Famous incidents of disappearances
Over the past centuries, many ships and air planes have disappeared or met with fatal accidents in the triangular area on Atlantic ocean known as Bermuda Triangle. In several cases, no trace of the ships and aircraft were found even after thorough search operations were carried out for hundreds and thousands of square miles in the ocean.
Such incidents of disappearances have been known since 1400s and have continued even in 21st century. While there are various explanations and theories behind such incidents, in many cases the incidents have remained unexplained.
In a shocking incident of 1945, a whole bunch of five training flights that took off from Florida naval base under the leadership of an experienced captain, never returned to the base. All are clueless as to what may have happened to it. In fact a Martin Mariner flying boat that was sent for the search operation, also went missing.
In another incident of 1918, a large well known cargo ship went missing in the triangle area without a trace with over 300 crew members on board. This was probably one of the largest loss of lives on Bermuda triangle.
And there are many more such incidents. While theories such as methane gas blow out below the ocean causing ships to sink, electronic fog engulfing a flight or ship and then taking it to unknown zones, hurricanes destroying aircraft, and lot more of such theories have come up trying to explain such cases, but nobody has been able to pinpoint which incident of disappearance took place exactly for which cause. And strangely having made hardly any inroads to explain why such incidents took place in Bermuda Triangle area, the US Navy as well as the US Board of Geographic names (the organization mainly responsible for identifying areas on maps) have declined to recognize Bermuda Triangle as any such physical area on the ocean which causes such deadly incidents of disappearances.
So, are these incidents actually caused by Bermuda triangle phenomena? Or these are just mere accidents that also take place in other ocean areas as well, and are simply hyped up here by some theorists to draw unnecessary attention? Figure it out yourself. Go through the following incidents that have left scientists completely baffled. I have arranged them in chronological order so that you can see earlier ones to most recent incidents by year.
1492 - Christopher Columbus reported strange lights and strange compass readings.
- The Sea Venture
got wrecked near the eastern end of Bermuda Island. The commander of the fleet Sir George Somers and his crew came ashore and were the first to start human settlement in the island.
1812 - Theodosia Burr Alston was the daughter of former United States Vice President Aaron Burr. Her disappearance has been cited at least once in relation to the Triangle. She was a passenger on board the Patriot, which sailed from Charleston, South Carolina to New York City on December 30, 1812, and was never heard of again.
1814 - The USS Epervier and her crew disappeared while carrying the peace treaty to end the war between America and the North African Barbary States.
1855 - The schooner James B. Chester was found floating in the ocean. The crew was missing but there was no sign of struggle, and the lifeboats were still in place.
- Mary Celeste
: Known as one of the ghost ships of Bermuda Triangle, Mary Celeste had many misadventures even before her mystery voyage in 1872. Find out the full story.
- The Ellen Austin
on its voyage in 1881 came across another ship that was sailing without a single soul on board. Ellen Austin transferred some of its crew onto the other ship and attempted to sail with it to New York. The other ship suddenly disappeared. Later it re-appeared, but again without a person on board. Then it again disappeared without trace.
1909 - S.V. Spray was a derelict fishing boat refitted as an ocean cruiser by Joshua Slocum and used by him to complete the first ever single-handed circumnavigation of the world, between 1895 and 1898. In 1909, Slocum set sail from Vineyard Haven bound for Venezuela. Neither he nor Spray were ever seen again.
- USS Cyclops
: This navy ship disappearance resulted in the single largest loss of life in the history of the US Navy. It went missing without a trace with a crew of 309, sometime after March 4th 1918 and after departing the island of Barbados.
- Carroll A. Deering
: This was a 5-masted commercial schooner built to carry cargo. On January 31, 1921 while returning home to Maine from Rio de Janeiro of Brazil, it was found wrecked at Diamond Shoals located off Cape Hatteras in North Carolina. While the ship was quite intact, all crew members vanished and never heard of again.
1941 - The USS Proteus and the USS Nereus vanished, just as their sister ship the USS Cyclops previously did along the same route.
- Flight 19
: They were training aircrafts of TBM Avenger bombers of US Navy that went missing on Dec 5, 1945 while flying over the Atlantic. They were scheduled to go due east from Florida Naval base for 120 miles, then north for 73 miles, and then get back over a final 120-mile route that would return them to the naval base. But strangely they never came back. Adding to the mystery, two rescue Martin Mariner aircraft with 13-man crew were sent to search for the missing flights. But one of the Martin Mariners itself did not return and was never traced again.
