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Dooms DAY 2012!!!!!!!!!!!

2009-11-06T14:49:00.002+09:00

PROPHETIC SIGNS!

IS IT TRUE?

CAN YOU BELIEVE THE DECEMBER 21 2012 DOOMS DAY PREDICTIONS?

END OF THE WORLD 2012!

HOW SERIOUSLY should you take the talk about an end of the world 2012 dooms day?

To be more precise, December 21 2012 has been suggested as the end of the world, earth as we know it. Some say that on an ancient Mayan calendar 2012 points to the end of the world. Others say that for Nostradamus 2012 is also a possible doomsday.

There is in fact more than one end of the world 2012 prediction for a 2012 earth "use by date". It has got to the point where the thought of a December 21 2012 dooms day is freaking some people out. Should you be freaked? We don't think so. For starters, given past doomsday predictions and prophecies about the end of the world, earth should have ended by now! Since the earth is still here, it would be fair to say then that, to date, all prophecies and predictions about the end of the world (before 2012) have failed!

However, a WORD of CAUTION. Just because the earth has survived various doomsday predictions so far, doesn't guarantee it will still be here in the year 2012, or tomorrow for that matter? Any known threat should be taken seriously. We are a vulnerable planet. The "Greenies" make some good points about the vulnerability of our ecosystem. As well as this, there are a lot of stupid, power hungry people who make the earth even more vulnerable.

It is a known fact that we have enough nuclear weapons (weapons of mass destruction) to destroy the world... many times over! And they say we're evolving!! Will the end of the world come on December 21 2012 because of this? All it would take is one lunatic to push the button! Result: end of the world by nuclear war. But is this really an end of the world 2012 dooms day prediction?

But, if you put these known facts aside and ignore them for a moment, is it really possible that some end of the world 2012 dooms day prediction or 2012 apocalypse could destroy the earth? The year 2012 is just about upon us. Now is a good time to ask if there are any 2012 predictions that you can actually believe?

One thing is for sure: past prophecies about the end of the world that do not come true are NO guarantee that other prophecies and predictions will not come true - but will something happen to make December 21 2012 doomsday for planet earth? The question still needs to be asked.

One prophecy about the end of the world (or what is sometimes presented as a prophecy) which is getting serious headlines right now concerns an ancient MAYAN CALENDARwhich strangely ends on December 21 2012. Many 2012 dooms day predictions have been linked to this.

YOU ARE ALSO INVITED TO...

END OF WORLD 2012 DOOSMDAY PREDICTIONS

2012 Predictions including Mayan Calendar 2012 "Prophecy"

There are many 2012 end of the world predictions. We will just identify a few.

1. There are theories about ALIENS FROM OUTER SPACE - but is this December 21 2012 end of the world idea a result of too much time sitting in front of the box and not enough actual facts? And how did they come up with this 2012 prediction about an alien invasion when there is no widely accepted proof that aliens even exist! This unlike, the next theme, does not deseve any serious attention.

2. What about the biblical PROPHECIES OF ARMAGEDDON - we have already had two world wars, will the world end with the ultimate war between good and evil in the year 2012? Biblical prophecies have been right before. One example is the birth of Christ which fulfilled about 300 prophecies. Before Armageddon comes however (and December 21 2012 is notpredicted in the Bible as "Armageddon Day"), biblical prophecies speak of a great time of GREAT TRIBULATION on the earth. Having said that, the Bible not only prophecies about a battle of Armageddon on earth but also increased earthquakes, floods, famine, disease, wars and rumours of wars.

There will be things happening in the heavens far beyond our control. These are not end of the world 2012 dooms day predictions. But the Bible does say God will use cosmic events as means of his judgement on earth before the final day of judgement. If there is a dooms day, that's it. But before that day, Revelation 16:21 speaks of catastrophic disasters like 50 kilo hailstones. Matthew 24:29 says, "Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the SUN be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken:" But while the Bible speaks of judgment on earth before the ultimate "day of judgement", it also speaks of hope and describes very clearly how to escape the coming wrath. This is not about escaping any December 21 2012 doomsday prediction... but something more fearful!

3. Then there are stories surfacing about SCIENTIFIC EXPERIMENTS along the lines of splitting the atom - will the earth be blown up by a mad scientist? Apparently there is an experiment on a very large scale planned for the year 2012. Could this bring about an end of the world 2012 dooms day? In a long very tunnel, particle physicists plan to collide electrons and positrons (the opposite of electrons). The tunnel may be up to 50km long and they will use energies of up to a trillion electron volts. This will hurl these particles at close to the speed of light. No one knows what will happen if antimatter is created. Could it destroy a delicate balance in the universe? Will December 21 2012 end of the world predictions be fulfilled through scientific a experiment? We don't think so.

