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Mysteries of the disappearance of ships in the Bermuda Triangle, and the crashes near the mysterious island!
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00:00Far out in the open sea, on a perfectly calm day, a dot appears on the horizon.
00:05It grows in size as it gets closer.
00:08And soon you can see it's a ship.
00:11But when you look at it through the spyglass, chills go down your spine.
00:16The vessel is in perfect condition, and its cargo is on board.
00:20But it's completely devoid of people, drifting listlessly along the current.
00:25That was what the captain of the Ellen Austin saw in 1881, and what brought his crew so many sorrows.
00:33In December of the previous year, the Ellen Austin, a big 210-foot-long ship, left the port of Liverpool
00:41to make its trip to New York.
00:43The ship was carrying a load of people, hoping to find a better life in the New World.
00:48Captain A.J. Griffin took the vessel due southwest for a shorter voyage.
00:52And a few weeks into 1881, they found themselves north of the Sargasso Sea, known for its lack of winds
01:00and strong circling currents.
01:02Ships that got caught in those could lose control and keep on drifting in circles until they were dragged into
01:09the center.
01:10From there, they'd be incredibly lucky to get back past the currents.
01:14But more often than not, they stayed in the desolate desert of the sea forever.
01:20Worse still, the area belonged to the notorious Bermuda Triangle, which was already known to take down ships and make
01:28them disappear without a trace.
01:30The ship's crew were nervous, afraid of being in such a dangerous area so close to a sea that could
01:37bring them to a standstill.
01:38And, ominously, some of the Sargasso Sea's calm must have escaped it, because the Ellen Austin lost its speed one
01:47day and fell adrift without the winds.
01:50It was fine, though.
01:52They had ample provisions and were still on schedule.
01:55Captain Griffin was walking around his ship, giving orders in a voice full of calm authority,
02:01and both his crew and passengers trusted him completely.
02:04But then, the lookout shouted from above that a ship was in sight.
02:10And indeed, when the captain looked in the direction the man was pointing,
02:14he saw a small schooner moving slowly into view and towards the Ellen Austin.
02:20As it came closer, it became apparent that the way the strange vessel moved wasn't right.
02:26The captain frowned and examined it through his spyglass.
02:29The schooner was untouched, but eerily silent.
02:33There wasn't a single soul on board.
02:37Derelict ships weren't that rare in the Atlantic at the time, but neither were pirates.
02:42Captain Griffin decided to wait and watch.
02:45After two days, the schooner was as quiet as always, and captain finally thought it was fine to move in.
02:52He took a small team of sailors and boarded the stranded ship.
02:55There was nobody there indeed, but luck seemed to be on Griffin's side.
03:01The precious cargo of mahogany wood was still in the holds.
03:04The captain returned to the Ellen Austin and ordered his select men to take the smaller ship along to New
03:10York.
03:11The crew's spirits arose with the prospect of riches awaiting them upon arrival.
03:16When the winds blew strong again, the Ellen Austin continued its voyage,
03:21with the unnamed vessel tagging along.
03:23But after a couple of days, the ships were caught in a powerful storm and got separated.
03:30The wind, rain, and waves beat them for several days in a row.
03:34When the weather finally cleared, Captain Griffin ordered to find the schooner.
03:39They searched for another day until they finally found it adrift, way off the course.
03:45Griffin hailed his men on board the smaller ship, but no one answered.
03:49A party of sailors went to investigate and returned with their faces white with fear.
03:55The whole prized crew went missing in the storm.
03:59The captain wasn't one to lose such a valuable find, though, and ordered another team to take control of the
04:05schooner.
04:07Reluctantly, the sailors obeyed, and the two ships continued their voyage.
04:11They agreed to stay as close as possible to one another and ring their bells at set intervals at night
04:17to let each other know they were fine.
04:20Several nights went alright, with bells ringing reassuringly every hour.
04:25But one day, a thick blanket of fog fell on the sea and almost completely blocked their vision.
04:32The ships went on regardless and started sounding their bells earlier.
04:37When night came, the fog was still there, but the bells were the sound of life.
04:42Until they stopped.
04:44Captain Griffin rang the bell once, then twice.
04:48No answer.
04:49The crew lit the fires and looked out into the sea intently, but the fog hadn't lifted, and they couldn't
04:56see a thing in the swirling abyss beyond the ship's board.
05:00Nobody could sleep that night, and they waited in silence until the break of dawn.
05:06The first rays of sun made the fog slowly disperse, and the whole crew went to the edge of the
05:12deck with heavy hearts.
05:14There was still hope in them, until the last strands of the mist went away.
