INFO VINE * The Mystifying History of The Bermuda Triangle *

Photo Courtesy: [Lightguard/E+/Getty Images]
One of the most mysterious regions in the world is the Bermuda Triangle, alternatively known as the Devil's Triangle. Situated in the western part of the Atlantic Ocean near the British territory of Bermuda, it has gained notoriety due to the many puzzling disappearances there.

Over the years, the Bermuda Triangle has been the subject of numerous theories, books, and films. Hypothetical explanations about the area range from UFOs to surviving technology from the legendary lost island of Atlantis. From the earliest mystifying incidents to recent reports of unusual disappearances, here is the history of the Bermuda Triangle.

1492: Christopher Columbus And Santa María

The earliest recorded incident involving the Bermuda Triangle dates back to 1492 during the first voyage of Christopher Columbus. The day before Santa María reached the island of Guanahani in the Bahamas, Columbus and his crew saw mysterious lights.



Photo Courtesy: [Giovanni Squarcina/Wikimedia Commons]


The first of these mysterious lights resembled stars moving around the sky. Columbus also witnessed a faraway light similar to a candle going up and down. Upon asking his crew to look at it, the light vanished only to reappear multiple times. Additionally, Columbus reported a glowing object that emerged from the sea and flew towards the sky.

1800: USS Pickering

After the mysterious sightings reported by Christopher Columbus and his crew, it would be three centuries before another incident involving the Bermuda Triangle. USS Pickering, a topsail schooner constructed in 1798, set sail from New Castle, Delaware, on August 20, 1800.



Photo Courtesy: [U.S. Navy Historical Center/Wikimedia Commons]


The destination of the Pickering was Guadeloupe in the West Indies, meaning that it would have passed through the Bermuda Triangle. Unfortunately, the ship never reached its destination, disappearing without a trace. Though some have suggested that a gale destroyed the Pickering, there is no proof of this.

1800: USS Insurgent

Interestingly, another ship disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle around the same time as USS Pickering. USS Insurgent was a Sémillante-class frigate, initially in the service of the French Navy until its capture by USS Constellation in 1799, as pictured here.



Photo Courtesy: [John William Schmidt/Wikimedia Commons]


Following its capture, the Insurgent patrolled the waters of the West Indies. On July 22, 1800, the ship left from Baltimore, Maryland, and after briefly stopping at Hampton Roads, set out towards the Bermuda Triangle. However, no one saw the Insurgent or its crew ever again.

1814: USS Wasp

USS Wasp served in the U.S. Navy during the War of 1812, capturing numerous vessels and sinking HMS Reindeer and HMS Avon. Despite the proven capabilities of the ship and its crew, they would be no match for the Bermuda Triangle.



Photo Courtesy: [Thomas Whitcombe/Wikimedia Commons]


After capturing HMS Atlanta, Captain Johnston Blakeley brought the ship's captain, mate, and supercargo aboard the Wasp while sending the Atlanta to Savannah, Georgia. The last known position of the Wasp was in the Caribbean, where it vanished with 140 people on board.

1824: USS Wild Cat

USS Wild Cat was a two-masted schooner in the United States Navy and a member of the West Indies Squadron. This squadron, formed to subdue pirate raids on merchant ships, operated in the West Indies during the early 1800s.



Photo Courtesy: [Anthony Finley/Wikimedia Commons]


On October 28, 1824, the Wild Cat was sailing from Cuba to Thompson's Island in the Straits of Florida. The ship never reached its destination, as it was lost in a gale in the Bermuda Triangle, resulting in approximately 31 people drowning.

1840: Rosalie

The first reported discovery of an abandoned ship in the Bermuda Triangle is the Rosalie, found in the Bahamas in 1840. According to an article in The London Times from November 6, the Rosalie did not appear to have sustained any damage and had a fully intact cargo of silks, wines, and fruit.



Photo Courtesy: [Internet Archive Book Images/Wikimedia Commons]


The only living creatures on the ship were a cat and some birds, including several starving canaries. Additionally, everything indicated that the crew and passengers of the Rosalie had only abandoned it recently.

1872: Mary Celeste

On November 5, 1872, the American brigantine Mary Celeste left New York City for Genoa, Italy, with a cargo of 1,701 barrels of denatured alcohol. Almost a month later, on December 4, the Canadian brigantine Dei Gratia found the ship adrift and abandoned roughly halfway between the Azores and the Portuguese coast.