4. On an ancient MAYAN CALENDAR 2012 is an IMPORTANT DATE The Mayan Calendar runs out on December 21 2012 and it has been suggested that they knew something we don't. This is the basis of what has been called theMayan caleandar 2012 Prophecy. However, just because an ancient Mayan calendar ends on December 21 2012 it does not mean that the world will end then too, especially as the Mayan's did not actually speak of a doomsday, much less a 2012 doomsday. True, on the Mayan Calendar 2012 was important and you can find out more about this by clicking the link below the next paragraph.

STRANGE MAYAN BELIEFS. While the Mayan's had some interesting beliefs and insights about life and the cosmos and while some of them reflect scientific observations today, there are other things you may not have heard of. For example, the Mayans also believed that our sun is a god powered by blood from human sacrifices - this and other beliefs were influenced by hallucinogenic drugs which were used, among other things for autosacrifices (yes, suicide). So be careful what you believe about Mayan calendars.

5. A very real possibility is DISEASE - we have seen how quickly it can spread and devastate human life on earth. And there has been talk of the threat of pandemics for several years now. Including the recent Swine Flu pandemic. But is it reasonable to say that the world will end this way on exactly December 21 2012 with an earth wide pandemic? No!

6. Will SOLAR FLARES snuff out the earth on December 21 2012 - solar flares seem to come in cycles and NASA have said that the sun is due for a big one around 2012. How big and if it will really happen or bring about an end of the world 2012 doomsday are unknown. What we do know is that our life on earth is deeply affected by the activity of the sun. And as mentioned in the section above on Armageddon, the sun WILL play a role in end time biblical judgments on the earth. However, while solar flares and other solar activity may affect us more in 2012 than other years, no one can predict that solar activity will bring about the end of the world on December 21 2012.

7. BIOLOGICAL WARFARE has been suggested as a means to earth's end. But again, how can one predict that the world will come to an end in this way on exactly December 21 2012? The threat of biological warefare will always be here as long as we have insane and / or hateful world control freaks. However, biological warfare cannot be seriously considered as and end of the world 2012 prophecy, let alone the exact date of December 21 2012. This must be seen as scaremongering and not worthy of attention

8. One prediction is of a GIANT METEOR OR ASTEROID. Meteors have struck the earth before. Could a giant meteor or comet bring and end to the world? Some predict we are overdue for a strike and give 2012 as a possible date for a giant meteor strike on earth. The biggest threat NASA have identified is an asteroid named Apophis. However it is not coming on an end of the world December 21 2012 dooms day and is currently on a Level 0 on the Torino Scale. It will pass close in 2029 with a probability for impact on April 13, 2036 calculated at 1 in 45,000. Asteroid threats still remain. Worth thinking about is Bible prophecy about 50 kilo hail stones and stars falling the sky, but not in 2012. CLICK HEREfor more on this.

9. Others believe that a PLANET X: NIBIRU, two thirds earth's size, will pass through our solar system around 2012 causing polar axis shifts on earth. A process, if it actually happens, that would apparently take up to 5,000 years! So, it would not happen on December 21 2012. CLICK HERE to find out more about Nibiru (text version) or CLICK HEREto watch a video about Nibiru.

10. Planet X has also been linked to some VAGUE prophecies (or quatrains). Some say that for NOSTRADAMUS 2012 end of the world predictions are true. However, more than once Nostradamus predictions have been "tweaked" to fit with world catastrophies. Nostradamus was a clever man, was he also a prophet? According to a letter written to one of his sons, Nostradamus claimed 3786 was the end of the world (3797 according to some experts).

QUESTION - What do we believe?

Will each of the end of the world 2012 dooms day prophecies and predictions end up being like other failed prophecies and predictions about the end of the world?

THE ULITMATE ANSWER:

As with the test of any true prophecy or prediction, time will tell.

OUR ANSWER:

Having said that, this website does NOT believe that any predictions about an end of the world 2012 dooms day for the earth are true. Even biblical prophecies about the end of the world do not give a 2012 end of the world date. In fact, no specific expiry date for earth is even suggested. What the Bible does say however is that you will be able to see a sequence of events that will lead up to the world's destruction. This includes an increase in "natural" and "man-made" disasters (which you can read about in the papers). Accoring to Bible prophecy, ALL life on earth will come to the edge of extinction! This is before something even will happen

Biblical prphecies state clearly that we will NOT know the time. They do NOT contain any end of the world 2012 predictions. But they DO say that THERE WILL BE AN END TO THIS WORLD and that, SUDDEN DESTRUCTION WILL COME LIKE A THIEF I THE NIGHT! "For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape." (1 Thessalonians 5:3).

Finally, while we believe that..

(a) it is wise to consider reasonable potential causes of world wide catastrophic destruction and that

(b) any perceived threats from solar flares, other planets, metors, nuclear war etc, must be seriously and responsibly investigated and that

(c) we should all do our part to "save the world".....

(d) if you a Christian, meditate on this verse from Jeremiah 10:2 "Thus saith the LORD, Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them."

