the islands of the Bahamas and Caribbean--the Mare Nostrum of Anglo-Americanvaca tioners. Bimini, which is only 45 miles away, is the closest to the US and the gateway to the Bahamas. The waters off Miami are a seagoing freeway. Florida has over 800,000 boats registered, plus over 300,000 which regularly descend from other states. These figures will continue to rise in the next Millennium. Included with these statistcis are boats
Satellite photo of the Florida Straits (Gulf Stream) between Florida and Bimini. The land mass at top is the western tip of Grand Bahama. The light color around Bimini is the shallow and immense Grand Bahama Bank
that can travel over 110 mph. This does not include the foreign yachts that weave in and out of freighters, or the commercial fishing vessels, tug boats, US Navy vessels, research vessels, and the big white cruise ships loading another bevy of passengers. Add spring break vacationers, plus a myriad of smuggling vessels, and it is no wonder there can be over 1,000 accidents and a 100 deaths in a year’s time.
Not surprisingly Miami is the center of the busiest rescue arm of the US Coast Guard-- this is the HQ of the 7th District. They answer all calls for distress and swing into action in seconds, sending cutters, speedboats and helicopters to scour the sea. The familiar white planes and ships with a red stripe are a welcome sight to those in trouble. The beating sound of a helicopter on patrol is not uncommon. To sea a chopper hover over a boat, and to hear the pilot over the loud speaker is routine.
Thousands of freighters ply their trade along here out in the fast Gulf Stream, either on their way to or from Panama to the East coast, West coast or Europe. As routes go, not much has changed since the days of the Spanish treasure fleets which used the Gulf Stream’s 4 knot current to hasten their trip to Bermuda and thence to Spain.
Today, the Florida depths are also a major draw for visitors. Underwater museums exist, like off Key Largo, where items of old sailing ships can be seen by the stalwart tourist who wishes to don snorkels and fins. Searching for an old Spanish wreck lures other divers to this undersea panorama of turquoise waters and crisscrossing beams of sunlight. They scout for any sign of renaissance metallurgy amidst broken spars, tires and discarded Coca Cola® bottles.
Yet amongst all this there has never come the report of the fuselage of a big DC-3 airliner which had to have vanished over the area of the Keys, within 40 miles of landing at Miami, on a balmy December night in 1948. Its captain, Bob Linquist, had just sent his last message saying he was on approach. Then he, his 31 passengers and crew, vanished forever.
This is not a phenom enon of old records. In 1978 another passenger DC-3 headed south and disappeared between the Keys and Cuba while on radar, yet searchers found nothing.
The most reliable aircraft ever built: the DC-3 by Douglas Corp. Three have vanished in the Triangle, all within the Florida Keys.
Amidst all this one would also expect to find at least some of the others that have vanished. Not only one, two or three
others have vanished here, but dozens of aircraft and possibly a hundred or more yachts. For example, around Key Largo a Piper dropped from radar shortly after take- off, yet left no trace in the shallow water. No one has noticed an accumulation of silhouettes below, yet a veritable fleet has gone missing.
For boats, any guess is just as good as another why they vanished; high jacking, reefs perhaps, seiche waves, minicanes. Yet one wonders if these are swift and selective enough to account for some losses that tempt the rational. The cabin cruiser Witchcraft, with Dan Burack and Father Pat Horgan, vanished from Buoy No. 7 at Miami harbor within the 19 minutes between her distress and Coast Guard arrival. His last words indicated something was below.
About 60 or so yachts vanish each year (conserv. est.) They fade away without much publicity. Some have caused excitement, like Revonoc in 1958, Witchcraft in 1967, Saba Bank in 1974, Polymer III and Kallia III in 1980, the latter found derelict in suspicious circumstances in the Bahamas.
Marine Sulphur Queen
Pirates and drug runners may account for boats, but what about airliners and freighters? Marine Sulphur Queen, a 504-foot T-2 tanker, vanished near the Keys in 1963, without a trace of its yellow liquid cargo of sulphur being found. Other freighters like Sandra (1950) have vanished along here. Fishing smacks like the Dawn vanished near Key West, cabin cruiser Ixtapa must have been annihilated. Her cabin was found floating, blasted off the rest of her hull. Evelyn K. was found derelict, her three fisherman wiped of the sea (but their dinghy was found intact).
Of course, most everybody has heard about Flight 19, one of the most famous multiple disappearances in history. They left Fort Lauderdale, just 20 miles north of Miami, on December 5, 1945, and vanished several hours later while on a routine training flight.
Many of the planes to vanish over the Bahamas have done so in bizarre circumstances. Such is the case of a twin Cessna 402B in 1984 which mysteriously slowed to 90 mph over the Florida Straits, then plummeted from radar, only to be seen 35 minutes later to crash into the sea off Bimini Island, 20 miles from where it vanished. Two witnesses saw it. The water is about 18 feet deep. Yet it left no trace. Why had no SOS been sent in that 35 minutes? Where was it on anybody’s scope? Where, in fact, had it been?
