It came as no surprise, then, that a quick Google search this morning for "Air France 447 Bermuda Triangle" turned up a number of hits, including some from reputable news sources.

Of course, many of these posts and articles are simply drawing a comparison between the mystery of Air France 447′s crash and other famous aircraft losses, including those that happened within the region of the Atlantic Ocean known to us today as the Bermuda Triangle [1].

But there are other sites drawing more than a casual connection between the tragedy of Air France 447 and the shadowy forces some believe to be behind the Triangle’s history of loss and disaster.

Which left me wondering — is there anything really to the mystery of the Bermuda Triangle?

Sunny Days, Calm Seas, Storms From Nowhere

I didn’t really give it any thought at the time, but I actually lived within the boundaries of the Bermuda Triangle for a few months not too many years ago. I spent most of that time on various islands within the Bahamas, and my experience of the region was one of long sunny days, crystal blue waters, and sudden tropical storms that made me fear for my life.

During my time in the Bermuda Triangle I caught flights on large and small planes, and took trips on boats. I never felt at any risk, nor did I feel that the people who lived on these island paradises or who flocked to them for holidays were at all concerned about a mysterious and perhaps sinister threat to their safety.

Perhaps this was simply a matter of ‘out of sight, out of mind,’ but the life I lived and observed within the Bermuda Triangle was much the same as any other part of the world in which I have lived or visited.

Let’s Call It The Bermuda Polygon. No, Wait…

Most people probably don’t realise that the concept of something out of the ordinary taking place in an area of the Atlantic Ocean — defined by connecting Miami, Florida with the islands of Bermuda and Puerto Rico — is only a little more than 50 years old.

In fact, it wasn’t until 1964 that the name of "The Bermuda Triangle" was first attached to this region, and it wouldn’t be until the 1970s — the decade in which an interest in the paranormal became truly fashionable — that it gained real popularity as a topic for authors focussing on the supernatural and the bizarre.

Since then, an amazing number of theories have been spawned to explain historical disappearances and tragedies in the region. Official accounts have been fictionalised, transcripts have been modified, and in many cases the fictional accounts have themselves come to be considered the authentic versions through repetition in many different sources.

The most popular ‘The Truth Is Out There’ explanation for tragedies within the Bermuda Triangle is, of course, that it is the site of hostile UFO activity. Others have suggested instead that the ‘lost’ civilisation of Atlantis [2] can be found beneath the waves of the Caribbean, or that remnants of their advanced technology, protecting a race that died thousands of years ago, is to blame.

Others of a more skeptical bent have attempted to explain Triangle phenomena through combinations of rare natural events or as a result of pure human error, or both.

Here There Be Dragons. Also, Occasionally Mermaids.

Despite it’s reputation, The Bermuda Triangle is by no means exclusive in being the site of maritime and aviation mysteries.

From the mysterious fate of Amelia Earhart in 1937, to the wildly fictionalised account of the abandoned Mary Celeste in 1872 [3], history brims with strange and unexplained incidents in the air and on the sea.

One chilling example, which matches anything reported out of the Bermuda Triangle, was the mysterious disappearance of Frederick Valentich while piloting a Cessna 182 on a routine flight across Australia’s Bass Straight on October 21, 1978.

According to transcripts from Valentich’s communications with air traffic control in Melbourne, he encountered a strange aircraft at approximately 7:06pm that evening. From his questions to traffic control, it’s obvious that Valentich initially thought he had experienced a close call with another, larger passenger aircraft. Melbourne Air Traffic Control, however, was unaware of any other aircraft in his immediate vicinity. A few minutes later, Valentich speculated about whether the craft was of military origin. And what followed was a conversation in which Valentich described the aircraft playing a cat-and-mouse game with him, buzzing his plane, hovering above, accelerating away at incredible speeds, until at approximately 7:12pm, 6 minutes after Valentich first reported his concern, all communication ceased.

Frederick Valentich was never seen again, and no wreckage from his plane was ever discovered.

The Truth Is In These Files?

One of the most interesting developments in recent years to those who follow UFO sightings and conspiracy theories was the decision by the UK Ministry Of Defence (MoD) to release its so-called ‘X-Files’ in a series of batches.

Last year, in 2008, the MoD released two batches of files, containing reports of, and investigations into, UFO sightings and experiences across the United Kingdom.

While these don’t appear to contain content relating to the Bermuda Triangle, they do represent an insider look at a government’s approach and response to the unexplained.

An accompanying article by Nick Pope on the X-Journals web site, explains what it was like to work on these files.

