The Bermuda Triangle:
Reasoning of the Unknown
David Deese
What *is* the Bermuda Triangle?
• The vast three-sided
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segment of the Atlantic
Ocean bordered by
Bermuda, Puerto Rico
and Fort Lauderdale,
Florida.
Spans an area of around
500,000 square miles, but
some estimates are up to
three times larger.
What *is* the Bermuda Triangle?
• Reports of strange
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occurrences have been
recorded as early as the
days of Columbus.
Sometimes the Coast
Guard answers more than
5,000 distress calls within
the Triangle per year.
Also Known As:
“The Devil’s Triangle”
What *is* the Bermuda Triangle?
• First dubbed “The Bermuda
•
Triangle” by writer V. Gaddis
in a 1964 issue of Argosy, a
magazine devoted to fiction.
Public interest in the
Bermuda Triangle increased
exponentially with the
publication of Charles
Berlitz’s 1974 bestseller The
Bermuda Triangle.
Who the heck started this?!
• 1492 – Columbus’s compass went haywire
and it’s reported that he and his crew saw
“weird lights” in the sky.
• 1892 – The Mary Celeste is discovered
abandoned on the high seas about 400
miles off its intended course from New
York to Genoa. There was no sign of its
crew of ten or what happened to them.
Why do we still believe this?
• In a study of related material, Larry Kushe found that
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few people do any investigation into the mystery
whatsoever. They simply passed on the speculations of
their predecessors as if they were passing on the mantle
of truth. (AKA – Word of Mouth & Tell A Friend)
In short, the mystery of the Bermuda Triangle became a
mystery by a kind of communal reinforcement among
uncritical authors and a willing mass media to uncritically
pass on the speculation that something mysterious is
going on in the Atlantic.
Who the heck started this?!
-The *REAL* Humdinger• December 5, 1945 – “Flight 19”
• Five Navy planes vanished without a trace on a
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training mission during a severe storm. A rescue
plane was dispatched to find them and it too
never returned. (27 men in all)
An official Navy report of the incident insinuated
that the planes disappeared... “as if they had
flown to Mars.”
Common Ailments of the Triangle
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Strange Magnetic Fields
Oceanic Flatulence
Atlantis
Sporadic Interdimensional Travel
Time Warps
Alien Abduction
• What have *you* heard?
Why do we still believe this?
• The current truth is so widely and easily
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circulated and believed that the only way to
eliminate it would be for the Navy to make an
announcement to the Nation about it, but as
that costs lots of money, it’s doubtful they’ll do it
even *if* they had the inclination to do so.
Many people have been exposed to the myth of
the Bermuda Triangle before they learn the facts
about the incidents in the Bermuda Triangle,
which aren’t widely circulated to begin with.
The fairest thing to do...
• Correlation – Investigate past incidents within
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the Bermuda Triangle, searching for
authentic/government-issued reports.
Statistics – Construct a timeline of incidents that
occurred and compare this distribution with that
of other treacherous areas of the world’s oceans
to see if this area’s is significantly higher than
that of other areas.
The fairest thing to do...
• Conduct a study – Select a sizable number of
ships (to be determined by researchers) that will
be passing through the Bermuda Triangle in a
single year (or multiple years) and survey the
Captain and some of the crew about the voyage
across the Triangle.
What they *don’t* tell you...
• “Flight 19”: Nothing but the facts...
• “The rescue plane dispatched never returned.” – Only
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because it blew up 23 seconds after takeoff. And this
particular design, the Mariner, was well known for it’s
faulty gas tanks.
“No wreckage was ever found” – The planes were
possibly so far out in the Atlantic that they passed the
continental shelf; which would mean the planes sank
into several thousand feet of water. (The deepest point
in the Atlantic, at 30,100 feet deep, is also located in the
Puerto Rico Trench *within* the Bermuda Triangle.)
The Major holes we overlook...
• Most of the associated incidents can be explained by
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rational means.
Most of these same incidents blamed on the Bermuda
Triangle didn’t occur anywhere *near* the Triangle. (The
Mary Celeste was discovered off the coast of Portugal.)
Some incidents recorded as far away as the Pacific are
blamed on the Bermuda Triangle without reason.
The facts do not support the legend; there is no mystery
to be solved and nothing that needs explaining. The
number of wrecks in this area is not extraordinary given
its size, location, and the amount of traffic it receives.