Author: Hui Jiaming
Editor: Yuki
Bermuda is a small island in the Atlantic Ocean with a population of less than 1,, which is 1, kilometers away from Beijing. In principle, this place has nothing to do with our lives. However, when it comes to the name of Bermuda, I'm afraid there are many young people who don't know it.
in the big extracurricular books we read since childhood, Bermuda Devil Triangle? The concept of appearance rate is quite high. The so-called Devil's Triangle generally refers to the triangle area connecting Bermuda, Miami and San Juan, the capital of Puerto Rico. According to legend, there are frequent paranormal in this area, and no matter whether it is an airplane or a ship, it will be unlucky as soon as it comes in.
(Bermuda Devil's Triangle icon. Image source: Wikimedia Commons)
It is said that the Bermuda Devil's Triangle exists in time tunnel, which will transport the plane to a strange world, and the passengers will be there? Into thin air? . Others even associate the Devil's Triangle with Atlantis myth or aliens, and guess that those missing people were taken away by mysterious forces.
These supernatural stories are really fascinating, and they can be made into several sci-fi blockbusters. However, don't take it seriously. Bermuda in reality is not a terrible forbidden area, and there is no time tunnel you yearn for. Most of the stories about Bermuda are made up and distorted. The so-called devil's triangle is not a natural phenomenon in essence, but a popular cultural phenomenon created by human beings themselves.
(In reality, Bermuda is a comfortable paradise and a famous tourist destination.
image source: (WT-en) Legrospaum? |Wikimedia Commons)
The devil Bermuda, how terrible is it?
paranormal in Bermuda's Devil's Triangle sounds mysterious, but it is nothing more than these two categories: either a shipwreck or a missing flight. But what is the devil's triangle? Eat? How many ships and planes have been lost, and the relevant works can't come up with accurate figures. Some folk enthusiasts have counted that there have been more than 9 traffic accidents in this area in the past 2 years, but this figure is likely to be biased [1]. Actually, admire? Devil's triangle? Our folk experts never thought of using amazing statistics to attract attention, but relying on those confusing case stories.
among shipwrecks, the most commonly used stories to prove the degree of terror in the Devil's Triangle are missing warships and ghost ships (ships that float like ghosts at sea and are unmanned). What are the classic cases? Cyclops? And? Carroll A. Deering? . Cyclops is a naval transport ship with more than 3 crew members and a displacement of nearly 2, tons. In March 1918, it set out full of ore, and suddenly disappeared while passing through the Devil's Triangle, even the ship and people disappeared without a trace [2]. It is really surprising that a giant steel ship with powerful equipment and tonnage equivalent to a light aircraft carrier should disappear inexplicably and even leave no trace.
(the old shadow of the cyclops transport ship. Image source: Photo was taken by the New York Navy Yard | Wikimedia Commons)
In contrast, the experience of the ghost ship Carol Dilling is described even more strangely. Built in 1919, this dhow was usually responsible for pulling cargo in the waters near Bermuda. As a result, it disappeared less than two years after it was launched. Until 1921, people found it on the coast of North Carolina, USA. The hull was intact, but there was no one on board [3].
Similarly, the disappearance of military aircraft is widely circulated. In December 1945, five bombers went out for training and the signal disappeared in the sea near Bermuda. Then, the navy sent a seaplane to search and rescue, but the search and rescue plane disappeared soon after [4]. Together, six planes and 27 airmen were missing on this day.
(the old shadow of the missing navy bomber. Image source: lt.comdr.horacebristol | wikimedia commons)
In addition to these classic cases, there are many supernatural stories in Bermuda Triangle, but the story structure is similar, and most of them are cases in which a certain type of vehicle disappeared for no reason when it arrived in the area. At first glance, it sounds as if Bermuda is really evil, and it has instilled such an idea in people:? The Bermuda Triangle is very dangerous. The disappearance of vehicles goes against the common sense of life and cannot be explained scientifically. Only by introducing the concept of time tunnel or aliens can it make sense? . But in fact, this concept is wrong from beginning to end, because Bermuda is not dangerous, and the traffic accidents there can be completely explained by science, and it is even more groundless to be associated with time tunnel or UFO.
Bermuda is not even in the top ten of the most dangerous sea areas in the world?
