Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff You Should Know?
Speaker 1: From House Stuff Works dot Com? Hey, and welcome to
Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant,
Speaker 1: and that makes this stuff you should know the podcast
Speaker 1: the rip off of stuff they don't want you to
Speaker 1: know in this particular episode. It's right, but that's not
Speaker 1: the case at all. I was just singing Barry Mantel
Speaker 1: to Josh right before we recorded. Yeah, what song is it?
Speaker 1: He had a song called the Bermuda Triangle, and I
Speaker 1: think I remember the gist of it was that the
Speaker 1: Bermuda Triangle not only makes ships and planes disappeared, but
Speaker 1: people from your love life we'll disappear as well through
Speaker 1: the Bermuda Triangle. I don't know, I don't remember, but
Speaker 1: I was, as I told you, I was big into
Speaker 1: very Man. I was a kid up for some reason.
Speaker 1: When I was eight, I just thought he was the
Speaker 1: bee's knees. He's very cool. Yeah, he asked me, you
Speaker 1: me has every single one of his records at homes
Speaker 1: lost to go home and route that song out. I
Speaker 1: still have get to the bottom of stub mind in
Speaker 1: the attic, do you? Oh yeah, it's sweet. Do you
Speaker 1: have a nice record collection hitting up in the attic? Um,
Speaker 1: I've got about two crates, not not a ton, but
Speaker 1: i'll bet their choice. Yeah, they're pretty good. Okay, Well
Speaker 1: there you have at the Bermuda Triangle. Thank you everybody.
Speaker 1: The records range from Barry Manilow to like Molly Hatchett.
Speaker 1: So that tells you what happened between ages nine and
Speaker 1: fifteen for me, Um, chuck, Josh, you want to get
Speaker 1: to this. Yeah, yeah, I mean you were a kid.
Speaker 1: You just admitted to being a kid once. I was once. Um,
Speaker 1: so of course the Remuda tryan al must have struck
Speaker 1: your fancy at some point. Well, in the seventies it
Speaker 1: was a big deal. Like I remember it being a
Speaker 1: big deal in the seventies and I was kind of thinking,
Speaker 1: you know, you never hear about it anymore. But I
Speaker 1: think it was due to the book. Charles Berlitzs book
Speaker 1: came out in nineteen What was it called the Bermuda Triangle. Oh, oh,
Speaker 1: it's the Bermuda Triangle. Um, oh no, that's a different one.
Speaker 1: No, No No, his was just a Bermuda Triangle. But his
Speaker 1: sold twenty million copies. And like, I remember this being
Speaker 1: a big deal at the time. It was like on
Speaker 1: the Mike Douglas Show. And yeah, so I think that's
Speaker 1: why it was so big in the seventies. People were
Speaker 1: dumber back then. Plus Berry Manlow that was in the seventies.
Speaker 1: It was I'll bet it he wrote that song after
Speaker 1: the book. Um, well, if you wanted to talk about this,
Speaker 1: my intro wasn't that good anyway, So you want to
Speaker 1: just get into the Bermuda Triangle. The intro disappeared like
Speaker 1: so many ships at sea. That was very good, Charles W.
Speaker 1: Chuck Bryant, thank you. Um. So we think of the
Speaker 1: Bermuda Triangle. Is this old, possibly ancient, possibly lost mystery.
Speaker 1: Um that is that forms a triangle. It's a geographical,
Speaker 1: made up, fictitious geographical area bounded were or with its
Speaker 1: points between San Juan, Puerto Rico. Um, Bermuda greatly enough
Speaker 1: and Miami. Um it's real, but it's just not like
Speaker 1: it's not recognized by any official geographic bodies. Right. But
Speaker 1: if you look at a map, you could also make
Speaker 1: Bermuda quadrahedron with like eight other places too, So yeah,
Speaker 1: it's as real as the Bermuda quadrahedron. Um. It's not
Speaker 1: real if you are a member of the U S
Speaker 1: Board of Geographic Names, because they don't recognize it formally.
Speaker 1: Most people don't, um, not officially at least. Um. But
Speaker 1: I was saying that, you know, it seems like it's
Speaker 1: been around a long time. It wasn't until nineteen four
Speaker 1: that it got its name. Did you know that? I
Speaker 1: did because we actually researched this a long time ago
Speaker 1: and didn't do it for some reason. So I knew
Speaker 1: it from then, but only from then. Um. And there
Speaker 1: there's I mean, if you are into this kind of thing,
Speaker 1: you are well aware that there have been hundreds and
Speaker 1: hundreds of ships that have gone miss seeing over say
Speaker 1: the past century. Um, planes, ships, cars, somehow people just
Speaker 1: gone depends on who you asked, right, well, it depends
Speaker 1: on you know how, like I say, if you're into
Speaker 1: it or not. And basically the key to the Bermuda
Speaker 1: triangle is statistics. How you take statistics, how you either
Speaker 1: manipulate them yourselves or or how you accept statistics at
Speaker 1: face value, is probably a pretty good indicator about how
Speaker 1: you feel about the Bermuda Triangle. Um, there's been all
Speaker 1: sorts of explanations from uh, basically natural phenomenon, to the
Speaker 1: idea that Atlantis is down there somewhere, which we'll get into,
Speaker 1: to the idea that it's really no different than anywhere
Speaker 1: else and it's just a bunch of uh sensationalism. Yes,
Speaker 1: but no matter how you look at the Bermuda Triangle,
Speaker 1: it encompasses about five square miles. It's huge and extremely
Speaker 1: well traveled. It's not off the beaten path at all.
Speaker 1: You a lot of people want to go to Bermuda.
Speaker 1: The Bahamas is in there, I mean, come on. Yeah. Plus,
Speaker 1: it's just it's just a heavily traveled route in area.
