The Bermuda Triangle 4

[TheRaptor]

I recently saw a documentary on the Bermuda Triangle and have been quite fascinated since.

I would like your views/explanations on this phenomenon. I am sure there are thousands of theories already, but I am interested in knowing individual opinions.

Thanks.

 

[0707]

I do not believe witches but they exist.

 

[Pressed]

.
Pirates....arghhh!!

==========================================
Business Card

http://mech.e.tripod.com

__________________________________________
Cycle Heaven.......

http://www.tailofthedragon.com

 

[DaveVikingPE]

ELVIS NEEDS BOATS.

 

[THEReifleman]

Here, here, Corus!!

signed,
fellow acronym hater.

 

[drawoh]

TheRaptor,

Read The Bermuda Triangle Mystery - Solved, by Lawrence Kusche. Kusche investigated the various mysteries and in most cases, found perfectly conventional causes for the disappearances. People describing the triangle as mysterious tend to miss minor, insignificant details like hurricanes. Some of the disappearances are poorly documented and may not have happened.

Let's look at this another way. I do not personally know anyone else on this message base. I am convinced, you all are from Saturn's moon, Titan, with the exception of DaveVikingPE, who appears to be a Mojo Nixon and Skid Roper fan. I do not believe that space aliens appreciate rock and roll.

Can you prove me wrong?

JHG

 

[btrueblood]

Well, we can prove you wrong, drawoh, but then you'd be onto us. We'd have to abandon this whole elaborate hoax, and start over...

 

[JAE]

drawoh - space aliens not appreciating rock? Then how do you explain the kidnappings by adoring aliens of Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, Jimi, and John Lennon? And the last Black Sabbath concert I went to had a huge number of aliens there.

 

[DaveVikingPE]

I'm listening to Black Sabbath right now.

 

[DaveVikingPE]

I just stabbed myself with my .7 mm Sanford Pro-Touch 2.0 pencil. Good thing I'm using HB lead. Ouch!

 

[JStephen]

TheRaptor- Through the years, I've read a good bit on the Bermuda Triangle mystery and a number of other similar situations.

The fundamental problem is that people interested in promoting a mystery make one where there's really not one.

This happens in various ways:
-Taking things that are coincidental and making them seem connected. For example, the Edmund Fitzgerald sank- but you don't hear of the "Great Lakes Triangle". Ships have sunk in every ocean, but when you mark off a part of it and hunt up every ship that ever sank there, you get a misleading picture of events.
-Stretching the truth. By selectively omitting or adding details, the truth is made much stranger- one thing involved in the Avenger aircraft story. Some of the happenings that have been reported in the Bermuda triangle actually happened far from there.
-Flat out lies- I've read of one case of the "ghost ship" that was found unmanned, prize crew put aboard, then the prize crew disappeared. Great yarn. However, several different Bermuda Triangle authors over the years reported this story, each citing the earlier writers as a reference, but in each case additional information got added to the story- it was simply made up. And newspapers of the day don't seem to have reported the story at all- it seems the whole story was simply fiction. (There really was a deserted ship found similar to the story, but it was in the Pacific!)

The popular press and television seldom make any real effort to determine the truth of some of the "weird" events that get reported. So the same sorts of things go on with Bigfoot, with UFO's, with the Abominable Snowman, with Atlantis, the Moon landings, Elvis, you name it.

 

[berkshire]

Is it my imagination, or have the participants in this discussion all been listening to Coast to Coast.
B.E.

 

[casseopeia]

bah, who needs Art Bell when you have Eng-Tips? Actually, I'm glad Art is back. I want to hear that alien-waking-up-in-the-freezer recording again! I MISS being scared our of my wits.

"If you are going to walk on thin ice, you might as well dance!"

 

[pdcaton]

OK, the Tourism Industry will not like this, but here's the basic facts on the Bermuda Triangle.

The main cause of disappearances was due to a local magnetic anomaly, coupled with nasty reefs around the islands (yes, they're a chain of islands) and sudden storms. The British Admiralty charted the magnetic anomaly at Bermuda in the late 1800's, and it's shown on current charts (maps for mariners). The magentic bearing of North swings from 7 degrees west of North at the western edge to 14 degrees east at the eastern end. Each degree translates to 69 statute miles on the earth's surface. Thus, if you're looking for a small pace to begin with, and your compass isn't working, it's easy to get lost. It's a big ocean out there.

As for the storms, well they're just heat engines. With very warm water year-round, there's a lot of energy to build up. Also, with 700 miles of free space around the islands, there's plenty of fetch for the wind and waves to build up. Storms are particularly nasty in the winter, because of the heat differential.

With the reefs, there's over 400 documented wrecks within a mile or two of the shore. In the 400 plus years of transatlantic travel in this area, there's probably many more yet to be discovered. Also, with the sea floor dropping to over 12000 ft a few miles out, there's many lost vessels and planes that will never be found.

Just thought a Bermudian engineer should set the record straight. The other stuff is fun to read, though.

 

[JAE]

pdcaton - that's about the best explanation I've heard yet.

It also smashes my long held view that the BT was the little triangle that formed in the crotch when my Uncle Jed sat down in his Bermuda shorts.

 

[pdcaton]

Well, JAE, your version of the triangle sounds even more dangerous!

But seriously, as applied scientists, we should just concern ourselves with facts. I don't believe that there's any higher statistical chance of disappearing in our area than say the Grand Banks off of Newfoundland, the North Sea, or the Carolinas Banks. All areas that have sudden storms and sharp rocks, and abrupt depth changes.

The origin of the triangle myth is lost to history. Old sailors were very superstitious. Bermuda was at one time referred to as the Isle of Devils, because all of the sea birds made very strange noises. Kind of like mermaids coming from manatees. Ive sailed for years, seen very strange things happen on the ocean, but they all had a logical explanation as to why or how.

 

[IRstuff]

The Caribbean and mid/south Atlantic spouted over 30 named storms last year. That's not counting the unnamed ones that came and went before anyone really noticed or cared. There were no other regions of the world that claimed a similar propensity for generating storms.

Hurricanes are similar to tornados on dry land. There's a region in the US called "Tornado Alley" for a good reason. If you live in the region, the likelihood of getting clobbered by a tornado is substantially higher. Likewise, sailing in the eastern Caribbean/BT exposes you to a higher risk of encountering a sudden storm, particularly between June and November.

TTFN

 

[0707]

luis