Air Buses

2009-10-31T00:59:00.000+09:00

Competition with Boeing

Main article: Competition between Airbus and Boeing

Airbus is in tight competition with Boeing every year for aircraft orders. Though both manufacturers have a broad product range in various segments from single-aisle to wide-body, their aircraft do not always compete head-to-head. Instead they respond with models a bit smaller or a bit bigger than the other in order to plug any holes in demand and achieve a better edge. The A380, for example, is designed to be larger than the 747. The A350 XWB competes with the high end of the 787 and the low end of the 777. The A320 is bigger than the 737-700 but smaller than the 737-800. The A321 is bigger than the 737-900 but smaller than the previous 757-200. Airlines see this as a benefit since they get a more complete product range from 100 seats to 500 seats than if both companies offered identical aircraft.

In recent years the Boeing 777 has outsold its Airbus counterparts, which include the A340 family as well as the A330-300. The smaller A330-200 competes with the 767, outselling its Boeing counterpart in recent years. The A380 is anticipated to further reduce sales of the Boeing 747, gaining Airbus a share of the market in very large aircraft, though frequent delays in the A380 program have caused several customers to consider the refreshed 747-8. Airbus has also proposed the A350 XWB to compete with the fast-selling Boeing 787, after being under great pressure from airlines to produce a competing model.

There are around 5,102 Airbus aircraft in service, with Airbus managing to win over 50 per cent of aircraft orders in recent years. Airbus products are still outnumbered 3 to 1 by in-service Boeings (there are over 4,500 Boeing 737s alone in service). This however is indicative of historical success - Airbus made a late entry into the modern jet airliner market (1972 vs. 1958 for Boeing).

Airbus won a greater share of orders in 2003 and 2004. In 2005, Airbus achieved 1111 (1055 net) orders, compared to 1029 (net of 1002) for the same year at rival Boeing. However, Boeing won 55% of 2005 orders proportioned by value; and in the following year Boeing won more orders by both measures. Airbus in 2006 achieved its second best year ever in its entire 35 year history in terms of the number of orders it received, 824, second only to the previous year.

Air Buses

2009-10-31T00:57:00.000+09:00

Airbus SAS (pronounced /ˈɛərbʌs/ in English, /ɛʁbys/ in French, and /ˈɛːɐbʊs/ in German) is anaircraft manufacturing subsidiary of EADS, a European aerospace company. Based in Toulouse,France, and with significant activity across Europe, the company produces around half of the world's jet airliners.

Airbus began as a consortium of aerospace manufacturers. Consolidation of European defence and aerospace companies around the turn of the century allowed the establishment of a simplified joint stock company in 2001, owned by EADS (80%) and BAE Systems (20%). After a protracted sales process BAE sold its shareholding to EADS on 13 October 2006

Airbus employs around 57,000 people at sixteen sites in four European Union countries: Germany,France, the United Kingdom, and Spain. Final assembly production is at Toulouse (France),Hamburg (Germany), Seville (Spain) and, since 2009, Tianjin (China). Airbus has subsidiaries in the United States, Japan and China.

The company is known for producing and marketing the first commercially viable fly-by-wireairliner.

Civilian products

Airbus A320, the first model in the A318, A319, A320 and A321 range of airliners

The Airbus product line started with the A300, the world's first twin-aisle, twin-engined aircraft. A shorter, re-winged, re-engined variant of the A300 is known as the A310. Building on its success, Airbus launched theA320 with its innovative fly-by-wire control system. The A320 has been, and continues to be, a great commercial success. The A318 and A319 are shorter derivatives with some of the latter under construction for the corporate biz-jet market (Airbus Corporate Jet). A stretched version is known as the A321 and is proving competitive with later models of the Boeing 737.

The longer-range widebody products, the twin-jet A330 and the four-engine A340, have efficient wings, enhanced by winglets. The Airbus A340-500 has an operating range of 16 700 kilometres (9000 nautical miles), the second longest range of any commercial jet after the Boeing 777-200LR (range of 17 446 km or 9420 nautical miles). The company is particularly proud of its use of fly-by-wire technologies and the common cockpit systems in use throughout the aircraft family, which make it much easier to train crew.

Airbus is studying a replacement for the A320 series, tentatively dubbed NSR, for "New Short-Range aircraft".Those studies indicated a maximum fuel efficiency gain of 9-10% for the NSR. Airbus however opted to enhance the existing A320 design using new winglets and working on aerodynamical improvements. This "A320 Enhanced" should have a fuel efficiency improvement of around 4-5%, shifting the launch of a A320 replacement to 2017-2018.

In 24 September 2009 the COO Fabrice Bregier stated to Le Figaro that the company would need from € 800 million to € 1 Bi over six years to develop the new airplane generation and preserve the company technological lead from new competitors like C919, scheduled to operarte by 2015-2020.

In July 2007, Airbus delivered its last A300 to FedEx, marking the end of the A300/A310 production line. Airbus intends to relocate Toulouse A320 final assembly activity to Hamburg, and A350/A380 production in the opposite direction as part of its Power8 organisation plan begun under ex-CEO Christian Streiff.

Airbus supplied replacement parts and service for Concorde until its retirement in 2003.

