Bermuda Triangle

NASA image of the western Atlantic Ocean, showing the popular borders of the Bermuda Triangle.

The Bermuda Triangle is an area in the Atlantic Ocean which was made infamous during the last 60 years due to the number of people, aircraft, boats and ships said to have disappeared within its boundaries. According to many of the stories related to them, these disappearances involve a level of mystery beyond human error or natural acts, such as alien abduction, the paranormal, or a suspension of the laws of physics. An abundance of documentation for most of the incidents instead suggests that the Bermuda Triangle is a sailor’s legend, exaggerated over time and embellished by professional writers.

History of the Triangle story

February 1964 issue of Argosy Magazine, featuring the first printing of a story bearing the name Bermuda Triangle

According to the Triangle authors Christopher Columbus was the first person to document something strange in the Triangle, reporting that he and his crew observed "strange dancing lights on the horizon", flames in the sky, and at another point he wrote in his log about bizarre compass bearings in the area. From his log book, dated October 11, 1492 he actually wrote:

"The land was first seen by a sailor called Rodrigo de Triana, although the Admiral at ten o'clock that evening standing on the quarter-deck saw a light, but so small a body that he could not affirm it to be land; calling to Pero Gutierrez, groom of the King's wardrobe, he told him he saw a light, and bid him look that way, which he did and saw it; he did the same to Rodrigo Sanchez of Segovia, whom the King and Queen had sent with the squadron as comptroller, but he was unable to see it from his situation. The Admiral again perceived it once or twice, appearing like the light of a wax candle moving up and down, which some thought an indication of land. But the Admiral held it for certain that land was near..."

Modern scholars checking the original log books have surmised that the lights he saw were the cooking fires of Taino natives in their canoes or on the beach; the compass problems were the result of a false reading based on the movement of a star. The flames in the sky were undoubtedly falling meteors, which are easily seen while at sea [1]

The first article of any kind in which the legend of the Triangle began appeared in newspapers by E.V.W. Jones on September 16, 1950, through the Associated Press. Two years later, Fate magazine published "Sea Mystery At Our Back Door", a short article by George X. Sand in the October 1952 issue covering the loss of several planes and ships, including the loss of Flight 19, a group of five U.S. Navy TBM Avenger bombers on a training mission. Sand's article was the first to lay out the now-familiar triangular area where the losses took place. Flight 19 alone would be covered in the April 1962 issue of American Legion Magazine in an article titled "The Lost Patrol", by Allen W. Eckert. In Eckert’s story it was claimed that the flight leader had been heard saying "We are entering white water, nothing seems right. We don't know where we are, the water is green, no white." "The Lost Patrol" was the first to connect the supernatural to Flight 19, but it would take another author, Vincent Gaddis, writing in the February 1964 issue of Argosy Magazine to take Flight 19 together with other mysterious disappearances and place it under the umbrella of a new catchy name: "The Deadly Bermuda Triangle"[2]; he would build upon that article with a more detailed book, Invisible Horizons the following year. Others would create their own works: John Wallace Spencer (Limbo of the Lost, 1969); Charles Berlitz (The Bermuda Triangle, 1974); Richard Winer (The Devil's Triangle, 1974), and many others, all keeping to some of the same supernatural elements outlined by Eckert.[3]

Lawrence David Kusche, a research librarian from Arizona State University and author of The Bermuda Triangle Mystery: Solved (1975) has challenged this trend. Kusche's research revealed a number of inaccuracies and inconsistencies between Berlitz's accounts and statements from eyewitnesses, participants and others involved in the initial incidents. He noted cases where pertinent information went unreported, such as the disappearance of round-the-world yachtsman Donald Crowhurst, which Berlitz had presented as a mystery, despite clear evidence to the contrary. Another example was the ore-carrier Berlitz recounted as lost without trace three days out of an Atlantic port when it had been lost three days out of a port with the same name in the Pacific Ocean. Kusche also argued that a large percentage of the incidents which have sparked the Triangle's mysterious influence actually occurred well outside it. Often his research was surprisingly simple: he would go over period newspapers and see items like weather reports that were never mentioned in the stories.

