X-Zone Broadcast Network - Douglas Westfall, Flight 19 and the Bermuda Triangle

There has been a number of shows recently about the Bermuda Triangle and especially Flight 19. I found a couple of guys who were well versed in what happened to the flight. First up was Douglas Westfall. He and I talked about the disappearance of Flight 19. You can listen to that interview here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/25933762

For those who aren’t as familiar with Flight 19 as those of us who have studied all of this for decades, Flight 19 was a group of five

Douglas Westfall

Avenger Torpedo Bombers on a training mission that took off on December 5, 1945. They were supposed to make a practice torpedo run on Hens and Chicken Shoals off the coast of Florida. They were then supposed to turn north, and finally back to the east to return to the Ft. Lauderdale Naval Air Station. They never made it. All five vanished.

This is the cornerstone of the Bermuda Triangle mystery. What sort of force could destroy five aircraft at once? There had been no wreckage found which deepened the mystery. There has been a great deal written about the flight so a google search will provide additional details.

I did mention the disappearance of a C-119 in the Bermuda Triangle that provides some perspective. I had a personal connection to this and you can read about it here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2014/02/the-bermuda-triangle-and-c-119.html

Doug Westfall, however, mentioned that three of the aircraft had been found. The Navy swooped in to confiscate the wreckage and then destroyed it. Doug provides some information and some documentation to support this theory, not to mention that one of those crewmen survived the disaster. It makes an interesting theory. You can search for the Flight 19 information at his website at:

www.SpecialBooks.com

Next week, I’ll be talking with Andy Marocco who has investigated Flight 19 for many years and believes that the remains of the flight have been found. His theory is slightly different from that we heard from Doug. It will be interesting to learn how they disagree and maybe more importantly how the do agree.

The Bermuda Triangle - The New Programming

If I remember correctly, I first learned about the Bermuda Triangle in a book by John Godwin called This Baffling World. It was a compendium of stories of the strange from around the world that included a section on the Bermuda Triangle he

called, “The Hoodoo Sea.” Although he used the terms “Danger Zone,” and “Devil’s Sea,” in his book, he did not say “Bermuda Triangle.” Vincent Gaddis had invented that term (it seems) in a 1964 magazine article.

It was in 1974 that the Lorenzens of APRO were holding a convention or symposium in Denver, Colorado. Circumstances meant that I would be able to attend and one of the few things I remember is Jim Lorenzen on the stage, talking about the mysteries of the Bermuda Triangle. Specifically, he mentioned Flight 19, the five Avenger Torpedo planes that disappeared in December 1945. Lorenzen said that there was no way that all five planes would have crashed as once. What was there that could take all five planes at once, without warning.

Years later, as I was studying some of the cases from the Bermuda Triangle, I learned the answer to that question. According to the available records, at 5:22 p.m., Lieutenant Taylor, the flight leader was heard to say, “When the first man gets down to ten gallons of gas, we will all land in the water together. Does everyone understand that?”

Of course, that might not have happened but that would explain how five aircraft can all disappear at once… but I digress.

In those early years, I believed there was something weird going on in the Bermuda Triangle. Planes and ships just don’t disappear like that… unless there is something strange happening.

I also thought, if you are going to promote a point of view, you should understand what the enemy claims. Given that, I picked up a book, The Bermuda Triangle

Mystery – Solved by Lawrence David Kusche. I wanted to be able to refute what he had to say by examining the evidence he presented. Imagine my surprise when he convinced me, with facts and documents, that he had discovered what was really going on. There was no mystery until it was invented by imaginative magazine and book writers. Sure, Flight 19 seemed to be really strange and once you have found that, well, then there were other strange disappearances to be found as well.

One of the disappearances that Kusche covered was that of a C-119. In his write up, he used the Miami Herald as a source, but the newspaper doesn’t supply much in the way of evidence. He theorizes that the plane might have ditched, but he doesn’t really know. He brings up the UFO sighting by Gemini 4, which is completely irrelevant.

I wouldn’t bother with this if I didn’t have additional information. I covered all that “new” information on this blog a number of years ago. You can read about the disappearance and the solution here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2014/02/the-bermuda-triangle-and-c-119.html

But the point here is to look at these shows that are now searching for answers in the Bermuda Triangle. I had thought it would just be more of the same hype that solves nothing but adds to the mystery. It seems that this assumption might be wrong.

My pal (and I use the term loosely since I only met him once but did have a late lunch with him), Josh Gates, got sucked into the Bermuda Triangle lore. But the

Josh Gates on the right.

tone of the program seemed to be more about finding an answer or two and the attempts to use science in the search. Sure, he talked to some of those who have had weird experiences in the Triangle, but those experiences don’t really take us outside the realm of modern physics. Nothing that would suggest an otherworldly presence or some sort of interdimensional warp. Just weird weather in an area where weird weather seems to be a regular occurrence.

