Bermuda Triangle Theories

[EternalSceptic]

"Different," I would agree to; ""spectacular," no.

The only plausible story I've heard about the Gulf Stream is that Benjamin Franklin was one of the first to tumble to its existence, and used the knowledge clandestinely to route shipping between Europe and America during the American Revolution.

OK, let me explain what I mean with "spectacular":

In my youth I was every summer swimming in the danube. Near Vienna it is about 300 meters wide and about 2 meters deep. It's speed is some 3 -5 meters per second. Now when you swim there, you will very often come to a point where the water flows upwards because of an inconsistency in the bed of the river. From the view of a swimmer whos eyes are just few centimeters above the surface this places look like a small "hill" where the water comes up in the middle and flows outside from the centre. and when you swim through it you can feel the upwards motion. Usually very near to this point there is a point where the water flows downwards and you can feel a pretty noticeable drag downwards, sometimes strong enough to pill you under water for a moment.

Now multiply this effect (among others in streaming water) by the difference between this river and the huge gulf stream and I can imagine, that these currents can make a wrecked ship or a crashed plane disappear in a very short time. This _could_ be an explanation why accidents happen without leaving any debris.

Huge turbulences might bury a wreck very quickly. Nothing paranormal. And just a wild guess of mine

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Again, the cart's before the horse. Before you go looking for explanations for a phenomenon, you've got to prove that the phenomenon exists. It doesn't matter if the explanations are barely non-woo (a magnetic anomaly), mundane (effect of the Gulf Stream), or even just possible (methane bubbles).

Anecdotes do NOT make the case--no matter how you come up with.

Lloyds of London, an insurer with a real interest in knowing whether such a phenomenon exists, when asked whether an unusually large number of ships have sunk in the Triangle determined that NOT to be the case. Ref.

It might be fun to talk about, but continuing to discuss explanations for the Bermuda Triangle is the same as discussing the protein content of ectoplasm in ghosts.

 

[Beady]

Now multiply this effect (among others in streaming water) by the difference between this river and the huge gulf stream...

What you have described is familiar to anyone with white water experience. You are simply not going to have rapids in the GS, for the same reason that white water in a river disappears, no matter the speed of the current, if the depth is great enough. Just watch films of any flooded river.

...and I can imagine

Precisely.

that these currents can make a wrecked ship or a crashed plane disappear in a very short time. This _could_ be an explanation why accidents happen without leaving any debris.

Ships and planes break up. When they do, all kinds of buoyant objects float to the surface. A buoyant object pulled along by a current will still rise as it travels, much as a bullet falls as it travels; in both cases there are two entirely separate vectors involved. This is covered in every introductory physics course.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Anecdotes do NOT make the case--no matter how you come up with.

Should've said "how MANY".

 

[fuelair]

I thought that one of the big factors that affected plane disappearances was that there was something weird there in compass readings due to the way the magnetic flow happens to come out of the earth in that area (sometimes?). Therefore the pilots would become lost and run out of fuel heading back out to sea when they were really on their way to the east coast somewhere.

Didn't Mythbusters perform the air bubble from the ocean floor theory experiment, once?...in trying to see if they could sink a boat?

To change the magnetic field of the Earth sufficiently to lose an excess (which is not the case) of things that require an accurate reading of the magnetic field would require a really massive iron or similar object or really gigantic elctricity using field generator. Neither readily available under the ocean. (IIRC)

 

[Crossbow]

Just one note about these methane bubbles affecting the altimeter of an airplane.

I suppose that it is possible for such a thing to happen,

However, something like a 747 would be cruising at very high altitude where pressure based altimeters are practically useless, therefore they use radar altimeters (which have been around for a good 30 years now) as well as GPS based altimeters (which have been around for the last several years) both of which would be immune to this supposed methane bubble effect.

Also, even a small plane would likely be cruising at several thousand feet above the water (where pressure based altimeters work rather well) in order to improve radio communication and reduce fuel flow, therefore the methane bubble effect would have to be quite extreme (to put it mildly) in order for it to so skew the pressure altimeter that a pilot assiduously chasing the indicated altitude would result in a crash into the water.

 

[Beady]

...therefore the methane bubble effect would have to be quite extreme (to put it mildly) in order for it to so skew the pressure altimeter that a pilot assiduously chasing the indicated altitude would result in a crash into the water.

Quite extreme. Ever notice how a fart dissipates in the open? How big and concentrated would a fart have to be, before it could even be detected a mile from the source? How much bigger and concentrated would it have to be, before it could have a physical effect?