Front page of the New York Times, April 23, 1925, detailing the sinking of S.S. Raifuku Maru, an example of a Triangle story contradicted by a newspaper. The photo at the top of the page was taken by a crewman onboard RMS Homeric, showing the Raifuku Maru in the act of sinking.

Kusche came to several conclusions:

The number of ships and aircraft reported missing in the area was not significantly greater, proportionally speaking, than in any other part of the ocean.

In an area frequented by tropical storms, the number of disappearances that did occur were, for the most part, neither disproportionate, unlikely, nor mysterious; furthermore, Berlitz and other writers would often fail to mention such storms.

The numbers themselves had been exaggerated by sloppy research. A boat listed as missing would be reported, but its eventual (if belated) return to port, may not be reported.

Some disappearances had in fact, never happened. One plane crash was said to have taken place in 1937 off Daytona Beach, Florida, in front of hundreds of witnesses; a check of the local papers revealed nothing.

Kusche concluded that:

"The Legend of the Bermuda Triangle is a manufactured mystery... perpetuated by writers who either purposely or unknowingly made use of misconceptions, faulty reasoning, and sensationalism." (Epilogue, p. 277)

Other responses

The marine insurer Lloyd's of London has determined the Triangle to be no more dangerous than any other area of ocean, and does not charge unusual rates for passage through the region. United States Coast Guard records confirm their conclusion. In fact, the number of supposed disappearances is relatively insignificant considering the number of ships and aircraft which pass through on a regular basis.

The Coast Guard is also officially skeptical of the Triangle, noting that they collect and publish, through their inquiries, much documentation [4] contradicting many of the incidents written about by the Triangle authors. In one such incident involving the 1972 explosion and sinking of the tanker V.A. Fogg in the Gulf of Mexico, the Coast Guard photographed the wreck and recovered several bodies [5], despite one Triangle author stating that all the bodies had vanished, with the exception of the captain, who was found sitting in his cabin at his desk, clutching a coffee cup (Limbo of the Lost by John Wallace Spencer, 1973 edition).

Skeptical researchers such as Ernest Taves and Barry Singer have noted how mysteries and the paranormal are very popular and profitable. This has led to the production of vast amounts of material on topics such as the Bermuda Triangle. They were able to show that some of the pro-paranormal material is often misleading or not accurate, but its producers continue to market it. They have therefore claimed that the market is biased in favour of books, TV specials, etc. which support the Triangle mystery and against well-researched material if it espouses a skeptical viewpoint.^[1]

The Triangle area

The boundaries of the Triangle vary with the author; some stating its shape is akin to a trapezium covering the Florida Straits, the Bahamas, and the entire Caribbean island area east to the Azores; others add in the Gulf of Mexico. The more familiar, triangular boundary has as its points Miami, Florida; San Juan, Puerto Rico; and the mid-Atlantic island of Bermuda, with most of the incidents concentrated along the southern boundary around the Bahamas and the Florida Straits.

The Gulf Stream ocean current flows through the Triangle after leaving the Gulf of Mexico; its current of five to six knots may have played a part in a number of disappearances. Sudden storms can and do appear, and in the summer to late fall the occasional hurricane strikes the area. The combination of heavy maritime and pleasure traffic and tempestuous weather makes it inevitable that vessels could founder in storms and be lost without a trace — especially before improved telecommunications, radar and satellite technology arrived late in the 20th century.

