A routine United States Navy training flight on December 5, 1945 was lost with all hands possibly due to a navigational error. Like many events favored
by mystery mongerers, this tragedy was just a historical footnote until a writer for Argosy Magazine wrote about it in 1964.
That article “The Deadly Bermuda Triangle” would probably be forgotten now, were it not for the famous American linguist Charles Berlitz, born November 20, 1914. Known as the heir of the family that founded the famous Berlitz language schools, he also wrote books on anomalous phenomena. His book “The Bermuda Triangle” was published in 1974 and took the topic of the obscure Argosy article and made it a household term.
Skeptics know there are many huge holes in the so-called triangle, and I so I need not go into them here. But one famous problem is just defining the dimensions of the area.
One example is the so-called “ghost ship” Mary Celeste, which was found December 4, 1872. The ship had an experienced crew and the weather in the area was unremarkable, yet the ship was found completely unmanned with no indication of what had happened.
Some authors would have you believe this is a Bermuda Triangle case. But there’s a slight problem with that - the Mary Celeste was found off the coast of Portugal, nowhere near Bermuda or the triangle.
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(This essay originally appeared in a slightly different form on Skepticality episode #144)
Tim Farley is a JREF Research Fellow in electronic media.