Ep. 4: Sister Somethin': The Bermuda Triangle and the Mystery of Flight 19

Speaker A: Hello. Hey, and welcome to this podcast Doesn't Exist. Who are you? Oh, I'm Emma. I did it again. It's okay. My brain went, what's my line? You're welcome for this Easter egg at the end of the podcast, depending on how I'm at it, she is the hard job. I'm just here. Yeah, well, I've already lost this episode once. Secret. All right. You want to try it again? Yeah. Hello. Hi. My name is Emma, and I'm Shannon, and welcome to this podcast Doesn't Exist. Yeah, I did. Right. You did. Good job. Um the training wheels are still on a little bit, but we hope you'll bear with us. Welcome to our podcast. We're two best friends who, like, talking about weird, spooky, sometimes unusual, unsolved adjective, adjective, basically anything. Yeah, we like talking about stuff, and we're glad uh that you're joining us. Yeah. So, Emma, what are we learning about today? Today we are learning about the Bermuda Triangle in the history of Flight 19. No Copyright infringement intended under 30 seconds. What is it from the Twilight Zone? Am I making that up? No, maybe not, because it sounds familiar enough for it to be something that never mystery. We'll never know because Emma will never look it up. All right, so the Bermuda Triangle. It's also known as the Devil's Triangle, but I genuinely didn't know. I'd never heard of that before. So this is, like, the very first time after researching it that it has another name other than the Bermuda Triangle. So we're just going to call it Bermuda Triangle. People love to blame stuff on the Devil, though. Very easy. I mean, I feel like rock music, marijuana. Lettuce. Yeah, people like blaming him. It's a favorite. Anyway, so the Bermuda Triangle is a mythical piece of the Atlantic Ocean. And I say mythical only because bounds are very much not real. Um its points are roughly Miami, Bermuda, and the northeastern edge of Puerto Rico, where San Juan is and um encompasses about 500. 0 sq. Mi. Of ocean and a myriad of unexplained phenomena within its bounds. So let's talk about the legend. So one of the first to sail through the area in recorded history was Christopher Columbus on his way to discover Hispaniola uh because he didn't discover the continent of America beside the point. He reported that a, quote, great flame of fire crashed into the ocean one night, and another strange light appeared in the distance a few weeks later. He also wrote a weird and incorrect Compass readings. Aliens for Columbus as an alien or. No, he's on his boat coming to colonize. We hate it. And you see a flame of fire from the sky. I mean, I guess it could be a meteor, but aliens is more exciting. I don't know why he wouldn't just, like, see it and then go, well, that's a message from God. I shouldn't be here. Turn around. No, I mean, he's a white man, so he probably would interpret it as like, wow, this phenomenon happened just for me. It's pretty special. I mean, if popular media has taught us anything, also, like actual history, is that a white man will not take.
Speaker UNK: A warning even when it shoves him in the face.
Speaker A: I mean, it was a great ball of fire in the ocean in front of him. It's not an Elvis song. No. Jonny Cash burning Ring of Fire. Ring of Fire. Great Balls of Fire. Yeah, there's it. Yes, it's Jimmy Buffett. No clue. Mom, tell me, somebody. My mom was a parrot head. I think that's what they're called. Anyway, detour back to Christopher Columbus. Sorry. Um well, we actually can leave him in the middle of that. Nice. Um so the origins of this concept are much more recent than Christopher Columbus. So in September of 1950, an article was published in the Miami Herald by Edward Van Winkel Jones. What a name. I really like his name. I don't know how he ended up in print journalism when he should be running the family. Haberdashery, right. Eddie Van Winkel Jones or used cars, Alison. Yeah, or both. I mean, as long as he's got a mustache, we're good. Do you want a hot and a car? You can have both. Is that what they call it? Habadash Reef? I think so. I should know this. Ruth wrote about it in a story. Anyway, Heba dish. It's just fun to say. It is a very fun thing to say. My guess is that it's like an accessories store. Fancy people. Yeah. Anyway, so our habitatry proprietor, Eddie Van Winkel Jones, suggested uh that unusual and unexplained disappearances were happening in the Bermuda area. And it was due to some spooky things. Spooky um because this is a few years after a lot of the notable incidents that we'll talk about soon have happened. Please title my biography Notable Incidents. Just for the record, is it like.
