March 24, 2005

The Bermuda Triangle and Me

spacer Talk about unintended consequences! Nine years ago I was teaching EDTEC 596, the course where the first WebQuest had emerged a year earlier. The class worked in interdisciplinary teams to create a WebQuest as their culminating project. One group had its heart set on doing a unit on the Bermuda Triangle, and by the end of May The Bermuda Triangle WebQuest had emerged. I had agreed to let them do this because I thought the topic provided a perfect opportunity to give high school kids a better BS detector. Unfortunately, the student teachers were less skeptical than I, and they treated the Bermuda Triangle as an authentic mystery.

Since there's a link to my name right at the top of the page, I have since been considered an expert on this topic. About once a month, middle and high school kids writing reports on the Bermuda Triangle send me earnest emails asking me to share my copious wisdom on the topic. Instead of reinforcing their "I Want to Believe" take on it, though, I always direct them to The Bermuda Triangle Mystery Solved by Larry Kusche. It's a great story in which Kusche, a librarian, actually does his homework and tracks back all the alleged airplane disappearances and other events to primary source documents. He shows that it's just a myth, easily explained by natural forces, inaccurate reporting, and exaggeration. Of course, it's in the self-interest of all those other Bermuda Triangle authors to keep the mystery alive, but Kusche's book is the only one worth reading.

After I point them to the book, none of my young penpals ever write back. It's not what they want to hear.

But my reputation as a Bermudatriangulationologist continues, and yesterday I got an email that tells me I'm now in the big leagues within that domain:

3/23/05


Hello Sir or Madam

My name is A%$@ F!*{. My attempt is to share with you my findings on the relationship among Bermuda Triangle mystery, UFO, and Jesus Christ. I have obtained your email from your website or other website with similar interest. I thought my research will be of a great interest to you.

I have been researching for over 22 years. I have written over 3000 pages on the subject of Bermuda Triangles mystery. In my findings combined with a divine experience, I found that there is a link between Bermuda Triangle and UFO. Recently I have a revelation from Jesus Christ to share my findings with anybody who is willing to listen or read my writing.

According to my findings, there is a great aspect that combines those three entities: Bermuda Triangle, UFO and Jesus Christ. If you are interested in reading more about the subject, this will not only pleases me, but I will be more than happy to send you additional materials. I would like to send you initially an introduction about myself and an outline for my experience. If you are willing to receive it, please reply to my email.

My intention is not to force my email on you, rather I would like to share my research with you if you want to receive it. Please take care and God bless you.


Imagine. 3000 pages. 22 years. Clearly if I'm to keep up with this field, I have a lot more reading to do.

Labels: teaching

posted by Bernie Dodge @ 12:21 PM   7 comments

7 Comments:

At 7:03 PM, Rebecca Fiedler said...

This is priceless. Thank you so much for finding time to share it with us!

 
At 11:00 PM, Bernie Dodge said...

And the beat goes on...

Here's what came in today's mail:

"please answer this!
my other expert hasn't replied for a week!

i'm doing a research project on Bermuda Triangle, and i am required to do an interview

oh, by the way i'm called xxxx xxx and i'm attending Mxxxx Middle
School in san jose, california
so here are the questions

1. what do you think is the reason why so many vessels have disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle? where do you think they have gone to?

2. are any nations doing anything to stop people from getting lost?

3. i would appreciate it very much if you can give me information
(weather, names, etc.) on most famous disappearances in the Bermuda
Triangle.

4. what do you think about other theories? do you think they are reasonable?

thank you very much."

 
At 8:47 AM, SFA Blog-Teach said...

Thanks, Bernie. This really made my day. You understand.

 
At 12:36 AM, rgharold said...

While on the Sea-land Venture, a US Merchant Marine SL7 , Turbine cargo type ship.
This was spring of 1973, it was an odd looking day , a strange blue hue , the QEII sent out an SOS, cause was lose of ruter. Sparks radioed the coast guard , the Captain gave the orders that we where to assist in the rescue , very exciting , unfortunately when we turned to make rescue we encountered the same problem.

we could here the BBC on a portable radio and listened to the QEII rescue,
We bobbed about for some 15 hours , with no news of rescue for the Venture.
No power, a sting of back up lights around the aft deck listening to the BBC.
Even the engineers where with all of us.
We where to be pulled into Bermuda and dry docked.

Without warning all lights and power came on. The coast guard gave orders to leave the aria at full speed of some 34 notes, SL7 was a very fast ship and we did so threw the night.

1978 I met a retired Englishman whose retirement and hobby was sailing about in such ships gathering all the information he could.
I told him about this without mentioning the name of the ship I was on.
He told me that the Venture had made rescue.

