Name coined by writer Vincent H. GADDIS in 1964 for an area of the Caribbean Sea and Atlantic Ocean where hundreds of unexplained disappearances of ships and planes allegedly have occurred. The area extends roughly between the three points of Florida, Bermuda, and Puerto Rico. Different accounts extend the mysterious area as far east as the Azores Islands, as far north as New York, as far west as Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, and as far south as the coast of Venezuela. Disappearances here have been reported at least since the late 19th century through the present day, although the heyday of Bermuda Triangle vanishings was undoubtedly the 1940s through the 1960s.
Perhaps one of the most famous incidents in the Triangle was the December 1945 disappearance of Flight 19. Five U.S. Navy bombers and their 14 crew members took off from their Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, base for routine target practice. About the time they were to return to base, the flight commander radioed that his instruments were not reading properly and that the bombers could see no sign of land. In fact, they reported that nothing, including the sea, looked as it should. The flight was never heard from again. Despite extensive searches, no sign was found of the planes or the men aboard. A second aircraft, sent out to search for the missing planes, also disappeared.