Enter the zone of terror: the truth about the Bermuda Triangle is going to shock you

You won’t find it on a map, but it may be one of the most notorious parts of the world where ships and planes completely disappear. Jonny Wilkes delves into the mysteries of the Bermuda Triangle

Black-and-white photograph of a missing vessel poster attached to a wooden post at a marina, with yachts and sailing boats visible in the background.

Published: November 7, 2026 at 11:45 AM

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The name Bermuda Triangle has struck fear in the hearts of sailors and inspired insatiable fascination in conspiracy theorists – and that’s before we even get to its other moniker, the ‘Devil’s Triangle’.

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It’s a place of mystery, where ships and planes can supposedly vanish without a trace and with no apparent cause.

What is happening in the Bermuda Triangle? How long has it been going on? And is this stretch of water in the Atlantic any more dangerous than the rest of the world’s oceans?

What is the Bermuda Triangle?

The Bermuda Triangle is a section of the North Atlantic Ocean where an estimated 50 ships and 20 airplanes have disappeared, amounting to hundreds of lives being lost.

The Italian explorer Christopher Columbus mentioned strange occurrences while sailing through the area on his famous first voyage to the New World in 1492, including mysterious bright lights and problems with his compass readings.

Black-and-white historical map showing the four voyages of Christopher Columbus across the Atlantic between 1492 and 1504, with numbered routes connecting Europe and the Caribbean.

A map illustrating Christopher Columbus's four voyages across the Atlantic between 1492 and 1504. Accounts of strange compass readings and unusual lights during his first voyage have subsequently been drawn into the mythology of the Bermuda Triangle | Credit: Getty Images

It would be in the 19th century, however, that the reputation of the Bermuda Triangle was truly born, with an increasing number of reports of ships going missing or being found abandoned.

In 1952, an article in Fate magazine, titled ‘Sea Mystery at Our Back Door’, by author George X Sand, consolidated this burgeoning reputation by outlining several of these unexplained disappearances, including the cargo ship Sandra a couple of years earlier. Sand defined the now-recognised borders of the Triangle, but did not give the area its name.

Who coined the term ‘Bermuda Triangle’?

The first use of the term ‘Bermuda Triangle’ appeared in 1964 in an article in the pulp magazine Argosy written by Vincent Gaddis.

The name then reached a wider audience after an American writer, Charles Berlitz, published a multimillion-selling book on the unexplained disappearances in 1974 – and posited several theories of what was happening – titled The Bermuda Triangle.

Photograph of a copy of Charles Berlitz's book The Bermuda Triangle, featuring a blue-green cover with a ship fading into mist above the ocean.

Charles Berlitz's 1974 bestseller The Bermuda Triangle helped turn the region's supposed mysteries into an international phenomenon | Credit: Getty Images

Where exactly is the Bermuda Triangle?

Generally, the boundaries of the Bermuda Triangle are said to be set between Bermuda – situated in the North Atlantic Ocean off the east coast of the US – the coast of Florida to the west, and around Puerto Rico to the south.

However, the precise edges of the Bermuda Triangle are not clearly set, with the various markers forming a triangular area ranging in size from 500,000 square miles to 1.5 million square miles.

What have been the major disappearances in the Bermuda Triangle?

More than 50 ships and 20 airplanes are said to have fallen victim to the Bermuda Triangle since the 19th century. Among the best-known incidents are the disappearances of USS Cyclops and Flight 19.

USS Cyclops

In March 1918, a US Navy ship, USS Cyclops, vanished while sailing from Brazil to Baltimore, Maryland, on the American east coast. It was transporting thousands of tonnes of manganese ore as part of the steel production effort in the First World War.

An unscheduled stop in Barbados was the last that anyone saw of the vessel, and the 306 crew and passengers on board, making it the largest loss of life in US naval history outside of combat.

Black-and-white archival photograph of the USS Cyclops, a large American naval cargo ship with two funnels and tall loading structures, floating on calm water.

The USS Cyclops disappeared without a trace in March 1918 while sailing from Barbados to Baltimore, taking more than 300 people with it. No wreckage was found, and its fate remains uncertain, making it one of the most famous disappearances associated with the Bermuda Triangle | Credit: Getty Images

No distress signal was sent and no wreckage ever found. The captain, George Worley, had reported a cracked cylinder in one of the engines, which could have caused, or at least sped up, a sinking, especially if Cyclops was overloaded.

Other theories seeking to explain the disappearance involve a mutiny or enemy action in the war.