Photo Courtesy: [RedCoat10/Wikimedia Commons]


The final entry in the ship's daily log was from November 25, nine days before Dei Gratia found it. One popular theory about the fate of Mary Celeste suggests that it accidentally sailed into the Bermuda Triangle, resulting in the disappearance of its crew.

1881: Ellen Austin

In 1881, the schooner Ellen Austin discovered an abandoned ship drifting near the Bermuda Triangle. Though Ellen Austin was traveling to London, Captain Baker decided to wait two days before boarding the derelict since it could be a trap. After finally boarding the ship, Baker placed some of his best crew members there so that the two vessels could sail together.



Photo Courtesy: [Greg Pease/Stone/Getty Images]


Just two days later, a storm separated Ellen Austin from the other ship, which vanished. The lookout later spotted the vessel using his spyglass, only to see it drifting like before. When Ellen Austin caught up with it, the ship had once again become abandoned. Another attempt to return it with a new group of crew members ended under the same bizarre circumstances.

1918: USS Cyclops

Launched on May 7, 1910, the USS Cyclops was a Proteus-class collier, a bulk carrier designed to transport coal. It was the second vessel in the United States Navy called the Cyclops, taking its name from the one-eyed giants of Greek mythology.



Photo Courtesy: [Naval History & Heritage Command/Wikimedia Commons]


On March 4, 1918, the Cyclops left Barbados for Baltimore, Maryland. The ship never arrived, vanishing with over 300 passengers and crew somewhere north of Barbados. Mysteriously, there was no distress signal from the Cyclops, no storm strong enough to sink it, and no trace of the vessel despite an extensive search.

1921: Carroll A. Deering

After delivering its cargo in Rio and stopping for supplies in Barbados, the schooner Carroll A. Deering set sail for Hampton Roads on January 9, 1921. On February 4, the ship was discovered aground on the Diamond Shoals, a cluster of sandbars off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina.



Photo Courtesy: [Bettmann/Bettmann/Getty Images]


The steering equipment had suffered considerable damage, and the ship's log, crew members, and lifeboats were all missing. Some of the vessel's bow had drifted to Ocracoke Island, as pictured here. Since the Deering passed through the Bermuda Triangle, some believe that the ship and its crew became victims of the mysterious region.

1925: SS Cotopaxi

SS Cotopaxi, named after a volcano in the Andes Mountains of Ecuador, was constructed in 1918 as part of a World War I emergency shipbuilding program. In 1925, while traveling from Charleston, South Carolina, to Havana, Cuba, the ship and its crew of 32 disappeared.



Photo Courtesy: [Center for Military History/Wikimedia Commons]


Around the time of its disappearance, a distress call reported that the ship was sinking. Nearly a century after it vanished in the Bermuda Triangle, a wreck found off the coast of St. Augustine, Florida, was identified as Cotopaxi in 2020.

1941: USS Proteus

When it vanished without a trace in the Bermuda Triangle, USS Proteus met a similar fate as its sister ship, USS Cyclops. Proteus was the lead ship of its class, serving in the United States Navy for over a decade before its decommissioning in 1924.



Photo Courtesy: [US Navy/Wikimedia Commons]


Sold to Saguenay Terminals Ltd. of Montreal, Quebec, in 1941, Proteus was operating in the Canadian Merchant Navy at the time of its disappearance. Some believe that it sank somewhere in the Caribbean Sea, resulting in the loss of its entire crew.

1941: USS Nereus

Named after one of the aquatic deities from Greek mythology, USS Nereus was the third and final Proteus-class collier to disappear in the Bermuda Triangle. In December 1941, while traveling from the Virgin Islands with ore to make aluminum for the Allied Powers, the ship vanished without a trace.



Photo Courtesy: [Hideokun/Wikimedia Commons]


Interestingly, Nereus was taking the same route that its sister ship, USS Cyclops, had at the time of its disappearance. There were no German U-boat claims for sinking the vessel, which only adds to the mystery of its fate.

1945: Flight 19

One of the earliest aircraft incidents involving the Bermuda Triangle is the disappearance of Flight 19. Consisting of five Grumman TBF Avenger torpedo bombers, Flight 19 left a naval air station in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on December 5, 1945, for a routine training mission.