Speaker 1: Right as far as shipping goes, I imagine two right. So, Um,
Speaker 1: Supposedly there's been as many as a hundred ships and
Speaker 1: a thousand lives lost in the Bermuda Triangle in the
Speaker 1: last century. Right. Some say part of the problem is
Speaker 1: the Coast Guards supposedly says that it doesn't that there's
Speaker 1: not an unusual amount of incidents there that Okay, a
Speaker 1: thousand people have died and a hundred ships have been
Speaker 1: lost in last hundred years. Yeah, that's nothing. Um. Other
Speaker 1: people say, no, that's not the case. Lloyd's of London, which,
Speaker 1: by the way, Chuck, if you listen to the Coffee podcast,
Speaker 1: the tie that binds coffee to Bermuda Triangle is to London.
Speaker 1: It's right, uh. In nive the editor of Fate magazine,
Speaker 1: Mary Margaret Fuller, Um, she contacted Lloyd's of London and said, hey, um,
Speaker 1: can you give me a list of payoffs for the
Speaker 1: Bermuda Triangle? And lloyd said sure we can. Of course,
Speaker 1: we do this thing all the time. And um, four
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty eight vessels were reported missing throughout the
Speaker 1: world between nine and the Bermuda Triangle didn't have any
Speaker 1: significantly higher incidents than any other area, supposedly, which is
Speaker 1: why the insurance premiums the Bermuda Triangle are no different
Speaker 1: than anywhere else as well. Yes, you should point out, uh,
Speaker 1: if you ask a guy, I love this guy's name
Speaker 1: name g n this' with a G, I, A N J.
Speaker 1: Let's just come on and say it, Gan Quasar, Gene
Speaker 1: and J Quasar. Is that is that supposed to be?
Speaker 1: That's what I'm calling right, Have you been his page? No?
Speaker 1: Actually that's not true. He um. He he's the administrator
Speaker 1: of Bermuda hyphen Triangle dot org and I believe I
Speaker 1: have been to that page before. And he's the author
Speaker 1: of Into the Bermuda Triangle Cohen Pursuing the Truth behind
Speaker 1: the World's Greatest Mystery. Yes, I went to his site
Speaker 1: because I felt like I owed it to him to
Speaker 1: check this out. And it is another one of those
Speaker 1: sites that looks like my Space page from like two
Speaker 1: thousand two. And it doesn't draw you in as far
Speaker 1: as looking valid. I'm not saying it's not, but it
Speaker 1: doesn't look super professional. There has there's like texts that's overlapping,
Speaker 1: the images in some pages don't load like user A
Speaker 1: good user experience adds tremendous veracity to one's fantastic claims.
Speaker 1: It really does, Mr Quasar, We mean it. If you
Speaker 1: update your user experience, people will listen more. I would
Speaker 1: have honestly stayed on the site a lot longer. I've
Speaker 1: been like, let me look at this, but as soon
Speaker 1: as I saw it, I went come on. But despite
Speaker 1: his lack of web design skill, yes, yeah, he has
Speaker 1: like put a lot of time and effort and energy
Speaker 1: into researching the Bermuda triangle, and he's one of the
Speaker 1: ones that says, hey, Lloyd's of London, that's that's that's
Speaker 1: why would you go to Lloyds of London. That's what
Speaker 1: he says. Well, he says that Lloyds of London doesn't
Speaker 1: even keep track of smaller craft, and a lot of
Speaker 1: these smaller craft are missing, and they don't even insure yachts,
Speaker 1: which is not true. I look that up. I thought
Speaker 1: that was odd. I'm glad you looked. I don't know
Speaker 1: if they're maybe he means yachts of a certain size,
Speaker 1: but they definitely insure yachts. In fact, they were, ironically,
Speaker 1: if I'm not mistaken, the originators of maritime insurance way
Speaker 1: back when. I might be wrong, but I thought, I remember,
Speaker 1: I don't think you're wrong. Um, so well Mr Quasar
Speaker 1: went to the coast Guard instead. Uh. The coast Guard
Speaker 1: has um definitive records on missing vessels, but they call
Speaker 1: them um delayed overdue vessels. Like a three hour tour
Speaker 1: that hasn't come back. Yes, so it's overdue. It's supposed
Speaker 1: to be there after three hours, a hundred and eighty
Speaker 1: thousand hours ago, so it's a very long overdue so
Speaker 1: Mr Quasar found that um that he he was. He
Speaker 1: says that he was given data on overdue vessels UM
Speaker 1: after asking for twelve years, and found that in the
Speaker 1: previous two years, the Coast Guard had records of three
Speaker 1: hundred missing or overdue vessels. Now does that mean that
Speaker 1: they were still overdue or they were overdue by a
Speaker 1: couple of hours and they were just at one point
Speaker 1: listed his overdue There is an excellent question. I didn't
Speaker 1: get that. That is a very good question. Well, I
Speaker 1: hope this guy listens to the podcast. Maybe you can
Speaker 1: tell us. I bet we could contact him through his
Speaker 1: website too. I bet it's not that hard. He also
Speaker 1: went to the National Transportation Safety Board and looked at
Speaker 1: their database and said, hey, okay, let's just take a
Speaker 1: random place. Then if the Bermuda Triangle is no different
Speaker 1: than any other area, how about off the coast of
Speaker 1: New England. Uh, And we'll say for the last ten years,
Speaker 1: there's only been a few disappearances of vessels in the
Speaker 1: Bermuda Triangle over that same time period. I would ask
Speaker 1: Mr Quasar, like, just give me more stats, like did
Speaker 1: he compare the amount of travel? Was it all equalized?
Speaker 1: Whether did he take everything into consideration, right? And I
Speaker 1: mean maybe the the coast of New England has a
Speaker 1: disproportionately low amount of missing vessels, whereas the Gulf of
Speaker 1: Mexico or the Pacific Ocean has higher than the Bermuda Triangle.
