Most of you will have heard of the Bermuda Triangle, it has become well known in popular culture over the past 70 years. However this anomalous area of the Atlantic that stretches from the southern tip of Florida USA, NE to Bermuda and SE to Puerto Rico is not the only such 'triangular area' on Earth where mysterious events and disappearances have taken place.
There have been many theories postulated for disappearances and unusual paranormal events in these areas in recent years some of which are really 'out there'. Are the tragic events that have taken place in these areas caused by naturally occurring phenomena that we still don't understand or is there more to it? Today I'd like to take a quick look at a famous 'Bermuda Triangle' incident and then move on to another less well known area that bear the suffix 'triangle'.
Welcome to Mystery History.
Pt6 The Mysterious Triangles.
Probably the most famous incident that took place in the area known as the Bermuda or Devil's Triangle took place on December 5th 1945.
Flight 19 consisted of 5 Grunman TBM Avenger torpedo bombers that disappeared during a routine overwater navigation training exercise from Naval Air Station Fort Lauderdale, Florida. All 14 airmen on the flight were lost and neither the planes or any wreckage have never been found.
A Martin PBM Mariner flying boat was subsequently launched from Naval Air Station Banana River to search for the missing planes, this also went missing without a trace with the loss of all 13 crew.
Professional investigators made the assumption without physical evidence that the search plane had exploded in mid air as the PBM was known to accumulate flammable gasoline vapours in its bilges. Navy investigators have never determined the exact cause of of the loss of Flight 19. Source
This event alone was instrumental is creating the mystique of the Bermuda Triangle that persists to this day however many articles have been written and investigations undertaken so I'm not going to take up any more time in this area as I'd only be repeating what others have already said, besides its the lesser known triangles that I'd like to focus on in this post.
It is worth taking a quick peruse of the list of aircraft tragedies in this area since 1945, I don't know about you but it seems an awful lot to me considering the size of the area.....
1945: July 10, Thomas Arthur Garner, AMM3, USN, along with eleven other crew members, was lost at sea in a US Navy PBM3S patrol seaplane, Bu. No.6545, Sqd VPB2-OTU#3, in the Bermuda Triangle. They left the Naval Air Station, Banana River, Florida, at 7:07 p.m. on July 9, 1945, for a radar training flight to Great Exuma, Bahamas. Their last radio position report was sent at 1:16 a.m., July 10, 1945, with a latitude/longitude of 25-22N 77.34W, near Providence Island, after which they were never heard from again. An extensive ten day surface and air search, including a carrier sweep, found nothing.
1945: December 5, Flight 19 (five TBF Avengers) lost with 14 airmen, and later the same day PBM Mariner BuNo 59225 lost with 13 airmen while searching for Flight 19.
1947: July 3, According to the Bermuda Triangle Legend a B-29 Superfortress was lost off Bermuda. Lawrence Kunsche investigated and found no reference to any such B-29 loss. In fact the aircraft loss was that of a Douglas C-54 which was lost in a storm off the Florida coast. A B-29 was lost in the vicinity of Bermuda-on November 16, 1949 a B-29 was lost in the Atlantic; 2 crewmen were missing but on November 19, 1949 18 survivors were rescued 385 miles northeast of Bermuda.
1948: January 30, Avro Tudor G-AHNP Star Tiger lost with six crew and 25 passengers, en route from Santa Maria Airport in the Azores to Kindley Field, Bermuda.
1948: December 28, Douglas DC-3 NC16002 lost with three crew and 36 passengers, en route from San Juan, Puerto Rico, to Miami.
1949: January 17, Avro Tudor G-AGRE Star Ariel lost with seven crew and 13 passengers, en route from Kindley Field, Bermuda, to Kingston Airport, Jamaica.
1956: November 9, Martin Marlin lost ten crewmen taking off from Bermuda.
1962: January 8, A USAF KB-50 51-0465 was lost over the Atlantic between the US East Coast and the Azores.
1965: June 9, A USAF C-119 Flying Boxcar of the 440th Troop Carrier Wing missing between Florida and Grand Turk Island. The last call from the plane came from a point just north of Crooked Island, Bahamas, and 177 miles from Grand Turk Island. On July 18, 1965 debris from the plane was found on the beach of Gold Rock Cay just off the northeastern shore of Acklins Island.
