The Bermuda Triangle, also known as the Devil's Triangle, is a heavily traveled region in the North Atlantic Ocean where numerous aircraft and ships have reportedly vanished under mysterious circumstances. While some incidents like the crashes of Air France Flight 447 and the cargo ship El Faro are noted, many experts dismiss the notion of a mysterious phenomenon, attributing disappearances to navigational errors, unpredictable weather, and geological factors. The area is characterized by its unique magnetic compass behavior and volatile weather patterns, contributing to the dangers faced by vessels navigating through it.

1. 5. MYSTERY
The Bermuda Triangle
Made by-
Parth Kshirsagar (PK)
H. Ruchitha
Snehal Shirke

2. What is Bermuda Triangle ?
The Bermuda Triangle, also known as the Devil's Triangle, is a
loosely-defined region in the western part of the North Atlantic Ocean,
where a number of aircraft and ships are said to have disappeared
under mysterious circumstances. Most reputable sources dismiss the
idea that there is any mystery. The vicinity of the Bermuda Triangle is
one of the most heavily travelled shipping lanes in the world, with ships
frequently crossing through it for ports in the Americas, Europe, and
the Caribbean islands. Cruise ships and pleasure craft regularly sail
through the region, and commercial and private aircraft routinely fly
over it. Bermuda Triangle is noted for a high incidence of unexplained
losses of ships, small boats, and aircraft

4. Where is Bermuda Triangle Located ?
The "Bermuda or Devil's Triangle" is an imaginary area
located off the south-eastern Atlantic coast of the United States,.
The area is bounded by North-Atlantic island Bermuda, Miami (in
Florida, USA), Florida, San Juan (in Puerto Rico) . Each side of
the triangle is roughly about 1000 miles long.

6. Some Well Known Incidents.......
Air France Flight 447
Air France Flight 447 was a scheduled passenger flight from Rio de
Janeiro, Brazil to Paris, France, which crashed on 1 June 2009. The Airbus A330,
operated by Air France, entered an aerodynamic stall from which it did not
recover and crashed into the Atlantic Ocean at 02:14 UTC (Universal Time
Coordinated ), killing all 228 passengers, aircrew and cabin crew aboard the
aircraft. The Brazilian Navy removed the first major wreckage and two bodies
from the sea within five days of the accident, but the initial investigation by
France's BEA (Bureau d'Enquêtes et d'Analyses pour la Sécurité de l'Aviation
Civile) was hampered because the aircraft's black boxes were not recovered from
the ocean floor until May 2011, nearly two years later.

7. The BEA's final report, released at a news conference on 5 July
2012 concluded that the aircraft crashed after temporary
inconsistencies between the airspeed measurements – likely due to
the aircraft's pitot tubes (Used to measure airspeed) being
obstructed by ice crystals – caused the autopilot to disconnect, after
which the crew reacted incorrectly and ultimately caused the aircraft
to enter an aerodynamic stall from which it did not recover. The
accident was the deadliest in the history of Air France. It was also
the Airbus A330's second and deadliest accident, and its first in
commercial passenger service .

8. F-GZCP, the aircraft involved in the accident, shown here at Charles de
Gaulle Airport ( France ) in 2007

9. USS (United States Ship) Cyclops
The incident resulting in the single largest loss of life in the history of the US
Navy not related to combat occurred when the collier USS Cyclops, carrying a full
load of manganese ore and with one engine out of action, went missing without a
trace with a crew of 309 sometime after March 4, 1918, after departing the island
of Barbados. Although there is no strong evidence for any single theory, many
independent theories exist, some blaming storms, some capsizing, and some
suggesting that wartime enemy activity was to blame for the loss. In addition, two
of Cyclops's sister ships, Proteus and Nereus were subsequently lost in the North
Atlantic during World War II. Both ships were transporting heavy loads of
metallic ore similar to that which was loaded on Cyclops during her fatal voyage.
In all three cases structural failure due to overloading with a much denser cargo
than designed is considered the most likely cause of sinking.

11. El Faro (Cargo Ship).
SS El Faro was a 790-ft large cargo ship. On its ill fated voyage, it started
sail from Jacksonville (Florida) bound for Peurto Rico towards east. So the
route was right on the middle of Bermuda Triangle. The ship was carrying
about 390 shipping containers and around 290 vehicles. It was captained by
Michael Davidson and had a total crew of 33, men and women, 28 of them
Americans and 5 Polish. It departed on September 30, 2015 early in the
morning (2am).
On the day of its departure, a tropical storm called Joaquin was reported.
But it was hundreds of miles away on the east. Such storm is common around
this time of the year and can easily be negotiated by ships of this class. The
route charted out for the ship would anyway clear past the path of the storm by
about 100 miles, so it was not considered any kind of threat by the captain. But
the mother nature seems to have had other ideas.

