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The Bermuda TriangleParanormal Activity or Coincidence?HistoryThe Bermuda Triangle is well known around the world for its notoriety as a death-trap region near Bermuda. The triangle's boundaries are formed by Bermuda, Puerto Rico, and southern Florida, and encomapasses just over half a million square miles, although some experts say the region of terror is even bigger, more like a circle encompassing a million square miles, extending further up the Atlantic Coast to the Chesapeake Bay. However large and where the boundaries lie, the volume of incidents in this region will certainly raise an eyebrow or two.
In the last 500 years, more than fifty ships and 20 aircraft have vanished mysteriously. This in and of itself is substantial enough to bring attention to the area. But these ships and planes haven't just wrecked or crashed...it's not just a unusually dangerous area; they've gone down with no survivors, no trace of the ship or aircraft, no physical evidence of anything, not even distress signals. They've just disappeared. It's this vanishing-with-no-trace element that have people scratching their heads and attributing paranormal activity to the disappearances. Also, in some cases, the vessels or planes have re-emerged, totally intact, but with no humans aboard. Some date the disappearances back the 19th century, but there's even mention in Columbus's notes about strange occurrences in this region. He wrote that his compass was haywire, he saw strange lights, and a burst of flame in the air, falling into the ocean. One of the most famous Bermuda Triangle mysteries was in December 1945, when five US Navy TBM Avenger Torpedo Bombers took off from Fort Lauderdale in Florida. It was a routine flight, in the afternoon, and they all simply vanished into thin air, for all anyone knew. A search plane was sent out for them, and it met the same fate: it vanished and we never heard anything from any of the six planes ever again. It was recorded in Navy logs that the planes had vanished "as if they had flown to Mars." This is the largest vanishing incident so far in the recorded history of the Bermuda Triangle. LegendThe Bermuda Triangle has sucked down aircraft and sea-going vessels at least since the 1800's, and locals in the Florida-Bermuda-Puerto Rico coastal areas have probably been aware of the dangerous region since then, but it was not until the 1970's that the general public became fully aware of the Bermuda Triangle. The 1970s saw a general increase in interest in any paranormal activities, especially in the United States. Books, Television shows, and magazines all featured stories on the Bermuda Triangle, and theories began to spring up about the reasons and causes for the disappearances. Theories ranged from the outlandish to the very-cynical. The phenomenon has encouraged all sorts of theories and has earned various nicknames at the same time:
Some of the theories are really very entertaining, and there is a world of websites out there dedicated to publishing the theories, or debunking them, or inviting comment on them. One theory involves a grand master plan between the government and rich and famous celebrities who wish to vanish from the public eye. Money is exchanged for federal witness protection, after a planned and controlled disappearance in the Bermuda Triangle. Other theories involve:
Whatever theory you subscribe to, one thing is for sure: The Bermuda Triangle provides a rich history with lots of unanswered questions. This region and its unlikely events will be inviting imaginative speculation for decades to come. |
