Are there miracles in the Bermuda Triangle? Pyramid of Atlantes in the Bermuda Triangle Charles Berlitz

“In the Western Atlantic, adjacent to the southeast coast of the United States, there is a triangular region. It can be outlined by a line running from Bermuda in the north to the southern tip of Florida, from there to the east, bypassing the Bahamas and Puerto Rico, up to a point located at about 40 degrees west longitude, and then back to Bermuda. This area is a thrilling, almost unbelievable place that holds a place of honor on the list of unsolved mysteries. It is usually called the Bermuda Triangle. Here, more than a hundred ships and aircraft disappeared without a trace - mainly after 1945. Over the past 26 years, more than a thousand people have disappeared in it, but during the search it was not possible to find a single corpse or even a wreck from the disappeared ships and aircraft. Such disappearances have become more frequent, although airways and sea routes have become more active, searches are carried out more thoroughly, and all data is stored much better. "

This is how Charles Berlitz began The Bermuda Triangle, one of the few best-selling books on the anomalous. However, he was not a pioneer.

The birth of a legend

The first to tie together several disasters off the coast of Florida was journalist E.W. Jones of the Associated Press. His note read:

“Is our world small? No, it is still huge, like the world that ancient people knew, with the same foggy purgatory of lost souls.

We think it is small because of the speed of the wheels, wings and the voice of the radio coming from the void. It takes a minute to go a mile; a few seconds, but it's still a mile.

Miles add up to a huge unknown, where more than a hundred people flew or swam just recently and sank, like ships in the old days of navigation.

Sandra had a radio. It was a 350-foot freighter with 12 crew members. Departing Miami, in Savannah, the ship took on board 300 tons of insecticide and sailed to Puerto Cabello, Venezuela. On the way, he disappeared without a trace.

On June 16, 1950, a year when people thought the world was small, the search for her was stopped. The fate of the ship and the dozen people on board became an officially recognized mystery.

Where are those lucky men, women and two children, 13 in all, who boarded a plane in San Juan, Puerto Rico and flew 1,000 miles to Miami? At 4:00 am on December 27, 1948, a radio message came in that the plane was 50 miles south of its destination. They never arrived.

Rescuers have searched 310,000 miles of ocean and mainland, but the elusive purgatory into which the plane flew is not marked on any map.

On January 18, 1949, the US Navy conducted large-scale maneuvers south of Bermuda. On the same day, the British airliner "Ariel" disappeared into the clear air in which it flew. The plane, with 20 people on board, touched down on the islands en route from London to Chile.

The navy interrupted maneuvers. Aircraft carriers, cruisers and destroyers plowed the waters, thousands of pairs of keen eyes gazing overboard. They did not find any hint of the plane's fate.

A year earlier, on January 31, 1948, another British aircraft, the Star Tiger, was approaching Bermuda with 29 people on board. He transmitted his location data several times. Then there was silence, shrouded in mystery. To this day, no trace of this aircraft has been found.

An old but more perplexing mystery is the fate of the five torpedo bombers who departed Fort Lauderdale on December 5, 1945 for a navigation training flight. Hours passed, darkness fell. Concerned officers called them over the radio, but silence was answered.

The time has passed when planes should have run out of fuel. Other aircraft took off in search, including the large, bulky PBM seaplane rescue plane with 13 crew members.

None of the five torpedo bombers with 14 crew members were found despite the largest searches in Florida history. The rescue seaplane did not return either.

Approximately 135 people presumptuously went into a world they thought was small and never returned - such is the list of victims of modern secrets. This is the same big world as the ancients knew it - a world where people with their cars and ships can disappear without a trace. "

Jones did not try to draw the boundaries of the "triangle", did not claim that there was something anomalous in it. If we take the crashes he mentioned separately, they all received convincing explanations without the involvement of "unknown forces."

Explanations without mysticism

Ship "Sandra", contrary to Jones' claims, was not 350 feet (106 m) in length, but 185 feet (56 m). He left Savannah on April 5, and the search stopped not on June 16, as Jones writes, but on May 29.

The October 1952 Fate magazine published an article by George Sand mentioning the sinking of the ship. He had an extraordinary imagination and painted spots of rust that covered the sides of the entire "350-foot length", as the ship sailed serenely near Jacksonville and "through the peaceful darkness of the tropical night that enveloped the low coast of Florida, from the starboard side, the blinking light of St. Augustine ". The author told how the sailors, having dined, walked along the deck and smoked, recalling the affairs of the past day.

The idyll of the sea was spoiled by the librarian Lawrence Kouchet. Looking up the documents, he found out that at the time of the disappearance of the ship, a storm was raging. The Miami Herald of April 8, 1950 reported:

“The storm, which broke out in connection with the passage of a low-pressure strip and was accompanied by thunderstorms and strong winds, raged in Florida for three days and on Friday almost reached hurricane strength, hitting the shipping area. Winds near Virginia Capes reached 73 miles per hour, just two miles less than hurricane speeds. "

So much for peaceful conversations with a pipe in your mouth! Although the weather in Florida was not so pronounced, there was also a storm here, which began on April 5 - the day Sandra went to sea. It seems that there was nothing mysterious about the sinking of the ship.

Couchet found out that the DC-3, which disappeared on June 16, 1948, took off from San Juan with discharged batteries:

“Although the Department of Civil Aviation did not reveal the secret of the disappearance of the DC-3, its report contains very important information in this regard. The legend emphasizes that the disaster happened almost instantly: a sudden loss of communication between the control room and the plane. However ... since the batteries were depleted, the radio transmitter was essentially out of order, both at the San Juan airfield and at the start of the last flight. Obviously, problems with the transmitter continued throughout the flight, since all attempts to establish radio communication with the aircraft were unsuccessful.

Many malfunctions could have occurred on the plane in the hour and a half that elapsed between the last message of Linkvist (the pilot of the plane. - Author) and that fateful moment when not a drop of fuel remained in the gas tanks. New power problems could arise, and if the plane flies at night without lights, instruments and navigation equipment, it is doomed to death ...

In San Juan, forecasters told Linkvist that at the beginning of the flight the wind would be weak southwest, and then it would change direction and blow from the northwest. Correcting for the wind, Linkvist had to steer the plane slightly to the left of the given course. However, as they neared Miami, the wind changed direction again and blew from the northeast. If the pilot did not know about this, then, although the wind was not strong, it could cause a deviation from the course to the left by 40-50 miles. Thus, DC-3 may have passed south of the southern tip of Florida and ended up over the Gulf of Mexico. "

Flight 19. Flying coffins

The Ariel was a British South American Airways (BSAA) Tudor IV, a converted WWII bomber. However, what worked in wartime is unacceptable in peacetime: the plane was so bad that all other companies abandoned it. Don McIntosh, a former BSAA pilot, believes the underfloor heating system is to blame. The heater was fueled by aviation fuel, which was fed dropwise into a red-hot pipe, and was in a dangerous neighborhood with a vital control system - hydraulic rods.

Captain Peter Duffy, who flew with BSAA, also considered the proximity of the heater and rods to be fatal: "I believe that there was a leak of hydraulic fluid vapors that exploded when they got into the hot heater." There was not even a fire alarm under the cockpit, let alone an automatic fire extinguishing system. The plane with the interrupted rods did not have much time left to have time to transmit the SOS, or the radio also went out of order.

Rescuers were at the alleged crash site 12 hours later. During this time, the wreckage could sink or float away very far.

The second aircraft Jones mentioned, the "Star Tiger", was of the same type and belonged to the BSAA. He disappeared on December 30 (not 31), 31 people were on board.

The official report on the disappearance read: "We will never know what really happened in this case, and the fate of 'Star Tiger' will forever remain an unsolved mystery." But is it?