Speaker UNK: A book of major jump cuts throughout your life?
Speaker A: Yeah, we can skip the boring part. No one wants to read that. I wonder if anyone has actually written a biography that was just like. It wasn't just boring things, but they've just truly written out every aspect of life. I'm pretty sure his name is Walden. That's where he stayed. And his name was Row. Clearly, I skimmed it in April, but it was really slow. A lot of Lakes nature. But you're right. Yes. Um anyway, so two years later, so Fate magazine published an article titled, quote, See Mystery at Our Back Door by George Sand. Why are you laughing? Just faint. Magazine? Yes. No time anyone's brave enough to print Back Door and not expect people to make it scandalous. Yeah, okay, people had dirty imaginations in, but the euphemism might not have been there. That's true. But I just want to say, for any of our dear, dear listeners, please note that it's like eight in the morning. Due to misbehavior circumstances, we've had to reschedule our recording. So just enjoy us. It's almost completely unfiltered. So we're free wheeling. I apologize to any of my family members who are listening to this. It's probably going to get interesting. I don't you will get a good insight into who I am as a person this early in the morning. I don't apologize for any of it, particularly I don't apologize to your husband, Jackson. Oh, yes, because he's used to you. He's also used to being up so early in the morning. He's got to take care of the horses. That's true. He's got to be out at the track for the races just to train the new jockeys. Because I love you, Babe, but you work too hard, okay? You got to leave some of the work to the bigger men. Is that a jockey joke? I think it was a jockey joke. All right, tell me about the result. How tall do you have to be to be a jacket? I feel like how short? I guess four foot eleven. That's how to talk. Kristen Jenner with us. Yeah. She's tiny. Her hair is longer than her. She wears heels. Let's see. She hits really high notes. Anyway, tell me about the Triangle. Got distracted by my husband, the jockey. I'm glad if you're being distracted by any man. That's true. It's your husband anyway. All right, so Sea Mystery at our back door. Mhm take that as you will, but written by George Sand, which is a great name for this, um but it covered the loss of several planes and ships in the earlier years. And he was the first to lay out the triangle that we know now with the bounds that we have. So Miami, Bermuda, San Juan. Uh he was also the first to suggest that a true supernatural element to the disappearances of some craft. It had something to do with it. I don't remember because I tried to find an actual copy of this. I could only find like he wrote about it, but they didn't tell me what he wrote. So my guess is that supernatural to him in the 1950s was like aliens. Um this is just revealing that. I don't know anybody's names. Was it Orwell who did war of the World? Yes. What year was that? Uh it's a good question. I have no idea. I should know. I was in a reading. I watched it. I want to say it was like 48 or something. It's probably wrong. My guess is that it's somewhere around there. Because this is also the same time that the Men in Black kind of theories are bouncing around all of the government conspiracy. Alien Sci-Fi is becoming a big thing. I feel like we need to go back into our College libraries, if we still have access and see if what is it? Fate magazine. It's in like a digital. It probably is database. I have tried really hard to get back into. Jstore, you're a nerd. I don't need to ask why. Yeah, I've tried really hard to get into JStore from all three of my past institutions. And no, nobody wants me to look at JStore. On a related note, but also a public service announcement, you should check with your local library. That's true. Your public library. I have three of those. Two support your local library and your librarians. Thank you, libraries. Okay, so I have three library cards. Mhm don't tell anyone, but I rotate through them if I want ebooks because a lot of the time they have downloads for your Kindle and things and it works really well. But I again did that the other day and couldn't find a book that I wanted from any three. And I was so mad. Yeah, uh I use Libby with both my library cards, and if they don't have it, then I get the physical book anyway. All right, moving on. So several other writers within the same time frame, 50s, late 1950s, started to elaborate and connect certain crashes and unusual things within the triangle. So uh like ghost ships and when things have happened and all that spooky stuff, um some writers give different boundaries or even have the boundary include all the way up to the Irish Coast. I know. I find it funny, but I don't understand why. My guess is that they're just like, well, spooky things happen in the ocean all the time. We don't know what anything is. Then it's not triangle.
