10 Mysterious Incidents at the Bermuda Triangle

Most shipwrecks can usually be blamed on weather, currents, or mechanical failures. In others, the vessels seem to have been sucked into another dimension. These 10 incidents happened in association with the mysterious vortex known as the Bermuda Triangle.

1. The Disappearance of Thomas Lynch, Jr.

The first recorded instance of strange happenings in the Bermuda Triangle area was when Thomas Lynch, Jr. and his wife disappeared while sailing to the West Indies in 1779. Lynch was a representative of South Carolina and one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence.

2. The Unexplained Loss of the USS Cyclops

So far, this is the biggest loss of Navy personnel not related to combat. The USS Cyclops and the 309 people on it disappeared without a trace sometime around March 4, 1918, after leaving Barbados.

3. Joshua Slocum’s Vanishing Act

The Spray was a ship captained by Joshua Slocum, who was known for his skills on the water; he was the first man to complete a solo sailing mission around the world. There's no evidence that he was actually in the Bermuda Triangle when he disappeared en route from the Caribbean to Venezuela in 1909, but lots of theories have suggested there's no other way he could have lost control of his boat. He was declared legally dead in 1924.

4. Star Tiger and Star Ariel Go Missing

These two aircraft disappeared just about a year apart from each other—the Tiger with 29 people on board on January 30, 1948, and the Ariel with 20 people on January 17, 1949. Neither plane gave out a distress call of any sort. Wreckage of a plane owned by the same company as the Tiger and the Ariel turned up in the Andes in 1998; the plane had disappeared in 1947. So far, though, nothing has been found of the Star planes.

5. The Alleged Sinking of HMS Atalanta

A crew of 281 died when this 26-gun British frigate went missing after leaving Bermuda for Falmouth, England, in 1880. Its sister ship, the HMS Eurydice, had sunk near the Isle of Wight just two years earlier, killing 317.

6. the S.S. Cotopaxi's Peril

In December 1925, the Cotopaxi was headed for Havana from Charleston, South Carolina, when it disappeared. The ship's captain radioed shortly before it was lost and said there was water in the hold, so there seems to be little doubt that it probably sank, along with all 32 crewmembers. This hasn't stopped the Cotopaxi from being added to the list of Bermuda Triangle mysteries, though.

7. The Mysterious Marine Sulphur Queen

The Marine Sulphur Queen was a tanker ship carrying, you guessed it, sulfur. It was going from Beaumont, Texas, to Norfolk, Virginia, but never made it. A completely normal radio message was sent from the tanker on February 4, 1963, and by February 6 the ship was reported as missing. A total of 39 crew members were lost. The Marine Sulphur Queen's sister ship, the Sylvia L. Ossa, went down east of Bermuda in 1976. All that was ever found was some debris and an empty lifeboat.

8. The Doomed Carroll A. Deering

Maybe this vessel was doomed from the start. The captain got sick and had to abandon ship at a port in Delaware. This was apparently considered a bad omen. After delivering its cargo to Rio, the ship started to turn home and stopped in Barbados for supplies. Afterward, it was sighted near North Carolina, and observers noted that the crew was acting strange; the ship wasn't seen again until its wreckage washed up off the coast of Cape Hatteras. The ship's log, navigation equipment, the crew's personal belongings, and lifeboats were gone.

9. The S.S. Hewitt Never Heard From Again

The Hewitt was lost in 1921 when it sailed from Sabine, Texas, bound for Portland, Maine. The captain made a regular radio call on January 25 and it turned out to be his final communication. The last sighting was about 250 miles north of Jupiter Inlet, Florida. Not a trace of wreckage has ever been found, even after an extensive search along the route it was supposed to be traveling.

10. The Curious Case of the Chase Vault

Here's one that doesn't involve ships or planes, although you might want to take it with a grain of salt. The Chase Vault is a burial vault in Barbados where weird things kept happening in the early 19th century. Every time the vault was opened, all of the coffins (save for one) had moved.