In 2009, BBC reporters found out that “Star Tiger” was in trouble even before it made a stopover in the Azores. The heater is out of order, and one of the compasses has also failed. Most likely, to keep the plane warmer, the pilot decided to fly not at normal altitude, but near the water itself. At low altitude, if something happens to the plane, it falls into the water in a matter of seconds: the pilots will not have enough time to call for help.

Gordon Store, a former BSAA pilot, said in 2008 that he never trusted the engines of the Tudor IV aircraft: "All systems were hopelessly entangled, hydraulics, all equipment thoughtlessly squeezed under the floor, without any consideration." In the jumble of wires, rods and hoses, any malfunction could become fatal.

In just three years, BSAA has experienced 11 serious incidents, with five aircraft killed, killing 73 passengers and 22 crew members. The death of "Star Tiger" was the final straw, forcing the abandonment of aircraft with such a bad reputation.

There was no mystery about the death of six aircraft - five Avenger torpedo bombers and a rescue seaplane in December 1945. The torpedo pilots, except for the squadron commander Lieutenant Taylor and one of the crew members, were inexperienced cadets and, getting lost, hung out in the air over the ocean until the fuel ran out. Lawrence Kouchet came to the conclusion that Taylor, whose compasses were out of order, played the role of Susanin, taking the squadron further and further into the ocean. Many pilots realized that he was leading them in the wrong direction, but no one broke military discipline in order to return to the airbase on the correct course.

Documentary video about the Bermuda Triangle (until 17:56)

When it was time for the emergency landing, the weather was not as good as during the flight. Aircraft "Avenger" are not designed for landing on water, especially in bad weather. Most likely, the pilots did not even have time to open the cockpits and unfasten their seat belts, having gone under the water along with the torpedo bombers.

The situation with the rescue seaplane was even simpler. The sailors of the ship "Gaines Mills" at 19.50 saw how the plane "caught fire in the air, quickly fell into the water and exploded." Such seaplanes were nicknamed "flying tanks": they always had a lot of gasoline vapors. A secretly lit cigarette or spark could cause fire and explosion at any moment.

There are as many reasons as there are incidents. As Lawrence Kouchet noted, "trying to find one common cause for all disappearances in the Bermuda Triangle is no more logical than looking for one common cause for all car accidents in Arizona."

The very name "Bermuda Triangle" appeared only in 1964, when the article of the same name by Vincent Gaddis was published. It was in it that the legend acquired its final shape: ships and planes disappear not just because anything happens in the sea, but because this area is an “anomalous zone”, “a hole in the sky”. To this he added UFOs, magnetic anomalies and hints of secret government projects.

Rescuers say

Up to tens of thousands (!) SOS signals are recorded in different regions of the World Ocean throughout the year. During the same time, about 300 ships perish, an average of 6 disappears without a trace, and about two dozen "ghost ships" abandoned by the crews appear. All this does not happen anywhere, but, as a rule, in those areas where the intensity of shipping is high and the conditions for navigation are unfavorable. In this sense, the "Bermuda Triangle" is not too different from other regions of the World Ocean. The first place in the wrecks and disappearances of ships is occupied by the Asian seas.

According to the data of the Seventh US Coast Guard District, which is in charge of rescue operations in the "triangle" area, more than 150 thousand sea voyages are made here annually. If we compare the number of disasters in this area, which occupies about a quarter of the length of the US coast, with its entire length, then, paradoxically, the losses in the "Bermuda Triangle" are not only not higher than average, but sometimes even lower (for example, in 1975 out of 21 maritime disasters, the "triangle" accounted for only 4, in 1976 out of 28 - only 6). These data refer to ships with a tonnage of more than 100 gross tonnage. Airliners, having become technically more advanced and more powerful, have ceased to "disappear". Private boats, yachts and airplanes are less closely watched and continue to die in choppy waters. The Gulf Stream can carry away the wreckage of a wreck 100-200 miles in a day, hiding the traces of the tragedies that have been unfolding.

Changeable weather, the topography of the ocean floor, including shoals and reefs, then deep-sea trenches, frequent hurricanes, storms, tornadoes, even piracy - all these factors did not make the "triangle" so dangerous that the famous insurance monopoly "Lloyd" increased the amount of insurance for ships. passing through the "fatal place". A Lloyd spokesman said in 1975 that "our news service has found no evidence to indicate that there have been more casualties in the Bermuda Triangle than anywhere else."

The US Coast Guard considers the triangle to be fiction:

“Most of the disappearances can be attributed to the unique features of the area's environment. First, the Devil's Triangle is one of two places on Earth where the magnetic compass points to True (Geographic) North. It usually points to magnetic north. The difference between the two directions is known as magnetic declination. When traveling around the world, its value can change by as much as 20 degrees. If this magnetic declination, or error, is not taken into account, the navigator can go a lot off course and face great difficulties ...

Another environmental factor is the peculiarity of the Gulf Stream. This current is extremely fast, turbulent and can quickly wipe out any trace of a disaster. The unpredictable weather patterns in the Caribbean-Atlantic region also play a role. Pilots and sailors are often threatened with catastrophe by tornadoes and sudden local thunderstorms. Finally, the topography of the ocean floor varies from extensive shallows around islands to sea trenches that are among the deepest in the world. As a result of interaction with strong currents washing numerous reefs, the topography of the bottom is in a state of constant movement and the formation of new navigational hazards occurs quickly.

Nor should the human error factor be underestimated. A large number of pleasure boats sail in the waters between Florida's Gold Coast and the Bahamas. Too often they try to cross this water area in oversized vessels, not presenting enough danger to the area, and not possessing good navigation skills.

The Coast Guard is unimpressed by the supernatural explanations for disasters at sea. Every year, their own experience convinces them that the combination of natural forces and the unpredictability of human behavior can many times surpass even the most sophisticated science fiction. "

The journalist Peter Michelmore, who was on duty with the coast guard in the Bermuda Triangle, cites cases when people only miraculously did not enter the statistics of “traceless disappearances”:

“The man who emerged victorious from the battle with death was Dan Smith, captain of the three-masted schooner Star of Pis. His ship was sailing on a calm sea from Nassau to Miami when a diesel exploded unexpectedly. The schooner began to sink rapidly. Scorched and wounded by shrapnel, Smith still found the strength not only to lower the life raft - there were five other passengers on board, besides him and two sailors - but also to send a distress signal on the air and take a radio beacon with him. Imagine that he is confused. Then "Star of Pis" would add to the long list of mysteries of the Bermuda Triangle: "Mysteriously disappeared in good weather" - would be written after the name of this ship.

However, composure and resourcefulness in extreme situations are needed not only for sailors, but also for pilots. Take the story of David Ackley, for example. On a beautiful sunny day, he flew from Palm Beach to the Bahamas in a light twin-engined plane. 40 miles offshore, his right engine caught fire. Attempts to bring down the flame were unsuccessful, the car almost ceased to obey the pilot, but he still did not let it fall into a tailspin, but splashed down on three points. Before the plane sank, Ackley managed to get onto an inflatable raft. There was one more problem to be solved: how to communicate about yourself. The fact is that while he was laying sharp turns, fighting the fire, the radio went out of order. “Fortunately, I had with me not a gas, but a gasoline lighter, about which my friends often made fun of antediluvia,” Ackley later said. “She has served me well. Since the synthetic overalls are made of non-combustible fabric, I made a brazier out of it, put my shirt and linen in there, prepared a lighter and waited for a ship or plane to appear nearby. After all, the flight control center in Miami should have noticed that I suddenly disappeared from the radar screen. " The pilot's calculation was justified: a helicopter was indeed sent in search, which saw his homemade torch.

A legend doomed to live

Lawrence Kouchet reviewed the 50 most reported disappearances or deaths in the Bermuda Triangle and concluded that they can be divided into several categories. Among them there are fictions - someone comes up with a "mysterious catastrophe", while others pick up this "duck" without checking the source of information. There are serious mistakes - the name of the vessel, the year, and the place of the disaster do not match. In some cases, the ship or plane did not disappear at all, continuing to sail or fly for many years!