(Hey, we are talking methane, here, right?)

 

[EternalSceptic]

Again, the cart's before the horse. Before you go looking for explanations for a phenomenon, you've got to prove that the phenomenon exists. It doesn't matter if the explanations are barely non-woo (a magnetic anomaly), mundane (effect of the Gulf Stream), or even just possible (methane bubbles).

Anecdotes do NOT make the case--no matter how you come up with.

Lloyds of London, an insurer with a real interest in knowing whether such a phenomenon exists, when asked whether an unusually large number of ships have sunk in the Triangle determined that NOT to be the case. Ref.

It might be fun to talk about, but continuing to discuss explanations for the Bermuda Triangle is the same as discussing the protein content of ectoplasm in ghosts.

As I said - "just a wild guess". And I do not want to make the case. I wanted to get competent opinions. I got them. They are convincing. Case closed.

 

[CurtC]

They claimed that since the methane is less dense than air, a "methane cloud" would be at a lower pressure than the surrounding air. And since altimeters merely measure air pressure, a plane flying into a "methane cloud" would cause it's altimeter to show that the plane was climbing, even though the plane was flying level.

I believe you're right about the pressure equalizing, therefore there should be no effect on the altimeter.

However, less dense air would cause the plane to lose lift, and would have an effect on the airspeed indicator. Those two should sort of balance, though - the indicator would show them going slower that they really were, so the pilot would have to increase speed to indicate the speed he wants to fly, and that higher speed would make up for the loss of lift due to less dense air.

 

[casebro]

Lower viscosity gas would have the looked for effect. But I think all gasses have the same viscosity, within a very narrow band.

 

[Iamme]

Way back when the first "triangle" book came out (Berlitz?), it was shown subsequently that it was filled with distortions, inaccuracies, and outright lies.

Many ships listed as lost or sunk were found to have been sold and renamed.
Sinkings that occurred well outside the "triangle" were included in the author's figures, and some were simply made up.

You get to the point where you just don't know who to listen to...even with so called experts. With crop circles, experts have said that there are 10,000 worldwide...all over, on every continent.. and that microwave radiation bent the stalks withoiut the damge that walking on the stalks do....and that those two English dudes did not make them all. Then skeptics discredit about all this stuff as non-sense.

Then we have expert Erik Von Danniken who makes claims regarding those Nasca?line drawings and possible alien runways in South America. And HE gets laughed at.

Anything that somehow borders on the paranormal has people who come out and conjure up all kinds of evidence (Here is another one: The N'KISI project with that African gray parrot that has ESP ) for their theories only to have others say it is bogus.

 

[Iamme]

To change the magnetic field of the Earth sufficiently to lose an excess (which is not the case) of things that require an accurate reading of the magnetic field would require a really massive iron or similar object or really gigantic elctricity using field generator. Neither readily available under the ocean. (IIRC)

Hmmm. Well, on the show about the Bermuda Triangle they showed the globe and how the magnetic current flow looks like what we all have witnessed in school with magnets and iron filings. And on the show, they showed some of the magnetic current coming out of the Bermuda Triangle area. The depiction looked authentic the way they showed the bulk of the flow (as I call it) taking it's normal path at the poles and at the center. It sort of resembled how the sun is in this relatively steady state for billions of years, yet has these solar flares that are somewhat of an anomoly. Same with the magnetic current they depicted... generating enough magnetism in the region to upset a compass.

That's all I know. Just sharing what I saw.

 

[Iamme]

Lloyds of London, an insurer with a real interest in knowing whether such a phenomenon exists, when asked whether an unusually large number of ships have sunk in the Triangle determined that NOT to be the case. Ref.

Well now. If this is true, then I guess it is time to forget all this and go back to reading Don Imus threads.

 

[Iamme]

My friend kept saying things like, "So, you think you are smarter than these scientists, huh?" Then, when I went to the internet for evidence to back myself up, all I found were people regurgitating the same BS that the "investigators" had said. My friend went home thinking I am an idiot.

I feel sorry for you. I went through the same thing with my cousin who I was living with 25 years ago, when he basically said the same thing to me when I told him I minutes earlier invented the perpetual magnetic wheel.

 

[Jeff Corey]

That's the wheel with the permanent magnets that just keeps turning? My friend, Tiny invented one of those for his rotisserie. It only worked for ducks full of iron pellets.