Top 10 Creepiest Unsolved Bermuda Triangle Mysteries
#10: Witchcraft (1967)
Not literal witchcraft (although we wouldn’t be surprised). No, Witchcraft was the name of a luxury yacht that mysteriously vanished off the coast of Miami. The ship’s owner and captain, Dan Burack, planned to look at the Christmas lights of the Miami shoreline with his friend, Patrick Horgan. However, something went slightly amiss during the trip, and a calm Burack contacted the Coast Guard requesting a tow back to shore. Burack made it clear that it was not an emergency. When the Coast Guard arrived nineteen minutes later, the Witchcraft and its occupants were nowhere to be found. The ship and the men on board remain missing to this very day - despite an extensive search and rescue operation.
#9: Perry Cohen & Austin Stephanos (2015)
Despite the Triangle’s reputation for missing ships and aircraft, many boats have actually been found after the fact. In 2015, the cargo ship SS El Faro went missing after encountering Hurricane Joaquin. Nearly one month after its disappearance, the ship was found intact at the bottom of the ocean. That same year, two fourteen year olds named Perry Cohen and Austin Stephanos went missing after embarking on a fishing trip. The two left on a boat belonging to Stephanos’s mother and never returned. The area encountered a major storm soon after their departure, and Stephanos reportedly Snapchatted a picture of the oncoming storm from their boat. Two days later, the abandoned boat was found off the coast of Daytona Beach. The boys were never found.
#8: Douglas DC-3 (1948)
In late December of 1948, Captain Robert Linquist was flying a Douglas DC-3 from San Juan, Puerto Rico to Miami. On board were three crew members and 29 passengers. It was a routine flight for Linquist, and everything went smoothly until the plane came within fifty miles of the American coast. Linquist attempted to contact the landing airport but was met with total silence. They were unable to contact the ground, and the ground was unable to contact them. The plane subsequently disappeared and was never seen again. It then became the subject of a meticulous investigation by the Civil Aeronautics Board, who deduced that the plane was suffering from electrical difficulties that prevented communication.
#7: The Carroll A. Deering (1921)
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With it having sailed within the North Atlantic Ocean that’s often attributed to the Bermuda Triangle, the creepy story of the Carroll A. Deering remains one of the most popular in maritime history. On January 31, 1921, the ship was spotted run aground off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. It was clear the ship was abandoned, and when investigators finally got on board, they found evidence of damage and discovered that the distress signals had been lit. They also saw both the lifeboats and the crew’s personal effects were missing. An intensive investigation was launched, and it concluded in 1922 without an official explanation. However, most people speculated it was the result of a mutiny after they sailed through the triangle. Though this remains the most accepted answer today, nothing has been definitively proven, and speculation remains about the previous events that could’ve led up to this.
#6: Bruce Gernon (1970)
If Gernon’s story is to be believed, then the Bermuda Triangle is a very bizarre place, indeed. Gernon was a pilot who in 1970 was flying with his father and his father’s business associate. The trio were flying from the Bahamas to Bimini when they encountered some weird clouds with flashes of light. Initially thinking it was a routine electrical storm, Gernon was horrified to see the clouds join together to form a 15-mile long tunnel around the plane. After passing through, the plane emerged into a hazy field of thick grey mist and the electrical equipment wasn’t working. When the mist finally dissipated, he found himself over Miami Beach, which was physically impossible given their short flight time. Gernon believes he traveled through some type of wormhole.
#5: Star Tiger (1948)
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The Bermuda Triangle clearly has a thing for Avro Tudor airliners. British Southern American Airways, the owners of the Avro Tudors, suffered a really bad time in the late 1940s. In January 1948, the passenger aircraft Star Tiger, with 31 people aboard, went missing while flying between the Azores and Bermuda. Contact with the plane was suddenly cut off, and it disappeared without sending a distress signal. Many people believe that it crashed into the sea, possibly due to personal error from a fatigued crew or a faulty altimeter. A year later, another Avro Tudor owned by British Southern American Airways went missing. Named Star Ariel, the aircraft disappeared while flying between Bermuda and Jamaica with seven crew members and thirteen passengers on board.
#4: The Great Isaac Lighthouse (1969)
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It’s not just planes and ships that experience dangerous phenomena inside the Bermuda Triangle. Sometimes it’s even stationary lighthouses! Located twenty miles northeast of the Bimini Islands is a small island called Great Isaac Cay. The island is accessible only by boat, and it contains an old lighthouse that was erected back in 1859. The lighthouse is often utilized by cruise ships traveling from Nassau to Florida. Back in August of 1969, the lighthouse was found completely abandoned, and its two keepers have never been located. Abandoned lighthouses will always make for a great and creepy story, but in this case, it was likely the result of the dangerous Hurricane Anna. However, what specifically caused the lighthouse keepers to disappear remains a mystery.
#3: USS Cyclops (1918)
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Another enormously popular maritime story involves the Naval vessel USS Cyclops. In March of 1918, the Cyclops was carrying over 12,000 tons of manganese ore when it and the 306 passengers disappeared without a trace. The initial thought was that the ship was sunk by a German submarine, but the consensus later changed to structural failure. It’s believed that the corrosive cargo eroded the ship’s I-beams and that the Cyclops literally broke apart in a storm. Despite this finding, no wreckage has ever been found. Tragically, all 306 lives were lost, making this the deadliest American maritime disaster not involving combat.
#2: Flight 19 (1945)
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The event that started the whole Bermuda Triangle craze, the story behind Flight 19 is deliriously mysterious and wonderfully creepy. On December 5, 1945, a group of five torpedo bombers went missing during a training exercise. As the weather worsened, the inexperienced pilots were believed to be more than 230 miles off course and over the open ocean. With the sun down, radio contact spotty, and bad weather conditions, the pilots realized that they were done for, with Lieutenant Charles Taylor radioing his crew “when the first plane drops below 10 gallons, we all go down together.” A Martin PBM Mariner was sent out to find any possible survivors and exploded in mid-air, killing all thirteen people onboard. The explosion was attributed to gasoline vapor. Before we unveil our top pick, here are a few honorable mentions. Irving Rivers (1978) The Plane Disappeared Over St. Thomas, Despite the Control Tower Seeing His Approaching Lights Columbus’s Light (c. 1492) Christopher Columbus Observed a Weird, Candle-Like Light on His Transatlantic Voyage Flight 441 (1954) Navy Aircraft Disappeared with 42 People on Board Flying Boxcar (1965) Military Transport Flight Disappeared Between Florida & Grand Turk Island Sylvia L. Ossa (1976) Cargo Ship Disappeared in 1976, Killing 37 People on Board
#1: Ellen Austin (1881)
Back in 1881, the schooner Ellen Austin was making its way through the Sargasso Sea when it encountered an abandoned and aimless ship. Wishing to salvage the ship, various crew members boarded and sailed the abandoned ship in close proximity to the Ellen Austin. A few days later, both ships encountered a particularly violent storm. When the storm finally subsided, the mysterious ship was nowhere to be found. The crew of the Ellen Austin eventually spotted the ghost ship aimlessly drifting through the water, having once again been abandoned by its crew. It makes for a spectacularly spooky story, and it suggests that this mystery vessel may be the most cursed ship in existence.