1965: December 6, Private ERCoupe F01[11] lost with pilot and one passenger, en route from Ft. Lauderdale to Grand Bahamas Island.
2005: June 20, A Piper-PA-23 disappeared between Treasure Cay Island, Bahamas and Fort Pierce, Florida. There were three persons on board.
2007: April 10, A Piper PA-46-310P disappeared near Berry Island after flying into a level 6 thunderstorm and losing altitude. Two fatalities were listed.
2017: February 23, The Turkish Airlines flight TK183 (an Airbus A330-200) was forced to change its direction from Havana, Cuba to Washington Dulles airport after some mechanical and electrical problems occurred over the triangle.
2017: May 15, A private MU-2B aircraft was at 24,000 feet when it vanished from radar and radio contact with air traffic controllers in Miami. Plane wreckage was found.
The Flight 19 incident as well as all of these incidents are obviously terrible tragedies for all involved and while they're tragic they're fairly 'normal' in the sense that there are no paranormal aspects linked to the disappearances that have been divulged.
Some writers have made wild claims of alien abductions and underwater bases with no evidence whatsoever to back up the claims. What I see so far is a list of tragic disappearances some of which that have never been solved that have given fuel to wild speculation.
But is that the case on the other side of the world in another 'Triangle' mystery?
The Dragon's Triangle - Japan.
Situated just off the south coast of Japan on almost the exact opposite side of the world from the Bermuda Triangle is the Dragon Triangle.
For many centuries it has been an area where unexplained phenomena and disappearances have taken place.
The following article is from Marineinsight.com....
Unexplained Mystery: The Devil’s Sea (The Dragon’s Triangle)
Located near to the Japanese coast in the Pacific Ocean is the vile vortex of Dragon’s Triangle or the Devil’s Sea. As the title indicates, the area extends as a triangle between Japan and the Islands of Bonin, including a major portion of the Philippine Sea. Such an infamous reputation for this oceanic area has been not gained contemporarily, but exists for decades and even centuries, if some records are to be believed.
Scientifically speaking, the Dragon’s Triangle is said to be one of the world’s 12 existing vile vortices. Vile vortices are those areas where the pull of the planet’s electromagnetic waves is stronger than anywhere else.
Of the other remaining 11 vortices, the Bermuda Triangle is the most prominent one across the globe.
Origin of the Devil’s Sea Extrasensory Myth & Continuance.
To begin with, the term dragon in the oceanic area’s name originates with the Chinese fable about dragons existing below the water surface and hauling in vessels with seamen to satiate their hunger. These fables have originated well before the AD period – 1000 BC era – in-turn resulting in leaving a huge impact with their emphasis on presence of mythical creatures like dragons.
Realistically, since this part of the oceanic area is full of subsea volcanoes, it has been speculated, debated and discussed that the eruptions from these volcanoes could have initiated and substantiated the premise of dragons sucking in ships and its crew to the ocean’s depths.
Although official documentation about the mystery of Dragon’s Triangle started with the publishing of Charles Berlitz’s account of the oceanic arena in the late 80s, the existence of Ma-no Umi as this area is called in native Japanese has always haunted the Japanese from venturing into this part of the ocean right from centuries past.
It is said that the conqueror Kublai Khan tried to make inroads into Japan in the 1200s but failed to do because of loss of his vessels and crew, the latter being 40,000 men, in this triangular area. Similarly accounts emerge about sighting of a lady sitting in a vessel resembling the traditional Japanese equipment for burning incense in the early 1800s. In the later century, the most prominent and documented reports are that of the Japanese research ship Kaio Maru No.5 about whose whereabouts was never heard of again in the early 1950s. This research ship was sent to find about the previously missing war-ships which had been reported to have gone missing without any trace in this oceanic arena in the same period.
Sound familiar? It's interesting that a ship sent to investigate missing ships goes missing itself! Eerily similar to the Flight 19 incident on the opposite side of the world in th Bermuda Triangle.
And while the Japanese authorities had declared this area to be dangerous for marine voyaging and transporting in the year 1950, following the unprecedented incident of the research ship, all efforts to unearth the facts behind the mystery were aborted completely.
Why? Surely it's the duty of the authorities to investigate the anomolies thoroughly to provide answers to those who have lost loved ones and to ensure more lives aren't lost. Maybe they already know the answers and have just decided to opt for silence?