Air Buses

2009-10-31T00:53:00.000+09:00

How safe are Airbuses?

A China Airlines A300 similar to this crashed in Taiwan

Different types of Airbuses have been involved in 10 major crashes in a decade, but experts say it still has a relatively good safety record.
The Airbus 310 - the model which has gone down in Thailand - is, like the others, made by the European consortium Airbus Industrie.
The manufacturers say their aircraft have an overall reliability of 99%. Most of the crashes have been attributed to human error rather than a fault with the aircraft.
But there have been a number of recent crashes in Asia.
In February 200 people died when a Taiwanese A 300 crashed while trying to land at Taiwan's main international airport. In September another A300 model went down trying to land in Indonesia. All 294 passengers and crew were killed.
Airbus facts
An Airbus aircraft takes off or lands every 10 seconds somewhere in the world.
Airbus Industrie has sold more than 2,600 aircraft during its 25-year history. Approximately 1,600 are in service with about 140 operators worldwide.
The Airbus Industrie aircraft family comprises three different aircraft groups:

The 124-185 seat, single-aisle A319/A320/A321
The 220-266 seat widebody A300/A310
The 263-350-seat widebody A330/A340.

Previous Airbus crashes
February 1998: 197 killed when A300 crashed in Taiwan
September 1997: 234 killed when A300 crashed in Indonesia
July 1994: Seven killed when A330 crashed in Toulouse, France, when crew were testing simulated engine failure
April 1994: 259 killed when A300 crashed in Japan.
March 1994: 75 killed when A310 crashed in Siberia
September 1992: 167 killed when A300 crashed in Kathmandu, Nepal
July 1992: 113 killed when A310 crashed in Kathmandu
January 1992: 87 killed when A320 crashed in Strasbourg
February 1990: 90 killed when A320 crashed in Bangalore
June 1988: eight killed when A320 crashed in Habersheim.

UFO 1

2009-10-30T01:14:00.000+09:00

Unidentified flying object

"UFO" redirects here. For other uses, see UFO (disambiguation).

Unidentified flying object (commonly abbreviated as UFO or U.F.O.) is the popular term for any aerial phenomenon whose cause cannot be easily or immediately identified by the observer. The United States Air Force, which coined the term in 1952, initially defined UFOs as those objects that remain unidentified after scrutiny by expert investigators, though the term UFO is often used more generally to describe any sighting unidentifiable to the reporting observer(s). Popular culture frequently takes the term UFO as a synonym for alien spacecraft. Cults have become associated with UFOs, and mythology and folklore have evolved around the phenomenon. Some investigators now prefer to use the broader term unidentified aerial phenomenon (or UAP), to avoid the confusion and speculative associations that have become attached toUFO. Another widely known acronym for UFO in Spanish, French, Portuguese and Italian is OVNI.

Studies have established that the majority of UFOs are observations of some real but conventional object—most commonly aircraft, balloons, or astronomical objects such as meteors or bright planets—that have been misidentified by the observer as anomalies while a small percentage of reported UFOs are hoaxes. Only a small percentage of reported sightings (usually 5 to 20%) can be classified as unidentified flying objects in the strictest sense (see below for some studies).

Some scientists have argued that all UFO sightings are misidentifications of natural phenomena and historically, there was debate among some scientists about whether scientific investigation was warranted given available empirical data. Very little peer-reviewed literature has been published in which scientists have proposed, studied or supported non-prosaic explanations for UFOs. Allen Hynek was a trained astronomer who participated in Project Bluebook after doing research as a federal government employee. He formed the opinion that some UFO reports could not be scientifically explained. Through his founding of the Center for UFO Studies and participation at CUFOs he spent the rest of his life researching and documenting UFOs. The movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind had a character loosely based on Hynek. Another group studying UFOs is Mutual UFO Network. MUFON is a grass roots based organization known for publishing one of the first UFO investigators handbooks. This handbook went into great detail on how to document alleged UFO sightings.

UFO reports became frequent after the first widely publicized U.S. sighting, reported by private pilot Kenneth Arnold in 1947, that gave rise to the popular terms "flying saucer" and "flying disc." Since then, millions of people have reported that they have seen UFOs.

Bermuda Triangle

2009-10-19T09:31:00.000+09:00

Introduction

The Bermuda Triangle is a region of the north western atlantics ocean which is well known for the disappearance of a number of aircraft and surface vessels in a so called mysterious way.

This project proposal gives a detailed picture regarding the mysterious and truth of the Bermuda Triangle with a scientific approach.

Bermuda Triangle

The Bermuda Triangle, also known as the Devil's Triangle, is a region of the northwestern Atlantic Ocean in which a number of aircraft and surface vessels are alleged to have disappeared in mysterious circumstances which fall beyond the boundaries of human error, pirates, equipment failure, or natural disasters. Popular culture has attributed some of these disappearances to the paranormal, a suspension of the laws of physics, or activity by extraterrestrial beings.

