Ahh, the Bermuda Triangle. The area of ocean between Bermuda, Florida, and Puerto Rico that supposedly is cursed, and is responsible for the loss of hundreds of aircraft and ships, as well as the lives of those on board. Over the years, a variety of paranormal culprits have been blamed for the weirdness, from sea monsters attacking sailing vessels to UFOs abducting pilots along with their planes. And it is a phenomenon that mainstream science can’t quite seem to get a handle on. One week, it insists the Bermuda Triangle does not exist, citing statistics that show there aren’t any more disappearances of craft in this area than in other areas of the world. The next week, a new study is released, claiming to explain the unusually high number of disappearances in the Triangle.
This week we seem to be in an explanation phase, as a team of British scientists claim they have discovered what has caused all of the missing boats in the so-called Devil’s Triangle: rogue waves. Which is all fine and dandy for explaining why seafaring vessels have disappeared there. But what about all of the missing aircraft? After all, the most famous story of a disappearance in the Bermuda Triangle was the mystery of Flight 19, five torpedo bombers that went missing without a trace in 1945 while on a training exercise in the Triangle. But let’s see what the Brits have to say about the missing boats.
Did a rogue wave knock Flight 19 out of the sky? Not bloody likely.
British scientists believe 100ft ‘rogue’ waves could be the reason why so many boats have been sunk in the mysterious Bermuda Triangle.
The infamous body of water in the western part of the North Atlantic Ocean stretches 700,000 square km (270,271 square miles) between Florida, Bermuda and Puerto-Rico.
Also known as the Devil’s Triangle, the area features multiple shipping lanes and has claimed over 1,000 lives in the last 100 years.
But experts at the University of Southampton believe the mystery can be explained by a natural phenomenon known as “rogue waves.”
Appearing on Channel 5 documentary “The Bermuda Triangle Enigma,” the scientists use indoor simulators to re-create the monster water surges.
SECRETS OF THE BERMUDA TRIANGLE
Rogue waves – which only last for a few minutes – were first observed by satellites in 1997 off the coast of South Africa.
Some have even measured 30 meters (nearly 100ft) high.
The research team built a model of the USS Cyclops, a huge vessel which went missing in the triangle in 1918 claiming 300 lives.
And because of its sheer size and flat base, it does not take long before the model is overcome with water during the simulation.
Dr. Simon Boxall, an ocean and earth scientist, says that infamous area in the Atlantic can see three massive storms coming together from different directions – the perfect conditions for a rogue wave.
MORE THAN 100 YEARS LATER, THE ‘GREAT MYSTERY’ OF THE VANISHED USS CYCLOPS REMAINS UNSOLVED
Boxall believes such a surge in water could snap a boat, such as the Cyclops, in TWO.
He said: “There are storms to the south and north, which come together.
“And if there are additional ones from Florida, it can be a potentially deadly formation of rogue waves.
“They are steep, they are high – we’ve measured waves in excess of 30 metres.
The rogue wave theory has been bandied about before, for a number of years now actually, so I’m not even sure why this is news today. Personally, I think the most interesting explanation put forth so far has been the methane gas theory, which proposes that pockets of methane gas occasionally burst through the Earth’s crust on the ocean floor, and rise to the surface. The methane reduces the buoyancy of water, and can also destabilize the air, thus capable of affecting boats as well as planes. Unfortunately, the U.S. Geological Survey says that no methane releases have happened in this region for over 15,000 years.
Ultimately though, it’s probably just a combination of violent weather and human error. I’ve sailed through the Triangle twice in my lifetime, and I haven’t disappeared, and nothing strange happened to affect reality. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to checking Twitter to see which nations our President has threatened in a late-night, all-caps tirade, and then carefully consider which candidates to vote for in the midterm elections based on what kinds of cryptozoological erotica they might be into.