Although it seems that he is going to attack the problem of Flight 19, I haven’t seen that episode yet. I do know that there have been several Avenger Torpedo Bombers found in the Triangle, but none, according to official sources, have been proven to be part of Flight 19. For example, in 1991, treasure hunter Graham Hawkes said that he had found the wreckage of all five aircraft. The tail number of one of the aircraft came from a crash some two years earlier. Hawkes later said that the Pentagon and therefore the Navy had pressured him to make the case “go away.” Then in 2012, he said that he believed that he had actually found Flight 19, but he couldn’t prove it.

In 2015, there was a claim that an aircraft had been found near Sebastian, Florida with two bodies inside. Although the Navy initially said it was part of Flight 19, they later retracted the statement. FOIA requests for more information didn’t provide any conclusive evidence.

What was more interesting for me, the wreckage of an Avenger was found during the search for parts of the Challenger Space Shuttle. I say interesting because Jon Myhre raised the wreckage, which he thought was part of Flight 19.

I mention this because Myhre did publish a book about Flight 19 which suggested the aircraft had been found. I’m working to learn a little more about this because, if even one of the aircraft has been found, then we might have a solution to this mystery.

But, back to the original point here. I’ve seen a couple of other episodes of Curse of the Bermuda Triangle. While they seem to be doing quite a bit to fill the hour with their investigations, they also seem to have a real mission of finding answers. I mean did we really need to show that a powerful magnet would affect the operation of a compass? We all know this and if I remember correctly, there are documented magnetic problems in the Triangle area. According to the program, the yacht, Yahtzee, which disappeared in the Triangle has been found.

At this point, I’m rather pleased with both the Curse of the Bermuda Triangle and Josh Gate’s Expedition Unknown. Although they talk of thousands of disappearances, none of the research I’ve done suggest anything like that. True, as mentioned, there have been 300 shipwrecks found around Bermuda but a shipwreck isn’t a disappearance. Of course, that report didn’t mention the massive reef system around Bermuda that was responsible for some of those wrecks. Lloyd’s of London did look at the statistics and suggested that the Bermuda Triangle was no more dangerous than some other areas of the world.

While some of those believe that Atlantis and that mythical civilization had some power source that causes the disappearances, others thought that proof for Atlantis had been found. I believe it was Josh Gates who dove on the “Bimini Road” which supposed to have been built by the Atlanteans. But in the program, they concluded that the road was a natural formation based on wave action.

If both Josh Gates and the crew of Curse of the Bermuda Triangle continue to investigate for real rather than ratings, then these programs are both interesting and useful… True, a mystery is more fun than the solution, but ignoring the solution for the sake of the mystery does none of us any good

A Flight 19 Mystery in the Bermuda Triangle

John Steiger, a friend who has helped me with research in the past, sent a comment about Flight 19. He’d found a grave marker for Marine Staff Sergeant George R. Paonessa, who was one of those lost on December 5, 1945, when his aircraft, along with four others disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle. This set me to thinking. Why

was there a grave for him at the Arlington National Cemetery?

If the flight disappeared and nothing of them was found, then how could there be a grave? And if there was a grave, did that suggest that the Navy knew more about the disappearance than they had let on?

Douglas Westfall, who appeared on the radio version of A Different Perspective and who, indirectly set all this in motion, told me a little more about this. According to him, Paonessa’s family hadn’t requested the marker, and they were surprised by it. He also said that those at Arlington didn’t know who had made the request and that there was no body in the grave.

All this struck me as a little strange. Why a marker at Arlington if there was no body in the grave? And, if there was a body in the grave, well then, Flight 19 hadn’t disappeared without a trace.

I sent an email to the Arlington National Cemetery, and they responded quickly, confirming that Paonessa’s grave existed, which we already knew. But it turns out that it is not uncommon for there to be a marker and grave at Arlington even if there isn’t a body to be buried in it. Those at Arlington sent the rules and regulations covering the placement of a marker when the body is unavailable. These are:

In the absence of remains, Arlington National Cemetery offers memorialization in specially designated memorial areas. Under federal regulations (32 CFR § 553.16), a memorial marker may be placed at Arlington National Cemetery to honor the memory of service members or veterans who are otherwise eligible for interment or inurnment and:  

Who are missing in action;

Whose remains have not been recovered or identified;

Whose remains were buried at sea, whether by the member's or veteran's own choice or otherwise;

Whose remains were donated to science; 

Whose remains were cremated and the cremated remains scattered without interment or inurnment of any portion of those remains. 