Photo Courtesy: [National Archives/Wikimedia Commons]


Around 4:00 PM, a radio message believed to be from the leader of Flight 19 and a second pilot indicated that the instructor was unsure of their position. Additionally, he seemed uncertain of the direction of the Florida coast, as the compasses on the aircraft were malfunctioning. After the loss of radio contact, Flight 19 was never seen or heard from again.

1945: Martin PBM Mariner

The news of Flight 19's disappearance soon spread to numerous aircraft, merchant ships, and naval air stations. Two Martin PBM Mariner seaplanes were diverted from their planned training flights to assist in the search.



Photo Courtesy: [U.S. Navy/Wikimedia Commons]


Following its takeoff from Naval Air Station Banana River in Brevard County, Florida, one of the seaplanes vanished. A merchant ship off Fort Lauderdale reported seeing an explosion before passing through an oil slick matching the plane's approximate location. As with the five aircraft from Flight 19, no one ever found a trace of the missing Martin PBM Mariner.

1947: Douglas C-54 Skymaster

The United States Army Air Forces utilized the Douglas C-54 Skymaster, a four-engine military transport aircraft, in World War II and the Korean War. On July 3, 1947, a C-54 carrying a crew of six became a victim of the Bermuda Triangle, crashing into the ocean off the coast of Florida.



Photo Courtesy: [Signaleer/Wikimedia Commons]


Based on available information about the crash, it appears that the pilot lost control of the C-54 when it encountered severe weather. Strangely, there was no evidence of the pilot trying to circumnavigate the unfavorable conditions or the crew attempting to escape from the aircraft.

1948: Star Tiger

Owned and operated by British South American Airways, Star Tiger was on a flight from the island of Santa Maria in the Azores to Bermuda when it inexplicably vanished over the Atlantic Ocean on January 30, 1948. According to a press dispatch released later that day, the aircraft was 440 miles northeast of Bermuda when it disappeared.



Photo Courtesy: [RuthAS/Wikimedia Commons]


There were 25 passengers and six crew members, including 16 British citizens, aboard Star Tiger. One of the passengers was Arthur Coningham, a World War I and World War II veteran who helped plan air support for the Normandy landings.

1948: Douglas DC-3 NC16002

A Douglas DC-3 airliner with a registration number of NC16002 left San Juan, Puerto Rico, for Miami, Florida, on December 28, 1948. Aboard were 29 passengers and a small crew consisting of pilot Robert Linquist, co-pilot Ernest Hill, and flight attendant Mary Burke.



Photo Courtesy: [U.S. Farm Security Administration/Office of War/Wikimedia Commons]


In his final transmission, Linquist reported that he was 50 miles south of Miami. However, the message was received at New Orleans and subsequently relayed to Miami, indicating that the DC-3 drifted off course in the Bermuda Triangle. To this day, no one has ever found a trace of the plane or its passengers.

1949: Star Ariel

On January 17, 1949, almost a year after the disappearance of Star Tiger, another British South American Airways aircraft vanished in the Bermuda Triangle. After taking off from Bermuda, Star Ariel was flying to Kingston, Jamaica, with 13 passengers and a crew of seven aboard.



Photo Courtesy: [Zoltan Kluger/Wikimedia Commons]


Both Star Tiger and Star Ariel were Tudor IV aircraft, causing British South American Airways to withdraw its remaining Tudor IV aircraft from service. The disappearances of the two planes remain unsolved and have continued to fuel speculation about the Bermuda Triangle.

1949: Boeing B-29 Superfortress

A Boeing B-29 Superfortress experienced engine problems while flying from California to the United Kingdom on November 16, 1949. The issues occurred over the Atlantic Ocean in the Bermuda Triangle, forcing the captain to ditch the aircraft.



Photo Courtesy: [Rottweiler/Wikimedia Commons]


Of the 20 people aboard the B-29, two drowned following the crash. Fortunately, the crew of a Canadian destroyer rescued the 18 survivors two days later, approximately 385 miles northeast of Bermuda.

1950: Sandra

Sandra was a 350-foot freighter that went missing in the Bermuda Triangle with all 12 of its crew. The ship sailed from Miami, Florida, and stopped at Savannah, Georgia, picking up 300 tons of insecticide. The Port of Savannah, one of the busiest seaports in the United States, is pictured here.