Natural explanations

Methane hydrates

An explanation for some of the disappearances has focused on the presence of vast fields of methane hydrates on the continental shelves. A white paper was published in 1981 by the United States Geological Survey about the appearance of hydrates in the Blake Ridge area, off the southeastern United States coast. [6] Periodic methane eruptions may produce regions of gas-filled water that are no longer capable of providing adequate buoyancy for ships. Laboratory experiments carried out in the Monash University in Australia have proven that bubbles can, indeed, sink a scale model ship by decreasing the density of the water [7]; any wreckage consequently rising to the surface would be rapidly dispersed by the Gulf Stream.

Methane also has the ability to cause a piston engine to stall when released into the atmosphere even at an atmospheric concentration as low as 1%.

Compass variations

Compass problems are one of the cited phrases in many Triangle incidents; it is possible that people operating boats and aircraft looked at a compass that they felt was not pointing north, veered course to adjust, and got lost quickly. The North Magnetic Pole is not the North Pole; rather it is the north end of the earth's magnetic field, and as such it is the natural end where the needle of a compass points. The North Magnetic Pole also wanders. In 1996 a Canadian expedition certified its location by magnetometer and theodolite at 78°35.7′N 104°11.9′W; in 2005 its position was 82.7° N 114.4° W, to the west of Ellesmere Island.

The direction in which a compass needle points is known as magnetic north. In general, this is not exactly the direction of the North Magnetic Pole (or of any other consistent location). Instead, the compass aligns itself to the local geomagnetic field, which varies in a complex manner over the Earth's surface, as well as over time. The angular difference between magnetic north and true north (defined in reference to the Geographic North Pole), at any particular location on the Earth's surface, is called the magnetic declination. Most map coordinate systems are based on true north, and magnetic declination is often shown on map legends so that the direction of true north can be determined from north as indicated by a compass.

Magnetic declination has been measured in many countries, including the U.S. The line of zero declination in the U.S. runs from the North Magnetic Pole through Lake Superior and across the western panhandle of Florida. Along this line, true north is the same as magnetic north. West of the line of zero declination, a compass will give a reading that is east of true north. Conversely, east of the line of zero declination the compass reading will be west of true north. Since the North Magnetic Pole has been wandering toward the northwest, some twenty or more years ago the line of zero declination went through the Triangle, giving sailors and airmen a compass reading of true north instead of magnetic north. A sailor not knowing the difference would sail off course without realizing it, ultimately resulting in a vanishing.

Hurricanes

Hurricanes are extremely powerful storms which are spawned in the Atlantic near the equator, and have historically been responsible for thousands of lives lost and billions of dollars in damage. The sinking of Francisco de Bobadilla's Spanish fleet in 1502 was the first recorded instance of a destructive hurricane. In 1988, Hurricane Gilbert, one of the most powerful hurricanes in history, set back Jamaica's economy by three years. These storms have in the past caused a number of incidents related to the Triangle.

Gulf Stream

The Gulf Stream is an ocean current which flows out of the Gulf of Mexico, then north through the Florida Straits on into the North Atlantic. In essence, it is a river within an ocean, and like a river, it can and does carry floating objects with it. A small plane making a water landing, or a boat having engine trouble will be carried away from its reported position by the current, as has happened to the cabin cruiser Witchcraft on December 22, 1967, when it reported engine trouble near the Miami buoy marker one mile from shore, but was not there when a Coast Guard cutter arrived.

Freak waves

Another possible explanation is the occurrence of rogue waves. It is suspected that deep-water earthquakes or distant storms form these occurrences, but there is no certain source at this time. Regardless, rouge waves are a confirmed phenomena, and have done severe damage to ships. One such rogue wave wrecked the cruiser USS Memphis (CA-10) off the Dominican Republic on August 29, 1916, killing 40 men.

Acts of Man

Human error

One of the most cited explanations in official inquiries as to the loss of any aircraft or vessel is human error. Whether deliberate or accidental, humans have been known to make mistakes resulting in catastrophe, and losses within the Bermuda Triangle are no exception. For example, the Coast Guard cited a lack of regular maintenance as a reason for the loss of the tanker Marine Sulphur Queen in 1963. Simple human stubbornness may have caused businessman Harvey Conover to lose his sailing yacht, the Revonoc, as he sailed into the teeth of a storm south of Florida on January 1, 1958. It should be noted that many losses remain inconclusive due to the lack of wreckage which could be studied, a fact cited on many official reports.

