1st Place Personal Essay
DEEP DIVING
INTO THE
BERMUDA TRIANGLE
BY
CASSANDRA VAILLANCOURT
The Bermuda Triangle, a mysterious body of water that conjures up the names of the lost, such as the U.S.S. Cyclops, Flight 19 and the Marine Sulphur Queen. All victims of this fatal, picturesque location.
The Bermuda Triangle goes by many names: The Limbo of the Lost, The Devil’s Triangle, The Sargasso Sea, Lair of Lost Souls, Atlantic Graveyard of Lost Ships and so on…
The Bermuda Triangle or Devil’s Triangle is part of a larger triangle or trapezium which encompasses all of the Caribbean Sea and going out into the Atlantic Ocean with the highest concentration of disappearances within the borders of Miami, Bermuda and Puerto Rico.
You could say that I have a personal interest in this topic as I am from Florida. I remember many summers swimming in its mysterious waters. I first became acquainted with the Triangle through a documentary called The Devil’s Triangle. The narration by Vincent Price added an aura of spookiness to it. I had a book titled The Limbo of the Lost that I would carry with me everywhere,
One summer I was with some fellow bathers and I made a quip about being in the Devil’s Triangle. They made it clear that it wasn’t something to joke about. There is a certain amount of fear and respect for the Triangle by Floridians. My parents avoided boating in its waters and we spent our summers in the Florida Keys. I discovered recently that we were in the Triangle’s grasp all along!
The earliest known recording of its mysterious happenings was in 1492, When Christopher Columbus’ expedition experienced compass problems and saw green lights shooting across the sky. To the relief of the frightened crew, land was discovered two days later.
Centuries later with more boat traffic came stories of disappearing ships, ghost ships, sea monsters and other stranger happenings. Some explanations offered was piracy, poor seamanship, bad weather and others which explain some disappearances but not all.
The Triangle started claiming planes on December 5, 1945, when a flight of five Avenger fighter bombers with 14 crew members left Fort Lauderdale Naval Air Station for a routine bombing exercise that was performed many times before with no problems. On the flight back to base, however, was when troubles happened. The flight leader reported that everybody’s compasses were malfunctioning and that they didn’t know where they were and that they couldn’t tell the ocean from the sky. They vanished into oblivion. A rescue plane with a crew of 13 that was sent after them also vanished! From then on, many planes vanished with no explanation!
The greatest naval disaster happened in its waters when the U.S.S. Cyclops vanished with 309 crew and passengers on board in March 4, 1918. The Cyclops was a coal bearing that was last seen leaving Barbados with the only message that the weather was all clear-then nothing. There were many theories: a mutiny, the ship was overloaded, possible German attack and a giant octopus attack but no solid answers.
In 1963, a molten Sulphur bearing tanker named the Marine Sulphur Queen with her crew of 39 vanished along the southern coast of Florida. Despite its history of problems and bits of debris recovered, it was the first ship attributed to the Bermuda Triangle in 1964. That it “Sailed off into the unknown”.
Between 1924 and 1944, the ‘Sleeping Prophet’ Edgar Cayce made some predictions that proof of Atlantis would rise out of the depths off the Bahamas in 1968. 1969 brought the discovery of the Bimini Road or Wall off Bimini in the Bahamas. Supposedly, further underwater were power crystals, an Atlantean power source that erratically still powers on and off possibly destroying anything in its range. What might give this theory some credence is that the Triangle is a hotbed of electromagnetic anomalies that might bend space and time or disintegrate unfortunate ships and planes.
The area is also known for violent, erratic weather that could change in an instant such as electrical storms and rogue waves. These weather conditions are becoming more intense due to Climate Change.
Since the time of Columbus, there have been reports and sightings of mysterious lights and craft or UFOs flying and going into and out of water plus glowing objects cruising underwater. Some may want to dismiss these but for a mysterious naval base stationed off Andros Island in the Bahamas. It is a former submarine base named AUTEC or Atlantic Undersea Test and Evaluation Center. It has a reputation as the Navy’s Area 51! It’s rumored to be studying these unusual happenings.
Well these are the conjectures and theories about the Bermuda Triangle. The ones that we know of anyway. Could any of them be the answer? A combination or none of the above?
All I can say is that I swam and snorkeled in its waters many times and I was never affected…or was I?
THE END