A substantial body of documentation exists showing numerous incidents to have been inaccurately reported or embellished by later authors, and numerous official agencies have gone on record as stating that the number and nature of disappearances is similar to any other area of ocean; however proponents of paranormal phenomena claim that many incidents remain unexplained despite considerable investigation.

Since a magazine first coined the phrase "Bermuda Triangle" in 1964, the mystery has continued to attract attention. When you dig deeper into most cases, though, they're much less mysterious. Either they were never in the area to begin with, they were actually found, or there's a reasonable explanation for their disappearance.

Many think of the Bermuda Triangle, also known as the Devil's Triangle, as an "imaginary" area. The U. S. Board of Geographic Names does not recognize the Bermuda Triangle and does not maintain an official file on it. However, within this imaginary area, many real vessels and the people aboard them have seemingly disappeared without explanation.

The Bermuda Triangle is located off the Southeastern coast of the United States in the Atlantic Ocean, with its apexes in the vicinities of Bermuda, Miami, Florida, and San Juan, Puerto Rico. It covers roughly 500,000 square miles.

The area may have been named after its Bermuda apex since Bermuda was once known as the "Isle of Devils." Treacherous reefs that have ensnared ships sailing too close to its shores surround Bermuda, and there are hundreds of shipwrecks in the waters that surround it.

The Triangle area

The boundaries of the Triangle vary with the author; some stating its shape is akin to a trapezoid covering the Straits of Florida, the Bahamas and the entire Caribbean island area and the Atlantic east to the Azores; others add to it the Gulf of Mexico. The more familiar triangular boundary in most written works has as its points somewhere on the Atlantic coast of Florida; San Juan, Puerto Rico; and the mid-Atlantic island of Bermuda, with most of the accidents concentrated along the southern boundary around the Bahamas and the Florida Straits.

The area is one of the most heavily-sailed shipping lanes in the world, with ships crossing through it daily for ports in the Americas, Europe, and the Caribbean Islands. Cruise ships are also plentiful, and pleasure craft regularly go back and forth between Florida and the islands. It is also a heavily flown route for commercial and private aircraft heading towards Florida, the Caribbean, and South America from points north

History of the Triangle Story

Origins

The first article of any kind in which the legend of the Triangle began appeared in newspapers by E.V.W. Jones on September 16, 1950, through the Associated Press. Two years later, Fate magazine published "Sea Mystery At Our Back Door" , a short article by George X. Sand covering the loss of several planes and ships, including the loss of Flight 19, a group of five U.S. Navy TBM Avenger bombers on a training mission. Sand's article was the first to lay out the now-familiar triangular area where the losses took place. Flight 19 alone would be covered in the April 1962 issue of American Legion Magazine. It was claimed that the flight leader had been heard saying "We are entering white water, nothing seems right. We don't know where we are, the water is green, no white." It was also claimed that officials at the Navy board of inquiry stated that the planes "flew off to Mars." This was the first article to connect the supernatural to Flight 19, but it would take another author, Vincent Gaddis, writing in the February 1964 Argosy magazine to take Flight 19 together with other mysterious disappearances and place it under the umbrella of a new catchy name: "The Deadly Bermuda Triangle"; he would build on that article with a more detailed book, Invisible Horizons, the next year. Others would follow with their own works: John Wallace Spencer (Limbo of the Lost, 1969, 1973); Charles Berlitz (The Bermuda Triangle, 1974) , Richard Winer (The Devil's Triangle, 1974) , and many others, all keeping to some of the same supernatural elements outlined by Eckert.

Kusche's Research

Lawrence David Kusche, a research librarian from Arizona State University and author of The Bermuda Triangle Mystery: Solved (1975) has challenged this trend. Kusche's research revealed a number of inaccuracies and inconsistencies between Berlitz's accounts and statements from eyewitnesses, participants, and others involved in the initial incidents. He noted cases where pertinent information went unreported, such as the disappearance of round-the-world yachtsman Donald Crowhurst, which Berlitz had presented as a mystery, despite clear evidence to the contrary. Another example was the ore-carrier Berlitz recounted as lost without trace three days out of an Atlantic port when it had been lost three days out of a port with the same name in the Pacific Ocean. Kusche also argued that a large percentage of the incidents which have sparked the Triangle's mysterious influence actually occurred well outside it. Often his research was surprisingly simple: he would go over period newspapers and see items like weather reports that were never mentioned in the stories.

Kusche came to a conclusion:

The number of ships and aircraft reported missing in the area was not significantly greater, proportionally speaking, than in any other part of the ocean.
In an area frequented by tropical storms, the number of disappearances that did occur were, for the most part, neither disproportionate, unlikely, nor mysterious; furthermore, Berlitz and other writers would often fail to mention such storms.
The numbers themselves had been exaggerated by sloppy research. A boat listed as missing would be reported, but its eventual (if belated) return to port may not have been reported.
Some disappearances had in fact, never happened. One plane crash was said to have taken place in 1937 off Daytona Beach, Florida, in front of hundreds of witnesses; a check of the local papers revealed nothing.