Deliberate acts of destruction

This can fall into two categories: acts of war, and acts of piracy. Records in enemy files have been checked for numerous losses; while many sinkings have been attributed to surface raiders or submarines during the World Wars and documented in the various command log books, many others which have been suspected as falling in that category have not been proven; it is suspected that the loss of USS Cyclops in 1918, as well as her sister ships Proteus and Nereus in World War II, were attributed to submarines, but no such link has been found in the German records.

Piracy, as defined by the taking of a ship or small boat on the high seas, is an act which continues to this day. Rum-runners in the Prohibition Era and drug runners today have taken small ships and pleasure boats, often killing the crew, before loading their illicit cargoes and making a run for the United States, where they would unload the cargo and, more often than not, simply dispose of the vessel by sinking.

Another form of piracy operated on dry land. Bankers or wreckers as they were called, would shine a light on shore to misdirect ships closer to the shore, getting many to run hard aground; the wreckers would then claim salvage and help themselves to the cargo, and sometimes killing any crew who protested. Nag's Head, North Carolina, was named for the wreckers' practice of hanging a lantern on the head of a hobbled horse as it walked along the beach.

Popular theories

The following theories have been used in the past by the Triangle writers to explain a myriad of incidents:

Atlantis

An explanation for some of the disappearances pinned the blame on left-over technology from Atlantis, for example, the activation of a still-operable “death ray”. Reputed psychic Edgar Cayce claimed that evidence for Atlantis would be discovered just off Bimini in 1968. New Age proponents view the Bimini Road as either a road, wall, or pier meant to service ships bound for Atlantis from Central and South America, or a breakwater built to protect fishing boats, despite the fact that the wall has a natural origin; a similar, easily observable formation lies on the shore on the north end of Bimini.

UFOs

Theorists claim extraterrestrials captured ships and planes, taking them beyond our solar system. This was given a boost when topics like ESP, telekinesis, clairvoyance, and the like flowered in the middle-to-late 1960s, and was used as storylines for popular films like Close Encounters of the Third Kind and The UFO Incident.

USS Memphis (CA-10) in 1916, hard aground in the Dominican Republic after an encounter with a freak wave. (U.S. Navy)

Time warp

The proponents of this theory state that the many ships and planes entered a time warp to a different time or dimension on the other side. Usually, the ship or aircraft in the story enters this dimension by way of a cloud. This has been a popular subject in television episodes of Star Trek, Doctor Who and The Twilight Zone, as well as popular films such as The Philadephia Experiment and The Final Countdown.

Anomalous phenomena

Charles Berlitz, grandson of a distinguished linguist and author of various additional books on anomalous phenomena, has kept in line with this extraordinary, catch-all explanation, and attributed the losses in the Triangle to anomalous or unexplained forces.

Electric fog

On at least one recorded (literally, with a camera) flight through the triangle, a dense fog moved in with unusual speed. About when it reached the plane, multiple instruments began malfunctioning. Whether this was an internal electrical problem or caused by the fog has not been determined, but some theorize that the fog was electrically charged. This theoretically caused the electronic instruments to act erratically. However, there is no confirmed occurrence of such an "electric fog" under any conditions, in our out of the Bermuda Triangle.

Famous incidents

Theodosia Burr Alston

Theodosia Burr Alston, by John Vanderlyn (1802)

Theodosia Burr Alston was the daughter of former United States Vice-President Aaron Burr. Her disappearance has been cited at least once in relation to the Triangle, in The Bermuda Triangle by Adi-Kent Thomas Jeffrey (1975). She was a passenger on board the Patriot, which sailed from Charleston, South Carolina to New York City on December 30, 1812, and was never heard from again. Both piracy and the War of 1812 have been posited as explanations. Other theories have been presented, including one placing her in Texas, well outside the Triangle.