Flight 19

On 5 December 1945, a squadron of five Avenger torpedo bombers disappeared during a routine training operation. Flight 19 had taken off from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, but conditions were poor and the flight leader, Lieutenant Charles Carroll Taylor, although experienced, had a history of getting lost.

According to radio transmissions received before the disappearance, Taylor reported that his compass was going haywire and, believing he had got turned around, headed the squadron out to sea rather than back to the safety of land. Other pilots in Flight 19 were heard pleading with him to head west. They were never seen again.

Two Mariners, flying boats, were sent on a search-and-rescue mission, only for one of them to disappear too. In total, six aircraft and 27 men were lost.

Other incidents

In January 1948, a British South American Airways passenger aircraft, Star Tiger, vanished on its way to Bermuda, with 31 people on board. The next year, the same thing happened to another BSAA flight, Star Ariel, while leaving Bermuda, resulting in the loss of 20 people.

In 1967, Dan Burack and Patrick Horgan had gone out into the waters off the coast of Miami, Florida, in a small cruiser, Witchcraft. The coastguard then received a distress signal saying that Witchcraft had hit something and needed to be towed to shore, but by the time they got to the last-known location there was no sign of the cruiser or the two men.

In 1970, a pilot named Bruce Gernon survived the mysteries of the Bermuda Triangle. He claimed that the sky suddenly went dark before he saw extremely bright flashes. His instruments malfunctioned and when he finally got out of what he called this ‘electronic fog’, he had travelled much further than should have been physically possible.

What are the theories about the Bermuda Triangle?

Digital illustration of a flying saucer hovering above a ship at sea, illuminating the vessel with a bright pink beam beneath a moonlit sky.

Could extraterrestrials be responsible for the Bermuda Triangle's mysterious disappearances? Alien abductions are among the more outlandish theories proposed to explain the region's reputation, alongside supernatural forces and unusual magnetic phenomena | Credit: Getty Images

As with many mysteries, one theory that attempts to explain the disappearances in the Bermuda Triangle involves aliens. Specifically, the theory goes that this part of the Atlantic is said to be a kind of portal for extraterrestrial visitors. Alternatively, it’s said to be the centre of a time and space warp, which would explain Gernon’s impossible flight.

Meanwhile, Berlitz, the author of the 1974 bestseller that popularised the Bermuda Triangle legend, claimed that the mythical lost city of Atlantis was to blame. Its highly sophisticated technology, it is posited, is still functioning deep underwater, and interfering with the surface and air above.

Away from the paranormal and supernatural, one possible explanation is that pockets of methane gas have built up beneath that part of the Atlantic and erupt violently enough to cause problems above. This could explain the sinking of ships, but not necessarily how planes fall out of the sky.

It has also been theorised that the compass issues said to be experienced in the Bermuda Triangle could be the result of the agonic line. This is where magnetic and true north are the same (which is not normally the case) and so could lead to navigational errors. This phenomenon is well known, however, and so well accounted for. Besides, magnetic north moves, meaning the agonic line would not be fixed at the Bermuda Triangle anyway.

Then there are natural phenomena that could sink ships and bring down planes, including storms, hurricanes, tropical cyclones, waterspouts (essentially, tornadoes at sea) and rogue waves.

Illustrated map of the western Atlantic Ocean showing the Bermuda Triangle as a shaded triangular area between Florida, Bermuda and Puerto Rico.

The Bermuda Triangle is a loosely defined region of the Atlantic Ocean, stretching between Florida, Bermuda and Puerto Rico. Its reputation for mysterious disappearances has made it one of the world's most enduring maritime legends | Credit: Getty Images

Is the Bermuda Triangle actually dangerous?

Despite its reputation, the area of the Bermuda Triangle is in fact no more perilous than other parts of the world’s oceans. Despite being a heavily travelled shipping lane, a 2013 study failed to identify the Bermuda Triangle in its list of the 10 most dangerous waters for shipping.

The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has also reported: “There is no evidence that mysterious disappearances occur with any greater frequency in the Bermuda Triangle than in any other large, well-travelled area of the ocean.”

While it does not make for a good story – as a juicy mystery always does – the most likely explanation is that bad weather, human error and misfortunes have combined to cause the disappearances.

The stories then caught the imagination of people in the second half of the 20th century, at a time in which there was an already-growing interest in paranormal events and conspiracy theories.

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Meanwhile, the vast, vast majority of ships and planes that go through the Bermuda Triangle come out the other side safely.

Authors

Jonny WilkesFreelance writer

Jonny Wilkes is a former staff writer for BBC History Revealed, and he continues to write for both the magazine and HistoryExtra. He has BA in History from the University of York.

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