Speaker UNK: I was not great at math, but.
Speaker A: I could pass basic shapes, geometry, passed preschool. I did, yes, but important question. What kind of triangle is it? Isosceles. But my guess is that it's mostly equilateral. That is not a word that I could get out easily. Equilateral. Um mostly because of the space that it's in. Like the spaces that the points are fairly equidistant. Anyway, I think what they've done for those people who think that way is just taking the top point, like where Bermuda is. Yes, that sounds good. When you're on Microsoft PowerPoint or whatever and you're like inserting a shape and you're like, and Clippy goes, Can I help you? Oh, um Clippy. Remember Clippy, everybody if you do. You're old. Yeah, I loved Clippy. You're not old. You're just uh I remember in computer lab in like, I don't know, elementary school when I went to Catholic school and there was a nun who was our computer teacher. She was great. I don't remember her name. Sister something. You can call her sister something. It's a great drag Queen name. Sister something like. Something like that. Um anyway, she loved Clippy and she had like a large cutout of Clippy um on her wall. And it was like, raise your hand if you need any help. Kind of. It was really cute. I see Clippy. I know. I love that. All right, so in any case, we're not going to include Ireland or the Irish Coast um in any of what we're going to talk about. We're just going to maintain the established line, the negotiated fact of just Bermuda, Florida, Puerto Rico. So moving on to notable incidents, your biography, autobiography. Would you like me to write? It depends, I guess it depends how long um I'm around, how I go out. Mysterious circumstances. This is the second time that you've mentioned. If I go out early, I just think the world is a scary place and we should all anticipate that we may die. Respect nature, but respect the world. Respect nature. Um yeah. This is a pillow. It's just a giant food. Done. Thanks, Jeff. Yeah. Thank you, Jeffrey. All right, so most of these are military craft and it's just because of the area that it's in. So Fort Lauderdale is very nearby. You can go right off the coast of Florida at the end of Florida and be in the Bermuda Triangle. Um so Florida. The first is the USS Cyclops. This was a military ship that was lost carrying a full load of manganese ore. And 309 crew members went missing without a trace in 1918 after departing from Barbados. And this also marks the largest loss of life in the history of the US Navy in a single incident. Yeah. What, 309 people? It's like too many people. It's a bit much honest. What, 1918. So they probably didn't have large scale rescue efforts the way we would now. No. And I'm not sure how large the Navy was at this point because this is at the end of the First World War. So my guess is that after being in war, these ships are being used as, like, to transfer stuff. I don't know. I'm not military. I'm not from 1918, in any case, 309 people gone. They have no clue what happened. Their guess is that it was just too heavy. The manganese ore was too heavy for the boat and it sank. But you think that someone would have, like out of 309 people, people survived the Titanic? Why not 309 people? Yeah. Also, where are they picking up and dropping off? You know what I mean? Barbados to where? Like, I don't know where they were headed. Interesting. Um anyway, the next is the Carol, a Deering Carol is in Lewis. Carol, uh not Lady Carol. There was a five method shooter that was found ground and abandoned near Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, on January 31, 1921, possibly connected to piracy and the illegal rum running trade during Prohibition. Now, it's not necessarily within like the ship wasn't found within the bounds of the Bermuda Triangle, but it had passed through the majority of the days before because that's where it was coming from. So we got hitchhiking. Ghosts potentially. Um i don't really understand. So it's found a ground and abandoned on rocks. Mhm how would you not know that the rocks are coming? Why would you not, like, stop? I don't know how you stop a shooter. Maybe it was foggy. I don't know. Well, and they had a uh light boat, which is for spaces like that, where it's really Rocky. They have instead