Kusche concluded that:

The Legend of the Bermuda Triangle is a manufactured mystery, perpetuated by writers who either purposely or unknowingly made use of misconceptions, faulty reasoning, and sensationalism.

Further responses

When the UK Channel 4 television program "The Bermuda Triangle" (c. 1992) was being produced by John Simmons of Geofilms for the Equinox Programme, the marine insurer Lloyd's of London was asked if an unusually large number of ships had sunk in the Bermuda Triangle area. Lloyd's of London determined that large numbers of ships had not sunk there.

United States Coast Guard records confirm their conclusion. In fact, the number of supposed disappearances is relatively insignificant considering the number of ships and aircraft which pass through on a regular basis.

The Coast Guard is also officially skeptical of the Triangle, noting that they collect and publish, through their inquiries, much documentation contradicting many of the incidents written about by the Triangle authors. In one such incident involving the 1972 explosion and sinking of the tanker V.A. Fogg in the Gulf of Mexico, the Coast Guard photographed the wreck and recovered several bodies, in contrast with one Triangle author's claim that all the bodies had vanished, with the exception of the captain, who was found sitting in his cabin at his desk, clutching a coffee cup.

The NOVA / Horizon episode The Case of the Bermuda Triangle (1976-06-27) was highly critical, stating that "When we've gone back to the original sources or the people involved, the mystery evaporates. Science does not have to answer questions about the Triangle because those questions are not valid in the first place. ... Ships and planes behave in the Triangle the same way they behave everywhere else in the world."

Skeptical researchers, such as Ernest Tavesand Barry Singer, have noted how mysteries and the paranormal are very popular and profitable. This has led to the production of vast amounts of material on topics such as the Bermuda Triangle. They were able to show that some of the pro-paranormal material is often misleading or inaccurate, but its producers continue to market it. Accordingly, they have claimed that the market is biased in favour of books, TV specials, etc. which support the Triangle mystery, and against well-researched material if it espouses a skeptical viewpoint.

Finally, if the Triangle is assumed to cross land, such as parts of Puerto Rico, the Bahamas, or Bermuda itself, there is no evidence for the disappearance of any land-based vehicles or persons.The city of Freeport, located inside the Triangle, operates a major shipyard and an airport which annually handles 50,000 flights, and is visited by over a million tourists a year.

Supernatural Explanations

Triangle writers have used a number of supernatural concepts to explain the events. One explanation pins the blame on leftover technology from the mythical lost continent of Atlantis. Sometimes connected to the Atlantis story is the submerged rock formation known as the Bimini Road off the island of Bimini in the Bahamas, which is in the Triangle by some definitions. Followers of the purported psychic Edgar Cayce take his prediction that evidence of Atlantis would be found in 1968 as referring to the discovery of the Bimini Road. Believers describe the formation as a road, wall, or other structure, though geologists consider it to be of natural origin.

Other writers attribute the events to UFOs. This idea was used by Steven Spielberg for his science fiction film Close Encounters of the Third Kind, which features the lost Flight 19 as alien abductees.

Charles Berlitz, grandson of a distinguished linguist and author of various additional books on anomalous phenomena, has kept in line with this extraordinary explanation, and attributed the losses in the Triangle to anomalous or unexplained forces.

Natural Explanations

Compass variations

Compass problems are one of the cited phrases in many Triangle incidents. While some have theorized that unusual local magnetic anomalies may exist in the area, such anomalies have not been shown to exist. It should also be remembered that compasses have natural magnetic variations in relation to the Magnetic poles. For example, in the United States the only places where magnetic (compass) north and geographic (true) north are exactly the same are on a line running from Wisconsin to the Gulf of Mexico. Navigators have known this for centuries. But the public may not be as informed, and think there is something mysterious about a compass "changing" across an area as large as the Triangle, which it naturally will.

Deliberate acts of destruction

This can fall into two categories: acts of war, and acts of piracy. Records in enemy files have been checked for numerous losses; while many sinkings have been attributed to surface raiders or submarines during the World Wars and documented in the various command log books, many others which have been suspected as falling in that category have not been proven. It is suspected that the loss of USS Cyclops in 1918, as well as her sister ships Proteus and Nereus in World War II, were attributed to submarines, but no such link has been found in the German records.

Piracy, as defined by the taking of a ship or small boat on the high seas, is an act which continues to this day. While piracy for cargo theft is more common in the western Pacific and Indian oceans, drug smugglers do steal pleasure boats for smuggling operations, and may have been involved in crew and yacht disappearances in the Caribbean. Piracy in the Caribbean was common from about 1560 to the 1760s, and famous pirates included Edward Teach (Blackbeard) and Jean Lafitte. Lafitte is sometimes said to be a Triangle victim himself.

Gulf Stream

The Gulf Stream is an ocean current that originates in the Gulf of Mexico, and then through the Straits of Florida, into the North Atlantic. In essence, it is a river within an ocean, and like a river, it can and does carry floating objects. It has a surface velocity of up to about 2.5 metres per second (5.6 mph). A small plane making a water landing or a boat having engine trouble will be carried away from its reported position by the current, as happened to the cabin cruiser Witchcraft on December 22, 1967, when it reported engine trouble near the Miami buoy marker one mile (1.6 km) from shore, but was not there when a Coast Guard cutter arrived.