The one-gravesite-per-family policy applies to memorialization:

When the remains of a primarily eligible person are unavailable for one of the above reasons, and a derivatively eligible person (e.g., a dependent) is already interred or inurned at Arlington National Cemetery, the primarily eligible person may be memorialized only on the existing headstone or a replacement headstone, ordered with a new inscription. 

When a memorial marker for a primarily eligible person is already in place, and a derivatively eligible person (e.g., a dependent) is subsequently interred or inurned at Arlington National Cemetery, an inscription memorializing the primarily eligible person will be placed on the new headstone or niche cover. The memorial marker will then be removed from the memorial area. 

The second question was if there were others from Flight 19 who also had markers at Arlington? I already knew the answer because I have a list of all those lost from the Avenger flight. I had been able to

trace all of them except for two and found that a few of them had markers placed on family plots in other cemeteries. One of them mentioned, “Lost at Sea,” for example.

But then, a Martin Mariner, launched as part of the search activity for Flight 19 was also lost that night. It turns out that one of the crewmen on that aircraft, Alfred J. Zywicki, also has a marker in that section of the Arlington National Cemetery.

The information about the locations of both Paonessa and Zywicki was supplied by the officials at Arlington. According to them, “George R. Paonessa is memorialized at ANC at Section MG, Grave 191. In addition, Alfred J. Zywicki is memorialized at ANC at Section MG, Grave 73. Zywicki (US Navy) was on PBM-5 (Bureau Number 59225) that

went out to find Flight 19…”

It seems that part of the mystery is now solved. The last question is simply, who requested the marker for Paonessa? It is clear that someone had to do it.

According to what Douglas Westfall told me, the family didn’t do it. You might say the Marines did it to honor one of their own, but Paonessa wasn’t the only Marine in Flight 19, so you have to wonder why one and not the others.

I had asked a follow up question. “Do you know who asked for the marker to be placed at Arlington? Family say that they were surprised to learn that it was there.”

Those at the Arlington National Cemetery tell me that they are not allowed to release information about who requested the marker. They wrote:

Arlington National Cemetery (ANC) cannot release the interment or inurnment records without special legal permission from the family. Arrangements are made by the decedents primary next of kin (PNOK) or person authorized to direct disposition (PADD). The funeral operation, funeral elements and grave marker are provided by the United States government and the military service branches. So long as the service member is eligible for burial at Arlington National Cemetery, their funeral is scheduled and operated with government and military resources. Transportation and/or delivery of remains of retired personnel, veterans, and their dependents from place of death to the cemetery are the responsibility of the next of kin. 

While this doesn’t help solve the mystery, it does provide us with some information. It suggests that the family had requested the marker… or in this case one member of the family had made the request. It might be that whoever made the request had not conferred with other members of the family so they didn’t know what had happened. Given the rules and regulations, it had to have been a family member.

At this point, I might be done with this. One of the leads I had to a member of the family ended when the phone was answered with, “The number is not in service.”

The second was an email address of someone who was likely related to Paonessa. I have had no response.

Still, I’m not sure that this particular part of the story needed to be traced any farther. There is nothing unusual about an empty grave at Arlington, the rules require the request for the marker to be made by a member of the family, and since the other members of Flight 19 have no similar markers at Arlington, but do in their local cemeteries, that seems to pr

ove the point.

As evidence of a cover up or of something even more sinister, this fails. I found nothing to suggest this proves the flight vanished off the face of the Earth or that the Navy had a hand in creating this conundrum. Instead, it is a family honoring a member who lost his life while serving in the Marine Corps.

Flight 19: The Last Post (Probably)

This is what I hope is the last posting on this aspect of the loss of Flight 19. To recap briefly, John Steiger sent a link to a headstone for George Paonessa, a Marine sergeant who was lost with the flight. In wondered why there was a grave for him at Arlington National Cemetery and if that meant a body had been recovered. Information sent by Arlington said that those lost at sea, lost in combat or who were buried at sea were sometimes honored by a headstone in a special section of Arlington. The request, according to the information had to come from a family member, and I learned that such was the case of Paonessa.

However, there was other information presented that suggested that he had survived the disaster. This included a telegram, allegedly sent by Paonessa to his brother several weeks after he had been declared lost. Douglas Westfall thought that this was good evidence that Flight 19 hadn’t disappeared completely, and on the radio show/podcast A Different Perspective made a case for this. You can listen to it here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/25933762

A week later, I spoke with Andy Marocco who believed he knew where Flight 19 had disappeared, some thirty or forty miles outside the Bermuda Triangle. I asked, specifically, about the telegram, but he said that it was a hoax. His reasoning was that it hadn’t entered the public arena until twenty or thirty years after the loss. You can listen to that interview here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/26397002

Doug Westfall believed that George Paonessa had made his way to California and became a contractor. It was his theory that Paonessa could operate out in the open

Douglas Westfall

because President Truman had pardoned those who had deserted after the conclusion of World War II. The theory behind the pardon was that they had served honorably, but with the war over, there was no need for them to remain on active duty. President Carter pardoned those who had fled to Canada to avoid the Vietnam War, so the idea wasn’t unprecedented.