Speaker 1: Depends on what you're comparing it to him. Or did
Speaker 1: they have a lot of boats sink that they found
Speaker 1: because the water wasn't as deep or was easily accessible,
Speaker 1: because he's talking about disappearances like where you never find wreckage, right, Um,
Speaker 1: So I guess gen Quasar G and J. Quasar Um
Speaker 1: is a torch bearer of a very long line of
Speaker 1: people who have really sunk their teeth and time and
Speaker 1: energy into this solving this mystery, or or possibly even
Speaker 1: promoting something that isn't a mystery as a mystery because
Speaker 1: they genuinely believe it, Um. And probably what's what kicked
Speaker 1: the whole thing off um, at least in the public's imagination,
Speaker 1: was the missing Squadron, the lost flight Flight nineteen which
Speaker 1: Chuck actually disappeared UM in sixty six years ago. Last week, Yeah,
Speaker 1: they had a little ceremony down at um Fort Lauderdale
Speaker 1: Hollywood International Airport UM to honor the fourteen servicemen who
Speaker 1: were lost on that flight flight nineteen. But that was
Speaker 1: that made huge headlines. Yeah, I mean you want to
Speaker 1: go and tell the story. Yeah, let's talk about flight
Speaker 1: nineteen UM. And you know, I want to point out
Speaker 1: that this is one of the leading stories. And in fact,
Speaker 1: when you go back and look at all the research,
Speaker 1: a lot of this is based on a handful of
Speaker 1: stories that have been retold over and over and over
Speaker 1: by all these different people. So it seems like there's
Speaker 1: more than there are. No, it's just the whole, the whole.
Speaker 1: A mystery of the Bermuda triangle is based on a
Speaker 1: handful of disappearances that are noted, no, noteworth and not like. Okay,
Speaker 1: so h u S Navy Avengers Flight nineteen uh five,
Speaker 1: missing Navy pilot h Avengers. I guess is that the
Speaker 1: kind of plane? Yeah? There, Navy grum and TBF Avengers.
Speaker 1: They were propeller planes, fighter fighter jets or fighter prop
Speaker 1: planes from the end of the war. Okay, So they
Speaker 1: set out on a routine patrol sunny day five highly
Speaker 1: experienced student pilots, which is a little bit of a
Speaker 1: contradiction in terms. Yeah, but I mean, these were Navy pilots,
Speaker 1: So I mean, I'm sure if you put them side
Speaker 1: by side to any other student pilots, they would do
Speaker 1: they would dog fight them into into humiliation, into oblivion. Uh.
Speaker 1: Lieutenant Charles C. Taylor led the mission, and the mission
Speaker 1: included a few course changes departed at one fifteen scheduled
Speaker 1: course changes. Yeah. Basically Taylor knew what he was doing
Speaker 1: and this was a routine flight. That's what some say.
Speaker 1: There's also speculation that's Taylor wasn't super experienced. Well, actually
Speaker 1: the other pilots weren't super experienced, and that he had
Speaker 1: a consistent record of navigation troubles, including ditching airplanes twice
Speaker 1: into the Pacific Ocean. Well that's just routine Navy hazing
Speaker 1: back then. Uh, but we'll get into that. So Taylor
Speaker 1: led the missions. Uh, they took off. We're flying over
Speaker 1: Fort Lauderdale, Florida, when they heard a signal um that
Speaker 1: they thought was from a boat or a plane in distress. No,
Speaker 1: that was Cox that heard that signal. But he was
Speaker 1: part of the crew, right, was he. It was he
Speaker 1: at the base. He was another guy who was flying
Speaker 1: over a different to Florida. Okay, yeah, he was. He
Speaker 1: kind of tried to help them. He got the distress
Speaker 1: signal and he tried to figure out where they were
Speaker 1: and was giving them, Um, okay, that makes more sense.
Speaker 1: So Cox uh told Taylor fly with the sun at
Speaker 1: your left wing and up the coast until you see Miami,
Speaker 1: and you'll know my Miami when you see it. Taylor said, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: we're over a small island and there's no other land anywhere.
Speaker 1: If it was a Florida Keys, which he thought it was,
Speaker 1: he would have seen a bunch of islands obviously, and
Speaker 1: Florida sticking down there. And they only had a couple
Speaker 1: of hours left of fuel. And then Taylor described a
Speaker 1: large island that they assumed was Andros Island, which is
Speaker 1: the largest island in the Bahamas. And so they sent
Speaker 1: him back further instructions to get him to Fort Lauderdale.
Speaker 1: Is that right? Yeah, But there's a big part that
Speaker 1: you left out here, and this is important. Taylor reported
Speaker 1: that everything looked wrong quote yeah, and that his compasses
Speaker 1: were um going haywire. Well yea, and those are two
Speaker 1: those are big, yeah, those are big. When he started
Speaker 1: on this heading, his voice started coming through. Uh, clearer
Speaker 1: and louder, which they took to mean all right, that
Speaker 1: you're headed in the right direction, right, because the bass
Speaker 1: he was talking to was in Fort lauder Down. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so like you're getting closer, you're on the right path.
Speaker 1: But Taylor said, no, no no, no, I don't think you're right.
Speaker 1: I don't think we went far enough east, so we're
Speaker 1: gonna turn around and go east again. Um. At that
Speaker 1: point the voice got less clear and further away, indicating
Speaker 1: that he was probably going in the wrong direction. And
Speaker 1: then that was it. They never heard from him again
Speaker 1: or anybody else. They never found any records as far
Speaker 1: as I understand, they were just lost, all five Navy avengers. Um.
