The Bermuda Triangle and the Tragic Incidents There

What's the most mysterious and blood-chilling place on Earth? The first thing that comes to my mind is the infamous Bermuda Triangle! This area has earned its terrifying reputation after swallowing countless ships and airplanes, which then disappeared without a trace. But recently, the Bermuda Triangle has added another mystery to its record: Cuban coast guards came across a ship that had gone missing more than 90 years ago!

It was November 29, 1925, when the S.S. Cotopaxi left Charleston, South Carolina, and headed for Havana, Cuba, carrying a big load of coal and 32 crew members. The story has it that several days later, the steamer ran into a violent storm, got water in its hold, and started to list dramatically. On December 1, the ship sent out a distress call, and since then, nothing was heard from the crew ever again. The ship seemed to have vanished into thin air... until 2018!

On May 18, the Cuban coast guards announced that they had come across a ship which hadn't been answering their calls. Since it happened close to a military zone with limited access, it couldn't but cause some turmoil. The mysterious ship was nearing the island west of Havana and seemed to ignore all the attempts of the coast guards to communicate. That's why three other vessels surrounded and blocked the intruder. To tell you the truth, even at first sight, the ship looked bizarre. Rusty and run-down, it seemed to drift mindlessly, without any destination in mind.

And when the crew climbed on board the ship, which indeed seemed to have stayed abandoned for decades, they found nothing but more oddities. First of all, there was not a living soul on board. It baffled the guards to no end: a ship sailing across the ocean, unmanned and uncontrolled? But that wasn't the only abnormality about their finding. However unbelievable it may sound, on closer inspection, the coast guards had to admit that the discovered ship was S.S. Cotopaxi, lost in the waters of the North Atlantic Ocean almost 90 years ago!

It became clear after the crew had found the chief's logbook related to the Clinchfield Navigation Company, which was the very company S.S. Cotopaxi belonged to. After Cuban experts confirmed the authenticity of the logbook, researchers got super excited. And no wonder - now they could finally find out what had happened to the ship in the distant 1925! Unfortunately, pretty soon, they realized that the logbook wasn't living up to their expectations. It contained tons of interesting information about the everyday life of the ship's crew but nothing at all about what could cause the disappearance of the massive ship. On December 1, 1925, the entries in the book simply came to an abrupt stop. It was the very day when the ship sent out a distress call and then stopped replying to any radio signals. So, as you see, the mysterious finding brought more questions than answers. If S.S. Cotopaxi sank almost 9 decades ago, how could it reappear on the surface? What happened to the crew, and how come they disappeared without a trace? And finally: does the finding mean that the Bermuda Triangle has started to return the prey it has been collecting for centuries?

But the worst thing about this discovery is... that it might have never happened! Soon after this breaking news appeared in different mass media sources, too many people started to question the truthfulness of the story. Not only did it seem too unbelievable to be real, but there was also no convincing evidence that the ship had been found in the first place. There were indeed numerous photos of a rusty steamer on the Internet, but was it S.S. Cotopaxi? Unlikely. That's why there's probably no use in combing through the Atlantic Ocean in search of other long-lost vessels and planes just yet. On the other hand, over centuries, there have been so many mysterious disappearances in that area that the chances are high that you'll find one or two ships that fell victims to the infamous Triangle. Maybe it will be the Patriot, a passenger schooner that left Charleston, South Carolina, on December 30, 1812, and headed for New York City. The ship, which had on board Theodosia Burr Aston, the daughter of former American Vice President Aaron Burr, went missing soon after departure, and no one heard of the schooner ever again.

Or you may come across S.S. El Faro, a much more recent disappearance. This cargo ship left Jacksonville, Florida, on October 1, 2015, with 33 crew member and countless vehicles, trailers, and containers on board. The 790-ft vessel was supposed to deliver its load to Puerto Rico, but something went terribly wrong. A violent tropical storm that started miles away suddenly transformed into a powerful hurricane that rushed toward El Faro. It started to circle around the cargo ship, making the communication from the vessel go silent. But the most shocking thing was that after causing all this turmoil, the hurricane miraculously retreated in the same direction it had come from! Weeks later, after a thorough and extensive search, rescuers finally located the ship - it was still in one piece and sitting upright on the bottom, at a depth of 15,000 ft. But the blood-chilling truth was that there was no trace of crew members on board.

The Bermuda Triangle started to gain popularity already in the 15th century when Christopher Columbus documented weird compass readings and bizarre lights in that area. The nickname of this place, 'Hurricane Alley,' speaks for itself. The weird thing about the Bermuda Triangle is not that way too many ships and planes disappear there (after all, it's the menacing and unpredictable Atlantic Ocean!), but that in most cases, even if the wreckage is found, there are no people on board, neither dead or alive.

One of the most infamous Bermuda Triangle disappearances of all times was USS Cyclops, a huge carrier ship that used to supply fuel to the American fleet. On January 8, 1918, heavy and full of Manganese ores, the ship departed from Rio de Janeiro and headed for Baltimore. Being only a few years old, the ship wasn't supposed to experience any problems, and all 309 people on board felt safe and calm. But this feeling turned out to be deceptive because somewhere around March 4, 1918, the ship disappeared into thin air, without sending out a distress call or indicating it was having problems in any other way. In the history of the U.S. Navy, it remains as the accident which caused the largest loss of life at a time.

As for airplanes, probably the most inexplicable disappearance happened on December 5, 1945, and got the name 'The Lost Patrol.' Flight-19 was the code name for 5 bomber planes that flew from the naval base in Florida on a training flight. No one knows for sure what happened to the planes, but they never returned to the base. Most experts believe that the commander of this group, Charles Taylor, got lost and led the planes in the wrong direction. Those were the machines which could land on water, so, hypothetically, after getting low on fuel, the pilots could ditch and wait for help, rocking on the surface of the ocean. But it didn't happen. Although two rescue Martin Mariner planes were searching the area all through the night and the next day, they found no trace of the five disappeared planes. But the most spine-chilling coincidence was that one of the rescue planes failed to return to the base as well! All the 6 planes vanished into thin air as if they had never existed!

There have been several other plane disappearances when the machines went off the radars and never returned. In some cases, pilots had time to send out a Mayday distress call, in others, they disappeared at a blink of an eye when everything seemed to be going perfectly fine. Well, no doubt, it all looks very suspicious, and the notoriety of the Bermuda Triangle might be well-earned, but think of this. The area of the Bermuda Triangle varies from 500,000 to 1,510,000 square miles, depending on the person describing the anomalous zone. Besides, it's one of the most heavily traveled routes in the world, with thousands of vessels crossing it to get to the ports of Europe, America, and the Caribbean. On the other hand, only several dozens of ships and planes have been lost in the Bermuda Triangle over the last centuries. I mean, if you think about this, it's not that much more than in any other dangerous area of the World Ocean, right? Do you know any other exciting stories about the Bermuda Triangle? Let me know down in the comments! If you learned something new today, then give this video a like and share it with a friend. But – hey! – don't go anywhere just yet! We have over 2,000 cool videos for you to check out. All you have to do is pick the left or right video, click on it, and enjoy! Stay on the Bright Side of life!