Unexplained Disappearances at Sea

Often times something may disappear like your pen, or a sock mysteriously shows up missing from the wash. But when people come up missing it’s quite a different story. Some folks may plan to disappear in order to make a fresh start for themselves, but not all disappearances are planned.

A good number of disappearance cases will actually be solved and they will either have amnesia, turn up lost, found to of run away and sometimes the case may end with a death. But there are still those unsolved cases where someone, or many people have disappeared and never turned up again.

This post is going to deal with a number of strange and unusual theories about how some people have up and vanished and never been seen again.

Notorious Bermuda Triangle

Ahh, you’ve heard of this one, right? The Bermuda Triangle is probably one of the most famous hot spots where people, planes and even ships have disappeared.

If you were to draw an imaginary line from Bermuda to Miami Florida, to San Juan Puerto Rico, you’d form a perfect triangle. This is where the Bermuda Triangle is found and it’s reputation as a bizarre and dangerous place is famous world wide. Not only have there been strange occurrences reported about the ocean, but from the sky as well.

The Bermuda Triangle may produce sudden storms that can knock out radio and navigational equipment. Once these instruments are down, the theory is that most planes eventually run out of fuel and crash into the ocean. But why aren’t these planes ever found? I know the ocean is a vast amount of area to cover, but don’t you think eventually they would be discovered?

U.S. Naval Flight 19

December 5, 1945, during World War II, 5 TBM Avenger Torpedo Bombers took flight from the Air Station in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. They were on a navigational training flight and all the pilots were quite qualified. In fact the lead plane was piloted by the senior flight instructor.

Within two hours of leaving base, headquarters picked up a radio conversation between two of the pilots. It seemed they had lost the use of their in-flight compasses and they had no idea where their planes were heading. Even though headquarters were able to decipher some of their conversation, the atmospheric distortion made it impossible for them to make contact.

Eventually all transmissions  had ceased and neither the planes nor the pilots were never seen or heard from again. No trace of them was ever found and to this day their whereabouts remain a mystery.

Other Bermuda Triangle Disappearances

The USS Cyclops was a 19,679 ton coal ship that disappeared without a trace in March of 1918. It was carrying a crew of over 300 members.

In February of 1963 a 15,260 ton cargo ship called the Marine Sulphur Queen also disappeared. There were 39 members of that crew and all of them, including the ship, simply vanished.

The British South American Airways ship called the Star Tiger disappeared in January 1948 carrying 6 crew members and 25 passangers.

Some of the Theories

There are many theories as to why these disappearances are occurring. Some people think that evil spirits are involved, or possibly alien spacecraft are abducting these vessels. Or is it possible that there could be portals opening that lead to another dimension, or maybe they open up into an alien world.

Skeptics believe that the disappearances and loss of lives is no greater in the Bermuda Triangle than any other body of water. According to these people, the amount of storms and possibly gasses being released from the sea bed are causing most of these vanishing acts.

Regardless of the skeptics theories, there’s always those strange tales that the few survivors have brought back that are unexplainable. Many pilots have reported instrument malfunctions that involve seeing a yellow colored sky. Unstable buoyancies in the water have been described by sea captains as well. Some believe that the release of massive amounts of gas from the ocean floor is causing these disturbances and lack of buoyancy.

These gasses are said to be formed from rotting ancient forests that are at the ocean’s floor. When the gasses erupt from below, the bubbles create an unstable amount of air-to-water mixture. There have been many drilling ships and rigs that were sank because of these gasses. The possibility that the gas ignites once it reaches the atmosphere is always possible. That is one theory of how planes may of been destroyed.

Here’s an interesting possibility. According to a survey performed by the Seasat satellite in 1978, there is a huge circular depression on the sea floor. They believe a massive meteorite may of landed there sometime in the past. The iron mass found in the meteorite could be causing navigational instruments to go haywire and to give false readings.

The Mysterious Mary Celeste

Although the Bermuda Triangle may be the most famous body of water for disappearances, it is by far the only one. On November 7, 1872 the Mary Celeste set sail traveling from New York City to Genoa, Italy. The Ship was carrying a large cargo of 1,700 barrels of alcohol. About a month later the ship was sighted, sailing erratically. The Dei Gratia is the ship that spotted the Mary Celeste and they said all attempts to signal the vessel failed.

The Dei Gratia sent a boarding party to see what was wrong with the crew and they discovered that no one was steering the vessel. Upon further inspection, they couldn’t find anyone on board at all. The Mary Celeste was essentially a ‘Ghost Ship’, but all the cargo was still there.

They did find that the lifeboat, some navigational instruments and the ship’s log were all missing, but nothing else had been taken. All the luggage, food and supplies remained on the ship. They wound up towing the ship into Gibraltar and two separate investigations were launched. But to this day, the crew has never been found and no one knows what happened on that ship!

Some of the Theories

Some believe that the Mary Celeste was possibly a victim to aliens or mermaids. They could of also been attacked and drowned by a giant squid, or frightened by ghosts and forced to abandon the ship. Could it be a gigantic wave washed everyone overboard which led to their deaths? Once theory suggests that the ship was trapped in rough waters and the captain feared the ship may explode due to the flammable cargo they were carrying. So he made a decision to retreat to the lifeboat only to wind up drowning in the rough sea waters.

Even though the true fate of this vessel was never discovered, the Mary Celeste did set sail again. Her last captain ran the boat into a coral reef on purpose in order to submit an insurance claim. He submitted a false claim that the ship was carrying very expensive cargo. But it’s said that out of revenge, the ship refused to sink and wedged itself on the reef in shallow water.

Being in shallow water, the vessel was able to be investigated, and the insurance inspectors discovered the cargo was nothing more than cat food and old rubber boots. Needless to say, the ship’s captain was prosecuted for insurance fraud, but the ship still remains in her grave on that coral reef in Haiti.

Well, I could go on forever on this subject, there are tons of amazing unexplained cases involving disappearances like these. If you’re interested in learning some more information on strange cases of a similar nature, check out my post Getting Lost in Alaska. And as always, please feel free to leave some comments.