Lost at sea

Hello friends, and welcome to another thrilling installment of Eccentric Spheres!

Today we'll be talking about one of the most legendary places on earth: The Bermuda Triangle.

One could if one was so inclined, spend the rest of ones life talking about the triangle, which I won't. So I'll skip all conspiracies and stick to what's known.

First off, it's been proven that compasses act erratically in the triangle, which makes navigation difficult. Now, a compass can act strangely anywhere on earth, but it does genuinely seem to occur more frequently there.

Secondly, a part of the Gulf Stream flows through the area. As you may know, the Gulf Stream is an underwater river that is immensely powerful. Ships and planes that have crashed here and are caught in the Stream are pushed, slowly but surely hundreds of miles from the site of the accident. This explains in no small part the difficulty in finding wrecks and contributes greatly to the mystery. In fact, a crew who went searching for the USS Cyclops, who went down in the triangle, found by accident another ship that sank no where close to their location. This was the first clue to the disappearances.

Finally, the area is famous for the sudden appearance of lousy weather. And not just brutal tropical storms either. Fog banks can catch you in minutes, just when you were enjoying sunny and clear weather. Suddenly it doesn't seem quite so strange that ships and planes go down, does it?

Now, there are lots of other (plausible) explanations, from giant methane pockets destroying the waters buoyancy to simple human error that we don't really need Atlantis or Aliens, but there have been many odd occurrences that aren't that easy to explain away.

But without these mysteries life would be much duller, don't you agree?

Here's a Wikipedia list of the most famous disappearances if you're curious.

Until next week, stay safe!