05:19Revealing a vast, calm, and most importantly, empty ocean.
05:23The nameless schooner was gone, and so was the second team of the Ellen Austin sailors.
05:30The ship sailed the rest of the way to New York in grave silence.
05:34Once it arrived at the port, the passengers were only too happy to leave the vessel, and no one so
05:40much as turned their head as a goodbye.
05:42That was the ship's last voyage as the Ellen Austin.
05:46That same year, it was sold to a German shipping company and renamed Metta.
05:51No one ever found the derelict schooner or the sailors that went missing with it.
05:56And that would probably be the end of this mysterious and unresolved story, if it held at least a little
06:02bit of the truth.
06:03In reality, none of the animatic things in the narrative actually happened.
06:09The Ellen Austin did indeed leave Liverpool and headed southwest to New York, and its captain was really A.J.
06:16Griffin, taking people to the American continent.
06:19But from here, the story falls apart.
06:21First of all, the ship went way too far to the north to pass the Sargasso Sea so closely.
06:27There was simply no reason to make a detour so broad.
06:31Even though the westerly winds were strong, it was still faster to take them head-on than to go in
06:37a southerly direction.
06:38So, the Ellen Austin was probably nowhere near the Sargasso Sea and the Bermuda Triangle.
06:45Secondly, the triangle itself has been proven time and again to be nothing but a work of fiction.
06:51In fact, it gained popularity in the middle of the 20th century, while nobody even thought of drawing a triangle
06:58in the Bermuda area before that.
07:00The mystery was popularized by science fiction writers and became a common myth, while no serious research proved it any
07:08more dangerous than other parts of the world's ocean.
07:11So, the crew of the Ellen Austin weren't even aware of the Bermuda Triangle back then, let alone afraid of
07:17it.
07:18Thirdly, the whole story was told and retold by magazines and mystery-loving personalities with ever-changing details.
07:26It first appeared in a newspaper in 1906 and already had the date wrong.
07:31The article said the voyage took place in 1891 instead of 1881.
07:36Later, the story resurfaced in 1935 on the radio with the wrong name of the captain.
07:42It was Baker, not Griffin.
07:44The date was also off, saying the trip was taken in August 1881, when the Ellen Austin was already renamed
07:52Metta.
07:52The legend grew upon with other strange details, such as the ship's route from London to Newfoundland, which was never
08:00the case.
08:01But the final debunking came from the archives of Lloyd's of London,
08:05the marine insurance market that keeps all logs of trade and emigration ship routes.
08:10The documents there say that on February 1881, the Ellen Austin completed its cross-Atlantic voyage to New York without
08:19incident.
08:20Captain A.J. Griffin off-boarded the ship with all his crew, hale and hearty, and declared no loss of
08:26hands during the trip.
08:28The voyage took over two months because the ship had to fight strong westerly winds pushing it back towards Britain.
08:34The crew reported no strange encounters on the way, and the whole thing was as boring as could be.
08:41And even the passengers must have been smiling when they stepped on the American soil at last,
08:46unaware of the phony baloney story they were about to be a part of.
08:53It has recently become a popular location for many tourists looking for the perfect place to get away from it
09:00all.
09:00If you're lucky enough to catch a sunny day here, it's like no other, I can assure you.
09:06Chances are, you'll end up having loads of foggy days.
09:09But let's be honest, they have a special allure of their own.
09:13This enchanting smile-shaped island is called Sable Island.
09:17It's located 190 miles from mainland Nova Scotia.
09:22It wasn't accessible to the general public until 2013.
09:26That's when it was added to the list of National Parks of Canada.
09:30You can get here either by plane or by water.
09:33But what's so enchanting about this place anyway?
09:36There must be something since the yearly tourist count is growing every year.
09:41Firstly, there's a spectacular number of wild horses here.
09:45There are between 200 and 500 horses roaming free all over the island.
09:50There's also a large population of grey seals.
09:54The place is also the only breeding location of a rare bird species called the Ipswich Sparrow.
10:00If you're already considering a trip here, there are some things you need to know first.
10:04Remember that fog I mentioned earlier?
10:07Well, it turns out that Sable Island is the foggiest place in the Canadian Maritimes.
10:12I'm talking about approximately 127 foggy days each year.
10:18During such days, Sable Island literally disappears underneath a thick layer of fog.
10:24You won't be able to explore the place on your own either.
10:27The local regulations state that visitors need to travel within a group.
10:30And they also need to keep a 197-foot distance from the wildlife they can encounter here.
10:37As charming as this place may be, it holds a dark secret hidden beneath the sandy dunes.
