Bermuda Triangle

An area of the Western Atlantic between Bermuda and Florida where ships and planes are said to have vanished without a trace. During the late 1960s, inspired largely by the volume by Vincent Gaddis, Invisible Horizons: True Mysteries of the Sea (1965), a popular controversy erupted around claims that since 1945 over 100 ships and planes and more than 1,000 people have disappeared in the Bermuda triangle. The area was also termed "the Hoodoo Sea," "the Devil's Triangle," "Limbo of the Lost," "the Twilight Zone," and "Port of Missing Ships." Charles Berlitz, who wrote several books on the triangle, speculated on the possibility of time warps, electromagnetic impulses from vanished civilizations, and extraterrestrial activities in UFOs.

The controversy was largely put to rest by Lawrence David Kusche in his book The Bermuda Triangle Mystery—Solved. Kusche destroyed the mystery in a case-by-case discussion of the alleged disappearances. Many had been solved, but popular writers were unaware of the relevant literature. Others happened outside of the triangle. Many had perfectly normal explanations. Since Kusche's book appeared, discussion of the Bermuda triangle has been confined to the fringe, though a few writers like Berlitz have tried to perpetuate interest.

Among the more interesting theories put forward to solve the alleged mystery was proposed by Russian oceanographer Vladimir Azhazha. In articles published in reputable scientific journals in the U.S.S.R. and the United States, Azhazha suggested that storms in the triangle area generate "infrasound"— low-frequency waves that are inaudible to human beings but that can be magnified by special conditions to become a force powerful enough to destroy ships and planes. Infrasound is a frequency lower than 16 cycles per second. In an interview in Moscow published in the National Enquirer (November 15, 1977), Azhazha stated that he believed infrasonic waves in the Devil's Triangle are amplified by such factors as changes in water temperature and a powerful undersea river running in an opposite direction to ocean currents.

Scientists at the Wave Propagation Laboratory of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) confirm that the power of infrasonic vibrations does increase in a storm and that sound can be carried thousands of miles. A NOAA research oceanographer stated that there are very sharp changes in the temperature of the water in the Devil's Triangle because of the Gulf Stream, and that different temperatures in water could cause differences in the intensity of infrasound, either increasing it or decreasing it.

In the National Enquirer, Azhazha stated: "An infrasonic sound wave can travel thousands of miles to find its victim in a calm sea. If the wave is gigantic enough, a crew can perish almost instantly. Death will come from stopping of the heart or destruction of the cardiovascular system." In the resulting panic, a ship's crew might even abandon ship. Azhazha claimed that the hull and masts of the ship would begin to vibrate in tune with the infrasound, cracking the ship and breaking it up.

Azhazha's theory was published in the Soviet magazine Science and Life, and a similar theory was also put forward by Soviet science writer I. Boyetin. Tests conducted in France have supported the theory that infrasound can damage ships, and Dr. Freeman Hall, chief of the atmospheric acoustic program at NOAA Wave Propagation Laboratory, Boulder, Colorado, confirmed that severe storms can generate such a phenomenon, and that it can also be dangerous to human beings. The theory has not been tested, however, because the mystery was largely accounted for by other means.