Speaker 1: And there were two seaplanes that were sent out and
Speaker 1: one of them exploded right after takeoff and the other
Speaker 1: one never found any trace of flight nineteen Yeah, so um,
Speaker 1: that's so. In nineteen fifty two, and author George sand
Speaker 1: wrote an article for Fate magazine called c Mystery at
Speaker 1: our back Door and first described a quote watery triangle
Speaker 1: bounded roughly by Florida, Bermuda and Puerto Rico, And then
Speaker 1: in nine uh ragosig sorry Argosy magazine finally gave the
Speaker 1: Triangle its name in an article by Vincent Gaddis called
Speaker 1: the Deadly Bermuda Triangle, which is a pulp magazine that
Speaker 1: writes fiction. But somehow people missed that and took it
Speaker 1: to be a real thing. Right. It even says the
Speaker 1: magazine's tagline is a magazine of master fiction. And when
Speaker 1: you look at it, like I looked it up, it's
Speaker 1: it doesn't look like a valid are not valid, But
Speaker 1: it doesn't look like a newsweek you know what I'm saying. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I know it's UM. Part of the other uh, I
Speaker 1: think thing that captured the public's imagination and that was
Speaker 1: kind of lost on people was originally the Navy UM said.
Speaker 1: They said that flight nine he was lost due to
Speaker 1: pilot error, and uh, Lieutenant Taylor's family was like, no,
Speaker 1: he was way too experience for that. There's no way
Speaker 1: he would do this. There's something else. So the Navy
Speaker 1: was pressured to change it, because this is back when
Speaker 1: the Navy was like, all right, all right, we don't
Speaker 1: want your feelings to be hurt. Uh, And they changed
Speaker 1: it to um something caused unknown, yes, which sounds very mysterious.
Speaker 1: Exactly so, and if the Navy is saying we lost
Speaker 1: five fighter planes to cause is unknown in this area
Speaker 1: that people are calling the Remuna Triangle. That's what really
Speaker 1: gave the Remuna Triangle its initial boost into the capturing
Speaker 1: the public imagination. Yeah, and like I said, I've looked
Speaker 1: up more on Taylor, and apparently the truth is the
Speaker 1: only other four or the other four pilots didn't have
Speaker 1: significant experience. Taylor had a history of getting lost, and
Speaker 1: by the time of his final transmission, they were low
Speaker 1: on fuel, they weren't near land, bad weather came in,
Speaker 1: and they probably crashed and landed on the bottom of
Speaker 1: the ocean. Right. Not very mysterious, no, um. But the
Speaker 1: fact that they were never heard from again, I mean
Speaker 1: that does again capture the public's imagination. That does. That's
Speaker 1: what happened. They're just gone. Things aren't supposed to go,
Speaker 1: especially not airplanes. You're not supposed to not find a
Speaker 1: trace of something. Um. There have been plenty of other
Speaker 1: things that have gone missing, Like you said, a lot
Speaker 1: of them are very famous. UM. One, the Mary Celeste,
Speaker 1: is commonly listed on as a disappearance of the Bermuda Triangle.
Speaker 1: Not so the Mary Celeste, which was a brig from
Speaker 1: the late nineteenth century. I think the eighteen seventies um
Speaker 1: set sail from New York to Spain and shouldn't have
Speaker 1: come anywhere near the Bermuda Triangle when it was found
Speaker 1: around the Strait of Gibraltar, floating adrift, with nary a
Speaker 1: soul board being still on the grill, a pipe still smoking.
Speaker 1: I think when they found it, no explanation whatsoever, just gone.
Speaker 1: But it had nothing to do with the Bermuda trying.
Speaker 1: I wonder how it got mixed up. People just claim
Speaker 1: it that's the problem. It's like, Okay, if there is
Speaker 1: something going on here, you're not You're not helping your
Speaker 1: case in getting it across to incredulous skeptics right by saying,
Speaker 1: plus the mary celasts and that's something exactly UM. But
Speaker 1: there was there was one that is legitimately chalked up
Speaker 1: to the Bermuda Triangle, the MILWAUKEE'SO Airlift wing plane six eight.
Speaker 1: Let's hear about this. So in nineteen on a clear night,
Speaker 1: UM a ship, I'm sorry, a UM flying box car,
Speaker 1: the fair Child C one nineteen, huge, huge old plane.
Speaker 1: It's like the Spruce goose. Huge. UM. It began it
Speaker 1: lifted off from Milwaukee on its way to Grand Turk
Speaker 1: in the Bahamas, which is that's that's like it. That's
Speaker 1: a nice duty, I'm sure. Um. And it landed at
Speaker 1: Homestead Air Force Base at five or four pm, hung
Speaker 1: around for almost three hours, and then lifted off at
Speaker 1: seven pm on its way to the Bahamas. And I
Speaker 1: was never heard from again after about um halfway there.
Speaker 1: I think I never heard from again. No one ever
Speaker 1: found a trace of it. One of the things that
Speaker 1: really um captures the imagination about this one is it
Speaker 1: had a full crew of really experienced flight mechanics and
Speaker 1: flight engineers who knew what they were doing. So if
Speaker 1: there is anything that was wrong with this plane, there
Speaker 1: are plenty of people on board to fix it. Right.
Speaker 1: But nothing the planes has gone forever, no trace, no
Speaker 1: one ever heard of it. Said they found a few
Speaker 1: scraps of debris, yes, but they think that that could
Speaker 1: have been scuttled. It didn't appear to have undergone any
Speaker 1: damage or anything like that. Just like they were right,
Speaker 1: there's the Sulfur queen Um, which is a ship that
Speaker 1: had like a hundred and fifty thousand tons of molten
Speaker 1: sulfur aboard, and they found scraps of or and stuff
Speaker 1: like that that would indicate an explosion. Sure, there's nothing
Speaker 1: that indicated that with the um with plane six eighty.
