Wednesday, April 15, 2020

Bermuda Triangle and the Witchcraft - Part Two


Looking at the case of the disappearance of the Witchcraft, again, I had a couple of thoughts. Clearly, the boat was not near Buoy Number 7. I believe that writers of Bermuda Triangle lore thought that since Dan Burack reported he was one mile off Miami and Buoy Number 7 is about one mile off Miami, they just assumed that he was near the buoy. While he might have been about one mile off shore, and he was near Miami, that doesn’t mean he was close to the buoy. You have to wonder why
Witchcraft
the Coast Guard would have asked him to fire a flare if he had been near to that landmark, which would have been easy to find.

The searches, then, have always been in the wrong place, and as noted, the wind was pushing the Witchcraft one direction but the current flowed in another. That caused the search area to be too far to the south. Of course, if the boat hadn’t been near Buoy Number 7 as reported, using that as a base for the search means they were searching in the wrong place regardless of wind and current.

But all this speculation isn’t doing us much good. The thought I had, and it’s not something that I can do, is what about the probate of the will. At some point Burack would have been declared dead and his will would have entered probate. These records, I believe, are public. Since he was supposed to be a millionaire, I got to wondering what happened to his fortune. Was there anything to be distributed to heirs? Were any sort of taxes paid on those inheritances? Who were the beneficiaries?

While searches of the ocean floor are exciting television, I’m wondering if anyone ever checked these records. If Burack’s wealth disappeared along with the boat, then we have a different sort of mystery. Or, if Burack didn’t have the wealth he claimed, then we have a different motive for the disappearance.

It just seems to me that this is one of the Triangle’s disappearances that might be explained in the records housed somewhere in courts of Miami or the state of Florida. It is an intriguing puzzle and if I lived in Florida, it is something that I would pursue… after the various lock downs are reversed and we have the opportunity to engage in these sorts of searches. If anyone has any answers, I’d sure like to hear them.

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