Inside Bermuda Triangle mystery as it stops ‘swallowing’ planes and ships

For centuries, dozens of mysterious disappearances in a small area of the Atlantic Ocean have captured the attention of millions and left scientists baffled.

Over the past 200 years, 20 planes, 50 ships and hundreds of people are believed to have vanished in the Bermuda Triangle — a triangular section of the ocean generally thought to stretch between Miami, Bermuda and Puerto Rico.

Conspiracists have blamed everything from supernatural forces and aliens to mysterious sea monsters, interdimensional portals and even the lost city of Atlantis for the disappearances.

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Others have come to more scientific explanations such as methane bubbles, rogue waves and huge magnetic disturbances.

But according to an investigative filmmaker, the answer for what really happened inside the Bermuda Triangle has been sitting right in front of us all along.

The history of the Bermuda Triangle, also known as the Devil's Triangle, can be traced all the way back to 1492 when Christopher Columbus noted how his compass started making odd movements as he sailed through the area.

In a detailed journal of his voyages the famous explorer recalled as night fell "the needles turned a half point north-west and in the morning they turned somewhat more north-west".

It didn't end there, though, as he also reported the sea rising and claimed to have spotted a strange light in the distance.

Then centuries later in 1609, a British ship carrying 150 people heading to Jamestown became wrecked off the coast of Bermuda after encountering a huge hurricane.

While the wreck wasn't exactly mysterious, another incident in 1881 proved far more eerie.

The Ellen Austin had been sailing from Liverpool to New York when it allegedly met a "ghost ship" with no one on board after entering the waters of the Bermuda Triangle.

The captain reportedly sent a crew to board the ship so they could seize valuable cargo and sail alongside them back to New York but a storm soon separated the two ships and when they were reunited the next day, there was no trace of the crew.

In the 20th century, the mysteries really started ramping up when in 1918 one of the largest ships in the US Navy, the USS Cyclops, was carrying 300 men from Salvador, Brazil to Baltimore, Maryland on a route that went directly through the Bermuda Triangle when it vanished.

The ship never sent out an SOS message, its last communication had been "Weather Fair, All Well" and no wreckage has ever been found.

The US Navy has described the ship's disappearance as "one of the most baffling mysteries in the annals of the Navy".

Then in 1941, a sister ship of the USS Cyclops, the USS Proteus was lost in the Bermuda Triangle while carrying 58 people and a month later another sister ship, the USS Nereus also disappeared with 61 people on board.

1945 then saw one of the most notorious disappearances in the history of the Bermuda Triangle.

A group of five World War II planes, known as Flight 19, were conducting a three-hour exercise over Grand Bahama Island — but none of them ever made it back.

During the exercise, the group's leader, Lieutenant Charles C Taylor, reported his compass had stopped working properly and he became convinced they'd been flying in the wrong direction.

"I don’t know where we are, we must have got lost after that last turn," one of the pilots said over the radio.

The leader mistakenly ordered the flight to travel further out to sea and as their fuel started running low four hours in, his last communication came as he ordered the planes to "go down together" when the first one dropped below 10 gallons.

Despite the numerous disappearances and casualties adding up over the years, the phrase Bermuda Triangle wouldn't be coined until 1964 when American author Vincent Gadace wrote an article titled "The Deadly Bermuda Triangle".

Describing the mysterious patch of sea, he wrote: "This relatively limited area is the scene of disappearances that total far beyond the laws of chance."

Over the next decades, dozens of books and documentaries have claimed something strange is happening in the Bermuda Triangle.

Some believe aliens have been using the area as a portal to Earth and pilot Bruce Gernon has even suggested the area is a portal to another space and time as he claims to have teleported 100 miles during one flight through the heart of the triangle.

Other conspiracy theorists have even speculated the lost city of Atlantis lies beneath its surface and have argued technology developed by Atlanteans — including crystal energies — are causing mechanical failures.

But there's also been more scientific hypotheses presented, including possible disturbances to geomagnetism in the area, which could throw off compasses and other navigational tools.

Another proposed theory is methane blowouts, in 2016 Researchers at the Arctic University of Norway discovered huge underwater craters they believed were a result of "enormous blowouts of gas," The Guardian reported.

Conspiracy theorists speculate the methane bubbles, which could also exist in the water underneath the Bermuda Triangle and be blamed for shipwrecks.

Last year another scientist claimed to have "solved" the mystery of the Bermuda Triangle with a simpler theory.

Aussie scientist Karl Kruszelnicki claimed the disappearances could all be explained by bad weather, human error and the fact it's a busy area for planes and boats.

But American filmmaker Johnny Harris has "evidence" to prove there's an even more simple answer for what's really been happening in the Bermuda Triangle.

In 2017 another incident came as four people went missing when a small plane flying from Puerto Rico to Florida disappeared over the Bermuda Triangle and after a 30-hour search the Coast Guard recovered debris and parts of the aircraft.

But this incident was the last one recorded in the Bermuda Triangle and it seems the infamous area of sea has seemingly stopped swallowing up boats and planes.

Johnny's conclusion as to what's really been happing could explain why the mysterious disappearances seem to have halted.

In a YouTube video explaining the theories over the years, he called for the need to take a data-based approach to solving the case of the Bermuda Triangle instead.

He explained: "Humans have developed an amazing tool for seeing reality…we can collect hundreds, thousands or hundreds of thousands of observations about the world and they don't have to fit in our brains all at once because we can record them over time."

When we look at the data from incidents in the Bermuda Triangle, Johnny claims it points to one clear conclusion — there is no real mystery to the Bermuda Triangle because it isn't actually dangerous.

"If you did that you would see that of the tens of thousands of recorded accidents or casualties at sea recorded over the course of 20 years, there wasn't anything out of the ordinary here," he added.

According to another set of data compiled by the shipping publication Lloyd's List, it doesn't even make the top 10 most dangerous ocean regions in the world.

Johnny explained after reaching out to the publication, they spent months collecting and analysing data about marine casualties at sea.

What they discovered was that data from 2021 shows the Bermuda Triangle is actually far safer than the average area of sea.

Johnny explained: "We found that 1.8% of all vessels everywhere in the world have some casualty, including mysterious disappearances and that of the 8,634 boats that passed through the Bermuda Triangle there were only two casualties.

"0.02% of boats that passed through here had an accident, 90 times lower than the global average."

While he said it's not quite as "tantalising" as some of the other theories about the Bermuda Triangle, this is the real evidence we should be looking at.

He added: "It's true, it's what actually happened."

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