Speaker 1: It just sank first, or maybe it was lifted to
Speaker 1: a distant planet. Well, that is that is one explanation
Speaker 1: that people use. So let's talk about we're gonna divvy
Speaker 1: up the explanations into far fetched theories, yes, which is
Speaker 1: what the article I think very fairly calls them. Sure,
Speaker 1: and at least using Ackerman's razor. Uh. And then two
Speaker 1: more scientific explanations. So let's start with the intensely more
Speaker 1: fun and entertaining farfetched theories. Yes, I mentioned UFOs and
Speaker 1: alien abduction, and that is a pretty hotbed of UFO
Speaker 1: sightings down there. And some people have theorized that that's
Speaker 1: what's going on there there poor in these ships and
Speaker 1: planes abducting them to their universe, their planet, or it
Speaker 1: may actually be a portal to other planets. Yes, they
Speaker 1: think that possibly if there are portals that a blue hole,
Speaker 1: which there are several in the Bermuda Triangle, are wormholes
Speaker 1: through dimensions or time and space, and uh that this
Speaker 1: is a highly trafficked portal in the Bermuda Triangle and
Speaker 1: ships and planes get sucked into it accidentally. Uh. Some Josh,
Speaker 1: think again, these are the far fetched theories that we're
Speaker 1: going over now. Some think, Josh, that it is home
Speaker 1: to the lost city of Atlantis, who which may or
Speaker 1: may not have been populated by a race of aliens. Correct,
Speaker 1: they had advanced technologies, some say including a death ray weapon.
Speaker 1: So some say that destroyed Atlantis Eventually. Agred Casey said,
Speaker 1: have you heard of him? I have the Sleeping Psychic
Speaker 1: or a sleeping profit of Virginia Beach. Yeah. He he
Speaker 1: was really hot for Atlantis. He was, and he predicted actually,
Speaker 1: um that in the sixties. He didn't predict it in
Speaker 1: the sixties. He predicted that in the sixties people would
Speaker 1: find evidence of Atlantis off the coast of Bimony. And
Speaker 1: surely enough in nineteen was it. Yeah, they found what's
Speaker 1: known as the Biminy Road. Now, this is pretty interesting,
Speaker 1: I think it is. It depends on your viewpoint, like
Speaker 1: Bermuda Triangle as a whole. But yes, there's a long, um,
Speaker 1: what looks to be a road of shaped blocks of
Speaker 1: rock in about fifteen ft of water off the coast
Speaker 1: of Bimony. Yeah, and it's cool looking and uh, a
Speaker 1: lot of people say, no, this is just something that
Speaker 1: happened naturally, like a coral reef mite. And others have
Speaker 1: studied it and said, you know what, these stones are
Speaker 1: shaped and they're placed there very purposefully as a wall.
Speaker 1: So it's also called the Biminy Wall or road, and uh,
Speaker 1: this could have been tied to Atlantis somehow, could have
Speaker 1: been a lot of people say also, look, there's tool
Speaker 1: marks on there, and then critics say, yes, underwater tourists
Speaker 1: like you have used tools to take chips off of
Speaker 1: it as souvenirs and studying it. Yeah. Interesting, But if
Speaker 1: you look at the Beminy Wall, it is very suggestive
Speaker 1: of being shaped by man and being put in place.
Speaker 1: But these are like enormous rocks, so it would have
Speaker 1: taken a marvel of engineering to get those there. You
Speaker 1: know what. Jerry just interrupted the podcast, which she rarely does,
Speaker 1: and says, I dove the Bemini Road, so she's seen firsthand.
Speaker 1: I thought she said I drove it. At first, I
Speaker 1: was like, Jerry is an alien underwater doom buggie. We
Speaker 1: should have just had her say it. But do you
Speaker 1: want to say it? And she want to say it
Speaker 1: because that would mean she exists. Did she beat first?
Speaker 1: She did? Wow? Jerry, So let's get back to Atlantis. Uh.
Speaker 1: They supposedly relied on the power of special energy crystals,
Speaker 1: one of which has been recovered by a man named
Speaker 1: Dr Ray Brown. Allegedly, Dr Ray Brown was a diver
Speaker 1: and in nineteen seventy he said that he was diving
Speaker 1: down there and discovered an underwater pyramid made of mirrored stone.
Speaker 1: Mirrored stone, and just weird to see underwater? And is
Speaker 1: it seeing a mirror pyramid? Doesn't seem like the seventies? Uh?
Speaker 1: He said. He entered the pyramid and saw a brassy
Speaker 1: metallic rod with a multifaceted red gym hanging from the
Speaker 1: apex of the room. And directly below this rod was
Speaker 1: a stand of bronze I'm sorry, with bronze hands holding
Speaker 1: a crystal sphere four inches in diameter. He said, you
Speaker 1: know what, I'm just gonna take that. It sounds like
Speaker 1: something he found it like Kirkland's. You know that sounds
Speaker 1: like a candle holder from kirkland Sid. Yeah, So he
Speaker 1: thought it was a good idea to take this. He
Speaker 1: removed it. He said, I'm not only gonna take it,
Speaker 1: but I'm not gonna tell anyone five years until the
Speaker 1: Great Psychic Seminar of Phoenix, Arizona in h he revealed
Speaker 1: the crystal, and uh, what did they see when they
Speaker 1: gazed upon it? Not one, not twice, but thrice pyramids
Speaker 1: inside of smaller sizes, the smaller in front of the other,
Speaker 1: and some people have been said to have seen a
Speaker 1: fourth one in a deep meditative state. So basically Dr
Speaker 1: Brown says, hey, man, um, these these pyramids are evidence
Speaker 1: that there's some sort of electrical properties going on in
Speaker 1: this crystal, and there's probably more of these crystals down there,
Speaker 1: and that's probably what's causing all of these problems in
Speaker 1: the Bermuda triangle. But scoff, as you might, there's apparently
Speaker 1: evidence of an underwater urban complex off the coast of
Speaker 1: Cuba that was recently discovered in the last ten years
Speaker 1: or so. Yeah, I think it was like racquetball courts
Speaker 1: and uh other stuff. Now, that was definitely I looked
Speaker 1: this up, but I didn't get a whole lot out
Speaker 1: of it. What did you see? I thought that they're
Speaker 1: still looking, They're still looking. God, I've become dated in
Speaker 1: my old age. Was that making my scoff face? When
Speaker 1: you said, when you said that, scoff as you may, Okay,
Speaker 1: magnetic abnormalities. Uh, this one I think is sort of interesting.