This George Paonessa, that Doug mentioned, had died in either the 1960s or the 1970s. I was unable to find either a headstone or an obituary for him, which might have mentioned family and allowing us to verify the connection to Flight 19.

Andy Marocco said that he had actually visited the cemetery where that George Paonessa was buried. There was nothing there to connect him to the lost flight or to the family living in New York, home of the original George Paonessa.

I did contact one of the family members, which was how I learned about the request for the headstone at Arlington. In that same email, he mentioned the

Andy Marocco

telegram, so I asked about this. My thinking was that if George had contacted the family in the weeks following the loss, then he certainly would have been in touch with them in the years that followed. There would be no reason for him to avoid the family if he was operating a business under his own name in California and no one was looking for him for desertion.

The answer was that the telegram was the last that anyone heard from him… if it had been him. In the world today, with everyone who had violated a law, if anyone had actually violated a law, beyond prosecution, there is no reason to maintain the fiction that George Paonessa had perished in 1945, if he had, in fact survived. In other words, they would be able to confirm that he had survived if he had. There is no family history to suggest he did. The telegram, even though it mentioned his family nickname, is a cruel hoax.

Here’s where we are, according to what I have learned. All members of Flight 19 were lost on December 5, 1945. The best evidence is that the flight stuck together, just as the Flight Leader said for them to do, and all ditched together. Although neither Doug Westfall nor Andy Marocco have hard evidence for their respective theories, given that Andy’s is based on the official Navy documents relating to the case, and with other evidence, it seems that his theory is the most accurate.

This then, is the end of this part of the discussion. At this moment, none of the aircraft have been found and it seems that the idea that they all ditched at once is the most logical explanation. When there is new information on this particular aspect of the Bermuda Triangle, well, you’ll read it here.

X-Zone Broadcast Network - Bermuda Triangle Wrap Up

This week I wrapped up the information about Flight 19 specifically and the Bermuda Triangle generally. This all began when I noticed that a couple of TV programs were dealing with the topics and I wondered if they would actually do some research or just fall into the old trap of regurgitating the nonsense that had been spewed before. I was pleasantly surprised. You can listen to my recap here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/27935137

I looked at the mystery as it has been reported in the past without critical comment. Just the “facts” as they have been told in dozens of books and articles. Planes and ships that have disappeared without warning and with no trace of debris. Some other thoughts on this can be seen here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2018/08/bermuda-triangle-mystery-solved-again.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2007/06/editorial-comment.html

One of the things that I discussed was my “first-hand” experiences with one of the aircraft disappearances. Given that I was a member of the Air Force unit that lost a plane, I was able to gather a little bit of information that might have been missed by many of those other writers. You can read about this case here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2014/02/the-bermuda-triangle-and-c-119.html

After discussing the other disappearances, I did point out some of the problems with the stories as they were being told. In the last few weeks, I have gone into a little more depth in some of these cases and you can read about them here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2020/03/curse-of-bermuda-triangle-witchcraft.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2020/04/bermuda-triangle-and-witchcraft-part-two.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/search?q=Cotopaxi

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2020/01/ss-cotopaxi-no-longer-victim-of-bermuda.html

One of the stories that I followed up on was the possibility that one of the Marines who flew with Flight 19 had survived and contacted the family. This I thought strange because there was a headstone for him in the Arlington National Cemetery. You can follow that investigation here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2020/04/a-flight-19-mystery-in-bermuda-triangle.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2020/04/flight-19-george-paonessa-and-bermuda.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2020/05/flight-19-last-post-probably.html

Finally, I talked about Flight 19 and what happened to it. I had interviewed both Douglas Westfall and Andy Marocco about their research and their theories. If you missed those programs, you can listen to them here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/25933762

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/26397002

This, I believe, brings all the Bermuda Triangle lore up to date. Some of the ships and planes that were thought to have vanished completely have been found in the last few years. More information about some of the disappearances has been uncovered providing some solutions. I had engaged in a search for the truth, but as I mentioned at the top of the program, and stealing the line from Head Office, “There is no truth. There are only stories.”

Next up is Nick Redfern talking about his new book and the information that came from John Burroughs of Rendlesham Forest fame. If you have questions, let me know in the comments section.