10:42And it has nothing to do with beautiful creatures living here or the island's unique vegetation.
10:49Apart from being known from its horses and seals,
10:52Sable Island is infamous for an overwhelming number of shipwrecks.
10:56Over the years, about 350 ships have ended their lives here, on these sandbars.
11:02When survivors described their experiences,
11:05they usually mentioned harsh weather conditions near this mysterious island.
11:11The island also made its way into literature when it was described in a book called The Perfect Storm,
11:17which was written by Sebastian Junger and published in 1997.
11:21The book was so successful that it was later adapted for the big screen in 2000,
11:26with George Clooney playing the leading role.
11:29The first recorded shipwreck near Sable Island dates back to 1583.
11:34The boat was named the HMS Delight
11:37and was under the command of British adventurer and explorer Sir Humphrey Gilbert.
11:42Only 17 people managed to survive the catastrophe by escaping in a small boat.
11:47Records mention that they spent seven days at sea before reaching the shores of Newfoundland.
11:54In 1884, another vessel named the Nicosia struggled in the thick fog as well.
11:59The ship was completely destroyed, but, fortunately, all 18 crew members managed to survive.
12:05The captain's son was almost lost at sea when a lifeboat capsized when he was climbing into it.
12:11He somehow managed to stay underneath the lifeboat, which was completely submerged.
12:16When this lifeboat righted, he eventually emerged from the water and was rescued for the second time.
12:23The years between 1947 and 1999 were relatively quiet on the island.
12:29In 1999, though, a yacht called the Merrimack ran aground near the shore of the island at about 2 a
12:36.m. on July 27.
12:38The 40-foot fiberglass boat had a crew of only three people.
12:42Natural gas exploration workers, who were, luckily, not far away, rescued them.
12:47The crew managed to fly safely to Halifax the next day.
12:51The owner of the Merrimack tried to recover his boat by hiring local fishermen.
12:55Unfortunately, this operation was unsuccessful, since only the fittings of the yacht were eventually saved.
13:02It took no more than six weeks for the sand and waves to crush and completely break up the hull
13:07of the Merrimack.
13:09So what is it about this place that's so dangerous for boats?
13:12Does it have anything to do with the weather?
13:14Or maybe there's other forces at play?
13:17The explanation turns out to be a bit more complex, and it wasn't easy to figure out, at least not
13:22way back in the 1500s.
13:24First of all, the island is located close to one of the world's richest fishing grounds.
13:29Since it's also near one of the major shipping routes between Europe and North America, hundreds of vessels sail past
13:35it each year.
13:36The likelihood of shipwreck increases when there are so many boats roaming around the area.
13:42Sable Island is also in the way of most of the storms that move up the Atlantic coast of North
13:47America.
13:47It's no surprise that boats often get hurtled straight onto the shores of this island.
13:53The weather has a lot to do with it, too.
13:55During the summer season, the warm air from the Gulf Stream creates a dense fog as it merges with the
14:00cool air by the Labrador Current that passes by the island.
14:05Other currents don't help the matter.
14:08Sable Island is next to the meeting point of three major ocean currents.
14:12The Gulf Stream, the Labrador Current, and the Belle Isle Current.
14:17Since the 1950s, radars and other modern navigation tools have been used on commercial vessels as well.
14:23Up until then, the sextant was the main instrument used to figure out a ship's location.
14:28It doesn't mean that sextants weren't accurate.
14:30But this instrument couldn't work properly without a clear view of the sun or stars,
14:35which means it didn't help much in dense fog, such as the one surrounding Sable Island, or when it was
14:41cloudy.
14:41Often during bad weather, the captain of a ship navigated, relying on their experiences and intuition based on the ship's
14:49speed and direction.
14:51That's why most of the survivors in shipwrecks near Sable Island said that the captain had simply miscalculated the ship's
14:57position,
14:57crashing into Sable Island by accident.
15:01This dusty, sandy land is as unfriendly to ships as it is to trees.
15:06There's reportedly a single tree on the whole island, and it looks a lot more like a bush.
15:11It's actually a pine tree.
15:13And since the famous island horses don't see it as much of a food source, it somehow managed to survive.
15:20Reports say that the tree was planted back in the 1950s.
15:24Local authorities were trying to grow a forest on the island to make it a bit more welcoming.
15:29They've planted tens of thousands of trees over the years, more than 69,000 evergreens, 600 fruit trees, and about
15:3655 pounds of pine seeds,
15:38along with other plants which could survive the conditions on the island.
15:42But they were no match for the extreme weather and sandy soil.