Speaker 1: There's a guy, a pilot named Bruce Gernon, and he
Speaker 1: co wrote a book called The Fog Colon and never
Speaker 1: before published theory of the Bermuda triangle phenomenon. He says
Speaker 1: that in December of nineteen seventy, he was flying uh
Speaker 1: to Beminy Clear Skies when he saw this weird cloud
Speaker 1: almost perfectly round and hovering over the Miami shoreline right.
Speaker 1: So he goes to go around it, goes to go
Speaker 1: around it, cloud moves, couldn't go around it. So he said,
Speaker 1: you know what this thing is like a tunnel. Now
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna fly into this tunnel, big whoop, fly
Speaker 1: out the other side and get to my Destination's not
Speaker 1: much of a Freudian, no he uh. He he got
Speaker 1: inside the tunnel, he said he saw lines on the walls.
Speaker 1: It spun counterclockwise, and my my, I'm this guy. All
Speaker 1: of a sudden and his channeling, Bruce gurg Garnan, his
Speaker 1: uh navigational instruments were going nuts. His compass with spinning counterclockwise.
Speaker 1: He said, you know, there should be blue sky at
Speaker 1: the end of the tunnel, but there's really nothing. There's
Speaker 1: no sky, there's no ocean, there's no horizon, there's no
Speaker 1: nothing but gray Hayes as he's flying. Yes, which why
Speaker 1: that's why, I said Lieutenant Taylor, saying everything looks weird.
Speaker 1: My compasses are haywire. Yeah, that's why it counts. Okay um.
Speaker 1: He contacted Miami Air Traffic Control to get some identification.
Speaker 1: They said, uh, we don't see any planes over on
Speaker 1: our radar over, And then a few minutes later they
Speaker 1: went scratch that we see a plane now over you. No,
Speaker 1: they didn't. They said that somebody spotted a plane over
Speaker 1: Miami over. Oh they didn't. They didn't spot on the radar. No, No,
Speaker 1: he popped up on the radar while it was in
Speaker 1: the electronic fog. Somebody reported a plane flying over Miami
Speaker 1: over or so. Uh. He said to himself, that's not
Speaker 1: possible because it takes a good hour fifteen minutes to
Speaker 1: get to Miami. I've only been up here for forty
Speaker 1: seven minutes. At that moment, the clouds tunnel peals away
Speaker 1: and the instruments go back to normal, and he looks
Speaker 1: down and he sees Miami Beach Dwyane Wade on the
Speaker 1: beach of Miami at South Beach playing basketball. So Gernan
Speaker 1: said that, um, this happened to him, No just once,
Speaker 1: but another time with his wife, and um, he wrote
Speaker 1: a book on it, the Fog and never before published
Speaker 1: Theory of the Bermuda Triangle phenomenon. He basically says that
Speaker 1: there is some sort of um, the force of gravity
Speaker 1: is weaker there and so like throw, magnetism is allowed
Speaker 1: to escape more easily from the Earth's core. And what
Speaker 1: it does, You've got an electromagnetic storm that this pays
Speaker 1: very quickly but leaves this electronic fog that can just
Speaker 1: screw you up, send you off course, uh, make you
Speaker 1: lose time, and then the next thing you know, you're
Speaker 1: a hundred miles off course with your compasses showing that
Speaker 1: you're dead. Well, he claims it's a time travel tunnel.
Speaker 1: So that's what he says, And he had another dude
Speaker 1: that said, Hey, the same thing happened to me ten
Speaker 1: years ago. I went through this time storm and my
Speaker 1: watch confirmed it. Yeah, so there you have it, and
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. He's saying that the magnetism is weaker in
Speaker 1: that area. That is that what he's saying. Yeah, um,
Speaker 1: so that's the Electric Electronic Fog. I think he had
Speaker 1: a band called Bruce Gernan and the Electronic Fog. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they played at that same psychic seminar, that ray round
Speaker 1: Debut pyramid. Um so, chuck, there's also uh. Basically, they're saying, okay,
Speaker 1: al right, okay, okay, okay, okay, So no aliens, no atlantis.
Speaker 1: Let's get scientific here. Um, how about that the Bermuda
Speaker 1: Triangle is the only place where the compass the magnetic north,
Speaker 1: true North and geographic north line up one of two places, right, yes,
Speaker 1: the other one, get this is named the Devil c
Speaker 1: It's off the coast of Japan. But it doesn't necessarily
Speaker 1: hold water either. But um, so they're saying, okay, so
Speaker 1: how about this, And that makes compasses go crazy, makes
Speaker 1: a malfunction, and therefore even a season pilot could be
Speaker 1: led off course to die. So here's the mystery of
Speaker 1: the Bermuda Triangle laid bare scientifically. So what's magnetic declination?
Speaker 1: Go ahead and explain that. So agnetic declination is the distance.