of, like, a Lighthouse, they have a light boat that's near the edge so that boats know not to go that far. And the night before, the Carol Ad Deering had, like, flagged down this light boat and said, hey, tell the company that we've lost our anchors in a storm. The company that they were the Deering company. And they were like, okay, radio wasn't working at that point. So they were like, we'll pass it on in the morning, figuring they're going to survive the night. It wasn't their thought. And then the next day, they found um them completely aground and abandoned, and all of their stuff was gone, too. So that makes me think that maybe not piracy. Pirates don't necessarily let you keep your stuff. Right. Or your life. Right. Unless you're joining their crew. Wait, is this boat still there? No, they blew it up uh because they were like, well, we can't get rid of it by taking it apart because it's in the water and it's against the rocks. So they just kind of, like, blew it up. And locals actually grabbed a lot of the wood that was drifting to shore to build their houses. So there's actual houses on, like, Cape Hatteras in North Carolina that have pieces of the Carol a Deering. Well, that's just haunted. Yeah, that needs to go on our merch. I think that issue is haunted. That issue is haunted because I feel like we're going to say a lot. Yeah. All right. The next is the Star Tagger and Star Ariel. Uh and I'm going to include the Douglas DC Three in this. They were all passenger aircraft that were all lost within the Triangle. Um the Star Tiger and Star Ariel were lost a year apart, both in January 1 in 1948 and one in 1949. And the Douglas DC Three was a 32 passenger plane to a tiny plane. Tiny. No, thank you. Tiny, tiny plane. Hard path. Anything to do with planes? No, thank you. Um but it was coming from San Juan, and it disappeared in December of 1948. Um yeah, it was a month before the Star aerial, too, but there's no evidence of any of these. Like, there's no debris. There's no anything of what happened. So that's not fun. And then we have the KC 135 Strato tankers, which were a uh pair of US Air Force Stratotanker aircraft, and uh in 1963, they collided with each other and crashed 300 miles west of Bermuda. Uh but they were a pair that were supposed to be, like, flying in tandem or something. There was some kind of training thing going on, and one of them just turned tail and crashed with the other. Collided with the other. But the Air Force was like, oh, no, there are two different crash sites, but there was truly only one. Like, they genuinely could only find one with both remnants of the mhm airplanes. So we know that they collided with each other. Odd. Especially if you know that you're working in a pair. My guess is that 10 00 19 63. Your radios are good enough that you can talk to each other. Also do have eyes. I'm sorry. I will never fly a plane. I don't like heights. Machines sometimes confuse me, but I'm pretty sure based on every plane I've ever seen, that there's a giant windshield in the front that you could see a plane. And you said that these are smaller, right? So if you wanted to pull up uh like it would avoid. I'm not quite sure what qualified professional opinion. All right, so let's get into flight 19. All right, hold on. I'm ready. Okay. She's preparing herself. She's sitting up. I'm readjusting play by play. Okay, so flight 19 is one of the most notable incidents of the Bermuda Triangle, and it is my favorite. So flight 19 is what a group of five Avenger torpedo bombers were referred to. Um so it's like actual five planes, but the group itself like a flight of beer. It's multiple glasses. It's probably where multiple planes. Sure. Yes. Um but these bombers were on a US Navy navigation training flight in December 1945 from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and it had a 14 man crew. So there were three men on each plane, but it should be 15. But one of the texts, it was a pilot and two texts. One of the texts on one of the planes pegged off, uh he was just like, I can't go today. So they were like, well, we'll go without you.
Speaker UNK: I have a feeling that he is a lucky guy.
Speaker A: Can't find his name anywhere. Like the people that got uh sick.
Speaker UNK: And didn't catch their flight on 911 or whatever.