Photo Courtesy: [US Army Corps of Engineers/Wikimedia Commons]


Upon leaving Savannah, the freighter set out for Puerto Cabello, Venezuela, with its cargo of insecticide. However, no one ever saw Sandra again after it departed from Savannah, and no trace of the ship has ever turned up.

1950: The First Article About Disappearances Near Bermuda

An article that appeared in the Miami Herald on September 17, 1950, titled Sea's Puzzles Still Baffle Men In Pushbutton Age, was the first publication to discuss the unusual disappearances in the Bermuda area. Written by Edward Van Winkle Jones, the article mentions Flight 19, Star Tiger, Star Ariel, and the recent disappearance of the freighter Sandra.



Photo Courtesy: [D E N N I S A X E R Photography/Moment Open/Getty Images]


Jones emphasizes that the world is just as extensive as it was in the time of the ancients, where people and machines can vanish without a trace. At the end of the article is a hand-drawn map highlighting the approximate location of each disappearance.

1952: Sea Mystery At Our Back Door

Sea Mystery at Our Back Door, written by George Sand, appeared in Fate magazine in 1952, two years after Edward Van Winkle Jones's article in the Miami Herald. Like Jones, Sand described the loss of various ships and aircraft in the Bermuda area.



Photo Courtesy: [James Gass/EyeEm/Getty Images]


While Jones's article had mapped out the approximate locations of each disappearance, Sand's article was the first to outline the triangular area now known as the Bermuda Triangle. It was also the first to suggest that there was something supernatural behind the Flight 19 incident.

1955: Connemara IV

On September 22, 1955, Connemara IV was in Carlisle Bay, a small harbor in southwest Barbados. Since a hurricane was approaching, the owner of the pleasure yacht strengthened the mooring ropes and deployed two more anchors.



Photo Courtesy: [John White Photos/Moment/Getty Images]


Despite the owner's efforts, Connemara IV dragged her moorings and drifted into the Atlantic Ocean. Four days later, the yacht turned up adrift south of Bermuda, generally intact except for its crew, all of whom had disappeared.

1956: Martin P5M Marlin

Developed from the Martin PBM Mariner, the Martin P5M Marlin was a twin-engine seaplane that served in the United States Navy from 1951 until 1967. On November 19, 1956, one of these aircraft was taking off from Bermuda when it crashed into the sea, resulting in the deaths of all ten occupants.



Photo Courtesy: [USN/Wikimedia Commons]


Additionally, the seaplane was part of the VP-49 patrol squadron. The aircraft was reportedly on fire before its deadly crash in the Bermuda Triangle, though the exact cause of the fire remains uncertain to this day.

1958: Revonoc

Revonoc was a 43-foot racing yawl that went missing in a hurricane somewhere between Key West and Miami, Florida, in 1958. The passengers aboard the boat were Harvey Conover, who was the owner, and four other people.



Photo Courtesy: [Abacoaseo/Wikimedia Commons]


No one saw Conover or any of the other passengers ever again. The only trace of Revonoc that turned up was a 14-foot rowboat discovered near Jupiter, the northernmost town in Palm Beach County, Florida.

1962: Boeing B-50 Superfortress

Introduced in 1947, the Boeing B-50 Superfortress succeeded the World War II-era B-29 and served in the United States Air Force for nearly 20 years. One of these aircraft disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle between the Azores and the eastern coast of the United States on January 8, 1962.



Photo Courtesy: [Stahlkocher/Wikimedia Commons]


By 7:00 PM that evening, a search had begun for the missing B-50. The only possible trace of the missing aircraft was an oil slick in the Atlantic Ocean, discovered approximately 300 miles off the U.S. coast.

1962: Allan W. Eckert Writes About Flight 19

Flight 19 was covered in the April 1962 issue of American Legion magazine, almost 17 years after its disappearance. Allen W. Eckert wrote the article, which was titled The Mystery of The Lost Patrol.



Photo Courtesy: [Horace Bristol/Wikimedia Commons]


The mystery of Flight 19 would later play a minor role in the 1977 science fiction film Close Encounters of the Third Kind. In the opening scene, researchers discover the missing aircraft in the Sonoran Desert, implying an extraterrestrial role in their disappearance.

