The Bermuda Triangle: Storms, Shallows and a Name No Map Recognizes

There is no evidence that ships and planes disappear in the Bermuda Triangle any more often than in any other large, busy stretch of ocean. The region — in the western part of the North Atlantic — has held people's imaginations for decades, with stories of ships, planes and people vanishing without explanation. The explanations that hold up are less exotic than the legend.

The general location of the Bermuda Triangle. Credit: NOAA.

The theories

Some of the proposed causes are frankly fanciful: extraterrestrials collecting humans for study, the influence of the lost continent of Atlantis, vortices that pull objects into other dimensions. Others sound more scientific without having evidence behind them, such as "oceanic flatulence" — methane gas bursting out of the sediments on the sea floor — or disruptions in the lines of the Earth's magnetic field.

What the region really has

Ordinary environmental conditions could explain many, and perhaps most, of the disappearances:

• Storms. Most Atlantic tropical storms and hurricanes pass through the area, and before weather forecasting improved, they sank many ships.
• The Gulf Stream. The current can bring rapid, sometimes violent, changes in the weather.
• Shallow water. The Caribbean's many islands create large areas of shallow water that can be treacherous to navigate.
• An unusual compass. There is some evidence that in the Bermuda Triangle a magnetic compass sometimes points toward true north rather than magnetic north.

What the authorities say

The U.S. Navy and the U.S. Coast Guard hold that there is no supernatural explanation for disasters at sea. In their experience, the forces of nature combined with human error outdo the wildest science fiction. They also point out that no official map marks the boundaries of the Bermuda Triangle. The U.S. Board of Geographic Names does not recognize it as an official name and keeps no official file on it.

The ocean has always been mysterious to people, and anywhere in the world, bad weather or poor navigation can make it deadly. The Bermuda Triangle is no exception — but it is not the exception either.

Sources

Based on "What is the Bermuda Triangle?" from NOAA's National Ocean Service, whose text was posted on January 4, 2010; a work of the United States government in the public domain.