Just what was that about, two huge turbine ships going dead in the water next to each other. It was an odd looking day, the blue was unusual and sea was like glass.
I had given this old timer my tel# , he was to look into this but never called.
If it is on record that the Venture made rescue that is a lie. Why anyone would lie about that just makes me wonder.
The experience really made me wonder, very surreal.
This dose not seem to be that isolated of a case as one would think.
What could possibly cause two ships of that caliber to go dead in the water ?This should be investigated.
I saw no bubbles of gas , just calm blue water and sky.
RG Harold, Houston, TX

 
At 7:43 AM, MacDowall School said...

I am doing a special report on what you do, is what what I found this>:The Bermuda Triangle

The Bermuda Triangle (also known as Devil's Triangle and Devil's Sea) is a nearly half-million square-mile (1.2 million km2) area of ocean roughly defined by Bermuda, Puerto Rico, and the southernmost tip of Florida. This area is noted for
a high incidence of unexplained losses of ships, small boats, and aircraft.

There is a common belief that a number of ships and airplanes have disappeared under highly unusual circumstances in the region called
Bermuda Triangle. Over 100 airplane disappearances and over
1000 lives lost since 1945
But what I believe is that all the iron and metal from old ships from hundreds and or thousands of years ago that had crashed or sunk and others have had caught attention to it and sunken too and all of the ships in all of those areas that had sunken had the magnetic force from all the iron and metal pull the planes, boats, ships, etc down throughout the magnetic forces on the Seas floor.
The Bermuda Triangle (a.k.a. the Devil's Triangle) is a triangular area in the Atlantic Ocean bounded roughly at its points by Miami, Bermuda, and Puerto Rico. Legend has it that many people, ships and planes have mysteriously vanished in this area. How many have mysteriously disappeared depends on who is doing the locating and the counting. The size of the triangle varies from 500,000 square miles to three times that size, depending on the imagination of the author. (Some include the Azores, the Gulf of Mexico, and the West Indies in the "triangle.") Some trace the mystery back to the time of Columbus. Even so, estimates range from about 200 to no more than 1,000 incidents in the past 500 years. Howard Rosenberg claims that in 1973 the U.S. Coast Guard answered more than 8,000 distress calls in the area and that more than 50 ships and 20 planes have gone down in the Bermuda Triangle within the last century.
Many theories have been given to explain the extraordinary mystery of these missing ships and planes. Evil extraterrestrials, residue crystals from Atlantis, evil humans with anti-gravity devices or other weird technologies, and vile vortices from the fourth dimension are favorites among fantasy writers. Strange magnetic fields and oceanic flatulence (methane gas from the bottom of the ocean) are favorites among the technically-minded. Weather (thunderstorms, hurricanes, tsunamis, earthquakes, high waves, currents, etc.) bad luck, pirates, explosive cargoes, incompetent navigators, and other natural and human causes are favorites among skeptical investigators. Many of the ships and planes that have been identified as having disappeared mysteriously in the Bermuda Triangle were not in the Bermuda Triangle at all. Investigations to date have not produced scientific evidence of any unusual phenomena involved in the disappearances. Thus, any explanation, including so-called scientific ones in terms of methane gas being released from the ocean floor, magnetic disturbances, etc., is not needed. The real mystery is how the Bermuda Triangle became a mystery at all. The modern legend of the Bermuda Triangle began soon after five Navy planes [Flight 19] vanished on a training mission during a severe storm in 1945. The most logical theory as to why they vanished is that lead pilot Lt. Charles Taylors compass failed. The trainees' planes were not equipped with working navigational instruments. The group was disoriented and simply, though tragically, ran out of fuel. No mysterious forces were likely to have been involved other than the mysterious force of gravity on planes with no fuel. It is true that one of the rescue planes blew up shortly after take-off, but this was likely due to a faulty gas tank rather than to any mysterious forces. Over the years there have been dozens of articles, books, and television programs promoting the mystery of the Bermuda Triangle. The Bermuda Triangle is a stretch of the Atlantic Ocean bordered by a line from Florida to the islands of Bermuda, to Puerto Rico and then back to Florida. It is one of the biggest mysteries of our time. The Bermuda Triangle is known for high incidence of unexplained losses of ships, small boats, and aircraft. Even some people believe that The Bermuda Triangle is invaded with aliens every time someone or something becomes into contact with Bermuda Triangle, its just said that no one will seem to see them.