ABOVE: A cabin cruiser like Witchcraft. She had built in flotation, so she was unsinkable. However, no trace of the vessel was found in an immediate search. Dan Burack and Father Horgan went out to Buoy 7 to see the Christmas lights of Miami, then vanished after Burack sent an SOS about an object below.
The Bahamas continue to be the most traveled archipelago in the world. They are very low-lying islands situated on 2 immense banks called the Great & Little Bahama Banks. If the ocean were but 50 feet below its present level, these would be two huge islands in the Atlantic, the present Bahama islands representing only mere hills.
Most good maps delineate the areas of the Great Bahama Bank in white to indicate its shallowness. This allows one to see the deeper blue and oddly formed canyon running down its middle called The Tongue of the Ocean: a place with its own lively reputation for mystery, geologic and otherwise. The large potch-marked island to its west is Andros.
This fact has made several propose that the Bahamas may be the true “Atlantis.” In modern times over-flights have brought and continue to bring to light curious geometric patterns on the shallow banks below, apparently man made when the banks were above water thousands of years ago. The most famous is the Bimini Road or Wall, megalithic structures of impressive dimensions off Bimini Island. Almost any geometric pattern has been observed at one point, detected either by the growth pattern of underwater flora or its absence. Dives have uncovered floors with strange geometric patterns on them, and infrared has revealed mysterious pre-historic mounds (on Bimini). All of this, apparently, built by a civilization unrecorded in our own ancient annals.
These ancient mysteries are matched by geologic ones, like the deep Tongue of the Ocean, a huge oddly shaped canyon which cuts through the Great Bahama Bank and ends in a circular cul-de-sac about 40 miles in diameter.
This is quite a marvel to behold from the air and does indeed impress one as mysterious. Some cataclysm must have created this long ago worthy of Plato’s Atlantis. Colloquially any area of sharp contrast is called the “drop-off” due to the precipitous change in depth, especially on the east of Andros Island or anywhere on the lip of the Tongue.
Most areas of drop-off have some kind of mysterious quality because the contrast recalls the unknown of the depths. The drop-off by Moselle Reef near Bimini is also noted for undersea lights flitting about, giving it the reputation as “haunted” by local fishermen.
NASA photo of the cul-de-sac of the Tongue of the Ocean. Note how sharply it is cut into the surrounding shallow bank. Also note the deep rippling of the bottom of the surrounding bank, an indication of just how shallow it is. The Tongue is a mile deep compared. It may look small in the photo, but this is a huge area of sea.
USOs are another part of its modern mystery-- “Unidentified Submarine Objects.” Some have been reported as traveling at incredible speeds, to be oblong in shape or oval. The Bahamas also happen to be a major spot for UFO sightings, but only USOs seem to be unique there. . . according to those who study such phenomenon. It is a startling corroboration that a number of unexplained straight lines have been photographed from the air on the banks below. They cannot be the wake of boats or anchors being drug, since some have been noted ending at a little spit of land and continuing unbroken on the other side. . . (?)
The”Drop-off” east of Andros, into the deep Tongue of the Ocean.NASA
Other undersea phenomena include the beautiful “glowing waters” of the Bahamas, the last lights visible of the Earth to the astronauts of Apollo 12. They may be a number of things: marl stirred up by fish or an indication of stresses in the bedrock, for they have a large sulfur content. They vent up from the bottom and float on the surface not unlike wisps of clouds in the sky.
The Bahamas have other mysteries, of course. Reports of electromagnetic disturbance are some of the most unusual. There are places where the radio does not work ( a “Dead Spot”
The “drop-off” around Bimini, into the deep Florida Straits on one side and the Northwest Providence Channel on the other. NASA
is recognized even by the US Coast Guard), and compasses take strange courses or simply spin for no reason. Dr. David Zink’s party (The Stones of Atlantis), while investigating the Bimini ruins over several months, observed unexplained compass deviations by several degrees, which seemed connected with the phases of the moon. Little Bimini Island always seems surrounded by mystery.
All of these mysteries of the Bahamas, including those of missing planes and ships, come together to create much of the mythos of the modern Bermuda Triangle. The strange ruins below have given rise to theories of a past super civilization, hints of space can be found in the many UFO and USO reports, while the strange magnetic deviations speak of mysteries at the very foundation of energy fields: gravity and electromagnetism. And from these comes the theories of Time-warps, the bending of space and disintegration of matter. Without the very visible mysteries of the Bahamas, there could be few theories about the missing.
Shallows around the Exumas. Faint Maydays have sent rescuers trying to aid aircraft around here. However, no trace is ever found. A Mayday, in more than one instance, came hours after the plane’s fuel had run out. While theories of Time-Warps and “limbo” seem far-fetched, there is still no logical explanation how the planes could have been flying.
The next corner of the Triangle is
The busiest corner of the Triangle is the bustling port of Miami, Florida, and its environs extending south and southwest to the Florida Keys chain of islands. Miami is a veritable magnet for boaters, vacationers and sunbathers, who arrive during the peak tourist months to make this the quintessential American Riviera. Miami is also a pressure release valve for the millions of people who each year make it their jump-off port to