Speaker A: Yeah. So, yes, he's a very lucky man. But they went up with 14 instead of 15 because they figured it's fine. So the training was a combination of bombing and navigation, which had been completed by other aircraft earlier and was scheduled to continue with other aircraft throughout the day. So they leave at about, I think it's like, 04:00. The navigation of the route they were taking was intended to teach the pilots what is called dead reckoning, uh which is a process of calculating one's current position by using a previously determined position or fix and using the estimations uh of speed and course over a lapsed time. So they're supposed to be able to know, okay, because we just passed uh this portion and it took us this long. This is where we are on the map. So dead reckoning is just trying to Orient yourself. And where you are, like old school, like, less technology. Yeah. So you have a Compass, you have your watch. That's all you really need. So there was a lack of time keeping equipment on board because every pilot had their own um issued watch and everyone had their whole kit. They've checked out all the planes to make sure everything was good because they have to. They have to follow procedure. So from Fort Lauderdale. The exercise flew east to complete the bombing operation and then headed toward the bottom of Grand Bahama Island. So they're basically just going due east. They're not trying to make any go south and then go north and all that. They're just going due east to Grand Bahama Island. Um they were supposed to turn up over the island and then head back to Fort Lauderdale. So they go due East, north to go over the island and then southwest to go back to Fort Lauderdale. So just a tiny little triangle. They're not supposed to do anything crazy. So the base and other aircraft heard the radio conversations between the pilots. And 40 minutes after the last bomb drop was requested and given permission because that's what you had to do to make sure that everyone knew this is going cleanly, this is going smoothly. And the bomb drop was happening in between Fort Lauderdale and Grand Bahama Island. So it was happening in the ocean. Uh not real bumps, fake bombs, but they're trying to make sure that they all know what they're doing. So after the last bomb drop was requested and given permission, another flight instructor was forming with his students for the next flight um and same mission because they're doing multiple of these a day. And he overheard a transmission from an unidentified crew member of Flight 19. The unidentified crew member asked uh Powers, who was one of the students, a pilot of Flight 19, for his Compass reading, and Powers replied that he didn't know where they were and quote, we must have got lost after that last turn. You've gone due east. There's only like one turn. There's maybe two, because you're going north over the island and then you're going southwest. There's not many turns you can make a wrong turn at. Also, you're supposed to be learning. Dead reckoning. How are you got lost anyway? So the flight instructor on the ground ask Powers to identify himself so that they could help him. The response instead was a request from the others on the flight for suggestions of what to do. So he's not answering. The instructor on the ground. The instructor tried again, and another member of the flight named Taylor, who was the one who was leading the flight, mhm answered. And when asked what the trouble was, he replied that both of his compasses were out and he didn't know where he was. He said, quote, I am over land, but it's broken. I am sure I'm in the Keys, but I don't know how far down, and I don't know how to get back to Fort Lauderdale. Now, the Keys are on the Southern tip of the Floridian Peninsula. They have gone east from Fort Lauderdale, which is like it's at the bottom of the Peninsula, but it's on the Eastern side, and it's far enough up uh that you like, at what point do they truly go south? My guess is that they're because they go due east then they go north over the island, and then they're supposed to go southwest, back to Fort Lauderdale. Maybe he thinks we've gone too far south and west, that we've hit the keys. But how far east as you go? Right? Anyway, regardless, the keys are far away from where they're supposed to be and far enough away that you couldn't necessarily get uh lost. You would have had to cross the bottom of the Peninsula anyway. Unless you, like, hang a left or right. I don't know. I'm not a pilot. Okay, so the instructor tried his best to give a sense of direction, using the sun to tailor. So he said, get the sun over this wing and you'll know that's your direction, you'll be able to find your way back. Base operations then tried to get the flight leader, Taylor, to respond to whether or not his aircraft had a standard IFF transmitter that could be used to triangulate the flight's position, but it wasn't initially acknowledged. So all of these planes are supposed to have ISS transmitters. They're standard in these planes, but they can't do anything with it until he confirms yes, and puts it on like a, I guess, a blinking frequency that they can pick up a blinking mode. It's not what I mean. So Taylor was asked to switch frequencies to a search and rescue one, but he replied, quote, I cannot switch frequencies. I must keep my planes intact, which I'm guessing means that he wants to make sure that he can still be in contact with the rest of the flight. But I don't know how any of that works. I don't know. There was no clarity on this phrase that he's saying. He was asked again to turn on a transmitter if he had one, but he again didn't reply. A few minutes later, Taylor advised his flight to, quote, change course, due east for ten minutes, and at the same time, someone in the flight said, quote, Damn it, if we could just fly west, we would get home, head west, dammit. So obviously there's 14 people, two potentially powers and tailored because neither of them know where they are are out. So we have twelve people who might be able to use dead reckoning to figure out where we are. Obviously, one of them thinks we should go west, which is exactly where they're supposed to be going. Mhm well, also, if they go west, even if they're at the wrong latitude is the horizontal one, right? Longitude is the horizontal latitude is vertical. Well, then if they're at the wrong longitude, still, if they go west, they're going to hit land eventually. If you miss Florida, you're going to hit Texas or Mexico. You know what I mean? Versus east is an ocean. Yeah.
