In 1970, pilot Bruce Gernon faced a tunnel-like cloud while flying through the Bermuda Triangle. He claimed that his instruments malfunctioned, and upon exiting the cloud, he experienced a time discrepancy of about 30 minutes. It just disappeared. He was flying through the area known as the Bermuda Triangle. This led to some serious research into the naval and airplane history of this area.

Reports concerning that area of the ocean have a history going back to Christopher Columbus and have been widely discussed in books, documentaries and even paranormal circles. But what is this scary concern over one piece of the world’s vast oceans?

The term Bermuda Triangle was first made a phrase in 1963 by a writer named Vincent Gaddis, who used that name for an area of the Atlantic Ocean with a high number of disappearances of ships and aircraft. The triangle is that portion of the ocean marked near Florida, Bermuda and Puerto Rico.

For years, the high number of missing aircraft and, before that, years of missing ships had led to the belief that this area was subject to alien abductions, bewitched happenings or the same force that made the island of Atlantis disappear.

The countable loss totals more than 50 ships and 20 aircraft and all their passengers who have disappeared in this large triangular area of the Atlantic Ocean. Such reports go back as far as Columbus, while documented records of missing ships appear as early as 1800. Some of the losses in more modern times include the following:

USS Cyclops – The Cyclops was a four-collier cargo ship built for the U.S. Navy in 1910. Originally designed for carrying coal, on this occasion, it set sail from Brazil on Feb. 18, 1918, with a far more dangerous cargo. It was carrying over 11,000 tons of manganese ore, 3,000 tons over its designated tonnage. On that trip, while entering the Bermuda Triangle, the USS Cyclops and its crew of 306 disappeared without a trace. Some say that it was lost due to its unstable payload, while others suspect that it was sunk by Germans who did not want this manganese arriving at its intended destination, as it was in the middle of World War I. To date, no wreckage has been found.

SS Cotopaxi: This bulk shipping container set off for its final voyage from Brazil in 1925 with a load of coal for Havana. Two days later, it sent out a distress signal and disappeared, crew and all. In 2020, after years of searching, its remains were found off the coast of Florida in the area of the Bermuda Triangle.

Flight 19: A flight of TMB Avenger torpedo bombers set off on a navigational training flight from Fort Lauderdale on Dec. 5, 1945. The five planes and their crews of 14 disappeared somewhere over the Bermuda Triangle. They had reported that they had completed their runs, but they had become increasingly aware that they were off course and struggling to navigate their way back. They reported compass failure and that they were running out of fuel. Then, communication stopped, and the five planes disappeared. Even more weird, a rescue flying boat was sent to look for wreckage and any survivors. During that search, the rescue vessel disappeared as well. To this day, not one piece of wreckage from any of the airplanes has been found.

Just a few months before this, a Navy seaplane had been lost in the same region. In July 1947, a Douglas C-54 crashed off the Florida coast. In 1948, a DC-3 was lost, with a crew of three and 36 passengers flying to Miami from San Juan disappeared. In 1995, a Piper Cub disappeared off Bermuda with three people aboard. Most recently, in 2017, a private MU-2B was at 24,000 feet when it vanished from radar. The airplane was later found off the Miami coast.

Those are the airplanes, but the ships go back to 1800, when the USS Pickering from Guadeloupe to Delaware was lost with 91 aboard. In 1814, the USS Wasp was lost in the Caribbean with 140 people. Never found. And the list goes on all the way through 2015.

No doubt, mystery often thrives where facts are overlooked, and that reality can be just as fascinating as myth. We now have an Australian scientist who claims that he has solved the Bermuda Triangle mystery. He said that many possibilities are the leading cause of these Bermuda Triangle disappearances. He attributes them to suspect weather, iffy planes and bad boating and piloting. He joins a list of other doubters of these phenomena. The U.S. Navy and U.S. Coast Guard contend that there are no supernatural explanations for these disasters at sea. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Associations and Lloyd’s of London have championed these same ideas. (But isn’t Lloyd’s an insurance agency, maybe insuring some of these disappearances?)

But these people have no facts either. They all claim that these mysterious and complete disappearances and the theory of the Bermuda Triangle are just that. This area is just another ocean, and oceans have swallowed planes and ships all over. How about Amelia Earhart? She wasn’t in the Triangle.

Thinking back, I have flown through this interesting area a time or two, going to San Juan, Nassau and Aruba. Why, just last spring, I was sailing to Panama from the coast of Florida. Maybe it wasn’t my time, but it sure is an interesting issue. But then, so are ETs, mysterious drones and Area 51.

· Dennis Marek can be contacted at llamalaw23@gmail.com.