Bermuda Triangle - new "methane bubble" twist?

[Attrayant]

The Discovery Channel is running "Dive to the Bermuda Triangle" right now. Initially I was not going to watch but a friend called me 20 minutes in and reported that the program was more rational than could have been hoped for.

The tag line for each commercial break says "...using science to explain the mystery of the BT" (paraphrasing). Fine, I thought... as long as they're using science, I'll watch.

I was somewhat disappointed not to hear TDC simply come right out and say that not all of the alleged reports actually happened in the BT, or to point out that this is a very high traffic area with frequent bad weather, strong gulf currents and lots of amateur flights to and from Bimini and therefore we should epxect a somewhat higher than average number of distress situations. But I didn't hear any of that unless it was in the first 20 minutes that I missed.

Then TDC presented something I'd never heard before. The methane bubble theory. Apparently there is a huge pocket of natural gas beneath the ocean floor that bubbles up through the water. Occasional mega-bubbles could be to blame for capsizing ships. A clip of a torpedo being set off hundreds of feet below a large scrap navy ship clearly shows the massive bubble lifting the hull so violently that the entire craft snaps into two. Even a medium sized bubble can apparently send a ship tossing to and fro, causing it to take on large amount of water.

As for the aircraft, apparently the high concentration of methane in the air causes engines to stall and altimiters to go all stupid, showing an altitude increase when in fact the plane's altitude is decreasing. An amateur or inexperienced pilot could easily crash his plane when trying to correct for the apparent unexplained altitude increase, when in fact his plane was already dangerously close to sea level.

It also seems that an airplane's piston engine can stall when it flies through a pocket of methane gas.

Overall I was pleased to see TDC attribute many/most of the BT incidents not to UFOs, sea monsters, mystery rays from space or wormholes, but to simple human error. But the methane gas is a new wrinkle. Maybe Flim-Flam! needs to be updated

Thoughts?

 

[Yahweh]

I think the "methane gas" and "magnetic field disturbance" theories push the limits of the believable (although certainly a better alternative than "Residue crystals from Lost City of Alantis").

Weather, pilot error, and explosive cargo account for pretty much all of the crashings and capsizings (roughly 200 to 400 in the last 500 years) into the triangle, and that number is relatively unremarkable given its size.

If you pick 3 points elsewhere 'round the world to equal roughly the same area of the Bermuda Triangle, you'll find about the same number of crashes. Give your new area a spooky name and see people go nuts about it...

 

[LTC8K6]

I thought their attempt to equate the shock wave from an underwater explosion to the effects of a methane gas bubble was rather hilarious and stupid at the same time.

 

[DangerousBeliefs]

I like the solution I saw on a TV show... can't remember which one... they asked Lloyds of London to tell us if an abnormal number of ships sank/disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle versus other parts of the world...

Answer: No

In fact, today, the Bermuda Triangle is FULL of daily traffic... virtually none of which "disappears".

It's a case of remembering the hits and forgetting the misses.

If 100,000 planes and boats cross it safely every year, does it seem odd that 1 sinks/crashes every once and awhile?

 

[Peter Morris]

I was somewhat disappointed not to hear TDC simply come right out and say that not all of the alleged reports actually happened in the BT, or to point out that this is a very high traffic area with frequent bad weather, strong gulf currents and lots of amateur flights to and from Bimini and therefore we should epxect a somewhat higher than average number of distress situations. But I didn't hear any of that unless it was in the first 20 minutes that I missed.

Thoughts?

I'll go further than that - there is no Bermuda Triangle that requires an explaination. There is only one mysterious disappearance to be explained, the rest is hype and rumour.

The only mystery is Flight 19, where 5 military planes flew out to sea on a training mission and were never seen again. Precisely what went wrong is unknown, but most likely due to pilot error. No need to invoke mysterious forces, aliens, sea monsters or methane bubbles to explain it.

There have been a few ships and planes lost since then, but always with known causes.

When was the last time you actualloy heard of a ship or plane vanishing without trace? You'd think something like that would make the headlines, woudn't you. But I've never heard of it happening, at least not from a reliable source.

The methane bubbles theory is nonsense, and unnecessary.

 

[Nigel]

Has anybody read Larry Kusche's excellent book The Bermuda Triangle Mystery - Solved? There is no mystery even to Flight 19. The leader of the squadron was an experienced pilot, but not familiar with the waters. He thought the crew was in the Gulf of Mexico, so told them to fly due east. They were actually east of Florida, and flying due east took them farther out into the ocean. They ran out of fuel, ditched in the ocean, and were lost. That's all there is to it (in a nutshell). Kusche actually devotes quite a bit of the book to this. He went through radio transcripts, newspaper reports, the Navy inquiry, and his conclusion: the Bermuda Triangle is a manufactured mystery. The one mysterious disappearance he covers is a true mystery, the Mary Celeste. But that happened near the Azores, not even close to the BT.

I highly recommend the book, as its one of the few, if not the only, skeptical analyses of the BT available to the public.