Speaker UNK: If you're totally confused, wouldn't you rather get over land?
Speaker A: Right, so you can reorient yourself and.
Speaker UNK: Radio into a tower there and be like, we're lost.
Speaker A: Can we land here? Basically, yeah. No, that's a very good point. Because if he thinks that they're in the Keys, if he thinks they're in the Keys, going east for ten minutes would get them over the Peninsula of uh Florida. Okay, that we can assume. But you're right. If he just heads west. Yeah. They're going to be in the Gulf for a little while, but you'll be at least able to figure out, oh, there's Louisiana, there's Texas. Got it. I will now know exactly where I need to go, and hopefully you have enough gas to get you there. But this is where I just get so anxious in cases, particularly in the military, where the hierarchy is observed when it's maybe not the best for everybody. You know what I mean? What is it not a cadet, but whatever the rank of this person in training is like, go west, dammit. He's an underling compared to these other guys. That's why I'm guessing, I know it stresses me out because I feel like something bad is going to happen based on what you said. But you know it is because it's Bermuda Triangle. Yeah. What if they had listened to that.
Speaker UNK: Guy or even if it was like self preservation.
Speaker A: Right.
Speaker UNK: But I guess that's not a thing in the military.
Speaker A: It's all about the unit, I guess, or the flight. And this is right after the Second World War. It has just ended. Right. I wonder if these guys that are training are really young. That's my assumption. Especially if it's training for, like, dropping bombs and dead reckoning stuff. The war is already over. You're now trying to make sure that everything you've learned that we're prepared. I'm sure that would make it more challenging if you're some, like 1920 year old kid compared to some older standing officer, like talking peer to peer versus TV. Um literally, commander, quite more difficult to literally fly in the face of authority. Yes. All right, so they have now, potentially, we don't actually know, changed course due east. So weather was starting to deteriorate and radio contact was becoming spotty. So things are getting worse. And Taylor Radioed will fly 270 deg west until landfall or running out of gas. And then he requested a weather check. So he's now recalibrating to go west until landfall. So they've gone far out east. The assumption is that they have already gone over the Grand Bahama Island mhm and he's seeing other Islands and assuming that they're the Keys. So he is going east. And then finally he decides, let's turn around and go west. But 270 degrees. So he's calibrating for potentially going further up uh because he thinks maybe we've gone too far down as well as too far east. He asked for a weather check. Weather's bad. 30 minutes later, the flight was triangulated to being within 120 miles radius off the coast of Florida, above the Bahamas. So they figured out you're within the circle. We know that you're somewhere in here and you're close. Mhm you're not that far away. You just need to turn west and come home. Like you're not going to die out there if you listen to us at 604 hours after the flight mission was started. So I think I said earlier that it started at four. I think it actually started at two. I don't remember. Um but Taylor radioed his flight saying, quote, we didn't fly far enough east. We may as well just turn around and fly east again. So at this point, they're going west. He thinks we didn't fly far enough east, so we might as well turn around and keep going east. Just go to Texas if you think that that's where you are, seriously, just keep going. So the sun at this point had set because it's December. Um it's like 630 ish the sun. He can't even see Louisiana and stuff. Even if it was there, they're up in the clouds now. Like, they have no idea. So Taylor's last message was received around 07:00 p.m., when he was heard saying, quote, all planes close up tight will have to ditch unless landfall. When the first plane drops below ten gallons, we all go down together. And they weren't seen again. I'm so mad. I'm very mad. Yeah. So as it became obvious the flight was lost, everyone was alerted, and a few flying boats were sent to search and hopefully rescue the flight of 14 men. So flying boats are the ones with, like, floaties on their feet. Okay, got you. I don't have better to describe it. So a Martin PBM five Mariner was one of these, and it went out further up the coast of Florida on the Eastern side. It was fairly close to where they had triangulated that 120 miles radius and called in a routine radio message at 730 on its way to search for the flights. And then it wasn't heard from again. A tanker reported it observed flames from an apparent explosion at 10:15 p.m., and it searched for survivors within the rubble, not really in the water