Mary Celeste

Mary Celeste in Gibraltar after the incident.

The mysterious abandonment in 1872 of the Mary Celeste, is often but inaccurately connected to the Triangle, having been abandoned off the coast of Portugal. Many theories have been put forth over the years to explain the abandonment, such as alcohol fumes from the cargo to insurance fraud. The event is possibly confused with the sinking of a ship with a similar name, the Mari Celeste, off the coast of Bermuda on September 13, 1864, and mentioned in the book Bermuda Shipwrecks by Dan Berg.

Ellen Austin

The schooner Ellen Austin supposedly came across an abandoned derelict, placed on board her a prize crew, and attempted to sail with it to New York in 1881. According to the stories, the derelict disappeared; others elaborating further that the derelict reappeared minus the prize crew, then disappeared again with a second prize crew on board. A check of Lloyd's of London records proved the existence of the Meta, built in 1854; in 1880 the Meta was renamed Ellen Austin. There are no casualty listings for this vessel, or any vessel at that time, that would suggest a large number of missing men placed on board a derelict which later disappeared. [8]

The Spray

Captain Joshua Slocum's skill as a mariner was beyond question; in 1898 he was the first man to sail around the world alone in a restored yawl he named the Spray. In 1909 he set out in a course south from Boston that took him through the Caribbean, possibly to Venezuela, and disappeared; it was assumed he was run down by a steamer or struck by a whale, the Spray being too sound a craft and Slocum too experienced a mariner for any other cause to be considered likely. In 1924 he was declared legally dead.

USS Cyclops

USS Cyclops

The incident resulting in the single largest loss of life in the history of the U.S. Navy not related to combat occurred when USS Cyclops under the command of Lieutenant Commander George. W. Worley went missing without a trace with a crew of 306 sometime after March 4, 1918, after departing the island of Barbados. Although there is no strong evidence for any theory, storms, capsizing and submarine activity during World War I have all been suggested as explanations. [9][10]

Carroll A. Deering

Schooner Carroll A. Deering, as seen from the Cape Lookout lightship on January 29, 1921, two days before she was found deserted in North Carolina. (US Coast Guard)

A five-masted schooner built in 1919, the Carroll A. Deering was found hard aground and abandoned at Diamond Shoals, near Cape Hatteras, North Carolina on January 31, 1921. Rumors and more at the time indicated the Deering was a victim of piracy, possibly connected with the illegal rum-running trade during Prohibition. Just hours after she passed by the Cape Lookout lightship on January 29, an unknown steamer sailed nearby along the track of the Deering and ignored all signals from the lightship. It is speculated that the mystery ship was S.S. Hewitt which disappeared at roughly the same time, and was possibly involved in the removal of the Deering crew. [11]

Raifuku Maru

One of the more famous incidents in the Triangle took place in 1921 (some say a few years later), when the Japanese vessel Raifuku Maru went down with all hands after sending a distress signal which allegedly said "Danger like dagger now. Come quick!" This has led writers to speculate on what the "dagger" was, with a waterspout being the likely candidate (Winer). In reality the ship was nowhere near the Triangle, nor was the word "dagger" a part of the ship's distress call; having left Boston for Hamburg, Germany, on April 21, 1925, she got caught in a severe storm and sank in the North Atlantic with all hands while another ship, RMS Homeric, attempted an unsuccessful rescue.