X-Zone Broadcast Network - Andy Marocco and Flight 19

In a sort of follow up from last week, I talked with Andy Marocco about the disappearance of Flight 19. His take on what happened and where the flight might have come to rest is different than that of Douglas Westfall. You can listen to the interview here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/26397002

We did talk, briefly about the headstone for George Paonessa that is found at Arlington National Cemetery. Those of you who visit here frequently (and who have read the last couple of posts) know that the mystery has been solved. A member of

Andy Marocco

Paonessa’s family arranged for the headstone and as is policy, in cases where the body has not been recovered, a headstone was erected in a part of the cemetery devoted to those whose bodies were lost for whatever reason.

In a revelation I found interesting, when I asked about the theory that Paonessa had survived and moved to California at some point, Andy was able to clear up part of the problem. According to the information George Paonessa was buried in California. I had wondered about finding an obituary that might list family members. My thought was that we could learn if this was, in fact, the George Paonessa who had been lost with Flight 19. According to Andy, he found the man’s headstone in a California cemetery and the information available told us it was a different man.

We did talk about the idea that all the planes of Flight 19 had gone down together and that none of the pilots broke away from the formation. Andy suggested, based on the Navy records of the flight, that he was able to locate the general area of the crash site, which, ironically, is outside the limits of the Bermuda Triangle. To prove this point he revealed that the navigational records show that a mistake in reading the precise heading would have caused the planes to be some fifteen miles where they should have been. That was enough to radically throw off the navigation.

Although I wanted to talk a little more about the Martin Mariner, one of the search aircraft that was lost that same night, we didn’t have enough time to get deeply into it. I had seen an episode of Josh Gate’s Expedition Unknown where they did find wreckage on the ocean floor that might have come from a Martin Mariner. Andy said that he hoped to be able to return to the site and find evidence to prove that.

So, what has happened is that my interview with Douglas Westfall led to John Steiger’s finding of the Headstone for Paonessa, which led to research about how that happened. In less than a week, I was able to resolve this, learning exactly how that marker came to be. We have heard, in the last two shows, two theories about what happened to the various aircraft involved in the disaster, which aren’t exactly the exact opposite but which don’t exactly support one another. We have gained additional insight into what happened, learning that the aircraft took off in poor weather rather than a bright, clear, sunny sky. We learned that the Martin Mariner, which some have labeled at the “Flying Gas Tank,” was no such thing and that the evidence that it blew up was shaky at best.

But, then, we have cleared up a couple of issues. True, there still is the mystery about what, exactly, happened, but I think it is a little clearer in our minds.

Next up is Tom Carey. He listened to my interview with Don Schmitt and Tom seems to disagree with Don’s assessment of the Glenn Dennis and the missing nurse story. We’ll delve into that and some other matters Roswell related. If you have a question or two, append them here and I’ll try to get them asked.

Flight 19, George Paonessa and the Bermuda Triangle

John Steiger inadvertently launched an investigation when he provided a link to the headstone for George Paonessa at the Arlington National Cemetery. I had wondered, if Flight 19 disappeared without a trace, then how could there be a

grave for one of those lost in the disaster.

As noted in early postings, I contacted Arlington and learned that there is a section that holds markers for those whose bodies were not available for burial. Those lost at sea, those buried at sea, and those lost in combat and whose bodies were not recovered are just some of the examples.

Since only Paonessa had a marker rather than all those lost on Flight 19, I believed it had to have been a family member who requested it. Had the Navy done it, there should have been headstones for all of those lost and if the Marines had done it, then there should have been one for each of the Marines lost. Family was the only answer.

Today, I received an email from a family member that ended this one, rather minor part, of the overall mystery. He wrote, “Hi. My Aunt Louise, who has since passed away, was the one who wrote to Ogden Reid the United States Representative from Westchester County & that's how the head stone was put there.”

There is nothing mysterious about the headstone. There is nothing about the headstone to suggest a cover up by the Navy. There is a logical explanation for that headstone. I was just curious about a headstone when there was no body. The headstone suggested that this might be a link into what had happened to Flight 19. Instead was just a family member wishing to honor a Marine who died in the service of his country. A nice tribute for a man who died long ago.

The Bermuda Triangle, Flight 19 and Josh Gates

In a strange coincidence, I stumbled across the second part of Josh Gates’ episode dealing with the Bermuda Triangle. I was able to learn the results of the experiment he had conducted with a couple of scientists. They launched a balloon into the upper atmosphere to find out if there were any anomalies to explain the trouble with compasses and other electronics. Yes, they found a spike in the

Josh Gates and me... published here to show that
I'm not really bald.

electromagnetic radiation that they couldn’t explain. Interesting, but not too illuminating.