12. Category-3 fierce hurricane

13. Strangely next day on October 1, 2015, El Faro was under the siege of
Joaquin. The tropical storm by then had transformed into a Category-3
fierce hurricane, came dashing towards the ship in no time and was
pouncing on it. The hurricane started looping around the ship causing
mammoth waves of up to 40ft high and wind speed of about 90 miles per
hour. Having caused havoc for hours, quite unbelievably it went back the
same way it came from.
At 7:30am on that day the last communication was received from the
captain. He reported that the main engine failed, there was no power, the
ship tilted by about 15 degrees on one side and was taking on water.
However he said the crew were able to contain the flooding and were in
control. After that it all fell silent.

14. SS El Faro

15. Next day a massive search operation was launched by the US Coast Guard
with help from US Air Force and US Navy. The first few days of the search was
a struggle due to bad weather. Effective search started only from Sunday
(October 4) onwards and it was called off by the sunset of October 7. By that
time aircraft and coast guard ships had scanned over 240,000 square miles of
the ocean and around the last known position of El Faro. All they could find
was some oil slicks floating on water, some debris, and an orange life ring
(presumably all from El Faro).
A few weeks later, US Navy Ship Apache was used to search the underwater
area off Bahamas where El Faro's last position was reported. They used Sonar
and several sophisticated diving instruments. The sonar and followed by a
cable controlled underwater recovery vehicle known as CURV (fitted with
lights), finally located the ship. El Faro was sitting silently upright on the sea
floor at a depth of about 15,000ft in pitch darkness. The seabed was littered
with many equipment and cargo that included even cars, microwave ovens etc.
But there was no trace of any crew.

16. SCIENTIFIC EXPLANATIONS
Magnetic Compass
According to the scientists in the US Navy, this area is one of the only two in the
world, where a magnetic compass points to true north rather than magnetic north.
This probably caused some navigators to go off course, which is very dangerous
because many of the islands in ‘The Triangle’ have large areas of shallow water
where vessels can run aground. They can also sink a long way down as some of the
ocean’s deepest trenches, from 19,000 to over 27,000 feet below sea level, are
found here.

17. Unpredictable Weather
Since the island is situated in the Atlantic Ocean, the weather is influenced by
several factors and can change with lightening speed. That means that one moment
you have brilliant weather, whereas the other moment, you may faced with
extremely perilous weather and hurricanes.
Formation of Methane in the sea
Methane can lower the density of water, leading to the sinking of ships.
Similarly, methane can cut out an aircraft engine leading to crashes.

18. Bermuda Triangle Survivors
1. It is interesting to note that Christopher Columbus was one such
witness. He wrote in his memoirs on how his compass acted
strangely while sailing through the Bermuda Triangle. He along
with another shipmate witnessed a glowing globe of light that
seemed to hover over the sea.
2. It is said that when clouds or fog enter the Bermuda Triangle, strange
things start happening. Such a phenomenon has been witnessed with
the Philadelphia experiment in which the USS Eldridge vanished and
reappeared later miles away, with some men warped into the hull of
the ship.

19. 3. In 1901 Anne Moberly and Eleanor Jourdain stepped into a mist and
claimed to arrive at a time period before the French Revolution. It is said, that
the mist and the ominous clouds might be the key to time travel or entering
other dimensions.
4. Even a great pilot like Charles Lindbergh witnessed unusual events while
flying in the reaches of the Bermuda Triangle. It is said that when he was
making a nonstop flight from Havana to St. Louis, his magnetic compass started
rotating. His Earth-inductor-compass needle jumped back and forth erratically.
This has now all been revealed in his autobiography.
5. Another eyewitness account is that of Bruce Gernon, who flew his plane, a
Bonanza A36,into the Bermuda Triangle and encountered a non-threatening
mile and a half long cloud. As he neared, the cloud seemed to come alive. It
became huge and engulfed his plane. However, a tunnel opened up in the
cloud and he went through this tunnel. It had cloud trails swirling around his
plane. He also reported that while going into his tunnel, he experienced zero
gravity and the only thing that kept him in the cockpit was his seatbelt.