and Austin Stephanos, were skilled fishermen who would check in with their parents every couple of hours. Stephanos’ family said he had operated the boat a good 20 times and he was trusted with driving it. Cohen even brought a GPS to use on the boat. His last social media post was from his Snapchat account, with one of the posts being the boys on the boat with fishing poles and a message stating; “Peace Out Jup”, which friends claim meant the boys were going to the Bahamas A friend told reporters that another post from that day from Stephanos’s account was a video of the fast moving storm headed towards the boat, with the commentary; “We’re f-cked”. The boat was found on the 26th, and the search was called off on July 31st, 2015, 5 days after the disappearance.
This final paragraph is devoted to theories and potential explanations to all of the incidents that have been covered in this paper. When Christopher Columbus was sailing overseas and he passed over the Bermuda Triangle, strange happenings, well, happened. Lights, strange compass readings, and a falling ball of fire. The lights reportedly looked like stars that apparently moved around in the sky, disappearing and reappearing over and over. He also reported seeing a light literally go from the water and shoot into the sky. However, no one else on the ship saw this, so he could have been making it up. Another theory to these events is that it could have been a lot on shore or from another boat. This could go extremely deep into the Flight 19 theories, but many theories suggest that they simply fell into the ocean after running out of gas, some even imply they could’ve been shot down and taken hostage by foreign military. The USS Cyclops also has many theories circling around it, but the most popular and scientific explanation is that the damaged cylinder caused the ship to go very slow, and it may have been taken out by a German Submarine.
