Bermuda Triangle

[GwynO 16]

It seems a fair few here are no strangers to sailing and flying. I wonder what you real world seafarers and flyers make of the whole Bermuda Triangle mystery. Have you perhaps known someone, who knew someone who disappeared? Maybe you disappeared yourselves only to re emerge in 1968 where with your advanced knowledge of the future you set up to become the world's richest software developer. Huh Bill? That's what you really did isn't it? You sailed round Bermuda for years circling your cash before .. puff! You were gone. So yea, anyone believe there is something weird happening there?

[+Typhoid 231]

nope.

 

there is a higher number of disappearances in the Bermuda Triangle because there is a higher level of traffic in the Bermuda Triangle. It is that simple.

 

Almost all of the USN predeployment training and workups are conducted in that general area and I have spent about a half year's time overall sailing and flying in that area.

 

I didn't notice anything odd - odd - odd zzzrrppt - reboot.......

 

[eraser_tr 29]

Some of the stories I heard (seen on history channel, discovery etc) are rather bizarre and nigh impossible to explain in a rational matter, or just plain creepy.

 

But likewise, I've seen excellent explanations that can account for 99% of disappearances besides being so heavily trafficked: Methane. Apparently there are large pockets of it under the ocean floor there. If a pocket gets released under or close enough to a ship it can disrupt the bouancy and sink a ship in seconds. Similarly with planes, if they were to fly through where a pocket was released and a high concentration was in the air, it would affect the air pressure and altimeter readings and a pilot could lose control trying to correct the error his instruments are telling him. They did professional flight simulator tests (not games) with it as well as wave tanks with everything to scale on the show.

[GwynO 16]

Well that methane theory really put the wind up me, the though of a ship just loosing buoyancy like that is really scary. I experimented with a toy boat and some curry beans in my bath.. I wouldn't like to experience that in real boat! I get the theory, but if there was really that much methane under there, surely it would have been detected on geological surveys by the petro-chemical people? I guess it's a lot of individual reasons rather than one big answer.

 

I was reading about the British airliners that went missing, very creepy indeed. I guess what's most intriguing is not necessarily the numbers of disappearances, but the way that they were so total.. at the other end of the spectrum you have the ghost ships emerging through the North West passage after years and years of drifting, and the severed limbs turning up on beaches. maybe one day, a fishing trawler will drag up a piece of wreckage or life ring or something will turn up then we can definitely say.. they didn't just vanish.

[+Typhoid 231]

having that much methane mess up your flight instruments would really stink!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

sorry

 

[Lexx_Luthor 57]

Plug for the Meth idea. Its the one that makes sense to me.

 

Its not an isolated idea. There are some lakes, one in Africa I've heard about, that at some times bubbles up CO2 that fills valleys, displacing lighter O2, and suffocates whole populations. Scary stuff out there. But the funny thing: Except for maybe one (earthquake), all the scary stuff -- volcano, flood, wildfire, superstorms, etc...happens to be where the Earth is the most fertile for life. That's how life works!! Its almost Xenlike.

[+Typhoid 231]

Plug for the Meth idea. Its the one that makes sense to me.

 

Its not an isolated idea. There are some lakes, one in Africa I've heard about, that at some times bubbles up CO2 that fills valleys, displacing lighter O2, and suffocates whole populations. Scary stuff out there. But the funny thing: Except for maybe one (earthquake), all the scary stuff -- volcano, flood, wildfire, superstorms, etc...happens to be where the Earth is the most fertile for life. That's how life works!! Its almost Xenlike.

 

 

well, no. I don't buy the methane or any other anamoly for micro-second. There is just more traffic out there which results in a higher number of losses.

 

Having gone hunting quite a few times for missing boats and planes and shipmates - without success - in a very, very big ocean, I don't buy anything more than a rapid accident that left no survivors with wreckage simply not found.

 

Then the tinfoil hat crowd gets started and concocts wild theories that sound good on television.

 

I don't buy any of it.

[eraser_tr 29]

but if there was really that much methane under there, surely it would have been detected on geological surveys by the petro-chemical people?

 

That's probably how they found out about them being prevalent around the area. I think the theory originated after they found 5 TBF Avengers they thought were flight 19 pretty close to shore. After looking up the Bu numbers and finding they were five seperate known accidents on approach and investigating why, they found a vent that gave off methane. It was a while ago so don't quote me on that.

