Page 14 - IAV Digital Magazine #624

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A Scientist Says He’s Solved The Bermuda Triangle, Just Like That
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odrxh-HhI3Y
By Tim Necomb, Popular Mechanics
Pick any one of the more than
50 ships or
20 planes that have disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle in the last century. Each one has a story without an ending, leading to a litany
of conspiracy theo- ries about the disap- pearances in the area, marked roughly by Florida, Bermuda, and the Greater Antilles.
Australian scientist Karl Kruszelnicki doesn’t subscribe to the Bermuda Triangle’s supernatu-
ral reputation. Neither does the United States’ own National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA). Both have been say- ing for years that there’s really no Bermuda Triangle mystery. In fact, the loss and disappear- ance of ships and planes is a mere fact of probabilities.
“There is no evi- dence that mysteri- ous disappearances occur with any greater frequency in the Bermuda Triangle than in any other large, well-trav- eled area of the ocean,”
NOAA wrote in 2010.
And since 2017, Kruszelnicki has been saying the same thing. He
told The Independent that the sheer volume of traf- fic—in a tricky area to navigate, no less—shows “the number [of ships and planes] that go miss- ing in the Bermuda Triangle is the same as anywhere in the world on a percent- age basis.” He says that both Lloyd’s of London and the U.S. Coast Guard support that idea. In fact,
as The Independent notes, Lloyd’s of London
has had this same theory since the 1970s.
NOAA says environ- mental considera- tions can explain away most of the Bermuda
Triangle disappear- ances, highlighting the Gulf Stream’s tendency towards violent changes in weather, the number of islands in the Caribbean Sea offer- ing a complicated navigation adventure, and evidence that suggests the Bermuda Triangle may cause a mag- netic compass to point to true north instead of magnetic north, causing for confusion in wayfind- ing.
“The U.S. Navy and U.S. Coast Guard contend that there are no supernatural explanations for dis- asters at sea,” NOAA says. “Their experience suggests that the combined forces of nature and human fallibility outdo even the most incredulous science fiction.”
Kruszelnicki has rou- tinely garnered public attention for espous- ing these very
thoughts on the Bermuda Triangle, first in 2017 and then again in 2022 before resurfacing once more in 2023. Throughout it all, he’s stuck to the same idea: the num- bers don’t lie.
Even with some high-profile disap- pearances—such
as Flight 19, a group of five U.S. Navy TBM Avenger torpe- do bombers lost in 1945—pushing the theory into popular culture, Kruszelnicki points out that every instance contains a degree of poor weather or likely human error (or both, as in the case of Flight 19) as the true culprit.
But culture clings to Bermuda Triangle conspiracy theories. The concepts of sea monsters, aliens, and even the entirety of Atlantis dropping to the ocean floor— those are fodder for books, television, and movies. It sure does sound more exciting than poor weather and mathe- matical probabilities, anyway, even if the “boring” story holds more water.
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