15:46Out of all those plants, just one pine tree is still alive.
15:50Thanks to its resistance, it has even become a symbol of Sable Island.
15:55Interestingly, for around 40 years, the island also had just one inhabitant.
16:00Can you imagine that?
16:02One person living on a remote island for so many decades?
16:06It's the story of a woman called Zoe Lucas.
16:08She chose to surround herself with the only residents on the island.
16:12The horses, the gray seals, and the many species of birds.
16:16An esteemed naturalist, she mentioned in an interview she gave back in 2017
16:20that she was used to living on the island and that she never got lonely.
16:24To survive here, she had to put together an essentials kit.
16:28It included a notebook to take notes and a pair of binoculars to study the wildlife.
16:33You can safely assume she wasn't scared of the intimidating surroundings
16:37since she decided to eventually call this place home.
16:40At first, Zoe wanted to set up camp on one end of the island, near some abandoned buildings.
16:46But, eventually, she settled in a wooden house near a bunch of sand dunes.
16:50A Canadian institution called the Meteorological Service of Canada
16:54put together the simple construction back in the 1940s.
16:58Parks Canada operates the building these days.
17:02Zoe's work included gathering as much data on the local horse population as possible.
17:07It could help scientists better understand how they managed to adapt to the unfriendly environment.
17:12She also helped gather the debris that made it to the shore to help track pollution levels.
17:17Among all the rubbish that she collected, there was a refrigerator and a crate full of fresh peppers.
17:24Some other specialists eventually started working rotating shifts on Sable Island
17:29to offer the brave woman a little bit of company now and then.
17:34The voyage started just like any other.
17:37The cargo ship SS Cotopaxi is making another journey to Havana, Cuba to deliver coal.
17:43It's November 29, 1925.
17:46For Captain Meyer and his crew, leaving Charleston Port, South Carolina,
17:51it will be the last trip the ship ever makes.
17:54Its route ran through the Bermuda Triangle.
17:57Two days into the trip, the Cotopaxi sent out a distress signal.
18:01It had got caught up in a strong tropical storm and turned over on its side.
18:07The wind was very strong and there was powerful lightning as well.
18:11Rain gradually filled the ship's hold.
18:13Then there was a bright white flash and the ship disappeared without a trace.
18:19Later, its wreckage was found in the Gobi Desert,
18:22which is in a completely different part of the world.
18:26All 32 crew members, including the captain, were missing.
18:30Of course, the part about the Gobi Desert is fictional.
18:34For one of his movies, Steven Spielberg came up with the idea that the ship was moved there by aliens.
18:40Still, in real life, the ship was never found, and its crew really did disappear.
18:46It was officially declared missing a month afterward, and nobody could find the wreck.
18:53It seems like a classic case of mysterious things going on in the Bermuda Triangle.
18:59But most mysteries are solved sooner or later.
19:02In 2020, the Cotopaxi was found.
19:05A man named Michael Barnett had moved to Florida to study shipwrecks off the coast.
19:11One wreck in particular really caught his attention.
19:14It was much larger than the others, and the locals called it the Bear Wreck.
19:19It was about 40 miles from St. Augustine in northern Florida.
19:23But no one had ever managed to identify the rusty hull.
19:27So Michael started to do some detective work.
19:30He measured the size of the shipwreck and started working through all the information he could find.
19:36He researched hundreds of old newspapers, leaf-through insurance records,
19:40and looked at artifacts found on the wreck.
19:42After hundreds of hours of hard work, Michael was sure it was the Cotopaxi.
19:49But a few years before, there had been a rumor that the same ship had been found off the coast
19:54of Cuba.
19:55The Coast Guard found the wreck of a cargo ship about the same size that looked a lot like the
20:00one lost in 1925.
20:02Michael was sure they were wrong, so he teamed up with some science journalists and kept investigating.
20:08Soon, they discovered something that seemed to confirm Michael's belief.
20:13Divers found brass valves with the letters SV on them in the wreckage of the ship.
20:19Michael suggested these initials referred to Scott Valve Manufacturing Company.
20:24The headquarters of this company was in Michigan, not far from where the Cotopaxi had been built.
20:29The company had probably supplied parts for the Cotopaxi.
20:33So, the puzzle seemed to be solved.
20:36The bear wreck was really the missing cargo ship.
20:40But Michael still needed to work out why the ship had sunk.
20:43Did something mysterious really happen to the Cotopaxi in the Bermuda Triangle?
20:49Later, Michael found the testimony of the ship's carpenter among some old papers.
20:54The carpenter claimed that the hatches covering the coal on the ship had been in a terrible condition before it
21:00sank.