Speaker 1: So you have your geographic north pole, which is constant
Speaker 1: constantly located in the same place right about twelve miles
Speaker 1: north of the magnetic north pole. Okay, Magnetic declination is
Speaker 1: the difference in compass degrees between um the two north poles. Yes, North,
Speaker 1: and you have to compensate for it when you're charting
Speaker 1: a course. It moves as you travel. Well, yes, and Um,
Speaker 1: it's not it's not constant like it's not always um
Speaker 1: separated by the same number of degrees depending on where
Speaker 1: you are. Um, there's a line. Supposedly, it's an imaginary
Speaker 1: line where true north magnetic north are imperfect linement. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. The agonic line is real, but it's an
Speaker 1: imaginary line, right. Um, So, Sir Edmund Haley, the guy
Speaker 1: who discovered Haley's comment said, you know what the Sagan line. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this organic line is um. It moves. It's moving westward
Speaker 1: at about point two degrees per year. At one point, yes,
Speaker 1: the organic line was in the Bermuda triangle, but it
Speaker 1: hasn't been that way for a while. It's now about
Speaker 1: in the Gulf of Mexico. You know when it was.
Speaker 1: I don't, But if it's moving point two degrees per year,
Speaker 1: it probably wouldn't account for all of the stuff that's
Speaker 1: gone on in Bermuda Triangle. If a lot of stuff
Speaker 1: has gone on in Bermuna Triangle and the other uh uh,
Speaker 1: I don't want to say debunk. But the other thing
Speaker 1: to consider is that they're they're assuming that these pilots
Speaker 1: aren't accounting for the magnetic declination, which if you're an
Speaker 1: experienced pilot, then your your accounting for that to get
Speaker 1: your proper course exactly like, these aren't spring chickens who
Speaker 1: were sailing through the Bermuda Triangle, not all of them.
Speaker 1: At least we talked about blue holes already a k a. Wormholes,
Speaker 1: two other dimensions in parts of the universe. Now, Chuck,
Speaker 1: let's go on to um the scientific or plausible theories there.
Speaker 1: Weather patterns. It is a very turbulent area. You can
Speaker 1: have violent, unexpected storms that pop up seemingly out of
Speaker 1: nowhere and that dissipate really really quick as quick as
Speaker 1: they came. That are undetected by satellites, so they can't
Speaker 1: point and say, well, there was a big storm there.
Speaker 1: You know, they'll just pop up leave. You can have
Speaker 1: a water spout, which is a tornado over the ocean.
Speaker 1: They're really cool looking but it can whip water up
Speaker 1: to about a thousand feet into the air. Sure, and
Speaker 1: if you're a small plane or even a large time
Speaker 1: you could get taken out by one of those. Or
Speaker 1: if you're a boat or a ship parked over a
Speaker 1: water spout or traveling over a water spout, you're gone.
Speaker 1: You're gone. So that's that's one plausible explanation, which is
Speaker 1: just bad weather. Yeah, underwater earthquakes. Apparently there is um
Speaker 1: a lot of seismic activity in the Bermuda triangle UM,
Speaker 1: and that can cause what you're called freak waves, which
Speaker 1: that's just sad for those waves. But they can get
Speaker 1: up to a hundred feet high. And if you are
Speaker 1: a little boat, even if you're a big boat, a
Speaker 1: hundred foot wave is you're gone. Um. And one of
Speaker 1: the reasons you're gone, Chuck, is because of the underwater
Speaker 1: topography UM in the Bermuda Triangle. There's a gentle slope
Speaker 1: away from the North American continent and then it drops
Speaker 1: off and some of the deepest trenches on planet Earth
Speaker 1: are in that area. So if you're a planer boat
Speaker 1: and a water spout sinks you takes you out of
Speaker 1: the air, or a freak wave get you um, and
Speaker 1: you sink off of that shelf, the continental shelf, into
Speaker 1: the trench. You're never ever ever going to be found,
Speaker 1: except for maybe a civilization a couple of thousand years
Speaker 1: into the future, maybe five. It sounds way more exciting
Speaker 1: on a TV show to say something like and it
Speaker 1: was never spotted again, especially if Robert Stack is saying it.
Speaker 1: But it's not as exciting to say it was never
Speaker 1: spotted again because it sank so deep we cannot get
Speaker 1: down there to see it. And isn't that weird in itself?
Speaker 1: Is not weird, it's weird. That's pretty creepy. That creeps
Speaker 1: me out more than the idea of like a wormhole.
Speaker 1: Oh like, how what's down there in the deep? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Or like just the thought of a plane that's not
Speaker 1: that's supposed to be up in the air is down there? Uh.
Speaker 1: That part of the ocean is home to three water currents,
Speaker 1: the jet stream, the Easterly's, and the Gulf Stream. And
Speaker 1: the Gulf stream moves really fast, which is why Dexter
Speaker 1: dumps his bodies in it, because it's gonna get washed
Speaker 1: out to see at about five miles an hour, which
Speaker 1: doesn't sound like much. Trust us. That is fast for current,
Speaker 1: that's fast when you're moving in the water. And if
Speaker 1: you are an inexperienced sailor, and apparently this area has
Speaker 1: a lot more inexperienced pilots and sailors because it's I
Speaker 1: guess y um, it's gonna throw you off course hundreds
Speaker 1: of miles if you're not compensating for it correctly. And
Speaker 1: if they're not looking in the right place, you're a
Speaker 1: hundred miles over there. You might as well be on
Speaker 1: another planet, especially if you don't know where you are,
Speaker 1: because if you're a hundred miles off course, you don't
Speaker 1: realize you're a hundred miles off course, You're gone. What
Speaker 1: about this methane gas, it's sort of like the exploding lake.
Speaker 1: I think this is my this is my favorite explanation.
Speaker 1: So there is there are significant deposits of things called
Speaker 1: methane hydrates, which is basically super dense methane gas in
Speaker 1: the form of ice crystals on the sea floor um
Speaker 1: and when these crystals, which keep the gas in place, rupture,
Speaker 1: huge gas bubble can make its way to the surface
Speaker 1: without any warning whatsoever in just a few seconds. And
Speaker 1: in the area of this gas bubble up. The gas
Speaker 1: mixes with the water, making the water significantly less dense,
Speaker 1: making a ship that happens to be in this area
Speaker 1: sunk like immediately. It also kicks up a bunch of sediments.