 

[Tricky]

I can see quite a few holes in the "methane bubble" theory. The most obvious one is that we know (from playing "Battleship") if these giant bubbles occurred, the liklihood of them hitting a vessel is very small, considering how little of the ocean's surface is occupied with vessles. What would happen much more frequently would be that a ship would observe one hitting the surface at a distance, but I haven't heard of such things. Where are all the "near misses"? Do the bubble "aim" for ships?

Another thing is the problem with the "mega bubbles" themselves. Yes, methane does seep up from the sea floor all the time as a result of decaying matter, but the bubbles are tiny for the simple reason that the sea floor is mostly loosly consolidated sediment. It does not have enough containment strength to restrain such a large bubble. The only possible way I could see this happening is if the bubble formed at depth in more consolidated sediment. The "trap" as we say in the oil biz would have to be very tight to keep this bubble from seeping out slowly. Then the trap would have to suddenly fracture, releasing all of the methane at once. Even a fast leak wouldn't do much more than cause a spray of bubbles, and they would be much more common that complete fracture. The other notable thing that this would do is leave a big depression and a lot of shattered rock where the "megabubble" passed through the sediments. This is also unreported to my knowledge.

Oh, and another point. If there were truly such giant pockets of natural gas in the Carribean Sea, you can be sure the oil companies would know about them.

Now let's talk about airplanes. Methane is a fairly dense gas, actually much denser than air, and would not rise in the atmosphere like helium or hydrogen. To the contrary, it would spread out over the surface of the water. The plane would have to be just skirting the top of the water to encounter any significant concentration of methane from even a very large bubble. Even if it were lighter than air, what with the constant winds over the ocean, the gas would be dispersed before it could reach the altitude an airplane would be flying at.

This BT explanation is nothing but gas.

 

[Bikewer]

I beggars belief that this nonsense is still in the public eye. Years ago, when the original "Bermuda Triangle" book was published (Berlitz?), skeptics pointed out that many of the so-called incidents were made up of whole cloth, that very few of the facts were accurately reported, and a number of ships that had supposedly sunk were still cruising around the area, quite profitably.

 

[Uh_Clem]

Nigel,

Yes, I read that quite a few years ago. At the time I was pretty heavily into ufos/bt/atlantis type stuff and the book was a real eye opener. Kinda' ruined the mystery for me. What I found particularly interesting was that the author never even went there to do his research, most it was done through correspondence with Lloyds and other insurers.

 

[BillHoyt]

Nigel,

Yes, I read that quite a few years ago. At the time I was pretty heavily into ufos/bt/atlantis type stuff and the book was a real eye opener. Kinda' ruined the mystery for me. What I found particularly interesting was that the author never even went there to do his research, most it was done through correspondence with Lloyds and other insurers.

You know, the mainspring of this triangle, wound up as tight as it is, is still good for the life of the watch. And who's watching? People like you.

Welcome to the forum, uh clem. Where's Barney?

 

[Psiload]

I beggars belief that this nonsense is still in the public eye. Years ago, when the original "Bermuda Triangle" book was published (Berlitz?), skeptics pointed out that many of the so-called incidents were made up of whole cloth, that very few of the facts were accurately reported, and a number of ships that had supposedly sunk were still cruising around the area, quite profitably.

Or, on the rare occassions when Berlitz did bother to do his homework and cited instances that had actually occured, he still couldn't help bending the facts to suit his cause. He reported several instances having occured "for no apparent reason", on days when, "The sky was clear, and the seas were calm." when, in fact, a quick check of National Weather Service records for the dates given revealed quite the opposite... gale force winds, and treacherous seas.

 

[Tricky]

You know, the mainspring of this triangle, wound up as tight as it is, is still good for the life of the watch. And who's watching? People like you.

Welcome to the forum, uh clem. Where's Barney?

LOL. Let me reinforce Mr. Hoyt's welcome to a fellow not insane person. Have you met Regnad Kcin here?

 

[Nigel]

I think it was Kusche who said of Berlitz: "If he told you a boat is red, you can bet your last dollar it's blue." (Paraphrased from memory.)

 

[Nigel]

Nigel,

Yes, I read that quite a few years ago. At the time I was pretty heavily into ufos/bt/atlantis type stuff and the book was a real eye opener. Kinda' ruined the mystery for me. What I found particularly interesting was that the author never even went there to do his research, most it was done through correspondence with Lloyds and other insurers.

Hi Uh Clem, welcome to the forum. True, Kusche did do a lot of correspondence with Lloyd's, but he also checked weather records, newspaper articles, and did the kind of research other bt researchers had never done before. He'd been a research librarian at the (I believe) Univ of Arizona. Goes to show what value a trail of paperwork can do for you.

 

[Attrayant]

Then the trap would have to suddenly fracture, releasing all of the methane at once.

Can we refer to this an an Aquafart?

Based on the responses, I am putting the BT back in the non-issue filing cabinet. I will try to hunt down a copy of Kusche asap.

 

[Nigel]

Can we refer to this an an Aquafart?

Based on the responses, I am putting the BT back in the non-issue filing cabinet. I will try to hunt down a copy of Kusche asap.

I bought my (newer edition) copy through Prometheus Books. Found a near original edition (1974) in a used bookstore many years ago. Kusche and the bt were also featured on an episode of Nova in the mid 70s. I've looked for it, but I don't think it's available.