He also was involved in an experiment created to explain the disappearance of the USS Cyclops, a strange looking Navy ship designed to carry coal to the fleet. That mission explains the weird metallic superstructure. Using a university’s facilities that had been designed to recreate ocean conditions, they created what is now known as a rogue wave to attempt to sink the ship. I expected it to do so, but not with the rapidity that it did. The wave hit the exact model of the ship and took it down in seconds… no time for a radio call, no time to for the sailors to abandon the ship and no time for any sort of rescue. One minute the ship was on the surface and the next it was under water. I might add that there are some portions of the Bermuda Triangle that are the deepest in the North Atlantic. If a ship or a plane sank there, no one is ever going to find any sign of it.

I was more interested in Josh’s take on Flight 19, a five-plane formation of Avenger torpedo planes that disappeared in 1945. This is the cornerstone of the Bermuda Triangle mystery. It seems inexplicable and I wondered just what Josh would do about it. He gave a good account of the preliminaries meaning that weather at the time of take- off wasn’t great, the make-up of the flight, and its training mission. Everything was fine as they approached the target, Hens and Chicken Shoals, some 70 or so nautical miles from their base.

Once beyond that, they seemed to have drifted off course. The Flight made a scheduled turn, but the Flight Leader, Charles Taylor, said that both his compasses had malfunctioned. From that point, it seems they made several turns, first flying one direction and then another until they ran out of gas. Radio contact had been lost prior to that and when it was obvious that the Flight was down, a Martin Mariner with a crew of 13 was launched to attempt a rescue. That aircraft slipped off the radar and disappeared as well.

But, unlike the Avengers, there were witnesses to this part of the disaster. The crew of a ship in the area saw an aerial explosion. When they reached the scene of the crash, they spotted floating debris but the bad weather forced them to abandon the search. They next day, no one could find the wreckage… but the ship’s crew did get a good fix on the location.

All this is important because Josh, with another crew using high tech sonar, were able to see the ocean bottom in what looked like high definition detail. Scanning the area, they found debris on the ocean floor that looked suspiciously like the remains of an aircraft. Diving down, Josh found what looked like the type of engine that the Martin Mariner had used, and a propeller blade, or rather the engine hub with all three blades on it. Given all that, it is almost certain that they had found the remains of Martin Mariner. Although Josh and crew were unable to recover the engine or the propeller, it was suggested that it should be recovered at some point.

Given that, and what he learned about Flight 19, Josh suggested that a

combination of events doomed the Flight. It was a cascade of circumstances that brought down the planes and had there been any variation in those events, even a slight one, the tragedy might have been avoided. The conclusion is that it wasn’t some mysterious force that brought down the Flight, it wasn’t aliens and it wasn’t some sort of interdimensional warp… it was bad weather, faulty navigation and a series of other events that combined to doom the Flight.

Again, I was surprised by the rationale brought to this. Josh suggested at the end that there might be some weird weather and magnetic anomalies in the Bermuda Triangle but there was nothing supernatural. That was a conclusion that I had reached many years ago after reading Lawrence Kusche’s book.

Of course, having met Josh (yes, I have to bring that up again), I’m not surprised that he came to the conclusions he did, based on the evidence and the experiments in which he was involved. For those who wish to learn the truth about this, Expedition Unknown has done a good job of relating the facts without delving into the wild speculation that obscures the reality of the situation. I believe that we can say “solved” to the mystery of the Bermuda Triangle. It is delightful to see an intelligent documentary about the Bermuda Triangle when there is so much nonsense out there.

The Bermuda Triangle Solved - Again, for the Fourth Time

No matter how many times I post about the Bermuda Triangle and the true explanation for it, someone comes up the scientific find that will explain it all. The latest was an article by Ryan Unger in an article entitled “Scientists Find Evidence that May Finally Explain the Bermuda Triangle.”

My response?

Seriously?

As those of you who visit here on a regular basis know, I have explained, repeatedly, that the Bermuda Triangle is a manufactured mystery. That means that those who have written about or investigated the Triangle have overlooked the evidence, misrepresented the case or just repeated what others have written about it. They haven’t gone to the original sources to learn the truth, just repeated whatever

C-119

seemed to support their belief structure.

As I have mentioned, I was, at one time, a member of the 440^th Tactical Airlift Wing which lost a plane in the Triangle. Before you all go searching the Internet about this, I was in a subordinate unit, the 928^th Tactical Airlift Group. While visiting the Wing Headquarters, I asked about the loss of the plane, and was told that it had crashed. They had some of the wreckage from it. That means, of course, it didn’t vanish without a trace, only that it crashed. You can read the longer article here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2006/09/disappearing-aircraft-part-3-bermuda.html

Anyway, this latest “explanation,” was that Rogue Waves were the culprit in pulling down the ships. It is a very plausible explanation, given that the waves can be 100 feet high and can swamp a ship in seconds. There would be no chance for a distress call and if the ship turned turtle, meaning capsized, it would sink nearly intact.