Flight 19

US Navy TBM Grumman Avenger flight, similar to Flight 19. This photo had been used by various Triangle authors to illustrate Flight 19 itself. (US Navy)

Flight 19 was a training flight of five U.S. Navy TBM Avenger bombers which left Fort Lauderdale Naval Air Station, Florida on December 5, 1945, and went missing several hours later while over the Atlantic. The impression given is that the flight encountered unusual phenomena and anomalous compass readings, and that the flight took place on a calm day, under the leadership of an experienced pilot, Lieutenant Charles Carroll Taylor. Adding to the intrigue is that the Navy's report of the accident was ascribed to "causes or reasons unknown". Further compounding the mystery was a Martin Mariner search plane which went out in search of the flight and vanished from radar screens some twenty minutes after taking off. The total number of men lost in the six planes was 27.

In reality the weather had become stormy by late that afternoon. Only Lt. Taylor had any significant flying time, but was not familiar with the south Florida area, and had a history of getting lost in flight, doing so three times in the Pacific during World War II and forced to ditch his planes twice. Naval reports and written recordings of the conversations between Lt. Taylor, the other pilots of Flight 19, and the control tower do not indicate the unusual or paranormal problems cited by the popular writers of the Triangle. It was this incident, plus the later incidents involving the aircraft Star Tiger and Star Ariel, that led to the creation of the Bermuda Triangle as a popular, paranormal story.

Star Tiger and Star Ariel

These Avro Tudor IV passenger aircraft disappeared without trace en route to Bermuda and Jamaica, respectively. Star Tiger was lost on January 30, 1948 on a flight from the Azores to Bermuda. Star Ariel was lost on January 17, 1949, on a flight from Bermuda to Kingston, Jamaica. Neither aircraft gave out a distress call; in fact, their last messages were routine. A possible clue to their disappearance was found in the mountains of the Andes in 1998: the Star Dust, an Avro Lancastrian airliner run by the same airline, had disappeared on a flight from Buenos Aires, Argentina, to Santiago, Chile on August 2, 1947. The plane's remains were discovered at the melt end of a glacier, suggesting that either the crew did not pay attention to their instruments or had an instrument failure on the descent to Santiago when it hit a mountain peak, with the resulting avalanche burying the remains and incorporating it into the glacier. However, this is mere speculation with regard to the Star Tiger and Star Ariel, pending the recovery of the aircraft. It should be noted that the Star Tiger was flying at a height of just 2,000 feet, which would have meant that if the plane was forced down, there would have been no time to send out a distress message. [12]

Douglas DC-3

On December 28, 1948, a Douglas DC-3 aircraft disappeared while on a flight from San Juan, Puerto Rico, to Miami. No trace of the aircraft or the 32 people onboard was ever found. From the documentation compiled by the Civil Aeronautics Board investigation, a possible key to the plane's disappearance was found, but barely touched upon by the Triangle writers: the plane's batteries were inspected and found to be low on charge, but ordered back into the plane without a recharge by the pilot while in San Juan. Whether or not this led to complete electrical failure will never be known. [13]

Connemara IV

A pleasure yacht found adrift in the Atlantic south of Bermuda on September 26, 1955; it is usually stated in the stories (Berlitz, Winer) that the crew vanished while the yacht survived being at sea during three hurricanes. The 1955 Atlantic hurricane season lists only one storm coming near Bermuda towards the end of August, hurricane "Edith"; of the others, "Flora" was too far to the east, and "Katie" arrived after the yacht was recovered. It was confirmed that the Connemara IV was empty and in port when "Edith" may have caused the yacht to slip her moorings and drift out to sea.

KC-135 Stratotankers

On August 28, 1963 a pair of U.S. Air Force KC-135 Stratotanker aircraft collided and crashed into the Atlantic. The Triangle version (Winer, Belitz, Gaddis) of this story specifies that they did collide and crash, but there were two distinct crash sites, separated by over 160 miles of water.