21:01Repair work on the covers wasn't finished before the crew got the order to sail to Cuba.
21:07So, if the hatch covers were still broken during the trip, water could have easily gotten on board.
21:13This water probably flooded the hole during the tropical storm.
21:16This was the real reason why the Cotopaxi went down.
21:21There was really nothing mysterious about it.
21:23It was just a mistake made by ordinary people.
21:27But this is just one example out of dozens, or even hundreds,
21:32where ships and planes have gone missing in the Bermuda Triangle.
21:35We still can't explain some of these incidents.
21:38It seems like there really is something weird going on there.
21:43One of these strange events happened in 1948.
21:47A passenger jet was headed for Miami from San Juan, Puerto Rico.
21:52It disappeared in the same area as the Cotopaxi.
21:55The 32 people on board vanished without a trace.
21:59The weather was clear throughout the flight.
22:02But experts think that when the plane was about 50 miles from the coast,
22:06it could have been hit by a strong wind that knocked it off course.
22:11Years later, a similar plane was found in the area of the Bermuda Triangle.
22:15But because no one could work out the registration,
22:18it was impossible to say for sure if it was the same one.
22:23Something even stranger occurred not long before, in 1945.
22:28Five planes went missing all at the same time.
22:31Some trainee pilots were practicing their navigation skills.
22:35But when they'd finished, it seems they couldn't find their way back home and disappeared.
22:41Many people assumed they'd just ran out of fuel.
22:44This seems likely, but still, the circumstances were really strange.
22:48The trainees were being supervised by an experienced pilot who had 2,500 hours of flight time.
22:55He would never have let a group of newbie pilots get that far away from their base.
23:00Even now, people still debate what could have happened.
23:03Some insist the pilots ran into something supernatural out there in the Bermuda Triangle.
23:09But who knows?
23:11And here's another freaky thing that happened there which no expert has been able to explain.
23:17Time travel.
23:19In 1970, Bruce Gernon was flying a plane from Andros Island to the Florida coast.
23:25When he was at 11,500 feet, a giant cloud appeared in front of him.
23:30It kept getting bigger and bigger, and he had no choice but to fly through it.
23:35As soon as he did, the plane was surrounded by darkness.
23:39It was as if the day had turned to night in a split second.
23:43Suddenly, Bruce began to see white flashes of light around him.
23:47They were so bright that they lit up the entire sky.
23:50But they weren't lightning bolts, although he couldn't really explain what they were.
23:55The plane continued through the strange cloud for almost a half an hour.
24:00Bruce noticed that the cloud changed shape during this time.
24:03The space around the plane turned into a tunnel.
24:06Then the tunnel started narrowing.
24:08Bruce became really tense as he tried to cope with the plane's controls.
24:12All his instruments and navigation equipment were going crazy, and the electronics stopped working.
24:19Then, a white light appeared at the end of the tunnel.
24:22Just like in the movies, the plane escaped the closing cloud tunnel at the very last second.
24:28Everything was fine, but now Bruce found himself in some white fog.
24:32He had no idea where he was.
24:34Then, he managed to contact ground control.
24:38He was shocked when he learned that his plane was already in the airspace above Miami.
24:44It seemed that something impossible had happened.
24:47Bruce was meant to cover a distance of about 250 miles during the flight.
24:51This usually took one and a half hours.
24:54But he had managed it in just 47 minutes.
24:57Almost two times faster than normal.
25:00When Bruce landed, he went to check the amount of fuel left in the tank.
25:03It turned out he'd used up a lot less than the normal amount of fuel as well.
25:09Could there be a logical explanation for the time-traveling plane?
25:14Well, records show that a large number of sunspots were detected on the surface of the sun that day.
25:20And there was a strong solar wind.
25:22This could easily have made the electronics and devices on the plane go crazy.
25:26But what about the mysterious cloud?
25:29The Florida coast is a place where two large air currents meet.
25:33One has a high pressure, and the other is a low-pressure one.
25:37This causes a lot of storm clouds in the area.
25:40But people still debate how Bruce was able to cover the distance so quickly.
25:45Some people say that some kind of mysterious dark energy was involved.
25:50Others say it was a gravitational anomaly that curves space and time.
25:55Others think that Bruce is just a fraud.
25:58We still don't know the truth.
26:00So, is there really something supernatural about the Bermuda Triangle?
26:06Or is it all just coincidences and made-up stories?
26:10The truth is that no more planes and ships disappear in the Bermuda Triangle than anywhere else in the world.
26:17Closet is now in the world.
26:18The Bermuda Triangle is now in the world.