The problem here is that Unger mentioned the loss of Flight 19. A Rogue Wave would not take down an aircraft. They just aren’t tall enough to do that. Although Unger mentioned Flight 19, he didn’t say a word about the impossibility of a wave knocking an aircraft out of the sky. There are some interesting ideas about what happened to Flight 19 and I did explore those on my radio show/podcast. You can listen to those interviews here.

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/27935137

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/27935137

My real point is that Unger didn’t address the problem with aircraft and he didn’t really write about anything that hasn’t been suggested before. This seemed to be click bait, which worked on me until I got tired of the story moving into arenas that has nothing to do with the Bermuda Triangle. Just be glad that you didn’t have to click through 40 pages of three sentence text and 9 million ads to learn nothing new. I did that for you.

The Bermuda Triangle Mystery, Solved -- Again

 In recent days I have come across a series of articles in various newspapers letting us know that an Australian author, Karl Kurszelnicki, has solved the mystery of the Bermuda Triangle. He began his research in 2017 and has concluded that, based on his research the incidents attributed to the Bermuda Triangle are not anomalous but simply the result of probabilities, navigational challenges, natural hazards, weather, and human error.

Well, color me surprised. I had no idea.

First, a little personal background. I was introduced to the concept of the Bermuda Triangle in a book, This Baffling World by John Godwin, published in 1968. He had a chapter entitled, “The Hoodoo Sea,” which was about the Bermuda Triangle. It wasn’t a very comprehensive analysis and incorporated shipwrecks that were nowhere near the Triangle.

In 1974, I attended a UFO conference in Denver, Colorado. Jim Lorenzen was there and he spoke about the Bermuda Triangle, noting that five Navy Avenger Torpedo Bombers, on a training mission and flying in formation, all disappeared at once. His question was how do five aircraft, flying in formation, just disappear without a trace. (Hint: Based on the official documentation, they did it on order from the flight leader.) And a rescue aircraft, sent out in search of those torpedo planes, also disappeared, without a trace. (It was seen to explode not long after take-off.)

In fact, I blogged about the idea that the Bermuda Triangle was solved years ago. You can read it here:

https://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2020/03/the-bermuda-triangle-new-programming.html

https://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2007/06/editorial-comment.html

https://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2020/03/the-bermuda-triangle-flight-19-and-josh.html

I had always thought the best way to defeat the skeptical arguments, was to read their arguments and analyze their research. That’s why I picked up a copy of Lawrence David Kusche’s The Bermuda Triangle Mystery – Solved published in October 1975. That book answered the questions about those disappearances and provided the source material. Some of those original sources explained what exactly what had happened, but later writers simply repeated what others had written without following all the information to its original source. Kusche did that and came up with the answers and this is why I sometimes chase footnotes.

I was in a unique position to answer one of the Triangle disappearances. I was the group intelligence officer of the 928^th Tactical Airlift Group, which was a subordinate unit to the 440^th Tactical Airlift Wing, which was based in Milwaukee. In June 1965, a C-119 from the 440^th disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle and is listed in those various books and articles about the Triangle. I covered this in depth several years ago. You can read it here:

https://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2006/09/disappearing-aircraft-part-3-bermuda.html

Here’s the point. The answers to the mysteries of the Bermuda Triangle have been around for decades. I covered some of it myself with my connections to the 440^th. As I noted, while I was attending a staff conference in Milwaukee, they even showed me parts of the recovered wreckage. For some reason I didn’t bother to photograph the wreckage but some of it was clearly labeled with the aircraft number. It didn’t disappear without a trace. It crashed into the ocean.

C-119 cargo plane like that crashed in the Bermuda Trianglw.
Picture courtesy 440th Tactical Airlift Wing.

Too often, reporters simply don’t have time to do the proper research with daily deadlines pressing them for the constantly shifting stories. Book authors do have the time, but their personal bias often get in the way. I communicated with Charles Berlitz about his book about the Bermuda Triangle. It was clear from his response that he wasn’t interested in answers. He was interested in spreading the mystery with half-baked research and ignored fact.

I had a confrontation with an author about a book he’d published on another topic. I noted some of the errors in the books and provided the sources for verification. He wasn’t overly interested, saying, “I have a book to protect.”

Peter Robbins, on the other hand, learned the truth about his book written in collaboration with Larry Warren, Left at East Gate, announced that his book was filled with inaccurate information, largely supplied by a single, unreliable source. On learning the truth, and to his credit, Peter provided a retraction for the book and gave the reasons for it. You can read about that here:

http://www.kgraradio.com/peter-robbins-deception-a-review-and-critical-analysis-of-the-book-encounter-in-rendlesham-forest/

Peter Robbins at a MUFON Symposium.
Photo by Kevin Randle.