- PBM Martin Mariner
: Two Martin Mariner planes were sent on the 5th of December 1945 to search for the Flight-19. One did not return. Find out the full story.
- The C-54 Aircraft
: Apparently it would seem to be sudden thunderstorm that would have disintegrated the C-54 plane. But there was much more to the story.
- Tudor Star Tiger
: A Tudor Mark IV aircraft disappeared in Bermuda Triangle shortly before it was to land in Bermuda airport in January 1948.
- Fight DC-3 Disappearance
: The flight Douglas DC-3 NC16002 disappeared in Bermuda Triangle when it was only 50 miles south of Florida and about to land in Miami on December 28, 1948.
- Flight 441 Disappearance
: The flight 441, a Super Constellation Naval Airliner, disappeared in Bermuda Triangle on October 30, 1954
- Marine Sulphur Queen
: This 524-foot carrier of molten sulphur started sail Feb 2, 1963 from Beaumont, Texas with 39 crew. It was reported lost in Florida Straits on Feb 4.
: A 23-foot cabin cruiser went missing for ever in Bermuda Triangle area on the night of December 22, 1967. The owner took it offshore only to watch the lights of Miami shoreline.
- USS Scorpion
: USS Scorpion (SSN-589) was a Nuclear powered submarine of United States Navy that disappeared in Bermuda Triangle in May 1968.
1971 - Sting-27, a USAF Phantom jet, vanished completely without a trace. Official reports indicated it may have suffered an impact, but the details were never revealed.
1976 - The Sylvia L. Ossa, a 590-foot ore carrier with a crew of 37 disappeared 140 miles from Bermuda.
1991 - The pilot of a Grumman Cougar jet made a routine radio request to increase altitude. While ascending, the aircraft gradually faded from radar and vanished.
1999 - The cargo freighter Genesis sent a radio signal to a nearby vessel, indicating a problem with the bilge pump. Despite extensive searches by the Coast Guard, the ship and crew were never seen or heard from again.
2003 - A newly married couple Frank and Romina Leone went for fishing on their brand new 16-foot boat on June 18, 2003. They left from the Boynton beach inlet in Florida but never returned. The US Coast Guard eventually gave up the search & rescue operation after having combed a large part of the sea area for several days.
2005 & 2007 - On two separate incidents, two Piper-PA planes disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle area. One on June 20, 2005 between Treasure Cay island of Bahamas and Fort Pierce of Florida. There were three persons on board. The second incident took place on April 10, 2007 near Berry Island. Only the pilot was on board and no passengers..
2008 - A Britten-Norman Islander (also known as 3-engine Trislander) took off from Santiago for New York on December 15, 2008 at around 3:30pm with 12 persons on board. After about 35 minutes from take off, the aircraft fell off the radar. A massive search operation was launched by US Coast Guards, but the aircraft was never traced again. Its last known location was about 4 miles west of West Caicos Island. No debris has been found until now.
2) Check out Bermuda Triangle Mystery
to know more about the mystery of Bermuda Triangle, amazing stories of planes and ship disappearing and how it has been solved.
NOTE: I manually evaluate all posts and include only the ones that are original (not copy pasted from other sources) and having some serious matter. Unless the post adds further value to this article, I do not include them.
Alberto Montenegro (May 2015)
I only recently discovered that there are websites that list disappearances in the Bermuda Triangle and I was curious to see if my own family's incident made your list. It did not. My grandfather was a Cuban fisherman, and his fishing vessel Joven Lydia, named after his eldest daughter, disappeared in 1966 off the coast of Florida (from the port of Miami). His son Ramon, and 4 of his friends went for a fishing trip only to never return. My grandfather spent all of his savings on search efforts, but nothing ever turned up. After losing his main means of income (his fishing boat) he eventually gave up hope for his son and moved to Los Angeles, finding employment at a factory with the help of his brother-in-law. I'm actually on my way to the funeral for my great uncle (my grandfather's aforementioned brother-in-law who found him employment in Los Angeles). If it weren't for the disappearance of my grandfather's fishing boat, which we have always felt was claimed by the Bermuda Triangle, my mother's family would not have moved to Los Angeles where she met my father.
Bermuda Triangle Incidents
Reviewed by Raj Bhattacharya