 

[Hellbound]

Methane is a fairly dense gas, actually much denser than air, and would not rise in the atmosphere like helium or hydrogen.

Not to quibble, but I think your site is, well, misguided. They forgot a decimal place or something. I've always been pretty sure methane was lighter than air, or at the least not that dense. Here is a link to a property sheet and MSDS on methane. The importnat bits:

Liquid phase
Liquid density (1.013 bar at boiling point) : 422.62 kg/m3
Boiling point (1.013 bar) : -161.6 °C

Gaseous phase
Gas density (1.013 bar at boiling point) : 1.819 kg/m3
Gas density (1.013 bar and 15 °C (59 °F)) : 0.68 kg/m3

Looks like your link was to the liquid phase. Even though he says its the density at at 20 degrees, one can see that methane is a gas at far lower temperatures than that. And, at 15 degrees, it is MUCH lighter than air. I don't see Discovery making that obvious a mistake (at least not so repeatedly).

Now, as to the mthane theory, I also find it highly unlikely. The only place that makes me pause is that they found 5 planes, all within 1.5 miles, and all went down at seperate times. They also reported depressions or sinkholes in the area. Not saying the bubbles are it, and it is outside the area that is known for methane, but it does seem a large coincidence that all crashed into the same spot over about a 2 year period. I still don't think methane is likely, but it does seem that something is going on there. Might be social or technical (problems with that production run of planes, and they crashed at the same place because it was on the entry corrider to the airfield), but even then it seems fishy. Be interesting to delve into it a bit more.

 

[Checkmite]

Re: Re: Bermuda Triangle - new "methane bubble" twist?

I'll go further than that - there is no Bermuda Triangle that requires an explaination. There is only one mysterious disappearance to be explained, the rest is hype and rumour.

The only mystery is Flight 19, where 5 military planes flew out to sea on a training mission and were never seen again. Precisely what went wrong is unknown, but most likely due to pilot error. No need to invoke mysterious forces, aliens, sea monsters or methane bubbles to explain it.

There have been a few ships and planes lost since then, but always with known causes.

Indeed, as has been mentioned, there is nothing mysterious about Flight 19. They became lost and ran out of gas.

I know it sounds like an oversimple explanation, but it's true. Nigel is correct; the flight leader, Lt. Taylor, was flying in the Bahamas for the very first time on this flight, and he was in charge of a crew of trainees.

There are several things all the "Bermuda Triangle" books get wrong about Flight 19. Firstly, they all get the radio transcript wrong. The actual logs are very different, and don't invoke "spaceships" or "white water"; and Lt. Taylor never mentioned that "even the ocean doesn't look as it should". It is all manufactured hype. The real log indicates better than anything that it was simply a case of disorientation. In fact, at one point controllers had even triangulated the position of Flight 19, which turned out to be over the ocean - northeast of Grand Bahama; however they were unable to inform the flight of this because the tower's transmissions were read only intermittently by Taylor.

Secondly, don't let the power of suggestion fool you, as it tries to in the Bermuda Triangle books. They suggest that the weather was fine when this incident took place. In fact it wasn't - when the flight took off the weather was average-to-minimums, and it proceeded to get worse all day. If the flight had waited about two hours, it would not have been permitted to take off.

Thirdly, the PBM Martin Mariner rescue plane that "disappeared" after being sent after Flight 19 was not the first plane sent out, nor was it the only plane in the air at the time it disappeared. A surface vessel also noted an aerial explosion at virtually the exact location the PBM should have been at that time, and PBMs were notorious for exploding in flight due to leaky gas tanks that let fumes into the cabin.

A good place to get information on Flight 19 is this article.

 

[Hellbound]

Joshua:

To be fair, The Discovery show did touch on almost all of that, and the general conclusion was the same (Flight 19 got lost). They mentioned the explosion of the search plane (and the witness accounts and history of the planes), the radio triangulation, plotted paths on the maps to show how they could have gotten confused, etc. The main things they kept on about were the dissappearance of the Marine Sulpher Queen (I have not researched this, and can't comment...all Discovery said was they dissappeared after making a radio check near the tip of Florida, no distress signals or anything) and the new crash site found by the sub. The new site was also five Avenger aircraft, but it was not Flight 19. They traced the plane numbers and tail numbers, and all five planes crashed at different times (over a range of 2-3 years). They all landed within 1.5 miles of each other. This does seem odd. I mentioned this in my earlier post, as well

Now, also to be fair, Discovery failed to mention that the rate of "dissappearances" in proportion to the amount of traffic is no higher than other areas. They did, however, mention the frequent storms and other natural factors, and made a point to mention that the gulf current is known to be one of the strongest in the world.

 

[Nigel]

IIRC, the Marine Sulpher Queen was terribly unstable and, according to Kusche, probably listed, sending the cargo of liquid sulfer around the hold. Essentially, it was too volitile and the ship simply exploded and sank. I believe he admits there isn't absolute proof of that, but narrows the possibilities down to that being the most likely. I could be wrong, since I'm going by memory. Someone else may have either better recollection than I, or the records handy.