The real take away here is that another author, Kurszelnicki, made an independent study of the Triangle and came to the same conclusions that many of us did decades ago and yet we are still bombarded with TV documentaries suggesting there is something to this “mystery.”

A final note on this. A few years back, after one of those Triangle documentaries, I talked with some of the men in Florida who have doing in depth research on that very subject. What they told me is quite interesting and I did interview them on the A Different Perspective radio show/podcast. You can listen to it here:

https://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/search?q=Flight+19#google_vignette

https://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2020/05/flight-19-last-post-probably.html

I find nothing mysterious about the alleged Bermuda Triangle. I do watch out for material about it because I hope they find the five Navy aircraft at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, so that we can put that mystery to rest. That should mark the end of the mystery of the Bermuda Triangle but I fear until that happens, we are going to have more half-baked theories about this manufactured mystery.

X-Zone Broadcast Network - Bernard O'Connor (and Official UFO)

Bernard O’Connor, one-time editor of Official UFO magazine was the guest this week. I had worked with Bernie back in the 1970s, in the heyday of UFO magazines. Those of us who had access to a great deal of UFO information, not on-

Bernie O'Connor

line because that didn’t exist, but through contacts with various UFO organizations and researchers, could make a nice living writing UFO articles. You can listen to the interview here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/25580581

We did, of course, talk about more than the workings of a UFO magazine. We talked about the UFO wave of 1973 and the two pictures of a silver-clad occupant, taken in Falkville, Alabama. Jeffrey Greenhaw, who is described as the chief of police but was, in fact, the only police officer in the town (which, I suppose, made him the chief) said that some woman called him around 10:00 p.m. about a landing UFO. On the outskirts of town, he saw a figure, about five and a half feet tall, standing in the middle of the road. Greenhaw stopped, got out of the car. While talking to the being, he was taking pictures. But it stepped toward him and Greenhaw flipped on the red light on top of the police car. The being turned and fled. Greenhaw, in the police car, couldn’t catch it. He lost it when the car spun out on the loose gravel even though Greenhaw was only driving at about 20 m.p.h.

Within minutes, Greenhaw was at the newspaper, and it wasn’t long until the story was out over the news wires. It grew into a massive story. I mean, there were the

Official UFO issue that describes the
destruction of Chester, Illinois.

pictures of the alien creature that Greenhaw had taken. But, a month later, the mayor asked Greenhaw to resign from his job. At the same time, Greenhaw’s marriage failed and his trailer burned. He left town soon after that.

Analysis of the photographs seemed to indicate that the figure was a human in what is known as a hot suit. Test pictures taken by UFO researchers, including Marion Webb of NICAP, seemed to bear this out. NICAP thought that Greenhaw was the victim of a hoax but Webb eventually concluded that Greenhaw and a friend had created the pictures.

I suppose the point here is that if Greenhaw had been the victim of a hoax, then the consequences were out of line. If, however, he had perpetrated the hoax, well, I’m not sure that he’s the type of person you need as a police officer. I should mention that Greenhaw never admitted to the hoax and maintained that he had seen something truly strange. For those interested, here is some additional information and the pictures:

http://outtherewithted.com/beings/articles/alabama-police-chiefs-photo-alleged-alien-published-around-globe-1973

https://realunexplainedmysteries.com/falkville-alien-the-metal-man

https://anomalien.com/the-falkville-metal-man/

We did talk about threats made to people after UFO sightings, but I wondered if some of that wasn’t overblown hype and the military just reminding service members about disclosure of classified material.

This sparked my comments about Carroll Wayne Watts, who, in 1968, reported that he had made contact, been abducted, or maybe stalked, by alien creatures in a UFO. He eventually admitted it had been a hoax but then retracted that statement. He found his life in shambles, just as Greenhaw did.

We ended talking about Bernie’s website which is filled with Fortean material, not just UFOs. You can visit it here:

http://videosofthedamned.com/

Next week, I’ll be talking with Doug Westfall about the fate of Flight 19 in the Bermuda Triangle. The following week, I’ll interview Andy Marocco, about the fate of that same Flight 19. Both men have been studying the case for years, and both believe they have a solution, though they don’t exactly agree. I think this will be a couple of interesting shows and will allow you all to decide who has found the right answer, if in fact, and answer has been found.

As always, if you have any questions for either of the men, post them in the comments section and I’ll try to get them asked during the show. Please remember that these questions might not show up on the blog which doesn’t mean I won’t ask them.

And, if you are interested in Project Blue Book, I just published The Best of Project Blue Book, an in depth look as some of the cases that those at Blue Book overlooked, ignored or labeled as hoax without a worry about the facts. If you enjoy the book, put a review up on Amazon… it does help.