Most often, however, those who write about the "Bermuda Triangle" mention incidents that have taken place, but the information about them is seriously distorted - important details are missing that completely change the situation (for example, that the wreckage of a ship was found, a storm was raging, etc.). As a result of a soberly conducted analysis, they pass from “mysterious” to the category of ordinary ones, the veil of mystery disappears.

Reading about riddles and secrets is not as boring as scientific literature, so books on the "triangle" will not disappear from the shelves soon. Charles Berlitz's "Bermuda Triangle" did not leave the bestseller list for seven months and was sold, according to the most conservative estimates, with a circulation of 5 million copies (they also named a fourfold figure). Instead of boring attempts to provide natural explanations for disasters, Berlitz unleashed intriguing guesses and assumptions at his readers:

“If planes, ships and people are abducted from the Bermuda Triangle or another part of the world using UFOs or other means, then the most important task of any investigation should be to find a possible cause or causes. A number of researchers are of the opinion that intelligent beings, scientifically ahead of the relatively primitive peoples of the Earth ... for many centuries have been busy monitoring our progress in order to intervene if necessary, preventing us from destroying our planet. This, of course, presupposes altruistic impulses in some beings from near or far space, a trait that does not always prevail among researchers or discoverers.

On the other hand, in the vicinity of the Bermuda Triangle and in a number of other nodal points, one can assume electromagnetic gravitational currents, a door or window to another space or dimension, through which aliens sufficiently advanced in scientific terms can enter the Earth at will, but if with these windows there are people, they turn out to be a one-way road. Return for them will be impossible either because of the level of their scientific development, or because they will be hindered by extraterrestrial forces. Many disappearances, especially of entire ship crews, testify to forays from space in order to replenish the zoos of the Universe, to purchase exhibits for exhibitions showing different eras of the development of planetary civilizations, or for experiments. "

Stories like this are cited as proof:

“Several years ago, a National Airlines passenger plane, carrying 127 passengers, approached the Miami, Florida airfield from the northeast and was monitored by ground-based radar. Suddenly the plane disappeared from the screen and appeared only ten minutes later. The landing took place without any incident. The crew was surprised by the concern of the airfield service. When the pilots checked the time, it turned out that all the clocks on the plane were 10 minutes behind the airfield clocks. And 20 minutes earlier, when checking the clocks on the plane and at the control room, there were no discrepancies. The chief controller said to the pilot: "My God, buddy, you just didn't exist for ten minutes!"

Neither Berlitz himself nor other authors give the date, time and flight number. In the documents of the United States Civil Aviation Administration, the documents of the Miami airport and the airline itself, such an incident was not registered. Employees of the company argued that "if the incident really took place, everyone would surely know about it." But not everything in the books about the "triangle" is invented.

Methane hell underfoot

“The pilots of the Boeing 707, flying from San Juan to New York on April 11, 1963, observed a billowing mound of water that resembled a giant cauliflower,” writes Berlitz. - It was clearly observed at 13.30 from an altitude of 9.5 km - first by the co-pilot, then by the commander and flight mechanic. Observation coordinates - 19 ° 54 ′ s. sh. and 66 ° 47 ′ W. in the vicinity of the 5.5 miles deep Puerto Rican Trench. They calculated that the rising mass of water was 0.5-1 miles in diameter and more than 900 m high. Since the commander did not want to disrupt the schedule, endangering the plane and passengers, he simply looked at the unusual phenomenon and continued the flight on the same course. The co-pilot, however, then contacted the Coast Guard, the seismic center and, oddly enough, the FBI, but did not receive any confirmation from them that something unusual was happening in that place at the indicated time. "

The same phenomenon was observed a few weeks later by pilot Raymond Shattenkirk of Pan Am:

“I was the co-pilot of an airplane flying on March 2, 1963, Flight 211 from New York (departure at 14.34 GMT) to San Juan, where we landed at 18.22. During the flight, exactly at 17.45, when we were at the point with coordinates 20 ° 45 ′ s. sh. and 67 ° 15 ′ W. at an altitude of 7.5 km, heading in an azimuth of 175 °, I saw on the surface of the ocean ahead at a course of about 45 ° on the starboard side of the formation of a giant white bubble. The bubble had the shape and symmetry of the white part of the cauliflower. Mentally comparing it with the dimensions of ground structures, as they are visible from a height of 6-9 km, I can say that Idleville Airport would easily fit in it.

The crew - Commander John Knepper, myself, Ralph Stokes and the flight engineer watched this frightening phenomenon for at least three minutes, until the bubble fell off, turning into a huge circle of deep blue water without a trace of smoke, steam or debris. It seemed that he came out of nowhere and returned to nothing. "

Berlitz did not know that the bubbling "bubbles" would have a natural explanation in 1984. Canadian chemist Donald Davidson drew attention to the deposits of gas hydrates under the "Bermuda Triangle". They look like ordinary snow - whitish crystals that quickly decay from heat. These solid compounds of gases with water are very stable, as if cementing the bottom with a rigid "shell" up to 300 meters thick.

Further, two options are possible. First, huge volumes of natural gases - mainly methane and carbon dioxide - can accumulate under the gas hydrate "armor". The "armor" from time to time cracks, and gases instantly burst outward in the form of a giant "bubble". A vessel caught in the gas emission zone is doomed. Methane gas is flammable, and if its concentration in the emission is high, it can ignite and turn into a giant torch (such torches, up to 500 meters high, were observed in 1985-1987 by L.P. Sea of ​​Okhotsk).

The pilots of the two planes who saw the "bubbles" did the right thing: if they flew closer, they would risk "sucking in" the methane with turbines with unpredictable consequences, up to a stop of the engine or an explosion in the air.

Secondly, if some process upsets the equilibrium of the gas hydrate layer and its debris begins to float, the higher temperature of the surface layers will cause them to melt quickly. One volume of gas hydrates gives 100-160 volumes of gas, and by the time the gases emerge to the surface, the water will turn into a gas-water mixture that is not able to hold the vessel on itself. The ship sinks into the water, risking never to rise.

“I have met people,” said marine geologist Alan Judd of the University of Sunderland, “who have been involved in such disasters. They survived only because, in their case, the methane release was not powerful enough to sink, but the ship for a short time lost some of its buoyancy and sank sharply into the water by 1-2 meters. "

Charles Berlitz also met with people who got into gas emissions, but preferred to consider them something supernatural. His books mention the case of Joe Tully, captain of the fishing boat Wild Goose. In 1944, the ship was in tow after another ship - "Caicos Trader". Tully was asleep in the cabin when water rushed into her. He automatically grabbed a life jacket and floated out the hatch. At that moment the ship was already at a depth of 15-25 meters, but Tully managed to rise to the air. Caicos Trader stayed afloat. The sailors later said that his ship literally fell under the water: they had to chop off the towing cable, fearing that they would also be dragged into the abyss. The release was small, otherwise both ships would have gone to the bottom and the depth of the dive would have been fatal.

"Triangle" - UFO base?

The team of the American missile destroyer Josephus Daniels observed something strange on October 20, 1969. Radar specialist Robert Reilly, Sergeant Major Third Class, told Berlitz:

“We were returning from a mission at Guantanamo and were sailing north of Cuba. Most of the sailors did not know about the whereabouts of the ship, but I was navigating and knew that we were in the Triangle. I don't remember the exact date, but I remember the time - 23.45. I was inside - we had two lookouts, one on each side of the bridge, 9 meters from the information and combat center. Someone said that the watchman on the starboard side saw something ...

