Top Ten Most Inexplicable Bermuda Triangle Disappearances
This is creepy, be warned. In 1881, the 210 feet long Ellen Austin was on her way to New York from London when she stumbled upon another ship near the Bermuda Triangle. Everything seemed fine with the unidentified ship drifting around aimlessly. After two days of waiting to make sure it wasn't a trap, the captain entered the vessel with his crew to find nothing out of place, other than no crew being aboard. In order to bring the shipment back safely, the Captain sent the majority of his crew aboard the Ellen Austin to sail right behind them. However, after two days of sail on calm waters a squall separated path of the two ships, and in the blink of an eye the Austin had vanished! Days after the storm, the Captain's lookout could spot the vessel through his spyglass only to realise the vessel drifting far away aimlessly once again. After a while, Ellen Austin could catch up the vessel. But, strangely, no one was on board! So, first the original crew go missing but the ship's fine, then when the Captain places his own loyal prize crew on it, they disappear without a trace under his own nose, again without any change in the boat. What happened?
This was the Bermuda Triangle disappearance with the highest loss of life, as well as the largest loss of life in the history of the US Navy in a single incident. Well over 300 passengers were aboard and none of them were ever seen again. You're probably wondering what happened to the Cyclops, though, so I'll explain it. In March 1918, this massive ship, the USS Cyclops set out to sail from Brazil to Baltimore (I used to live in Baltimore, fun fact) through the Bermuda region carrying 10,800 tons of manganese ore (expensive!) with something like 310 crew members on board. Setting off on a clear day, the first and the only message sent by this ship indicated no troubles. However, the ship was never heard from again. An entire search of the area was put into action but no remains of the ship or any crew members aboard have ever been found. The captain of USS Cyclops never sent a distress signal and no one aboard responded to radio calls from other vessels nearby. What happened to this enormous ship and the hundreds of people inside? None of their remains were ever found. Creepy indeed.
This doesn't mean witchcraft as in magic, there was literally a boat named "Witchcraft". It was a luxury yacht, and two rich guys were aboard it to enjoy the wonderful view of Miami's Christmas lights. However, even less than a mile offshore, the coast guard received a call from the captain stating that something had hit his ship, with no sign of damage. The coast guard reached the spot in less than 20 minutes, but the area that the Captain had said to come to was completely deserted with no signs of any ship having been stranded or even present there previously. This particular cruiser was virtually unsinkable, not to mention the tons of life-saving devices present aboard, like life jackets, lifeboats, flares, distress signal devices etc. The coast guard searched hundreds of square miles of the ocean over the next few days but no evidence was ever found. It's pretty creepy that in less than 20 minutes the boat vanished and it was a pretty recent disappearance, too.
This is one of the most mysterious and well-known Bermuda Triangle stories, though unlike some of the others there is some evidence. Despite being found adrift in some other location in the Atlantic Ocean, they had been travelling through the Bermuda Triangle just before that, and the hints on the ship suggested that the crew had been gone for a while. Discovered December 4th 1872 with everything in place except for the entire crew and a lifeboat, which probably couldn't fit all ten of them. It was also found that nine of the barrels in the cargo were empty and there was a sword on the deck, with some creepy red stains on it (but people think it was just rust). No trace of the people abroad the vessel or the missing lifeboat has ever been found. Still, you can explain this one away. The crew may have been freaked out and had jumped into the lifeboat for some reason, maybe they got drunk or something, and there's no evidence that they were lost in the triangle itself, though that is likely.
Carroll A. Deering is one of the most famous Bermuda Triangle mysteries as well. On January 31, 1921, Carroll A. Deering was found hard aground on the treacherous rocks of Hatteras Diamond Shoals, North Carolina. When the investigation team reached the vessel after days of effort, all they found was a deserted ship with all crew members missing along with the crew's personal belongings, ships navigational equipment, logbooks, and life rafts. Known as "Ghost Ship of the Outer Banks", the disappearance of Carroll A. Deering along with as much as 9 other vessels during the same time period in the Bermuda triangle with out a trace is really strange. From all the important stuff missing it seems that the crew fled the ship in lifeboats, but why?
Interestingly enough, while many other Disappearances had already happened, this disappearance was what likely sparked the legend of the Bermuda Triangle. The five-plane squadron, Flight 19, with 27 men, set out on a training mission from their base, through the Bermuda Trianlge and never returned. There was quite a bit of speculation over what may have happened to them, but there was never any evidence and their bodies and planes were never found. Maybe they ran out of fuel. But that's not the scary part. A rescue mission of 13 men were sent to search for Flight 19 right after that, but those men disappeared without a trace as well. One flight of multiple planes and 27 Disappearances is weird enough, but a linked flight with everyone disappearing in a similar fashion pushes it to the unbelievable.
The USS Wasp was a ship that served in the United States Navy in 1814 during the War of 1812. It fought some important battles and destroyed almost a dozen ships, and it was a pretty powerful ship. Strangely, one day, during the year 1814, it mysteriously disappeared in the middle of the Bermuda Triangle with well over a hundred men, the fourth reported disappearance there since Christopher Columbus's ship reported seeing "a large fire flame falling into the water, unusual compass readings, strange lights and sounds" while in the middle of the triangle. There is still no evidence as to what happened to the ship.
The Sulphur Queen was a 523-foot tanker carrying Sulphur. On Feb. 3, 1963, the ship sent one radio report saying its location, which was in the Triangle. Then nothing. There was no SOS or anything. The ship simply disappeared. Two weeks later, pieces of a raft, a life vest and a broken oar washed up on Florida beaches. An investigation concluded that the vessel was nowhere near where it was supposed to be and likely caught fire at sea. It may seem crazy, but it really isn't. One time the same boat actually sailed into a port with fires smoldering, unloaded the cargo, and sailed off again, still burning. Still, how does any boat, even one loaded to the brim with Sulphur, catch fire in the middle of the ocean? And we still don't know if that was the real case. Weird.
The USS Scorpion was an enormous nuclear powered submarine that inexplicably disappeared with 99 crew members one day in perfectly calm and shallow waters, also in quite recent times. While it's possible that it was sunk due to its involvance in the military, none of these theories were ever proven. A while after the incident, a search mission finally found the wreckage, deep in the sea. To this day it's still unknown why the submarine was destroyed. This one could be explained, unlike some of the others, but since there's absolutely no proof of anything to this day it remains a mystery to people like you and me.
I put this one in the last spot on the list because of the fact that the daughter of the Vice-President of the United States, Aaron Burr, was one of the many people lost in this accident. Everything before that proceeded as planned, and they boarded the ship on schedule with enough provisions and all of that to survive for a while, and yet somehow the ship disappeared without a trace! There has never been any recorded evidence of what happened to it. What people do believe happened, however, is that the ship was overloaded with stuff and sunk. Don't know why they think that but that's what people say.
Amelia Mary Earhart was an American aviation pioneer and author. Earhart was the first female aviator to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. She received the United States Distinguished Flying Cross for this accomplishment.