The Bermuda Triangle nonsense continues, as does the media’s fondness for dramatic headlines, whether or not there are any facts to support them.  The most recent silliness is about late ice age methane explosions. The UK’s Daily Mail headline reads: “Has the secret of the Bermuda Triangle finally been discovered? Scientists find giant craters underwater which may explain how ships disappear without trace.”  The International Business Times headline reads:  Bermuda Triangle mystery: Missing ships victim of enormous methane blowouts on ocean floor?  Likewise, the Guardian leads with: “Do giant gas bubbles explain the mystery of the Bermuda Triangle?” There are literally dozens of other articles and posts that are variations on the same theme.

What is this all about? It seems that scientists have found underwater craters in the Barent Sea off Norway. The craters were apparently caused by methane explosions on the ocean floor that occurred after the last ice age, or more than 10,000 years ago.

What does this have to do with the so-called, Bermuda Triangle? Virtually nothing, as it turns out. The theory is that gas bubbles rising from such a methane explosion could just possibly sink a ship if the ship happened to be right above it at exactly the wrong time. Has this ever been observed happening? No, but it may be possible. The Barents Sea is not anywhere near the region in the Atlantic referred to as the Bermuda Triangle.  Ships, boats and planes have not been mysteriously vanishing in the “Barents Triangle.” There doesn’t happen to be any evidence of methane explosions in the Bermuda Triangle, either.

And did we mention that the Barents Sea explosions took place over 10,000 years ago at a very specific geological time? As reported by Live Science: But “blowouts” of the type that shaped the craters …  they were triggered by geologic processes that followed roughly 100,000 years when much of Earth was covered by ice sheets. 

“Conditions during the last ice age cannot be compared with what we see today,” Andreassen [ a professor of marine geology and geophysics at The Arctic University of Norway] said. “We are not making any links to the Bermuda Triangle.”

The fact that so many news outlets have chosen to run a story with fundamentally no basis in fact is disturbing in its own right but may overlook the larger point.  The idea that methane gas explosions may explain the mysterious disappearances of ships, boats and planes is doubly wrong, not just because that there have been no methane explosions observed in the region of the “triangle”,  but also because ships, boats and planes are just not disappearing mysteriously in the region of the Atlantic referred to as the Bermuda Triangle. The Bermuda Triangle itself is nothing more or less than a myth.

Yes, ships, boats and planes have crashed, sunk or disappeared in the notional area described as the Bermuda Triangle.  The “triangle” is usually described as the area formed by lines drawn from Miami, FL to the island of Bermuda, to San Juan, Puerto Rico. It is one of the most heavily traveled stretches of the ocean in the world.

Notably, most of the examples of ship and plane disappearances are from quite some time ago. Notwithstanding that the area is traversed by thousands of planes weekly, the most commonly cited example of the disappearance of planes is the loss of Flight 19 from 1945. Likewise, the USS Cyclops, a navy collier, which disappeared with the loss of over 300 sailors, was lost in 1918.  There is also no actual evidence that the ship sank in the region know as the “Triangle.” Nevertheless, the USS Cyclops is often used as an example of a ship lost in the Bermuda Triangle.

The US Coast Guard addresses the Bermuda Triangle in its “Frequently Asked Questions” section of its website:
Does the Bermuda Triangle really exist?

The Bermuda Triangle or Devil’s Triangle is a mythical geographic area located off the southeastern coast of the United States. … The Coast Guard does not recognize the existence of the so-called Bermuda Triangle as a geographic area of specific hazard to ships or planes. In a review of many aircraft and vessel losses in the area over the years, there has been nothing discovered that would indicate that casualties were the result of anything other than physical causes. No extraordinary factors have ever been identified.

Likewise, if more ships and planes than normal were disappearing in the Bermuda Triangle, the insurance rates for traveling through the area would be higher than other regions.  Lloyds of London does not charge more for ships or planes operating in the “Triangle.”

The “Bermuda Triangle” is nothing more or less than pulp fiction that has sold millions of books and articles, which sadly does not stop lazy journalists from continuing to write about it.

Thanks to Alaric Bond for contributing to this post.