1963: SS Marine Sulphur Queen

SS Marine Sulphur Queen set out from Beaumont, Texas, on February 2, 1963, with a crew of 39 and a cargo of over 15,000 tons of sulfur. Two days later, the ship reported its position, indicating it was off the coast of Florida.



Photo Courtesy: [Carajou/Wikimedia Commons]


On February 6, Marine Sulphur Queen was reported missing, with an extensive search of the Straits of Florida lasting for 19 days. Though some debris turned up, the searchers could find no trace of the ship or any of its crew. The Coast Guard deduced in the subsequent investigation that Marine Sulphur Queen was unfit to sail and should have never left port.

1963: The Boeing KC-135 Stratotankers

Developed from the Boeing 367-80 prototype, the Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker was an aerial refueling and transport aircraft that entered service in 1956. They played a substantial role in major conflicts like the Vietnam War and the Gulf War, where they helped extend the range of tactical fighters and bombers.



Photo Courtesy: [Taylor Shelton/Wikimedia Commons]


After refueling B-47s, a KC-135 aircraft collided with another KC-135 on August 28, 1963. The two heavily damaged planes then crashed into the Atlantic Ocean approximately 300 miles west of Bermuda.

1964: The Deadly Bermuda Triangle

The Deadly Bermuda Triangle was an article that appeared in Argosy, a New York-based pulp magazine, in February 1964. Written by Vincent Gaddis, the piece discussed the disappearance of Flight 19 and similar instances of people going missing in the Bermuda region.



Photo Courtesy: [Bill Heinsohn/Photodisc/Getty Images]


While not the first person to write about the strange events around Bermuda, Gaddis came up with the term Bermuda Triangle, first used in this article. Aside from the Bermuda Triangle, he published many other writings about abnormal phenomena.

1965: Fairchild C-119G Flying Boxcar

First flown in November 1947, the Fairchild C-119 became known as the Flying Boxcar due to its cargo-hauling capabilities. One of these aircraft vanished in the Bermuda Triangle, somewhere between Florida and Grand Turk Island, on June 9, 1965.



Photo Courtesy: [U.S. Air Force/Wikimedia Commons]


The last transmission from the missing C-119 came from an area north of Crooked Island in the Bahamas. On July 18, more than a month after its disappearance, wreckage from the aircraft washed up on the shore of nearby Acklins Island.

1965: ERCO Ercoupe F01

On December 6, 1965, almost six months after the disappearance of the Fairchild C-119, a private ERCO Ercoupe also vanished in the Bermuda Triangle. The Ercoupe was a light aircraft advertised as the safest in the world, as it was the first to be certified by the Civil Aeronautics Administration as incapable of spinning.



Photo Courtesy: [Robert Myers/Wikimedia Commons]


The aircraft was flying to Grand Bahama, the northernmost island in the Bahamas, from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, when it went missing. No one saw the pilot or the passenger ever again, and the Ercoupe was presumed lost.

1965: Invisible Horizons

The year after his article about the Bermuda Triangle appeared in Argosy magazine, Vincent Gaddis published Invisible Horizons. In the book, Gaddis expanded on many of the ideas from his earlier writing.



Photo Courtesy: [James O'Neil/The Image Bank/Getty Images]


Aside from the mysteries of the Bermuda Triangle, Invisible Horizons explores a variety of phenomena witnessed on the high seas. Mysterious Fires and Lights, written by Gaddis and published in 1967, similarly discussed UFOs, ball lightning, and other strange events.

1967: Dan Burack And The Witchcraft

Dan Burack, a hotel owner from Miami, Florida, set sail aboard his luxury yacht Witchcraft on December 22, 1967. Accompanying Burack was his friend, Father Patrick Horgan. The two men intended to see the Christmas lights visible off the Florida coast.



Photo Courtesy: [Anton Petrus/Moment/Getty Images]


That night, Burack sent out a distress call, in which he reported that the yacht appeared to have hit something underwater. When the Coast Guard arrived at the location where the distress call came from, they found no sign of Burack, Horgan, or Witchcraft. Despite an extensive search across hundreds of square miles, no one ever found the yacht or its passengers.

1969: Great Isaac Lighthouse

A rare instance of people disappearing in the Bermuda Triangle on land took place in August 1969. Constructed in 1859, Great Isaac Lighthouse is on Great Isaac Cay, a small island in the Bahamas only accessible by boat.