It's hard to describe. It looks like the moon rising above the horizon, but a thousand times larger - like a sunrise that does not shine. It was a light that did not emit light. It rose above the horizon at about 11-15 miles to starboard and partly in front of us, and continued to increase for 15 minutes. It all looked like a flash from a nuclear explosion, but it increased, remained in place - if it were a nuclear explosion, we would have seen it on radar with a range of over 300 miles.

The captain was notified. The watch officer on the bridge ordered the ship to be turned around. Maybe he thought it was a nuclear explosion, and the standard maneuver in this case is "turn stern to the flash." It was seen by 70-100 people - most of them were lying in bunks. I would have slept too if I hadn't been on duty ...

We arrived in Norfolk the next day. Everyone was just talking about it. Our captain gathered a team and said not to talk about what he saw. "

You must have thought that the sailors on the destroyer saw the burning gas emerge from the depths of the ocean. And they were wrong. The expanding "ball" is an effect that accompanies the launch of ballistic missiles from American submarines. If the captain knew about this, the request to remain silent was fully justified.

Thor Heyerdahl saw the same thing while sailing on the Ra-II in 1970:

“That night we had a lot of fright. On June 30 at 0.30, Norman lifted me up on watch, I sat in a sleeping bag and began to pull on my socks, as it was damp and cold on the bridge. Norman's voice was suddenly heard again, and now it sounded with terror:

- Come here, hurry! Look!

I ducked through the door, followed at the heels of Santiago, climbed onto the bridge, and through the roof of the cabin we stared in the direction Norman was pointing.

Purely the end of the world. A pale disc rose above the horizon on the port side, in the northwest, like a ghostly aluminum moon. Without looking up from the water, it slowly increased in size. The regularly expanding semicircle resembled either a very dense nebula, brighter than the Milky Way, or a mushroom cap, which inevitably stepped on us, capturing the sky wider and wider. The moon was shining in the opposite direction, it was cloudless, the stars were sparkling. At first I thought it was a spot of light against the humid night air from some powerful searchlight over the horizon. Or maybe it is an atomic mushroom, the fruit of a monstrous oversight of people? Or the northern lights? In the end, I was inclined to believe that this is a luminous rain of cosmic bodies invading the earth's atmosphere. Here the disk, which had already occupied about thirty degrees of the black firmament, suddenly stopped growing, somehow imperceptibly melted and disappeared. So we did not understand what it was ... In the morning we learned from a Barbados radio amateur that the same phenomenon, but in the northeast, was observed from many islands of the West Indies. "

On board the "Ra-II" was a Soviet doctor - Yuri Senkevich, later the host of the "Film Travel Club" program. In 1997, he said that that night, too, he saw an "expanding disc" over the ocean. According to the magazine "Marine Observer", this grand spectacle - the launch of a Poseidon-class rocket - was observed from six ships in the Atlantic.

Of course, in the "Bermuda Triangle" there are various anomalies and even UFOs, but the frequency of their appearance is no higher than in other areas of the Atlantic. All known cases do not give reason to believe that the "triangle" is the base of UFOs or their hunting grounds.

Mikhail Gershtein

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The book "The Bermuda Triangle" by Charles Berlitz has already been 40 years old. As the name implies, the publication released in 1974 is dedicated to the Bermuda anomaly, captured part of the Atlantic Ocean... It was this work that brought the town wide fame for the mysterious zone that devours any transport ship passing in the area.

But despite the elapsed time, interest in the anomaly has not subsided at all, researchers regularly and persistently try to crack the tough nut of the anomaly.

The legendary "Devil's Triangle" is another name for a mysterious anomaly, with the tops of the corners propping up Bermuda, Puerto Rico and Fort Lauderdale.

According to the prevailing legend, the anomaly "lodged" near Bermuda possesses satanic power, and caused a dozen dozen disasters, destroying both air and sea vehicles.

And despite hundreds of expeditionary attempts to find at least something from the dead ships or people, the researchers each time left here dejectedly empty-handed.

Charles Berlitz, revealing the secret of the "Bermuda Triangle" to the public, linked disasters and disappearances of ships and aircraft with alien beings.
Allegedly, it is they who open portals to other dimensions here, and kidnap ships and people. UFOs fly here, whose base is hidden under water in the center of the anomaly.

The book was a huge success, and even generated some hysteria around the "Bermuda Anomaly", because, among other things, there was a version with a pyramid from the era of the mythical Atlantis.
Against the general background of the "UFO Hunt" developing in those days, the proposals, as well as the stories given in the book, came in very handy and were a great success.

Bermuda Triangle, prehistory.

According to the legend, which overgrown Bermuda literally over a decade, ships, people and planes, crossing the territory of the mysterious triangle, disappeared without a trace inside the anomalous zone.
There was no way to find out who would be the next victim of the terrible place. Soon, the initially unnamed place gets its own name - "Devil's triangle".

Most likely, this name comes due to popular superstitions, allegedly once in this place the Devil flirted with sea travelers, who played so much with the waves that he lost the travelers in the abyss. Since then, in this place periodically - this is the cause of disasters.

Perhaps, in this place of the Atlantic Ocean, the Devil really laid something terrible in ancient times, which became the cause of the tragedies taking place here. However, another version sounds more reliable, it relies on aliens who left in the center of the triangle some extremely complex device associated with the transfer of matter to another place in the Universe.

In another case, aliens use this place as. Of course, eyewitnesses to their appearance are captured, and their further fate is unknown. Another suspect in the disasters was a certain "mystical whirlwind" that sucks ships and planes to the seabed and throws them into another dimension.

The myth of the mysterious triangle was first voiced in the Associated Press on September 16, 1950, when the American reporter E. Jones wrote a small brochure about the "mysterious disappearances" of planes and ships, between the coasts of Florida and Bermuda.

Two years after the article and the seven-page brochure, George H. Sand published a series of strange maritime accidents.
In its history, ships, both sea and air, having fallen into the zone of the water triangle formed by Florida, Bermuda and Puerto Rico, disappear without a trace for no apparent reason, and do not have time to report anything on the radio.

I would like to note that versions of the disappearance and presence of alien intelligence in this part of the ocean appeared several years before Jessup's book "The Case for UFOs" ... or the book by Frank Edwards in volume 55 about "flying saucers and conspiracies." As the name implies, although the authors were not adherents of the idea of ​​an alien presence, they willingly supported the theory with immigrants from other planets who settled in Bermuda.

Just after these events, Vincent H. Gladdis (a fan of spiritualism) and "gives" the name everywhere - "Bermuda Triangle", which immediately takes root in society.

Vincent Gladdis wrote an article for Argosy in February 1964, and later used the title in Invisible Horizons, referring to the anomaly as The Deadly Bermuda Triangle. Since then, it has become a tradition to believe that it was Gladdis who gave the name to the now world-famous myth of the Bermuda Triangle.

Over the years, the myth has been described and shown, and television series and films have been filmed on its basis. The Bermuda Triangle is firmly embedded in our culture, and is always portrayed as a very real and mysterious place where people and vehicles disappear without a trace.

This is terrible, the legend is frightening, but: "whether it be a ship, whether it be an airplane full of many travelers, be afraid to travel on this part of the ocean, the yellow fog devours everything and everyone, there is no salvation for anyone here" ... Fearfully? Then let me tell you that the eerie mystery of the Bermuda Triangle is not as terrifying as a myth that has been blown up by years of wrong facts and stories to the Pleiades themselves.

If you look at the area of ​​the Bermuda Triangle and look for facts, then the terrible tragedy of Bermuda is described not by hundreds of ships missing here. And not even fifty, but only ten, and even then, this is if you "pull" to this area all the crashes that occurred nearby.

By the way, look at the photo above - here you can see that the anomalous zone does not "lie exactly on the equator" as it is often said, pointing to the mystical side of the phenomenon. The central figure that represents the "Bermuda Triangle" is the departure of the naval aviation flight number 19.

The missing link of the Avengers, Departure number 19.