First of all, we can be sure that most of the traffic accidents related to the Devil's Triangle do exist, and a few of them are fabricated out of thin air, which can be proved by the news newspapers at that time. However, there are too many exaggerated elements in them, and some important details are deliberately erased.
objectively speaking, it is a pity, but it is also very common. Let's say that in the past two years, our South Asian neighbors have crashed a military plane almost every month, and there have been more than 3 naval accidents in the past ten years, and the news of warship and submarine crashes all over the world is endless. However, before GPS was born, computers were not widely used, airplanes were still using propellers, and weather forecasts were mostly based on guesswork. From the early 19th century to the first half of the 2th century, it was not inconceivable that there were plane and ship crashes in Bermuda Triangle. What's more, WWF has counted the ranking of the places with high incidence of global shipping accidents, and the areas most prone to accidents are the Sea of Japan, the Mediterranean Sea, the Persian Gulf and other places, while Bermuda has not even ranked in the top ten [5]! Moreover, it is worthy of the name to find the wreckage of a ship or plane that has crashed in the vast sea? Looking for a needle in a haystack? , so it is difficult for people to find its trace, and it is easy to form a kind of? Disappeared for no reason, leaving no trace? The illusion.
as for the so-called ghost ship, it's not unusual at all. According to Asahi Shimbun, more than 1 ghost ships floated off the coast of Japan in 217 alone. The owners of these ships may have died in a shipwreck and their bodies were washed away by the waves. It is also possible that it was left unattended at the dock, but then the cable broke and it was washed into the sea. Some ghost ships in the Bermuda Triangle probably appeared in this way. In addition, like the Carodillin mentioned earlier, according to witnesses at that time, it should have been attacked by pirates, and the crew escaped or was killed, so it was empty when it was found.
besides, there is a man named Larry? Larry Kusche's pilot (who is also a master of library science) wrote a book to expose the truth of Bermuda based on his driving experience and literature records [6]. He found that in the past, an important detail was erased from the supernatural stories about ship and plane crashes? weather
(Hurricane in the sea near Bermuda. Image source: image by Jesse Allen, based on data from the MODIS rapid response team at NASA-GSFC | Wikimedia Commons)
There are often hurricanes or thunderstorms in the waters near Bermuda, which is a great threat to maritime traffic. Like the Cyclops, it has been mentioned in its accident report that the ship probably sank in a storm with a speed of 5-7 kilometers per hour. In addition, many cases of missing ships and flights in this area have bad weather on the same day. But the devil's triangle? Loyal powder? But deliberately did not mention the weather, in order to increase the mystery of the event. After all, if the disappearance was only the result of bad weather, it might not attract much attention.
A carnival of pop culture
Generally speaking, the traffic accident in the sea near Bermuda is not paranormal, and it can be completely explained by science. The so-called Bermuda Devil Triangle is not a natural phenomenon, let alone an academic achievement discovered by scientists.
But if you want to ask whether the Bermuda Devil's Triangle exists? Then we should answer: does it really exist? It does not exist in nature, but as a fictional cultural phenomenon in human books, television, internet and minds.
(Bermuda Devil's Triangle exists as a fictional cultural phenomenon. Image source: Wallpaper Abyss)
The concept of Bermuda Devil's Triangle has been a cultural product since its birth. It was proposed by Vincent? Gaddis is not a scientific researcher, but a writer. In 1964, he wrote an article entitled "Bermuda Triangle of Death" and published it in Argosy magazine. The key point is that this magazine is actually a popular culture magazine, and most of the contents published on it are fiction, which is equivalent to the Story Club, which is familiar to us in China. Before the change of name, Ship Magazine was called Golden Ship, and its positioning was a children's literature magazine, which was equivalent to the King of Fairy Tales that we read when we were young.
Imagine if someone wrote an article in The Story or The King of Fairy Tales about paranormal, where there are frequent occurrences. Do you think this is a fictional novel or a real event?
After a long time, the Bermuda Triangle is a literary creation, which has nothing to do with natural science research. However, the concept of Bermuda Triangle really attracts people's attention, because this sea area was a hot spot in the last century. It is close to Florida, a famous tourist resort in the west, Cuba, the front line of the Cold War confrontation in the south, and an important Atlantic trade route in the middle. And in time, it just caught up with the 196s and 197s? UFO fever? . Four hot spots in one breath, it is difficult for the Bermuda Triangle to think about fire. For a while, all kinds of magazines, TV programs, B-rated movies, cultural shirts and other peripheral cultural products about the Bermuda Triangle poured out [7]. The famous director Spielberg was inspired and even made a sci-fi blockbuster "close encounters of the third kind". Later, the Bermuda Triangle was introduced to China, which became a lot of post-8s and post-9s generation? Collective memory? .
(Bermuda Triangle, once a hot spot in the resort of Florida. Image source: Daniel Christensen | Wikimedia Commons)
From this point of view, although the Bermuda Triangle is fictional, it does add a lot of wonderful content to people's cultural life, and even inspires many young people around us to devote themselves to scientific research. But in any case, we should give Bermuda a true face, not a virtual shadow of bloggers' eyes.
author's business card
typesetting: condensed sound
title map source: Wallpaper Abyss
reference:
[1]/news/22/12/Bermuda-triangle-mystery-disability/
[5]/news/ science-environment-2286362
[6]Kusche, Lawrence David (1975). The Bermuda Triangle mystery: solved. London: New English Library.
[7] Brett Neilsen.Deterritorializing the Bermuda Triangle: Popular Geography and the Myths of Globalization. Space and Culture, 2.