Photo Courtesy: [Michael S. King/Wikimedia Commons]


The two lighthouse keepers vanished as Hurricane Anna, the first hurricane of 1969, passed through the area. However, many believe that the missing keepers were victims of mysterious forces from the Bermuda Triangle.

1969: Limbo Of The Lost

The same year as the disappearances at Great Isaac Lighthouse saw the release of Limbo of the Lost. Written by John Wallace Spencer, it was one of several books released in the 1960s and 1970s to elaborate on the ideas presented by Vincent Gaddis.



Photo Courtesy: [Russ Schleipman/The Image Bank/Getty Images]


Spencer's book became a bestseller at its publication, with sales of approximately two million copies. Upon its reissue in 1973, the book title expanded to Limbo of the Lost: Actual Stories of Sea Mysteries.

1971: Cessna 337 Super Skymaster

First flown in 1961, the Cessna Skymaster was a twin-engine aircraft commonly used as an air taxi. On July 23, 1973, one of these planes crashed somewhere between Barbados and Curaçao, with four people on board.



Photo Courtesy: [bomberpilot/Wikimedia Commons]


During the intensive two-week search, no one could find the aircraft or its passengers: Paul and Delores Warren and Jerome and Leatrice Levin. Pictured here is a Cessna 337 Super Skymaster similar to the one that went down.

1974: The Bermuda Triangle

The Bermuda Triangle, written by Charles Berlitz and published in 1974, helped increase public awareness of the disappearances of ships and airplanes in the titular region. Berlitz, pictured here, also describes various theories explaining these incidents, such as a possible connection between the Bermuda Triangle and Atlantis.



Photo Courtesy: [Toronto Star Archives/Toronto Star/Getty Images]


Upon its release, The Bermuda Triangle became a massive success, selling almost 20 million copies in 30 languages. It later served as the basis for a 1978 science fiction horror film directed by Mexican filmmaker René Cardona Jr.

1974: The Devil's Triangle

The Devil's Triangle, released in 1974, was the first book by author and ghost hunter Richard Winer. Similar to The Bermuda Triangle by Charles Berlitz, it explored various disappearances in the Bermuda region.



Photo Courtesy: [UFO Distributing Inc./IMDb]


A documentary film, directed by Winer and narrated by actor Vincent Price, preceded the publication of The Devil's Triangle. Winer later wrote The Devil's Triangle 2, published in 1976, and From the Devil's Triangle to the Devil's Jaw, published in 1977.

1975: The Bermuda Triangle Mystery Solved

The Bermuda Triangle Mystery Solved, written by Larry Kusche, explored inconsistencies and inaccuracies between Charles Berlitz's The Bermuda Triangle and accounts from eyewitnesses and participants in the events described. The book, published in 1975, also claimed that Vincent Gaddis and others had presented doubtful or unverifiable claims about the region.



Photo Courtesy: [Anke Peterat/Moment/Getty Images]


Kusche concluded that the number of missing ships and aircraft in the region was not significantly more than anywhere else in the ocean. Additionally, he deduced that the legends surrounding the Bermuda Triangle were nothing more than a manufactured mystery.

1978: Eastern Caribbean Airways Flight 912

On November 3, 1978, Eastern Caribbean Airways Flight 912 was approaching Harry S Truman Airport, now known as Cyril E. King Airport, on the island of St. Thomas. The aircraft, a Piper PA-31-350 Navajo Chieftain piloted by Irving Rivers, had departed from the island of St. Croix.



Photo Courtesy: [YSSYguy/Wikimedia Commons]


Air traffic controller William A. Kittinger sighted Flight 912 from the control tower, where he estimated it to be within two miles of the runway. Suddenly, the aircraft inexplicably vanished from sight. Despite a four-day search, no one ever found Flight 912 or its pilot.

1980: HMCS St. Laurent

Launched in 1951, HMCS St. Laurent was commissioned into the Royal Canadian Navy almost four years later. The ship continued to serve after the unification of the Canadian Armed Forces in 1968 until its decommissioning in 1974.



Photo Courtesy: [BrettA343/Wikimedia Commons]


After its decommissioning, St. Laurent remained in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where it became a source of spare parts for other vessels. Sold for scrapping, the ship was sailing to Brownsville, Texas, on January 12, 1980, when it encountered a hurricane. St. Laurent took on water and sank off Cape Hatteras, the closest part of mainland North America to Bermuda.