In all cases, the story began on December 5, 1945, when five single-engine Avenger torpedo bombers left Fort Lauderdale. Charles Berlitz's book states that the Avengers were flown by 14 experienced pilots.
The commanders of the aircraft practiced the flight task of training bombing, had to make two turns as part of the navigation exercise - in a mystical way, this happens just over the tops of the Bermuda triangle.

Then something terrible happens, the connection periodically disappears, the planes moving for a couple of hours without changing the course, nevertheless, circle inside the anomaly. Then the link disappears completely without a trace. Adding creepiness to the situation is the rescue mission of the twin-engine flying boat Martin 162 (Martin Mariner), going to the rescue of colleagues - there are no traces of it either.

Berlitz was opposed by Larry Kusche (Larry Kush), pointing out the hoax of facts. Surprisingly, Kushe's edition, The Bermuda Triangle Revealed Mystery, is published in volume 75, following Berlitz's edition.

This is an actual fact that happened, but he got acquainted with the investigative reports, and declares - this is an incredible case for the entire world aviation, but the cause of the disaster is the human factor, but not the cruel intrigues of aliens, or Atlanteans.

After reviewing the reports of the investigation team, Larry Kusche points out that the torpedo bombers were controlled by 14 people, 13 of whom began retraining to fly this machine under the command of Lieutenant Charles Taylor. At the same time, the flight commander was recently transferred from the Florida Keys, and has not previously flown in the area.

It turns out that the group commander did not know the terrain, and the other pilots and navigators who had arrived for training were inexperienced. - Many talk about this when they tell the Bermuda mythology half a century ago. Although at least four navigators were experienced, as evidenced by the same military reports.

Meanwhile, the weather situation in the area is considered very difficult - frequent tsunamis, storms, and the compass is naughty. There is no anomaly here, skeptics assure, there are many places on Earth where you cannot rely on a compass needle, or you need to gain great altitude.

In the case of the American Avengers (torpedo bombers), they might not have had a chance to climb higher, because they were "pushed" to the water by a thundercloud. The pilots circling in this area, surrounded by lightning, eventually burned all the fuel, leaving the landing on the water, where the storm wave was raging.

However, the version of Larry Kusche also "limps", Lieutenant Taylor flew 2500 hours on this type of aircraft, which characterizes him as an experienced and skillful specialist in naval aviation. The mention of a transfer from another place is somewhat weak for arguments, since it came from a neighboring sea area.

And the water stretching around leaves little chance to consider visual reference points for navigation, even if the flights take place in the usual place. The commanders of other vehicles can be called trainees with a stretch - the total flight time is about 350 hours, Captain Powers even arrived from the main headquarters of the Marine Corps.

And you know, I, for example, would note in this case one oddity, as if having a presentiment, knowing what awaits him that day, one of the radio gunners did not appear for the flight and survived.
The further development of events of that time is difficult to imagine reliably, since even on the official pages of the US Navy and Navy, conflicting data appeared (now they are not at all).
Although, in theory, such structures should have complete information. But a rough picture is drawn as follows:

The fact that the flight had been lost in space and was experiencing a navigational problem was learned at 15:50 - 16:00, when senior instructor Lieutenant Robert Fox, intending to land in Fort Lauderdale with his ward, heard a radio broadcast where someone without a call sign openly requests Powers.
Minutes later, the radio brings a voice, “I don’t know where we are. I think we got lost in the last reversal. "

A little later, Lieutenant Fox manages to talk with Charles Taylor, and find out about the breakdown of the onboard compasses (the TBM-3 was a fairly technologically advanced machine of that time, in addition to the pilot's and navigator's compasses, there was also a gyrocompass and a radio semi-compass).

Many ignore the fact that there were still four aircraft left, from which the flight commander could determine the location and choose a course for the base.
Nevertheless, everything looks as if the pilots and navigators of the whole group were left without means of navigation, or were subjected to some kind of mystical influence.

The mystery of the Bermuda Triangle?

Now let's look at the tragedy of the Bermuda Triangle in a slightly different way, but we will not consider here the well-known negotiations between Taylor and Fox.
There is also nothing mystical about the death of a flying boat, its explosion was recorded and explained by technical reasons.
Although, of course, it should be noted that there were no reports from the Mariner about a problem with the plane, only words that they were arriving in the area of ​​the last bearing of the missing link.

As the captain of the Gaines Mills tanker passing in those places reported to the Coast Guard headquarters, at 19:50 pm an air explosion and a pillar of fire up to 35 meters high were recorded. According to Captain S. Stanley, in deep confusion, the crew watched a vertical column of fire hanging in the air, which lasted a good ten minutes.

True, later the captain told a more understandable picture of the event, allegedly the crew saw how the plane caught fire, fell into the water, exploded, left oil stains, a mass of debris .... The planes arriving in the search area did not find signs of a seaplane crash.

In the literal sense, the entire coast was combed, the water surface was carefully examined. You will not believe it, but even the floats from the missing seaplane were not found, nothing at all that could tell the cause of the tragedy that happened in these places.

On December 10, 1945, the search work was curtailed, the crews of the missing aircraft were declared missing. On April 3, 1946, the American Naval Directorate identified Lieutenant Taylor as the culprit for the death of flight number 19, they say the flight commander got confused, then panicked, confused ... to be honest, these are strange conclusions, to suspect that the combat pilot was confused and panicked.

Taylor's mother and aunt rejected such a statement by the military, forcing the Navy to reconsider the decision. Dissatisfied women are hiring a lawyer and demanding more thorough trials and re-examination of the case. Strange, but on November 19 the verdict was adjusted, and the tragedy takes on different conclusions about the causes of what happened - "for unknown reasons."

Often the radio communications coming from Taylor are mystifying, allegedly someone heard him say through the interference: “everything is not so here ... this is strange ... the ocean does not look as it should” .... “We can't get out”… “this damn yellow fog”… “I don't know, they look like…”.

In fact, there is no documentary confirmation of these words, it is not possible to find a person with a specific surname, who would have said it initially.
Probably, this comes from adherents of false sensations and unnecessary evidence, an attempt to explain everything with the help of aliens, and at the same time "fasten" alien spaceships hovering over the Bermuda Triangle to this.

And yet there are enough oddities in this catastrophe. At 5:15 pm, Taylor informs Port Everglades: “I can't hear you very well. We are following the course of 270 degrees "... we will keep the course until we reach the shore, or land on the water when the fuel burns out (Taylor has experience of two such landings).

Robert F. Fox, speaking with Lieutenant Taylor, comes to the conclusion that he is in the sky over the Florida Keys, because when asked where they are, Taylor answers - over the Keys (I am sure I’m in the Keys).
Robert Fox, while orienting a colleague, advises that the planes turn their port side towards the Sun and follow this course.

Oddly, however, Taylor hears, speaks, and does not react in any way to the words. Meanwhile, the connection continues to deteriorate, at about 7 pm the connection, which was hanging on parole, ceases altogether, Lieutenant Taylor's group has clearly moved a considerable distance.
At 19:05 pm, the last thing that the Miami coast heard from the planes was how one of the pilots called Taylor in touch.

However, the bearing of their location indicated the center of the Bermuda anomaly; accordingly, on the basis of this, the search was carried out in the triangle.
How can this be, what a mystic, maybe the truth is this place hides some secret beyond our control for understanding?

What's happening in the Bermuda anomaly.

According to the Coast Guard, the designated place is famous for frequent storms, and they love to rush in the skies.
At the same time, researchers who do not believe in devilish tricks or games with parallel worlds have not been able to find confirmation of the five hundred disappearances of aircraft and sky ships that allegedly disappeared without a trace in the Bermuda anomaly.
There weren't even a dozen confirmed cases of ships missing here.

It turns out that most of the ships that crashed and are cited as evidence of the anomaly happened quite far from the "Devil's Death Triangle", the ships could not experience it on themselves.
Some authors of theories assure us that all ships disappear in this place completely without a trace, nothing can be found!