Human error

One of the most cited explanations in official inquiries as to the loss of any aircraft or vessel is human error. Whether deliberate or accidental, humans have been known to make mistakes resulting in catastrophe, and losses within the Bermuda Triangle are no exception. For example, the Coast Guard cited a lack of proper training for the cleaning of volatile benzene residue as a reason for the loss of the tanker V.A. Fogg in 1972. Human stubbornness may have caused businessman Harvey Conover to lose his sailing yacht, the Revonoc, as he sailed into the teeth of a storm south of Florida on January 1, 1958. Many losses remain inconclusive due to the lack of wreckage which could be studied, a fact cited on many official reports.

Hurricanes

Hurricanes are powerful storms which are spawned in tropical waters, and have historically been responsible for thousands of lives lost and billions of dollars in damage. The sinking of Francisco de Bobadilla's Spanish fleet in 1502 was the first recorded instance of a destructive hurricane. These storms have in the past caused a number of incidents related to the Triangle.

Rogue waves

In various oceans around the world, rogue waves have caused ships to sink and oil platforms to topple . These waves are considered to be a mystery and until recently were believed to be a myth. However, rogue waves don't account for the missing aircraft.

Methane hydrates

An explanation for some of the disappearances has focused on the presence of vast fields of methane hydrates on the continental shelves. Laboratory experiments carried out in Australia have proven that bubbles can, indeed, sink a scale model ship by decreasing the density of the water, any wreckage consequently rising to the surface would be rapidly dispersed by the Gulf Stream. It has been hypothesized that periodic methane eruptions (sometimes called "mud volcanoes") may produce regions of frothy water that are no longer capable of providing adequate buoyancy for ships. If this were the case, such an area forming around a ship could cause it to sink very rapidly and without warning.

A white paper was published in 1981 by the United States Geological Survey about the appearance of hydrates in the Blake Ridge area, off the southeastern United States coast.However, according to a USGS web page, no large releases of gas hydrates are believed to have occurred in the Bermuda Triangle for the past 15,000 years.

Notable incidents

Flight 19

Flight 19 was a training flight of TBM Avenger bombers that went missing on December 5, 1945 while over the Atlantic. The squadron's flight path was scheduled to take them due east for 120 miles, north for 73 miles, and then back over a final 120-mile leg that would return them to the naval base, but they never returned. The impression is given that the flight encountered unusual phenomena and anomalous compass readings, and that the flight took place on a calm day under the supervision of an experienced pilot, Lt. Charles Carroll Taylor. Adding to the intrigue is that the Navy's report of the accident was ascribed to "causes or reasons unknown." It is believed that Taylor's mother wanted to save her son's reputation, so she made them write "reasons unknown" when actually Taylor was 50 km NW from where he thought he was.

Adding to the mystery, a search and rescue Mariner aircraft with a 13-man crew was dispatched to aid the missing squadron, but the Mariner itself was never heard from again. Later, there was a report from a tanker cruising off the coast of Florida of a visible explosion at about the time the Mariner would have been on patrol.

While the basic facts of this version of the story are essentially accurate, some important details are missing. The weather was becoming stormy by the end of the incident, and naval reports and written recordings of the conversations between Taylor and the other pilots of Flight 19 do not indicate magnetic problems. In addition, only Taylor had any significant flying time, but he was not familiar with the south Florida area and had a history of getting lost in flight, having done so three times during World War II, resulting in him twice ditching planes into the water.

Mary Celeste

The mysterious abandonment in 1872 of the 282-ton brigantine Mary Celeste is often but inaccurately connected to the Triangle, the ship having been abandoned off the coast of Portugal. The event is possibly confused with the loss of a ship with a similar name, the Mari Celeste, a 207-ton paddle steamer which hit a reef and quickly sank off the coast of Bermuda on September 13, 1864. Kusche noted that many of the "facts" about this incident were actually about the Marie Celeste, the fictional ship from Arthur Conan Doyle's short story "J. Habakuk Jephson's Statement" (based on the real Mary Celeste incident, but fictionalized).

Ellen Austin

The Ellen Austin supposedly came across an abandoned derelict, placed on board a prize crew, and attempted to sail with it to New York in 1881. According to the stories, the derelict disappeared; others elaborating further that the derelict reappeared minus the prize crew, then disappeared again with a second prize crew on board. A check of Lloyd's of London records proved the existence of the Meta, built in 1854; in 1880 the Meta was renamed Ellen Austin. There are no casualty listings for this vessel, or any vessel at that time, that would suggest a large number of missing men placed on board a derelict which later disappeared.