2005: Piper PA-23

A Piper PA-23 went missing in the Bermuda Triangle on June 20, 2005. This twin-engined light aircraft, used in small numbers by the armed forces of numerous countries, is primarily aimed at civilian aviators.



Photo Courtesy: [Dale Coleman/Wikimedia Commons]


The aircraft was between Treasure Cay in the Bahamas and Fort Pierce, Florida, when it vanished. Since air traffic controllers failed to warn the pilot of rainfall in his route, the Piper PA-23 may have flown into a thunderstorm before crashing into the ocean.

2007: PA-46-310P

Piper developed the PA-46 family of aircraft in the late 1970s to compete with the Cessna 210 Centurion. The first model, the PA-46-310P Malibu, made its inaugural flight in August 1982, with deliveries starting the following year.



Photo Courtesy: [John Davies/Wikimedia Commons]


On April 10, 2007, a PA-46-310P Malibu crashed in the Bermuda Triangle near the Berry Islands, a chain of islands in the Bahamas. Just before losing altitude, the aircraft had flown into a severe thunderstorm. Tragically, neither of the passengers aboard survived the crash.

2015: Perry Cohen And Austin Stephanos

Perry Cohen and Austin Stephanos, two 14-year-old friends, went missing in the Bermuda Triangle off the coast of Florida in 2015. The boys were on a fishing trip, which they had done many times in the past.



Photo Courtesy: [Elizabeth W. Kearley/Moment Mobile/Getty Images]


Soon after Cohen and Stephanos set out on their boat, the National Weather Service warned about heavy rain and winds. A friend reported that one of the last videos posted on Stephanos's Snapchat account showed a storm rapidly approaching the boat. Pictured here is news coverage of the boys' disappearance several days later.

2015: SS El Faro

Originally named SS Puerto Rico, then SS Northern Lights, this cargo ship became SS El Faro in 2006. With a crew of 33, consisting of 28 Americans and five Polish nationals, it set out for San Juan, Puerto Rico, from Jacksonville, Florida, on September 29, 2015.



Photo Courtesy: [U.S. Navy/Wikimedia Commons]


The cargo ship never reached its destination, sinking near the Bahamas in the Bermuda Triangle after sailing into Hurricane Joaquin. Search crews eventually discovered El Faro approximately 15,000 feet below the surface, as pictured here.

2017: Turkish Airlines Flight TK183

Turkish Airlines Flight TK183 was traveling from Istanbul to Havana on February 23, 2017. The aircraft, which was an Airbus A330-200, had to pass through the Bermuda Triangle as it neared the Cuban capital.



Photo Courtesy: [Konstantin von Wedelstaedt/Wikimedia Commons]


The aircraft began experiencing some electrical and mechanical problems in the Bermuda Triangle, ultimately forcing it to divert to Dulles International Airport outside of Washington, D.C. Unlike many other aircraft that have run into trouble in the Bermuda Triangle, Flight TK183 made it out intact.

2017: Mitsubishi MU-2

Unfortunately, a privately owned Mitsubishi MU-2 aircraft was not as lucky as Turkish Airlines Flight TK183. On May 15, 2017, at an elevation of 24,000 feet, the plane and its four passengers mysteriously vanished from 37 miles east of the Bahamian island of Eleuthera.



Photo Courtesy: [Alan Lebeda/Wikimedia Commons]


With air traffic controllers in Miami unable to reestablish radio contact, the Mitsubishi MU-2 remained missing until debris turned up in its last known location. It seems that the pilot lost control of the plane, which then crashed into the ocean.

2020: The Mako Cuddy Cabin Boat

Even today, the Bermuda Triangle continues to be shrouded in mystery. One of the most recent disappearances in the region took place in December 2020, when a 29-foot Mako Cuddy Cabin boat vanished with 20 people aboard.



Photo Courtesy: [Bloomberg/Bloomberg/Getty Images]


Last seen on December 28, the boat departed from Bimini, a chain of islands that comprise the westernmost part of the Bahamas. Intended to arrive in Lake Worth Beach, Florida, the vessel's whereabouts remain a mystery, despite the Coast Guard and others spending around 84 hours searching over 17,000 square miles.