But what can you find? The Avengers are a heavy iron machine that, having fallen into the sea, exploding / not exploding from hitting the water, will inevitably go to the bottom.
Likewise, for a long time, rescuers cannot find traces of modern aircraft disappearing over any part of the sea.
According to experts, there is no reason to blame the Bermuda Triangle for requiring more ship casualties than any other part of the planet.

If you look at the outlined triangle with a normal eye, then it becomes obvious that catastrophes in this part of the ocean occur no more often than elsewhere in the Atlantic.
The fact is that catastrophes happen, it happens for one reason or another in absolutely any place on the planet. Airplanes crash, ships sink, but we are not looking in every case for a "magic crystal" or some kind of "transguangulator" - a high-tech device installed / lost by ancient aliens.

The controllers heard in their headphones only a few panicky phrases, after which the plane disappeared from the radar screens, the US Congress adopted Resolution 420-2. With this document, the Americans paid tribute to the memory of 27 naval pilots of the FT-19 flight, who disappeared without a trace 60 years ago, without returning from a training flight over the area that later became known as the "Bermuda Triangle". Following the congress, NBC announced the premiere of a new documentary about the ill-fated link on November 27.

The initiator of the resolution was the Democrat Congressman from Florida Clay Shaw. In an interview with the Chicago Chronicle, Shaw explained his position: “We do not want to be led by all sorts of sensations, who consider the Bermuda Triangle mysterious and unusual. But personally, I will insist on continuing the investigation of this tragedy. At least to inform their relatives about the fate of the crews. Probably, something out of the ordinary happened there, which forced experienced pilots to take action that led to the disaster. Someday we will reveal this secret and put it on the shelf. "

Actually, the sad glory of the Bermuda Triangle - an area of ​​the World Ocean bounded by lines connecting the tip of the Florida Peninsula (Key West), the northern part of Puerto Rico and the larger of Bermuda - just began with that ill-fated flight. Until then, the legend of the triangle lived only in the form of the folklore of local fishermen and captains of small ships who ply this busy shipping area in abundance.

The area of ​​the Bermuda Triangle was considered dangerous for navigation even during the Spanish rule in Central and South America. Spanish galleons, exporting gold and silver from the colonies, were collected in Havana, and then sent across the ocean to Spain. It has been estimated that there are about 1,200 Spanish ships at the bottom of the sea within the Bermuda Triangle. They crashed during summer hurricanes and winter storms, swooped down on reefs and sandbanks, and were drowned by pirates.

Later, the waters of the triangle were plowed by English, French and Dutch ships, and again dozens of new ships went to the bottom of the sea. So this region of the Atlantic has always had a bad reputation, but nevertheless there is no such historical document that would speak of it as mysterious, although in the past centuries full of superstitions there would have been much more room for this than at present.

The incident itself, which received a special congressional resolution, occurred on the afternoon of December 5, 1945, when five Grumman TBM-1 Avenger torpedo bombers from the FT-19 patrol unit under the command of flight training instructor First Lieutenant Charles Taylor took off from the US Navy airfield Fort Lauderdale. The purpose of the mission is to practice group flight and maintain the flight skills of the crews, the flight duration is three hours.

Four "Avengers" ("avengers") went on a flight with regular crews: pilot, navigator-bombardier and gunner-radio operator. There was no gunner on Taylor's instructor car. The tragedy happened on the way back: the flight commander transmitted a radiogram to the dispatcher in Key West: "We have an emergency situation, obviously, we have lost our course."

The last message from Taylor, received 40 minutes later, indicated that the commander had decided to pull towards the coast until the fuel was completely depleted. Nobody saw more of these people. A few hours later, three Martin PBM-1 Mariner naval patrol bombers flew out in search of the flight.

These radar-equipped flying boats, capable of landing and taking off even with a wave of 3-4.5 points, were perfectly suited for the search and rescue of those in distress - the fuel supply allowed them to stay in the air for up to 48 hours. One of the rescue planes also disappeared, taking with it the mystery of the deaths of 13 crew members.

"Million in a Million"

The area of ​​the Bermuda Triangle was considered dangerous for swimming even during the Spanish rule in Central and South America.

Soon, local newspaper reporters found out about the disappearance of the whole link, and the story received widespread publicity. America was in shock. It's no joke - 4 months after the end of the war, five combat aircraft with experienced crews, who have gone through the hell of air battles over the Pacific Ocean, are killed. And what kind of aircraft: the Avenger (avenger) - the main carrier-based torpedo bomber of the US Navy, the thunderstorm of the Japanese fleet - was for the Americans the same symbol of victory that the legendary Il-2 attack aircraft serves for us.

Reliable aircraft (there were cases when "avengers" came to an aircraft carrier literally "on one wing"), equipped with the most modern navigation equipment, are lost in simple weather conditions when visibility, as the aviators say, is "a million to a million", and where!

Practically in the "inner puddle", an area over which, during the war years, thousands of American aircraft made tens of thousands of sorties in search of German and Japanese submarines trying to watch for allied transports on the way from Florida to the Panama Canal.

The excitement was also added by the fact that large-scale searches for 250 thousand square meters. miles of water area, taken by hundreds of ships and aircraft, did not provide any physical evidence of the disaster. Immediately I remembered the ancient legends about the ships abandoned by the crews, and the stories of the islanders, who "have long known that the places here are not good." At the same time, recent cases were recalled: two months earlier, under suspicious circumstances, a cargo-passenger liner Lancastrien of the British airline BOAC, flying from Barbados, crashed on its way to Key West.

Piloted a four-engined car, a demilitarized heavy bomber, an experienced military crew. Controllers in Florida heard only a few panicky phrases in their headphones, after which the plane disappeared from the radar screens. Although the remnants of the life rafts washed ashore some time later, 23 passengers and four pilots are still missing. However, pretty soon these stories were forgotten. Until the time.

The sum is

Charles Berlitz's book "The Bermuda Triangle"

The real explosion occurred in 1974 after the publication of the book of the uncrowned king of experts on the mysteries of the Bermuda Triangle Charles Berlitz "The Bermuda Triangle". The bestseller was instantly reprinted in other publishers, and in each of them it was necessary to print the copies several times. By the most conservative estimates, the circulation of Berlitz's book has reached almost 20 million copies (in a cheap pocket edition).

So the Bermuda Triangle became the property of a very wide readership, including the Soviet one - in 1978 Berlitz's translation was published by the Moscow publishing house Mir. Supporters of Berlitz and his followers are constantly looking for new justifications for the "mysticism", "mystery" and "mysteriousness" of this place. But how are things really? This is evidenced by impartial statistics.

In the literature on the Bermuda Triangle, 50 cases of the disappearance of ships and aircraft are described in detail. In some works, 40 or 50 more cases are described rather vaguely. In total, thus, it turns out about 100. Is it a lot or a little? It should not be forgotten that such a number has accumulated over the past 100 years, that is, on average, one case occurs per year. This, of course, is very small for an area that has the densest network of air and sea transport lines and is also a favorite destination for yachtsmen and sports fishing enthusiasts.

Tropical cyclones in summer and storms in winter pose a good challenge even for seasoned large boat captains, but what about yachts and small fishing boats and light private jets? By the way, since modern jet airliners began to fly over the area, there have been no major accidents with passenger planes in the Triangle itself - its last "victim" was the heavy transport aircraft C-119, which disappeared back in 1965!

However, the mystery of the death of the FT-19 link continues to haunt the minds. On Friday evening, the largest American television company NBC announced that it had equipped an expedition to the area where torpedo bombers were killed last summer. The premiere of a film about her is scheduled for November 27. As the producers of the documentary say, the expedition posed more questions than it answered.