If that is the case the answer could possibly be something so extraordinary a veil of silence was seen as the only option!
Or could it be a simpler explanation in that we still just don't understand how the natural forces of our planet work and silence is deemed better than ignorance?
Myth Refutals.
The strongest rebuttal to Mr. Charles’s published work and the belief that the Devil’s Sea is a mythical area abound with paranormal activities, comes from Larry Kusche. His book – The Bermuda Triangle Mystery Solved – published in the year 1995 disclaims Mr. Charles’s documentation of the Japanese war-ships gone missing as mere fishing boats.
In his book, Mr. Kusche has also claimed that the research ship sent by the Japanese contained a crew of only 31 people as opposed to the 100 stated by Mr. Charles and was wrecked instead of disappearing completely. The remains of the wreckage were retrieved by the Japanese a few years ago which further rejected Mr. Charles’s claims.
The Pacific Bermuda Triangle (Dragon Triangle)might be subjected to numerous theories and suppositions. But in spite of scientific evidences and the mythical aura surrounding the oceanic arena, its continued existence is testimony that certain powers are far beyond the control of men and their equipments however hard, we might try to prove otherwise.
So it would appear that Mr Charles was prone to exaggeration, however the point in my opinion isn't the number of lives lost on the ship it's the fact that the research ship actually disappeared. What is weird though is that if it is true that the original incident was in fact fishing boats and not warships surely the Japanese government would have refuted that immediately and Charles's book would have never been published in the first place!
It makes me wonder whether Mr Kusche's book was written as a hit piece to avert eyes away from the unusual events occurring in the Bermuda and Dragons Triangle's. A 'nothing to see here' narrative to discourage further investigation.
Personally I'm not convinced that there is any paranormal activity in the Dragons Triangle. The way the earth works is still very much a mystery to science, there is still much we don't know about the forces of nature, I believe that the Oceans of the world still have so much to reveal to us and in many ways we have a better understanding of areas of the universe than we do of our two greatest oceans the Pacific and Atlantic.
Earlier in the post Vile Vortices were mentioned, these 12 anomolies areas around the globe touch upon some interesting geographical points. These areas are:- Bermuda Triangle, the Algerian Megaliths, the city of Mohenjo Daro, the Hamakulia Volcano east of Hawaii, the Dragon Triangle (Devil's Sea), the South Atlantic Anomaly, the Wharton Basin, the Easter Island megaliths, East of Rio de Janeiro, the Loyalty Islands, the North Pole, and the South Pole.
Within that list are some very interesting sites that have puzzled historical researchers in recent times. I wrote this post on Mohenjo Daro a few months ago, the site is very unusual as it has very high radiation levels along with a plethora of compelling evidence that suggests it was 'nuked' in deep antiquity.
Easter Island is an enigma still waiting to be properly explained and in recent years the South Pole in Antarctica has become the subject of wild speculation with many believing ancient pyramids are appearing out of the melting ice. The unusual sites being situated within these Vile Vortices is fascinating as it may well suggest that the original architects had a better understanding of the forces that are a mystery to us in the modern age. Along with their understanding of earth forces is the hint of advanced technology lost to us in a 'knowledge apocalypse'possibly brought on by a cataclysmic worldwide event.
But I digress.....
If you're interested in delving into that aspect of research please check out my great freind @perceptualflaws who has written many fascinating articles that go into the rabbit hole of that subject.
Conclusion.
The historical events that have occurred in the Bermuda and Dragon's Triangle are both strange and tragic. There are stories going back many years in both areas that give pause for thought. By all accounts Christopher Columbus wrote in his journal that he and his crew witnessed strange lights hovering over the water as he entered the area of the Bermuda Traingle when he was on his voyage of discovery suggesting unusual phenomena have been prevelent for centuries and are not just a modern invention. The incident with Kublai Khan's fleet in the area of the Dragons Triangle suggests the same can be said of that 'Vile Vortex'.
Maybe these historical events were what gave credence to those who sought to connect the paranormal with modern disappearances upon investigation in recent years and they are now just an urban legend perpetuated in the age of cinema and the internet. As with many historical mysteries I don't rule out the possibility of forces beyond our current understanding being involved, however until I see some irrefutable evidence proving that to be the case the Bermuda and Dragon Triangles will remain areas where tragedies have occured through natural albeit unexplained phenomena.