Speaker 1: So conceivably ship that is pulled down suck down to
Speaker 1: the bottom of the ocean um and then it's covered
Speaker 1: with sediment, is by all intensive purposes missing forever. Right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it makes sense. I like the methane gas one. Also,
Speaker 1: if you're a plane, conceivably this gas explosion, this rupture
Speaker 1: would be flammable, and if you have electrical equipment, you
Speaker 1: could conceivably catch fire. Who knows. I like it more
Speaker 1: for a ship because it makes sense, like just the
Speaker 1: water basically bottoming out beneath the ship. Maybe, But that's
Speaker 1: basically the same concept as the um death ray crystal,
Speaker 1: except like we've seen these things and they're there. That's uh.
Speaker 1: I read it this this one guy's article this morning,
Speaker 1: and he talked about a guy named Larry Kush or
Speaker 1: Kush and this guy he was at the He wasn't
Speaker 1: was he, I don't think so. If he was there,
Speaker 1: he was throwing tomatoes at him because he's one of
Speaker 1: these guys. It's like, you know what, I'm gonna really
Speaker 1: investigate everyone who's investigating. And he researched dozens and dozens
Speaker 1: of articles and books and TV shows and he said,
Speaker 1: you know what, not many of these people did any
Speaker 1: real investigation. They're all telling the same stories over and
Speaker 1: over and over to sell papers or advertising on TV.
Speaker 1: And he says, you know what, they're just passing on
Speaker 1: speculation as its truth. And what we've got here is
Speaker 1: communal reinforcement over the years of people that really got
Speaker 1: into this whole thing. And that's really all it is.
Speaker 1: It's it's boats sinc planes crash. Sometimes they don't get found.
Speaker 1: End of story. That's what he said. And uh here
Speaker 1: and if your childhood pirates do they say modern day
Speaker 1: pirates are or could be used, especially before the d
Speaker 1: A shut down the Caribbean for smuggling and basically through
Speaker 1: Mexico into a pit of living hell. So some plausible,
Speaker 1: some far fetched. There's the Bermuda triangle. I think this
Speaker 1: is a good lesson. And um, it's like what we
Speaker 1: do when we're doing research. If you've come across the
Speaker 1: same story and it's told in almost the exact same way,
Speaker 1: using the same wording across site after sit after site,
Speaker 1: just like you said, communally reinforced. And it's not necessarily true.
Speaker 1: But if you while away your hours and spend your
Speaker 1: time researching the Bermuda triangle and getting into it and
Speaker 1: it tickles your fancy, more power to you. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna poop put it's fun. She just spent like
Speaker 1: forty minutes poo pooing it. No, I just I believe
Speaker 1: if it's just both sinking and planes crashing. Well, and
Speaker 1: also you know, raises the question is there even a
Speaker 1: significant amount loss compared to other places? It doesn't seem
Speaker 1: like it. Well, anyway, that's Bermuna triangle. If you want
Speaker 1: to learn more about it, you can read the article
Speaker 1: on the site called Bermuda Triangle. Just type that into
Speaker 1: the search bar at house to works dot com and
Speaker 1: we'll bring it up. And I said search bar. So
Speaker 1: it's time for a listener mail. That's right, Josh, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna call this uh nast Thomas nasty email from himself. No, no,
Speaker 1: he's not alive anymore. Uh This from Evan B. And
Speaker 1: Evans says, I was just listening to the podcast on
Speaker 1: political animals. It was the one on the Republican Elephant
Speaker 1: Democratic Donkey. I have an interesting story involving Thomas Nast.
Speaker 1: I have an elderly neighbor. About a year ago, my
Speaker 1: mom started working for him as an aide. He was
Speaker 1: going through his I'm sorry he's going through financial troubles
Speaker 1: mentioned selling a painting he had bought years ago when
Speaker 1: he lived in Pittsburgh. It was a painting of the
Speaker 1: head of Christ, and it turns out it was Thomas
Speaker 1: nast original. Uh. This is very interesting to learn because
Speaker 1: Nast is known for its political works and not necessarily
Speaker 1: religious ones. My mom took the painting to be a
Speaker 1: praise and it was valued at about two hundred thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: Holy Cow turned out to be somewhat of a generous estimate,
Speaker 1: but the painting was still very valuable. Nonetheless, the painting
Speaker 1: was placed in Skinner's auction house set to auction in
Speaker 1: the fall, but did not sell unfortunately. However, it is
Speaker 1: going to be back up for auction again at the
Speaker 1: next Skinner's auction. And I'm happy that I finally have
Speaker 1: a relevant story to email you guys about when people
Speaker 1: say that like I've always wanted to email in, but
Speaker 1: I've never had anything to say until now. But but
Speaker 1: usually when they say that it's something significant, you can
Speaker 1: email in to say hi, that's fine. Yeah, but you're
Speaker 1: not gonna get red on the air unless it's significant.
Speaker 1: Oh is that what it's all about? That's what I said.
Speaker 1: There's nothing to do with telling it's high. So that's
Speaker 1: Evan B and his mom. It's a great story. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I love ones like that, Like have you ever heard
Speaker 1: the one about the lady who found like a hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty grand in cash and like a fire extinguisher
Speaker 1: That never happened to me. Yeah, I love this. Um. Well,
Speaker 1: that is it for unsolved mysteries. We appreciate you joining us,
Speaker 1: and uh, if you want to get in touch with us,
Speaker 1: if you want to tell us high, you can just
Speaker 1: tell us high. It's fine. Um. You can tweet to
Speaker 1: us at s Y s K podcast. You can join
Speaker 1: us on Facebook at facebook dot com slash stuff you
Speaker 1: Should Know, or you can send us a plain old
Speaker 1: fashioned email to stuff podcast at how stuff works dot com.
Speaker 1: For more on this and thousands of other topics, is
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