Australian scientists at the Monash Institute in Melbourne Joseph Monaghan and David May. Based on data from their research work, Australians have concluded that natural gas, methane, is the culprit in aircraft and ship crashes.

Is the "Triangle" gasping?

Scientists have explored some areas of the seabed in this region. As a result, they discovered that a large number of methane hydrants had accumulated at the site of ancient faults in the places of ancient volcanic eruptions. According to their theory, gas, being released from natural cracks, turns into huge bubbles, which then rise from the bottom of the ocean and become the culprits of catastrophes, bursting at the surface of the water. The evidence for this is set out in a research paper published in the American journal Physics.

To test their theory, scientists decided to begin by re-creating the situation using a computer. The model showed that any ship, finding itself in a methane bubble, loses its buoyancy and therefore sinks to the ocean floor. Giant bubbles can even shoot down a plane in the sky, disabling engines or provoking an explosion.

In fact, there is more self-promotion than anything new in the so-called Australian discovery. The fact is that the so-called "methane theory" is already several decades old, and the very fact of the theoretical possibility of the death of ships as a result of gas emissions from the bottom of the sea was proved by colleagues of the Australians.

It is also known that the circumstances of the disappearance of many ships and ships, around which the legend of the Bermuda Triangle was created, does not in any way fall under the "gas version".

Sea of ​​versions

For example, the famous disappearance of five American Avenger torpedo aircraft on December 5, 1945, which became canonical for the Bermudophiles, did not happen suddenly. The planes wandered over the ocean for several hours until they ran out of fuel. So there is no way to pull up the gas release to explain the incident.

Besides "Methane theory", as an explanation of the mystery of the Bermuda Triangle, they cite a version of "Killer waves", wandering in the ocean single giant waves up to 30 meters high. The nature of this phenomenon is indeed completely unclear, but it is known that such waves are by no means "registered" in the Bermuda region, and can occur anywhere in the World Ocean.

Another theory that explains the mystery of the Bermuda Triangle is infrasound... Supporters of this version believe that under certain conditions, infrasound can be generated at sea, which affects the crew members, causing panic, as a result of which they leave the ship.

This explains the discovery of perfectly serviceable ships in the ocean, on which not a single crew member was found. However, as in the case of "killer waves", infrasound is not in the habit of forming exclusively in the Bermuda Triangle.

The myth and its exposure

The story of a mystical geometric figure bounded by lines from Florida to Bermuda, then to Puerto Rico and back to Florida through the Bahamas, first arose in 1950 thanks to Associated Press correspondent Jones... He called this area of ​​the ocean "the devil's sea", having collected for the first time in a small brochure the facts related to the disappearances and disasters of ships and ships.

In 1964, in one of the American journals devoted to spiritualism, Vincent Gladdis published an article "The Deadly Bermuda Triangle", with which the "triangle fever" was launched.

But worldwide popularity Bermuda Triangle received in 1974 when Charles Berlitz published the book "The Bermuda Triangle", which collected descriptions of various mysterious disappearances in the area. The book became a bestseller, and the triangle became almost a sacred place for mysticism lovers.

However, back in 1975 researcher Lawrence David Kouche released the book "The Bermuda Triangle: Myths and Reality." A former civil aviation pilot, Kouchet has carefully analyzed dozens of "mysterious disasters" in the Bermuda Triangle. It turned out that most of them have a completely prosaic explanation, not related to mysticism. Some of the events took place outside the so-called "triangle", and a number of incidents were not at all documented in official sources.

The remaining stories really remain mysterious, but their number is extremely small, and, most importantly, similar incidents have happened in other parts of the world.

Sister in the Pacific

Among the most recent events of this kind, one can recall the disappearance of the An-2 aircraft in the Sverdlovsk region, or the crew of the dry cargo ship "Amurskaya" that disappeared in the Far East. Had these incidents happened in the Bermuda Triangle, there is no doubt they would have added to the myth carefully guarded by enthusiasts.

The myth-makers stubbornly ignore the fact that the Bermuda Triangle is not at all a territory closed to ships and aircraft, and most of them ply in this territory quite safely. Moreover, on the same Bermuda from time immemorial, people have lived who do not at all seek to escape from the "damned place", but, on the contrary, are happy to earn money on mystically-minded tourists.

The area of ​​Bermuda really makes sailors keep their ears open, but not for mystical reasons. Navigation here is influenced by the powerful Gulf Stream, difficult bottom topography, as well as intricate atmospheric circulation, leading to rapid and abrupt changes in weather conditions.

This is directly related to the professionalism of pilots and navigators, but not to otherworldly forces.

By the way, thanks to the lovers of everything mysterious, the Bermuda Triangle has a "brother" - the Devil's Triangle. It is located in the Pacific Ocean near the Japanese island of Miyakejima, and it is attributed exactly the same properties as its counterpart in the Atlantic.

The only difference is that the Bermuda Triangle had much better PR.

There are not enough orderlies for everyone

Considering that the number of lovers of mysticism in society is quite large, a mysterious zone where something disappears can be created everywhere - you just need to actively involve the media that will catch up with passions. And soon, rest assured, everyone will start talking about the paranormal triangle in Northern Butovo, where wallets and mobile phones mysteriously disappear.

Or here's another mysterious "triangle" in the Russian Ministry of Defense, where in an inexplicable way. The best mediums and psychics from the Investigative Committee are now struggling to solve this mystery.

In 1977, in the wake of interest in the theme of the Bermuda Triangle, the famous Soviet bard Vladimir Vysotsky wrote the song "Letter to the editor of the TV show" Obvious-Incredible "from Kanatchikovaya dacha". In the song, the patients of the psychiatric hospital, inspired by the plot of the mysterious "triangle", began to solve its riddle. In the end, "orderlies rushed in and fixed us."

Vysotsky's funny song, in fact, should have brought the line under the talk about the "mystic of the Bermuda Triangle." But, as we can see, she did not disappoint. Apparently, for all lovers of such sensations, there is simply not enough either the Kanachikovy dachas or the orderlies.

I want to tell you about a very secret place where ships and planes pass. We are talking about the story of the Bermuda triangle, about its occurrence in the very Bermuda triangle, etc. I hope you like my story.

The Bermuda Triangle is an area in the Atlantic Ocean in which the mysterious disappearances of ships and aircraft supposedly take place. The area is bounded by lines from Florida to Bermuda, further to Puerto Rico and back to Florida through the Bahamas. Various hypotheses have been put forward to explain these disappearances, from unusual weather events to alien abductions. Skeptics argue, however, that ship disappearances in the Bermuda Triangle are no more frequent than in other areas of the world's oceans and are due to natural causes.

The Bermuda Triangle is far from the only name for this amazing region in the western part of the Atlantic Ocean. It is also called "the devil's sea", "the cemetery of the Antlantica", "the voodoo sea", "the sea of ​​the damned". However, although Bermuda forms only one of the vertices of this triangle and is by no means located in its center, it was under this name that the enchanted place became known to the whole world. However, even fifty years ago, no one heard the phrase Bermuda Triangle. The first to use it was the American Jones, who published in 1950 a small brochure with this title. Then they did not pay attention to it, and again the problem surfaced only in 1964, when another American, Gaddis, wrote about the Bermuda triangle. His article was published in a well-known spiritualist journal. Later, having collected additional information, Gaddis devoted an entire chapter to the Bermuda Triangle, which is symbolic - the thirteenth, in his book Invisible Horizons. Since then, the Bermuda Triangle has been in the spotlight.
Associated Press correspondent Jones first mentioned the "mysterious disappearances" in the Bermuda Triangle; in 1950 he called the area "the devil's sea." The author of the phrase "Bermuda Triangle" is usually considered to be Vincent Gladdis, who published in 1964 in one of the journals devoted to spiritualism, the article "The Deadly Bermuda Triangle."

In the late 60s and early 70s of the XX century, numerous publications began to appear about the secrets of the Bermuda Triangle.