 

There are still some bizarre stories, planes disappearing on approach after the tower already had a visual, in broad daylight. And on a UFO show, they had a thing about a naval exercise in 60s in the triangle and getting a sonar contact moving 150kts at 20,000 underwater and tracking it for several days. Can any Navy guys verify that not being just a bogus story?

[+Typhoid 231]

That's probably how they found out about them being prevalent around the area. I think the theory originated after they found 5 TBF Avengers they thought were flight 19 pretty close to shore. After looking up the Bu numbers and finding they were five seperate known accidents on approach and investigating why, they found a vent that gave off methane. It was a while ago so don't quote me on that.

 

There are still some bizarre stories, planes disappearing on approach after the tower already had a visual, in broad daylight. And on a UFO show, they had a thing about a naval exercise in 60s in the triangle and getting a sonar contact moving 150kts at 20,000 underwater and tracking it for several days. Can any Navy guys verify that not being just a bogus story?

 

never heard of it.

 

but having been slightly involved in sound propagation in ASW ops, there are a lot of possible explanations for strange sound contacts in the water. But look at your numbers. 150kts at 20,000 - what? feet under water?, 20,000 yards from the ship? nonsense. the numbers and the geometry doesn't work.

 

here is a clue - the UFO shows are all about hype and twisted reality. all bogus. they are fake and intentionally shoveling a load of BS without context or factual analysis.

 

Here is another fact about ships and airplanes. Stuff happens. Sometimes pretty fast. And it is a very big ocean out there to try to find someone or small bits of wreckage. Just one example but from a different piece of airspace - we knew where we shot down two Libyan Floggers - never found anything.

 

Like I've said. I've sailed those waters and flown that airspace. Somehow - I and 30,000 shipmates from those various deployments managed to all make it back. Its just a numbers game. There are more planes and ships that sail in that area because of all the ports of call across the mainland and the islands. As a result, there are more that founder and go missing. I will suggest that there is no difference in the per capita rate of losses with any other area.

 

just hype to sell books and movies depending on the same gullibility that sells global-warming hysteria for profit.

Edited April 23, 2009 by Typhoid

[i fight by 1 0]

Uhoh...USOs and UFOs? xD

 

Have you ever heard those unidentifed loud sounds underwater? They sound strange....lemme see if I can find one...

 

found it...

 

Real time: ---> http://www.bloopwatch.org/bloop_realtime_nr.wav

 

Sped up 16x: ---> http://www.bloopwatch.org/bloop_nr.wav

 

They thought it was maybe a massive whale but it was recorded simultaneously by two hydrophones over 3,000 miles apart, and it was a much louder noise than any known whale could produce. Apprently its louder then any known animal noise known on Earth. O.o Theres a couple others but meh...

Edited April 23, 2009 by i fight by 1

[Lexx_Luthor 57]

Typhoid::

Then the tinfoil hat crowd gets started and concocts wild theories that sound good on television.

 

I don't buy any of it.

I dunno T, you may be right, and I can understand your frustration. I am tempted to call the chemtrail people "tinfoil" but to be honest, I don't blame them. It compares to beliefs of all kinds through history.

 

From what I've read, before hydroplaning turned from Tin into Gold, they used to call pilots names similar in spirit to "tinfoil" when the pilots ran out of wet runway and couldn't convince anybody they were standing on the brakes the whole rollout.

[GwynO 16]

Well there's the answer! Global warming solved, it was simply methane released due to natural underwater mudslides, fast moving sonar mudslides too! Think loud, noisy underwater movements of mud with the urgency and volatility of a half digested chicken bhuna washed down with some ultra bubbly lager and voila. I don't know, I can imagine little boats disappear all the time with no trace, but full on ships without leaving a single life ring floating for someone to find even months or years later? I think cases involving aircraft maybe harder to explain, like the Chuck Wakely incident. Ball lightning, UFO, hallucinogenic drugs or just a case of outright lying.. still it's odd that from time to time pilots risk their careers by sticking to stories of mysterious encounters, makes me wonder there may be a grain of truth in there somewhere.

[eraser_tr 29]

It's not really people seeing things being nuts or junkies so much as how the brain puts information together when there's little actual sensory information.

[+ordway 23]

Well, when I grew up in Virgina, two of my parents friends disappeared without a trace on their yacht in the Bermuda Triangle.

 

Really nasty for the poor kids who were left behind...maybe a rogue wave? The sea was never safe.