SS Marine Sulphur Queen

Shattered trailboard from Marine Sulphur Queen, recovered near the Florida Keys, February 1963. (U.S. Coast Guard)

SS Marine Sulphur Queen, a T2 tanker converted from oil to sulphur carrier, was last heard from on February 4, 1963 with a crew of 39 near the Florida Keys. Marine Sulphur Queen was the first vessel mentioned in Vincent Gaddis' 1964 Argosy Magazine article, but he did not go further than to state it as having "sailed into the unknown", despite the Coast Guard report which not only documented the ship's badly-maintained history, but declared that it was an unseaworthy vessel that should never have gone to sea. [14][15]

USS Scorpion

The nuclear-powered submarine USS Scorpion was lost south of the Azores on May 26, 1968 while on a transit home to Norfolk, Virginia after a six-month deployment. The Scorpion had been picked up by numerous writers (Berlitz, Spencer, Thomas-Jeffery) as a Triangle victim over the years, despite the fact that it did not sink in the Bermuda Triangle; the U.S. Navy believes that a malfunctioning torpedo contributed to her loss, an event actually recorded on the SOSUS microphone network.

Teignmouth Electron

Teignmouth Electron, as she was on July 10, 1969.

Donald Crowhurst was a sailor competing in the Sunday Times Golden Globe Race of 1968-69. His boat, a trimaran named Teignmouth Electron, left England on October 31, 1968; it was found abandoned south of the Azores on July 10, 1969. Most writers on the Triangle would stop there (only Winer elaborated on the facts), leaving out the evidence recovered from Crowhurst's logbooks which showed deception as to his position in the race and increasing irrationality. His last entry was June 29; it was assumed he jumped over the side a short time later.

The Triangle authors

The popular Triangle incidents cited above, apart from the official documentation, come from the following works. It should be noted that some incidents mentioned as having taken place within the Triangle are only found in these sources:

Berg, Daniel. Bermuda Shipwrecks, Aqua Explorers, Baldwin, New York (1990).
Berlitz, Charles. The Bermuda Triangle, Doubleday, New York (1974).
Group, David. The Evidence for the Bermuda Triangle, Aquarian Press, Wellingborough, Northamptonshire (1984).
Jeffrey, Adi-Kent Thomas. The Bermuda Triangle, Warner Books, New York (1975).
Kusche, Lawrence D. The Bermuda Triangle Mystery Solved Harper & Row, New York (1975).
Quasar, Gian J. Into the Bermuda Triangle: Pursuing the Truth Behind the World's Greatest Mystery, International Marine/Ragged Mountain Press (McGraw-Hill), Camden, Maine (2003).
Spencer, John W. Limbo Of The Lost, Philips Publishing Company, New York (1973).
Winer, Richard. The Devil's Triangle, Bantam, New York (1974).
Winer, Richard. The Devil's Triangle 2, Bantam, New York (1975).
Winer, Richard. From the Devil's Triangle to the Devil's Jaw, Bantam, New York (1977).

Newspaper articles

Flight 19

"Great Hunt On For 27 Navy Fliers Missing In Six Planes Off Florida," New York Times, December 7, 1945.
"Wide Hunt For 27 Men In Six Navy Planes," Washington Post, December 7, 1945.
"Fire Signals Seen In Area Of Lost Men," Washington Post, December 9, 1945.

Raifuku Maru

"Japanese Ships Sinks With A Crew Of 38; Liners Unable To Aid," New York Times, April 22, 1925.
"Passengers Differ On Homeric Effort To Save Sinking Ship," New York Times, April 23, 1925.
"Homeric Captain Upheld By Skippers," New York Times, April 24, 1925.
"Liner Is Battered In Rescue Attempt," New York Times, April 25, 1925.

SS Cotopaxi

"Lloyd's posts Cotopaxi As "Missing," New York Times, January 7, 1926.
"Efforts To Locate Missing Ship Fail," Washington Post, December 6, 1925.
"Lighthouse Keepers Seek Missing Ship," Washington Post, December 7, 1925.
"53 On Missing Craft Are Reported Saved," Washington Post, December 13, 1925.