In 1974, Charles Berlitz published The Bermuda Triangle, which collected descriptions of various mysterious disappearances in the area. The book became a bestseller, and it was after its publication that the theory of the unusual properties of the Bermuda triangle became especially popular. Later, however, it was shown that some of the facts in Berlitz's book were presented incorrectly.

In 1975, Lawrence David Couchet published the book "The Bermuda Triangle: Myths and Reality", in which he tried to prove that nothing supernatural and mysterious is happening in the area. This book is based on years of documentary research and interviews with eyewitnesses that have revealed numerous factual errors and inaccuracies in the publications of supporters of the mystery of the Bermuda Triangle.

GIANT PYRAMIDS IN THE BERMUDA TRIANGLE.
The Bermuda Triangle once again surprised scientists with the secrets stored on its territory! This time, two giant pyramids were discovered at the bottom of the Bermuda Triangle. The underwater Bermuda pyramids are much larger than the Egyptian pyramids. Scientists believe that they were erected about 500 years ago, and the material from which they are made resembles thick glass. The giant pyramids in the Bermuda Triangle were first discovered by oceanographer Dr. Verlag Meyer in 1991.

The US Congress passed Resolution 420-2. With this document, the Americans paid tribute to the memory of 27 naval pilots of the FT-19 flight, who disappeared without a trace 60 years ago, without returning from a training flight over the area that later became known as the "Bermuda Triangle". Following the congress, NBC announced the premiere of a new documentary about the ill-fated link on November 27.
The resolution was initiated by the Democrat Congressman from Florida State Clay Shaw. In an interview with the Chicago Chronicle, Shaw explained his position: “We do not want to be led by all sorts of sensations, who consider the Bermuda Triangle mysterious and unusual. But personally, I will insist on continuing the investigation of this tragedy. At least to inform their relatives about the fate of the crews. Probably, something out of the ordinary happened there, which forced experienced pilots to take action that led to the disaster. Someday we will reveal this secret and put it on the shelf. "

Four "avenger"

Actually, the sad glory of the Bermuda Triangle - an area of ​​the World Ocean bounded by lines connecting the tip of the Florida Peninsula (Key West), the northern part of Puerto Rico and the larger of Bermuda - just began with that ill-fated flight. Until then, the legend of the triangle lived only in the form of the folklore of local fishermen and captains of small ships who ply this busy shipping area in abundance.

The area of ​​the Bermuda Triangle was considered dangerous for navigation even during the Spanish rule in Central and South America. Spanish galleons, exporting gold and silver from the colonies, were collected in Havana, and then sent across the ocean to Spain. It has been estimated that there are about 1,200 Spanish ships at the bottom of the sea within the Bermuda Triangle. They crashed during summer hurricanes and winter storms, swooped down on reefs and sandbanks, and were drowned by pirates.

Later, the waters of the triangle were plowed by English, French and Dutch ships, and again dozens of new ships went to the bottom of the sea. So this region of the Atlantic has always had a bad reputation, but nevertheless there is no such historical document that would speak of it as mysterious, although in the past centuries full of superstitions there would have been much more room for this than at present.

The incident itself, which was awarded a special resolution of the Congress, occurred on the afternoon of December 5, 1945, when five torpedo bombers from the FT-19 Grumman TBM-1 Avenger bombers under the command of flight training instructor First Lieutenant Charles Taylor took off from the US Navy airfield Fort Lauderdale. The purpose of the mission is to practice group flight and maintain the flight skills of the crews, the flight duration is three hours.

Four "Avengers" ("avengers") went on a flight with regular crews: pilot, navigator-bombardier and gunner, radio operator. There was no shooter on Taylor's instructor car. The tragedy happened on the way back: the flight commander transmitted a radiogram to the dispatcher in Key West: "We have an emergency situation, obviously, we have lost our course."

The last message from Taylor, received 40 minutes later, indicated that the commander had decided to pull towards the coast until the fuel was completely depleted. Nobody saw more of these people. A few hours later, three Martin PBM-1 Mariner naval patrol bombers flew out in search of the flight.

These radar-equipped flying boats, capable of landing and taking off even with a wave of 3-4.5 points, were perfectly suited for the search and rescue of those in distress, the fuel supply allowed them to stay in the air for up to 48 hours. One of the rescue planes also disappeared, taking with it the mystery of the deaths of 13 crew members.

"Million in a Million"

Soon, local newspaper reporters found out about the disappearance of the whole link, and the story received widespread publicity. America was in shock. It's no joke - 4 months after the end of the war, five combat aircraft with experienced crews, who have gone through the hell of air battles over the Pacific Ocean, are killed. And what kind of aircraft: the Avenger (avenger) - the main carrier-based torpedo bomber of the US Navy, the thunderstorm of the Japanese fleet - was for the Americans the same symbol of victory that the legendary Il-2 attack aircraft serves for us.

Reliable aircraft (there were cases when "avengers" came to an aircraft carrier literally "on one wing"), equipped with the most modern navigation equipment, are lost in simple weather conditions when visibility, as the aviators say, is "a million to a million", and where!

Practically in the "inner puddle", an area over which, during the war years, thousands of American aircraft made tens of thousands of sorties in search of German and Japanese submarines trying to watch for allied transports on the way from Florida to the Panama Canal.

The excitement was also added by the fact that large-scale searches for 250 thousand square meters. miles of water area, taken by hundreds of ships and aircraft, did not provide any physical evidence of the disaster. Immediately I remembered the ancient legends about the ships abandoned by the crews, and the stories of the islanders, who "have long known that the places here are not good." At the same time, recent cases were recalled: two months earlier, under suspicious circumstances, a cargo-passenger liner Lancastrien of the British airline BOAC, flying from Barbados, crashed on its way to Key West.

Piloted a four-engined car, a demilitarized heavy bomber, an experienced military crew. Controllers in Florida heard only a few panicky phrases in their headphones, after which the plane disappeared from the radar screens. Although the remnants of the life rafts washed ashore some time later, 23 passengers and four pilots are still missing. However, pretty soon these stories were forgotten. Until the time.

The real explosion occurred in 1974 after the publication of the book of the uncrowned king of experts on the mysteries of the Bermuda Triangle Charles Berlitz "The Bermuda Triangle". The bestseller was instantly reprinted in other publishers, and in each of them it was necessary to print the copies several times. By the most conservative estimates, the circulation of Berlitz's book has reached almost 20 million copies (in a cheap pocket edition).

So the Bermuda Triangle became the property of a very wide readership, including the Soviet one. In 1978, Berlitz's translation was published by the Moscow publishing house Mir. Supporters of Berlitz and his followers are constantly looking for new justifications for the "mysticism", "mystery" and "mysteriousness" of this place. But how are things really? This is evidenced by impartial statistics.

In the literature on the Bermuda Triangle, 50 cases of the disappearance of ships and aircraft are described in detail. In some works, 40 or 50 more cases are described rather vaguely. In total, thus, it turns out about 100. Is it a lot or a little? It should not be forgotten that such a number has accumulated over the past 100 years, that is, on average, one case occurs per year. This, of course, is very small for an area that has the densest network of air and sea transport lines and is also a favorite destination for yachtsmen and sports fishing enthusiasts.

Tropical cyclones in summer and storms in winter pose a good challenge even for seasoned large boat captains, but what about yachts and small fishing boats and light private jets? By the way, since modern jet airliners began to fly over the region, there have been no major accidents with passenger planes in the Triangle itself; its last "victim" was the heavy transport aircraft C-119, which disappeared back in 1965!

However, the mystery of the death of the FT-19 link continues to haunt the minds. On Friday evening, the largest American television company NBC announced that it had equipped an expedition to the area where torpedo bombers were killed last summer. The premiere of a film about her is scheduled for November 27. As the producers of the documentary say, the expedition posed more questions than it answered.