What is the cause of the Bermuda Triangle?

Question

I've heard it is something to do with methane and landslides on the seabed. Anyone confirm that?

Answer 1

Partly superstition & embellishment from storytelling since you're in the "Devil's Sea", and could be any of the following:

1. That there is a large amount of volcanic activity around the area, and an underwater volcano could obliterate a ship without a trace.

2. Many people have reported seeing portals opening in cloudy skies - strange swirling lights sometimes accompanied by sounds - temporal distortions - electromagnetic distortions called 'electronic fog' that can cause a time storm, and the disappearance of planes and ships. There is something about this fog that is important and gives one the sense of all things paranormal.

3. The Triangle's location in the Caribbean makes it subject to unpredictable weather patterns. This takes us to Earth changes and the excalation of intense hurricanes in 2005 with more to come in the years ahead. These weather extremes prey on inexperienced navigators and smaller boats and planes. Water spouts, sudden electrical and thunder storms, and the like, can cause havoc in the area. The Gulf Stream can also be brutal in that region and perhaps has swept away evidence of natural disasters.

4. Your Methane hydrates theory
An explanation for some of the disappearances focuses on the presence of vast fields of methane hydrates on the continental shelves. A paper was published by the United States Geological Survey about the appearance of hydrates in the Blake Ridge area, offshore southeastern United States, in 1981. Periodic methane eruptions are capable of producing ship-sized bubbles, or regions of water with so much dissolved gas, that the fluid density is no longer capable of providing adequate buoyancy for ships to float. If this were the case, such an area forming around a ship could cause it to sink almost directly and without warning. Experiments have proven that a methane bubble can indeed sink a ship by decreasing the density of the water.

Methane gas can also crash planes. The less dense air causes planes to lose lift. Also, the altimeter of planes (the instrument that measures the altitude) functions on the density of air. Because methane is less dense, the altimeter assumes the plane is climbing. Planes at night or in the clouds, where they can't see the ground, assume that they are climbing and dive, causing them to crash. Also, methane in the engine throws off the mix of fuel and air. Aircraft engines burn hydrocarbons (gasoline or jet fuel) with oxygen provided by the air. When the ambient oxygen levels drop, combustion can stop, and the engine stalls. All of these effects of methane gas have been shown experimentally.

5. Freak Wave Theory
Research has shown that freak waves up to 30 m (100 feet) tall, capable of sinking the largest ships within moments, can and do happen. Although these are very rare, in some areas ocean currents mean they happen more often than the norm. Such waves have now been hypothesized as a cause for many unexplained shipping losses over the years.

The book was a best seller, and many interested readers offered theories to explain the nature of the disappearances. The list includes natural storms, transportation by extraterrestrial technology, high-traffic volumes (and correspondingly high accident rates), a "temporal hole," the lost Atlantis empire from the bottom of the ocean, and other natural and supernatural causes.

Answer 2

Landslides.... um no. There is no possible way that landslides are sinking ships hundreds of miles off land, or that landslides are crashing planes anywhere at all.

Methane -- while this is technically possible, it is VERY improbable. Think about it. If giant methane bubbles are so common in this area that they are able to hit random ships and sink them, then it follows that there should be a lot of close calls where people witness these giant bubbles but aren't affected, or are only affected a little. Since nobody has ever had a "near-miss" with a methane bubble, I think that it's fairly unlikely that these have anything to do with disappearing ships/planes.

In reality, sinking ships/crashing planes are no more common in the Bermuda Triangle than anywhere else in the world. It's a popular myth that has never stood up to even the slightest amount of scientific scrutiny.

The idea of "electric fog" is simply idiotic... Aliens -- also idiotic.... Volcanoes? WHAT VOLCANOES? I don't know of a single active volcano in the Bermuda Triangle. In fact the triangle is hundreds of miles from the nearest plate boundary. Honestly, tectonic activity has almost zero chance of sinking a ship in this area.

There is nothing strange about the Bermuda Triangle. It has been an important shipping lane for that part of the world for a very long time and the large volume of traffic is the real reason that there seems to have been a strange number of sinkings/crashes.

Answer 3

The Bermuda Triangle is a legend or a myth. Also known as the Devil's Triangle, it is an area in the Atlantic Ocean where the disappearance of many people, aircraft, and surface vessels has been attributed by some to the paranormal, a suspension of the laws of physics, or activity by extraterrestrial beings. Some of the disappearances involve a level of mystery which is often popularly explained by a variety of theories beyond human error or acts of nature. An abundance of documentation for most incidents suggests that the Bermuda Triangle is a sailors' legend, later embellished by professional writers.

The boundaries of the Triangle vary with the author; some stating its shape is akin to a trapezium covering the Straits of Florida, the Bahamas, and the entire Caribbean island area east to the Azores; others add to it the Gulf of Mexico. The more familiar, triangular boundary in most written works 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 area is one of the most heavily-sailed shipping lanes in the world, with ships crossing through it daily for ports in the Americas and Europe, as well as the Caribbean Islands. This may explain the higher number of occurrences. The law of averages will tell you that with more ships, you're likely to get more accidents.

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 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.

Answer 4

There are dozens of theories about this place and each of them have some grain of truth that gives them Some credibility and then they run the absolute gambit from there !!

One strong commonality to all of these theories is that to the person-- they almost all agree that the source of the occurances here--are caused by activity under the ocean at that location !!

There are those that swear that this has to do with extraterrestrial acivity in the region----others that prefer to see it as electro-magnetic destrubances stemming from some buried power source left in wake of Atlantis !! Even others adhere to the callapsing sea bed theory

One thing that is very clear about all this is the FACT that something way out of the ordinary is going on there that has yet to be pinned down with all the sciences and studies that have been done of the place !! Numerous lives have been lost there and the history of the odd goings on within the place are classic and very long running !!
So, if you're into science and into making a name for yourself-- with study and a whole lot of luck--- you may crack this ancient secret and become world famous overnight--- I just wouldn't want to suggest you do a lot of your research within the place though--- you might just become a statistic as opposed to becoming a notable discoverer !!!!!!!!

Answer 5

OH! I just saw this on the Discovery Channel not too long ago. It is some kind of gas that comes up and causes bubbles on the surface of the water messing with the density. They did a test in a test tank with a model size ship and that thing went down with in a few minutes. They said it was possible that these gasses could also shut down plane engines.

Answer 6

Greed (the invention of this triangle was a very lucrative one),
bias in the sorting of the actual disappearances (when you look only in the triangle and neglect the neighboring region) and actual disappearance of ships, planes and so on due to bad weather (remember Katrina), poor quality vehicles (thing of the financial benefit of a ship skipping security measures if it survives) and a very deep desire to discover the truth at a cheap price.

Answer 7

Mythbusters says that it has something to do with air bubbles coming to the surface of the water (and they proved that a big enough air bubble can sink a boat), but that doesn't explain the airplanes...Nevertheless, I won't be flying over it...

EDIT: Yay...Me and VMS watch the same crap on TV...

Answer 8

I heard it's from radio waves colliding in one place, making it impossible for communcation and direction. The Hutchingson Effect is rumored to occur there.

Answer 9

three points
Bermuda
Florida
and another.....

its a mystery, does it really exist, are there aleins, are there sea monsters, are there crazy peopel

who knows

methane would have to be produced in large volumes and tectonics are not that great really in that area

Answer 10

Overly active imaginations.