At about 2:10 p.m. on the afternoon of 5 December 1945, Flight 19, consisting of five TBM Avenger Torpedo Bombers (manufactured by the Eastern Aircraft under license from Grumman) departed from the U. S. Naval Air Station, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on an authorized advanced overwater navigational training flight. They were to execute navigation problem No. 1, which is as follows: (1) depart 26 degrees 03 minutes north and 80 degrees 07 minutes west and fly 091 degrees (T) distance 56 miles to Hen and Chickens Shoals to conduct low level bombing, after bombing continue on course 091 degrees (T) for 67 miles, (2) fly course 346 degrees (T) distance 73 miles and (3) fly course 241 degrees (T) distance 120 miles, then returning to U. S. Naval Air Station, Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
In charge of the flight was a senior qualified flight instructor, piloting one of the planes. The other planes were piloted by qualified pilots with between 350 and 400 hours flight time of which at least 55 was in TBM type aircraft. The weather over the area covered by the track of the navigational problem consisted of scattered rain showers with a ceiling of 2500 feet within the showers and unlimited outside the showers, visibility of 6-8 miles in the showers, 10-12 otherwise. Surface winds were 20 knots with gusts to 31 knots. The sea was moderate to rough. The general weather conditions were considered average for training flights of this nature except within showers.
A radio message intercepted at about 4 p.m. was the first indication that Flight 19 was lost. This message, believed to be between the leader on Flight 19 and another pilot in the same flight, indicated that the instructor was uncertain of his position and the direction of the Florida coast. The aircraft also were experiencing malfunction of their compasses. Attempts to establish communications on the training frequency were unsatisfactory due to interference from Cuba broadcasting stations, static, and atmospheric conditions. All radio contact was lost before the exact nature of the trouble or the location of the flight could be determined. Indications are that the flight became lost somewhere east of the Florida peninsula and was unable to determine a course to return to their base. The flight was never heard from again and no trace of the planes were ever found. It is assumed that they made forced landings at sea, in darkness somewhere east of the Florida peninsula, possibly after running out of gas. It is known that the fuel carried by the aircraft would have been completely exhausted by 8 p.m. The sea in that presumed area was rough and unfavorable for a water landing. It is also possible that some unexpected and unforeseen development of weather conditions may have intervened although there is no evidence of freak storms in the area at the time.
All available facilities in the immediate area were used in an effort to locate the missing aircraft and help them return to base. These efforts were not successful. No trace of the aircraft was ever found even though an extensive search operation was conducted until the evening of 10 December 1945, when weather conditions deteriorated to the point where further efforts became unduly hazardous. Sufficient aircraft and surface vessels were utilized to satisfactorily cover those areas in which survivors of Flight 19 could be presumed to be located.

Countless theories attempting to explain the many disappearances have been offered throughout the history of the area. The most practical seem to be environmental and those citing human error. The majority of disappearances can be attributed to the area's unique environmental features. First, the "Devil's Triangle" is one of the two places on earth that a magnetic compass does point towards true north. Normally it points toward magnetic north. The difference between the two is known as compass variation. The amount of variation changes by as much as 20 degrees as one circumnavigates the earth. If this compass variation or error is not compensated for, a navigator could find himself far off course and in deep trouble.
Introduction: Okay Let me tell you right off that the Bermuda Triangle is a myth that started off as old-time stories that sailors used to tell new ship mates to give 'em the heebie-jeebies. Now let me go on to say that the myths have become a great money making scam by people who like to stretch the truth. With that said, let me add I love the stories of the Bermuda Triangle and I love the way many FICTION writers have used the Bermuda Triangle as a premise for several fascinating STORIES.

There are lots of things or myths about the Bermuda Triangle;
1. Electronic Fog
2. Columbus and the Sargasso Sea
3. Glowing Water
And several more.
Ships, people and airplanes have been reported mysteriously disappearing off the face of the earth whilst traveling inside this triangle. It soon acquired the name "Devils Triangle" owing to peoples superstitions that the devil was at play on this stretch of ocean and gobbling up weary and lost travelers with great delight, but what actually was at play inside this triangle of rough water, is it really the devil?, or perhaps aliens are using this spot as their home base on earth. Maybe it really does contain a mystical vortex that sucks people down into a third dimension.
The myth of the mysterious triangle was first begun in an Associated Press dispatch of September 16, 1950. Reporter E.V. W. Jones wrote of "mysterious disappearances" of ships and planes between the Florida coast and Bermuda. Two years after this article appeared Fate magazine ran an article by George X. Sand about a "series of strange marine disappearances, each leaving no trace whatever, that have taken place in the past few years" in a "watery triangle bounded roughly by Florida, Bermuda and Puerto Rico". It was not long before ideas and suggestions started forming about this piece of ocean.
I hope you like this information to keep your carier going!
-MacDowall School.

 
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At 12:48 PM, samsung said...

Good site, good idea, but, in my humble opinion, you need change design...

 

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