Bermuda Triangle

The Bermuda Triangle, sometimes called the Devil's Triangle, is a loosely defined part of the North Atlantic Ocean, roughly between Florida, Bermuda and Puerto Rico. Since the mid-1900s it has been the subject of a popular legend that ships, planes and people vanish there for mysterious reasons.

Careful investigations, including by the U.S. government and scientific groups, found no evidence of anything unusual. Reported incidents have been explained by weather, mistakes and misreporting. The globe marks the area as a mystery spot, where the story, not a real object, is the attraction. Different writers drew the triangle in different ways, giving an area anywhere from 1.3 to 3.9 million square kilometres, so which accidents count as 'inside' depends on who tells the tale.

How the legend began

The nearby Sargasso Sea already had a reputation as a place where ships got lost. A 1950 newspaper article by Edward Van Winkle Jones was the first to suggest odd disappearances near Bermuda, and a 1952 magazine piece by George X. Sand first described the triangle shape.

In December 1945, five U.S. Navy torpedo bombers known as Flight 19 vanished on a training flight. In 1964 Vincent Gaddis wrote 'The Deadly Bermuda Triangle', and later books by other authors added supernatural ideas.

The legend versus the facts

Writer Larry Kusche checked the old stories in 1975 and found many were exaggerated or could not be verified. Some happened far outside the triangle, some were storms the books never mentioned, and one 'lost' ore ship had really sailed from a port with the same name in the Pacific.

He concluded that the number of missing ships and planes was not unusually high for such a busy area, which also has many tropical storms.

What insurers and rescuers say

In the 1990s, the insurance market Lloyd's of London was asked whether unusually many ships sink there. It found they do not, and it does not charge higher rates for passing through the area. U.S. Coast Guard records agree.

The Coast Guard is officially skeptical. It points out that its own reports often contradict the stories, such as the 1972 tanker V. A. Fogg, which sank off Texas, not in the triangle, and whose wreck it photographed.

On the globe

The model shows the triangle region of the Atlantic as a mystery spot, where the legend, not a real object, is the attraction.