 

When I flew by small charter aircraft (Aero commander) to the Island of Eleuthera in the 1970s, the pilot told me that their magnetic compasses sometimes became unreliable in the area...magnetic rocks or something in the area.

 

Well, if the discovery channel ever publishes their famous methane-sinking ship by negative buoyancy experiments in peer-reviewed journals, that would be interesting.

 

Personally, I think there are probably natural reasons for the Bermuda Triangle issues.

 

I was in the scientific field for 12 years and still think there are things out there that we don't understand or can detect yet. I know mainstream science is still playing with gravity force problems which don't make sense such as why it is such a weak force, if I understand correctly.

[+Gunrunner 313]

Tsss, the region had a bad reputation for centuries... originally because of piracy in the Carribean and the Sargasso Sea, but in modern times the reputation endured and the masses had to find a more modern cause for a supposed higher rate of incidents...

 

From what I recall the rates of real incidents is in fact lower that than the mean for such high-traffic storm zones...

 

Add the the Sargasso Sea (and the near-windless zone where it resides), the regular storms, the proximity of the Gulf Stream and you explain away the boating incidents which are not complete fiction (ie. records do exist for the boat and the boat actually sunk in the Bermuda Triangle and not on the other end of the globe).

 

Now there's planes... once again, the real incidents are really far fewer than the general public would like to believe and weather, human error and technical incidents explain away most if not all of the serious cases...

 

Even the methane theory is not necessary, it's only a clever way to reconcile the myth and science.

[ONETINSOLDIER 2]

I agree with TYphoid about the hype and such, even the history channel has fallen prey to these bait and switch drama type shows, and I used to be a card carrying skeptic myself, but I tell you what, until you see something that you cannot explain to yourself, let alone anyone else, all the while telling yourself that, yeah, yer a reasonably smart person,,so why does this scare and humble the holy &@%$ outta me?, you just wont understand, and thats your right.

Concerning the methane bubbles, hard to say if that much gets released at any one time, but I saw a test in a tank on a reasonably large scale replica of an ore freighter, and it sunk like a rock, gotta remember, all those bubbles are displacing a lot of water that otherwise supports the ship,

[+Gunrunner 313]

Gwar, I'm not saying that the methane trick doesn't work... the science is good...

I'm just saying it is highly improbable and completely unnecessary to analyse the Bermuda Triangle situation unless you are determined to attribute some rare quality to the region to explain the supposedly higher rate of incidents.

The trouble is that the higher rate itself is a myth (and like all myths it has a kernel of truth, for there are incidents, there are historical reasons for the reputation, there are conditions making part of the zone dangerous to the unaware); so going all the way to find a scientific explanation for a problem that doesn't exist in the first place is only a clever way to cater to the sensationnalists while staying mildly rationnal.

[Syrinx 13]

Three words sums it up for me...

 

Tin Foil Hats

[column5 62]

even the history channel has fallen prey to these bait and switch drama type shows

 

I once saw a show on History Channel about Hitler's flatulence.

[Silverbolt 104]

I once saw a show on History Channel about Hitler's flatulence.

 

wow, how does it stink?

quite impressive

[column5 62]

wow, how does it stink?

quite impressive

 

Apparantly his vegan diet gave him massive gas. It must have been totally rank in the bunker during those last days.

[+Gunrunner 313]

So that's really why he was so nasty !

[Silverbolt 104]

Apparantly his vegan diet gave him massive gas. It must have been totally rank in the bunker during those last days.

 

oh god ,poor soldiers

[+gregoryp 1]

Fake – 1968 PBS did the research and interviewed the original authors. They have on film the author admitting he made it up and distorted things. Basiclly, he wrote a book, made some bucks. Other guys said hey I want some of that dough, and wrote more books taking more real events and adding a scary/mysterious spin to it. Rinse and repeat gives you a scarey area.

 

Most of these books are just by guys leveraging off peoples fears to make a quick buck.

 

 

Wikpedia has a decent article on the 5 missing avengers. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_19

 

Here's a bit more detail

 

http://www.historynet.com/five-tbm-avenger-bombers-lost-in-the-bermuda-triangle.htm

 

Note the lack of UFO's and methane gas.

 

[Rambler 1-1 9]

It's the EELS. they attack all the boats with thir HOVERCRAFTS and shoot down the planes with their LAZERCATS. Mystery solved. Rambler wins.