Raifuku Maru

One of the more famous incidents in the Triangle took place in 1921 (some say a few years later), when the Japanese vessel Raifuku Maru (sometimes misidentified as Raikuke Maru) went down with all hands after sending a distress signal which allegedly said "Danger like dagger now. Come quick!", or "It's like a dagger, come quick!" This has led writers to speculate on what the "dagger" was, with a waterspout being the likely candidate (Winer). In reality the ship was nowhere near the Triangle, nor was the word "dagger" a part of the ship's distress call ("Now very danger. Come quick."); having left Boston for Hamburg, Germany, on April 21, 1925, she got caught in a severe storm and sank in the North Atlantic with all hands while another ship, RMS Homeric, attempted an unsuccessful rescue.

USS Cyclops

The incident resulting in the single largest loss of life in the history of the US Navy not related to combat occurred when USS Cyclops, under the command of Lt Cdr G. W. Worley, went missing without a trace with a crew of 309 sometime after March 4, 1918, after departing the island of Barbados. Although there is no strong evidence for any single theory, many independent theories exist, some blaming storms, some capsizing, and some suggesting that wartime enemy activity was to blame for the loss.

Theodosia Burr Alston

Theodosia Burr Alston was the daughter of former United States Vice President Aaron Burr. Her disappearance has been cited at least once in relation to the Triangle.She was a passenger on board the Patriot, which sailed from Charleston, South Carolina to New York City on December 30, 1812, and was never heard from again. Both piracy and the War of 1812 have been posited as explanations, as well as a theory placing her in Texas, well outside the Triangle.

Spray

S.V. Spray was a derelict fishing boat refitted as an ocean cruiser by Joshua Slocum and used by him to complete the first ever single-handed circumnavigation of the world, between 1895 and 1898.

In 1909, Slocum set sail from Vineyard Haven bound for Venezuela. Neither he nor Spray were ever seen again.

There is no evidence they were in the Bermuda Triangle when they disappeared, nor is there any evidence of paranormal activity.

Carroll A. Deering

A five-masted schooner built in 1919, the Carroll A. Deering was found hard aground and abandoned at Diamond Shoals, near Cape Hatteras, North Carolina on January 31, 1921. Rumors and more at the time indicated the Deering was a victim of piracy, possibly connected with the illegal rum-running trade during prohibition, and possibly involving another ship, S.S. Hewitt, which disappeared at roughly the same time. Just hours later, an unknown steamer sailed near the lightship along the track of the Deering, and ignored all signals from the lightship. It is speculated that the Hewitt may have been this mystery ship, and possibly involved in the Deering crew's disappearance.

Douglas DC-3

On December 28, 1948, a Douglas DC-3 aircraft, number NC16002, disappeared while on a flight from San Juan, Puerto Rico, to Miami. No trace of the aircraft or the 32 people onboard was ever found. From the documentation compiled by the Civil Aeronautics Board investigation, a possible key to the plane's disappearance was found, but barely touched upon by the Triangle writers: the plane's batteries were inspected and found to be low on charge, but ordered back into the plane without a recharge by the pilot while in San Juan. Whether or not this led to complete electrical failure will never be known. However, since piston-engined aircraft rely upon magnetos to provide spark to their cylinders rather than a battery powered ignition coil system, this theory is not strongly convincing.

Star Tiger and Star Ariel

G-AHNP Star Tiger disappeared on January 30, 1948 on a flight from the Azores to Bermuda; G-AGRE Star Ariel disappeared on January 17, 1949, on a flight from Bermuda to Kingston, Jamaica. Both were Avro Tudor IV passenger aircraft operated by British South American Airways.

KC-135 Stratotankers

On August 28, 1963 a pair of U.S. Air Force KC-135 Stratotanker aircraft collided and crashed into the Atlantic. The Triangle version (Winer, Berlitz, Gaddis) of this story specifies that they did collide and crash, but there were two distinct crash sites, separated by over 160 miles (260 km) of water. However, Kusche's research showed that the unclassified version of the Air Force investigation report stated that the debris field defining the second "crash site" was examined by a search and rescue ship, and found to be a mass of seaweed and driftwood tangled in an old buoy.

SS Marine Sulphur Queen

SS Marine Sulphur Queen, a T2 tanker converted from oil to sulfur carrier, was last heard from on February 4, 1963 with a crew of 39 near the Florida Keys. Marine Sulphur Queen was the first vessel mentioned in Vincent Gaddis' 1964 Argosy Magazine article,but he left it as having "sailed into the unknown", despite the Coast Guard report which not only documented the ship's badly-maintained history, but declared that it was an unseaworthy vessel that should never have gone to sea.

Connemara IV

A pleasure yacht found adrift in the Atlantic south of Bermuda on September 26, 1955; it is usually stated in the stories (Berlitz, Winer) that the crew vanished while the yacht survived being at sea during three hurricanes. The 1955 Atlantic hurricane season lists only one storm coming near Bermuda towards the end of August, hurricane "Edith"; of the others, "Flora" was too far to the east, and "Katie" arrived after the yacht was recovered. It was confirmed that the Connemara IV was empty and in port when "Edith" may have caused the yacht to slip her moorings and drift out to sea.