For 3 years Nick Pope headed up the MoD’s department charged with investigating UFOs, and he describes a day-to-day reality far removed from the glamorous dangers and intrigue of Fox Mulder and Dana Sculley.

In fact, it’s obvious in Pope’s article that the expense and manpower required to serve the general public’s interest in UFOs far outweighed the budget available to investigate the vast majority of sightings. You can sense his frustration that many reported sightings were dealt with by form letters, since the department simply couldn’t afford to open investigative cases on them. This is not to say that major events were overlooked, but in this case it does appear that fiction was far stranger than reality, rather than the other way around.

Having said which, I personally found it fascinating to realise that regardless of the explanation (or, more accurately, the lack thereof) of these phenomena, there were and perhaps still are people in positions of responsibility for investigating UFO sightings who consider them a potential face-value threat to public safety…

Everything Looks Strange, Even The Ocean

Of all the mysteries attributed to the Bermuda Triangle, the story of Flight 19 — and the lesser known story of PBM-5 BuNo 59225, which disappeared the same day while searching for the stricken pilots of Flight 19 — still makes my skin prickle with disquiet.

I’m a skeptic, and I have had a lifelong interest in the normal explanations of seemingly extraordinary things. My belief is that we may never know what truly happened with many unexplained events, but that often we believe things because we never truly choose to go looking for real explanations. It’s often easier, more interesting, and more self-validating to simply believe the strange and bizarre.

Despite this, I can’t help wondering what really happened to Flight 19 that day in December, 1945. Combined with the crew of 13 on PBM-5 BuNo 59225, which was part of the search for the Flight, 27 people disappeared without a trace that day.

27 people who left behind friends, colleagues, loved ones and a mystery that will probably never be solved.

Still, it’s worth remembering that while the known events of December 5, 1945, are strange enough, this hasn’t stopped authors from peppering official accounts of Flight 19’s disappearance with alarming details of their own, as with the claim that Flight Leader Taylor’s final communication was: "We are entering white water, nothing seems right. We don’t know where we are, the water is green, no white."

Back On Dry Land

Despite the mystery of Flight 19, and other disappearances within the area of The Bermuda Triangle, there’s a piece of ordinary, everyday information that tells a different story about that infamous stretch of ocean.

You might not expect to turn to an insurance company to debunk a persistent story of frequent alien abductions or ancient underwater technology, but in the case of The Bermuda Triangle, this is perhaps the best place to look for a rational point of view.

Quoted in an Independent article from 21 December, 1997, Norman Hooke — a spokesperson for Lloyd’s Maritime Insurance company — explained that Lloyd’s charges no more for maritime vessels charting through The Bermuda Triangle than through other stretches of ocean.

Statistically speaking, vessels passing through the Bermuda Triangle are at no greater risk of mishap than when sailing elsewhere.

Does this close the case on The Bermuda Triangle as a place of undying mystery?

For me, despite the strange tale of Flight 19, I think it does. At least, I believe it puts the stories of the strange and unexpected from that region into a broader perspective: mysteries happen everywhere, and sometimes explanations will never be known. The Bermuda Triangle has been a lucrative industry for authors who write about tales of mystery and imagination, but real-world evidence suggests that it’s just a stretch of ocean, much like any other; albeit one that has definitely had it’s fair share of unexplained tragedies.

∗∗∗

We may never know what happened to Air France 447 to cause it to crash. Perhaps it will join the ranks of mysteries that will haunt and challenge professional and amateur investigators and theorists for years to come. While some people are suggesting bizarre and paranormal explanations for its loss, air crash investigators being reported in the press are almost universally talking in terms of the plane and / or crew experiencing a series of contributing events, currently unknown but not theoretically unexplainable, that led to this tragic disaster.

If anything, the loss of Air France 447 should serve as a reminder that for all the technology we have available, there are still large holes in what we can know and learn when disaster strikes.

Footnotes:

1.	Or, even more chillingly, as the Devil’s Triangle!
	Return
2.	I say ‘lost’, because of course no-one has established to date that Atlantis in any form ever truly existed.
	Return
3.	Here’s a piece of trivia for you — the legend of the Mary Celeste and the mystery surrounding the disappearance of its crew owes a huge debt to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, best known for his many stories featuring the private detective, Sherlock Holmes. In 1884, Conan Doyle published a story called "J. Habakuk Jephson’s Statement", in which he drew heavily from the known accounts of the Mary Celeste, but in which he also added many of the details — including the warm, uneaten meals, the freshly brewed coffee, the unruffled cat etc — that most people now accept as being part of the true, known facts of the state in which the vessel was discovered when found floating abandoned in the Atlantic Ocean.
	Return