00:00Five warplanes took off one afternoon in December 1945 for a routine exercise
00:05training. Fourteen men were on board. None ever returned. The planes were flying over
00:12an area of the Atlantic bounded by three points: the coast of Florida, the island of Puerto Rico, and the
00:18Bermuda archipelago, an invisible triangle of more than a million kilometers
00:23squares that the world would come to know by a name that today sounds like a legend, the Triangle of the
00:28Bermuda. The squadron was called Flight 19. They were five Navy Avenger bombers.
00:35American. Shortly after takeoff, its leader, Lieutenant Charles Taylor, began to experience problems
00:41with the compasses. The radio transmissions intercepted that day tell a story
00:46Chilling. Taylor thought he was over the Florida Keys, but in reality, the planes were flying over
00:53Heading in the opposite direction, toward the open ocean. Fuel was running out. After the last transmission
01:00By late afternoon, only silence remained. A rescue plane with thirteen crew members set out to find them.
01:06That same night. He didn't return either. A merchant cargo ship sailing in the area reported
01:12They had seen a fireball in the sky and a slick of fuel on the water. The plane from
01:18rescue
01:18It was known among sailors as the flying gas tank, because any spark could ignite it.
01:24blow it up. In a single night, twenty-seven men disappeared in the Atlantic. Not even their bodies.
01:31No wreckage, not a single distress signal. But Flight 19 wasn't the first mystery of the triangle.
01:38Twenty-seven years earlier, in March 1918, the US Navy ship USS Cyclops set sail
01:45from Barbados bound for Baltimore. It had 306 people on board and eleven thousand tons of ore.
01:52of manganese. Its last message said, good weather, all in order. After that, nothing. The Cyclops never
02:00He sent a distress signal and never found a single trace. It was the greatest loss of life in the
02:06US Navy out of action for the entirety of its history. Decades later, in 1941, two ships
02:14Twins of the Cyclops, the Proteus and the Nereus, disappeared in the same region with dozens
02:20of crew members. They left no trace either. The name Bermuda Triangle didn't even exist.
02:26when these tragedies occurred. It was invented by a journalist, Vincent Gaddis, in 1964, when describing
02:33A mysterious vortex in the Atlantic. From then on, books, films, and theories.
02:39Conspiracy theories turned the Triangle into a synonym for the inexplicable. What does it say?
02:44Science? The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA, says so.
02:50Let's be clear. There is no evidence that more ships and planes are disappearing in the Bermuda Triangle.
02:55than in any other busy area of the ocean. Lloyd's of London, the insurer
03:01The world's most famous maritime institution says exactly the same thing.
03:04So what explains these tragedies? First, the weather. Most tropical storms
03:11and Atlantic hurricanes cross this area. Before modern weather forecasting,
03:17These storms claimed many ships. Second, the Gulf Stream, which crosses the
03:23region and can cause rapid and violent weather changes. Third, the anomalies
03:29magnetic. At some points in the Triangle, the magnetic compass points north
03:34true north instead of magnetic north, and that deviation can disorient navigators
03:40inexperienced. Fourth, methane hydrates. Pockets of gas trapped beneath the bottom
03:46marine objects that, when suddenly released, reduce the buoyancy of the water and could sink a vessel.
03:51ship in a matter of minutes. And fifth, the human factor. Navigation errors, exhaustion
03:57fuel and fatal decisions like the ones that likely doomed the flight
04:0219. Why does the mystery persist? Because the ocean holds its secrets. The seabed
04:09The Triangle descends to 19,000 feet, and near its southern vertex, the Port Trench
04:15Rico descends to almost 28,000 feet. A wreck that falls there is beyond our reach.
04:21Always. And because, when the navy changed the official report of Flight 19 from a navigational error
04:27For unknown reasons, the tragedy became a legend.
04:32The Bermuda Triangle remains one of the great mysteries of the sea. Science
04:36It has debunked many fantastical theories, but the waters of the Atlantic have not yet returned
04:41all their answers.
04:43If this mystery has fascinated you, subscribe to The Abyss Archive and turn on notifications.
04:48And join us on the next journey into the depths, where science and enigma collide.
04:53and join us in Science and Enigma.
04:53So, the king of Science and the enigma of Science, which is very Google-like and the
04:53Thank you.
