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Now, I admit that if there seems to be a predominance of evil forces operating in a certain locality, a cause should be sought, quite logically and properly. A particularly high incidence of traffic accidents at a certain intersection will prompt an investigation of the site by the authorities, and if indeed there seems to be more than a fair share of accidents or anomalies in the Bermuda Triangle, by all means let us look into it. But first let's get our definitions correct.

Look at the accompanying map of the area. On it you will see designated the locations of the major events that the writers would have us accept as proof of the Triangle mystery. Bear in mind that a number of these reported disappearances are represented here by the "found abandoned" markings, and that of these a good number have been explained—crews rescued and cause determined.

These "disappearances" are the ones writers such as Berlitz have listed, and therefore the truth or falsity of the mystery depends on these cases.

Excuse the rhetorical question, but how many of these alleged disappearances occurred within the Bermuda Triangle? One that is gleefully offered up by the believers actually happened in the Pacific! Others are not included here because the scale of the map would not allow me to show them—they were as far away as Ireland and the coast of Portugal.

The "mysterious" Bermuda Triangle.

The point is that, if it exists at all, this is certainly a most diffuse phenomenon, and it appears that it only proves, as the old saw tells us, that "accidents will happen." I must mention that I refused to include on the map those alleged accidents that never took place at all or involved nonexistent craft or people. Also, you will not find here those "vanishments" that took place somewhere along a thousand to three-thousand-mile-long plotted voyage that might have led the travelers through the Triangle. In some cases a ship left port and failed to show up on the other side of the world. I cannot allow the creators of the legend to include these incidents in their evidence.

One example described in Larry Kusche's book serves to illustrate how careful one has to be in accepting what is asserted as evidence. According to the claimed version of an incident discussed in The Bermuda Triangle Mystery—Solved, "Thirty-nine persons vanished north of the Triangle on a flight to Jamaica on February 2, 1953. An SOS, which ended abruptly without explanation, was sent by the British York Transport just before it disappeared. No trace was ever found." Now let's look at the facts.

The flight plan specified Jamaica as a destination, it's true, and this would seem to connect it with the Triangle. But the plane, when it was lost, was on a flight from the Azores to Newfoundland, in Canada, a flight that took it along a northwesterly path away from the dreaded area! The plan called for a stop in Newfoundland, then a flight to Jamaica. Since its terminal destination was Jamaica, the promulgators of the Legend called it "a flight to Jamaica" without further explanation. Moreover, the plane admittedly was lost "north of the Triangle"—nine hundred miles north of it! There is no mention of the weather, but the New York Times that day reported an "icy, gale-swept North Atlantic... strong winds and torrential rains... winds up to seventy-five miles an hour."

Then there is the mysterious SOS signal "which ended abruptly without explanation." This sounds logical enough. An aircraft, lashed by a severe storm in the middle of the Atlantic in winter, gets into trouble, radios the standard international distress call, and crashes without further "explanation." A tragedy, but one that has occurred hundreds of times around the world, and not at all strange or unexplainable. But it would have been, had not someone like Larry Kusche scrutinized the information that the promoters of this nonsense have offered the public to make their point.

The media are largely to blame for the Bermuda Triangle deception. Initially, they gave Berlitz the