Well,
it’s happened again. Science has solved the mystery of the Bermuda Triangle…
except we’ve known what is happening there for decades and the latest merely
provides a source for some of the losses. Now we learn that “rogue waves” are
responsible. Of course, the cynic in me wonders how a rogue wave could knock an
airplane from the sky, but that’s not important now.
I
have discussed this fascination of the Bermuda Triangle by the news media in
the past. It really is them keeping this myth alive. I would have thought the
reporter might have googled Bermuda Triangle just to see what is out there
before writing about this. Anyway, you can read my posts here (which is not to
say that I would expect the reporter to have read them, only that he searched
for additional information before leaping aboard the latest bandwagon):
But
to return to this new evidence. Are rogue waves responsible for some of the
disappearances? I think that the Marine Sulphur Queen could easily have been
swamped by such a wave as this new report
noted. Not much wreckage has been
recovered, but given the nature of the area, the depth of the water, and a
series of other factors, that’s not surprising. Still some has been found,
which makes a lie of the claim that it disappeared without a trace.
 |
| Marine Sulphur Queen |
The
point here is, of course, to mention that it has been decades since Lawrence David
Kusche wrote The Bermuda Triangle Mystery
– Solved. It made perfect sense to me when I first read it so long ago, and
nothing has changed since that time. In fact, his solution was somewhat
verified for me when I had an opportunity to talk with officers of the 440th
Tactical Airlift Wing. They’d lost a plane in the triangle, and it is listed
among the mysteries there… but they know what happened to it and wreckage was
found.
Anyway,
I just wonder how many more times it’s going to be announced that the mystery
has been solved. We’ve known the solution for decades. It’s time to retire this
“mystery.”
There was a report that the planes from Flight 19 had been discovered by divers in 1991, only to be followed by a retraction, and that it was actually of an earlier flight. Someone had noticed that the serial numbers on the fuselages did not match those of Flight 19. Do you know any more about this?
ReplyDelete@cda
ReplyDeleteFrom the Wikipedia page
"Avenger wreckage mistakened for Flight 19"
In 1986, the wreckage of an Avenger was found off the Florida coast during the search for the wreckage of the Space Shuttle Challenger.[10] Aviation archaeologist Jon Myhre raised this wreck from the ocean floor in 1990. He mistakenly believed it was one of the missing planes.[11]
In 1991, a treasure-hunting expedition led by Graham Hawkes announced that the wreckage of five Avengers had been discovered off the coast of Florida, but that tail numbers revealed they were not Flight 19.[12][13] In 2004 a BBC documentary showed Hawkes returning with a new submersible 12 years later and identifying one of the planes by its bureau number (a clearly readable 23990[14]) as a flight lost at sea on 9 October 1943, over two years before Flight 19 (its crew all survived[15]), but he was unable to definitively identify the other planes; the documentary concluded that "Despite the odds, they are just a random collection of accidents that came to rest in the same place 12 miles from home."[16][14] But in March 2012 Hawkes was reported as stating that it had suited both him (and indirectly his investors) and the Pentagon to make the story go away because it was an expensive and time-consuming distraction, and that, while admitting he had found no conclusive evidence, he now thought he had, in fact, found Flight 19.[13]
Records showed training accidents between 1942 and 1945 accounted for the loss of 95 aviation personnel from NAS Fort Lauderdale[17] In 1992, another expedition located scattered debris on the ocean floor, but nothing could be identified. In the last decade,[when?] searchers have been expanding their area to include farther east, into the Atlantic Ocean, but the remains of Flight 19 have still never been confirmed found.
A 2015 newspaper report claimed a wrecked warplane with two bodies inside was retrieved by the Navy In the mid-1960s near Sebastian, Florida. The Navy initially said it was from Flight 19 but later recanted its statement. Despite Freedom of Information Act requests for details in 2013,[18] the names are still not known because the Navy does not have enough information to identify the bodies. In fact this was a post World War II Avenger wreck in which the pilot was killed. [19]
Hmm. I've done some research on the Bermuda Triangle myself but I've never had the chance to read Larry Kusche's book. What is his explanation for people experiencing their compass/navigation equipment malfunctioning?
ReplyDeleteYears ago I watched some documentary on this so called Bermuda Triangle. It was mentioned that the underwriters for Lloyds of London considered there to be no higher losses in that area than in any other part of Atlantic Ocean.
ReplyDeleteI suppose the bottom line should be, "If the insurance companies aren't bothered by the place, neither should we be."
Wrigley Boots -
ReplyDeleteThere are some magnetic anomalies in the area, marked on various navigation charts that might account for those problems. And there is always the exaggerations that sometimes creep into tales. Look to Kusche's book for the plausible explanations.