within all the wreckage. Thank you. It's a good word, but it was unsuccessful, so they didn't find anybody. It was assumed that this was the Martin Mariner as like, the contact not necessarily being radioed to and from, but that they knew where its position was. Um they had lost it at that time. So the Navy had a lot of investigating to do. Yeah. They guessed that Taylor just mistakes one island for another and was actually over the Bahamas as was scheduled. And with his Compass out. And his assumption was that he was over the Florida Keys, mistakenly led his squad east, out into the open water. And when they tried to get into the west, they instead went northwest and ran parallel to Florida rather than making landfall. So they basically had Florida too far off on their left hand side that they couldn't see it over the horizon. And they just kept going up. Uh mhm So they most likely crashed into the open ocean after running out of fuel based upon the last transmission. So my question then is why no one else in the flight? Was it really that important to maintain the military hierarchy? Yeah, really. Uh well, here's my hypothesis, which you may be. I don't know. I'm just going to share with you that's okay. But let's remove an element of supernatural for now. Mhm i feel that it would not be out of the realm of possibility in this time period. In this hierarchy, this structure, that one.
Speaker UNK: Especially like post World War II, we're almost to 50.
Speaker A: There's a very particular idea culturally of what a man is supposed to be and how they're supposed to not be weak and things. It would not be out of the realm of possibility to me for what's the main guy's name? Taylor. Yeah. If he had something going on, whether it was like a health situation or a substance abuse situation that he kept under wraps, he has some sort of episode that makes him disoriented and then people are just covering for him or something. Yeah. Because there are three men in each house train. Uh there are three men in each plane, one of whom is the pilot. The way you were describing the radio transmissions just felt so similar to me to when people call 911 and the operator is trying to calm them down and they are so scattered, shocked, or pretending to be. In some cases, they aren't addressing the questions. It seems like he was very sporadic. But then I guess that other guys also didn't know what was going on. Yeah. Powers was the first one initially who answered anyone, and he didn't know where they were either. So if Powers and Taylor didn't have anything on where they were, like if both of their compasses are out, if their equipment is truly out, uh there are three other planes also. You're literally the homework of this assignment.
Speaker UNK: Is to be able to get places without a Compass.
Speaker A: That's just some dramatic irony. Yeah. I mean, I don't know if it was because dead reckoning when you're trying to figure out just how far you've gone. I think it has more to do with time than it has to do with where your Compass is. You should know. Okay. We were headed east. So long as I know that the other way is west. I mean, I don't know. I've never done it. But when they started, the sun was still up so they could know what was east and west. Well, and the flight wasn't supposed to take any longer than an hour and a half, 2 hours and that's long. And they were out for almost 5 hours before they got that last transmission. Mhm so that's just. I mean, I'm sure stuff was not released for a while, but just imagine you're like the mom or the wife of some of these just uh to.
Speaker UNK: Know that somebody was like, no, let's just go west.
Speaker A: And they were all like, no, we're just going to keep on going. That's so infuriating and frustrating. And I'm like screaming. This feels like the kind of movie that I would be so anxious and mad to watch, but also so fascinated. Yes, I feel that way about the Everest movie that they made about 1996. I don't remember that. Oh, uh it's such a good movie. It's got like Kara Knightley and Jaythian Hall. Kira Knightley. And it's not like super historical thing. No, she is from New Zealand. I think she's barely in it. She's like the pregnant wife of one of the climbers. Anyway, I highly recommend if you. I'm going to have to watch that now. Yes. Also listen to or read John Crackhower's book because he survived it and it's insane. I think we were supposed to read that for like 9th grade. Oh, you should have. Are you so jealous? I think we did. Well, we had a choice. I remember this because it was like our summer reading and we had a choice. Summer reading was always more fun. Yeah. They were trying to trick you. Yeah. So it was that book uh by John Krakower or it was this book about these uh twin old ladies and their life together. I don't remember because I didn't read it. I read the John Crockawar one, but I don't remember much from it. So my guess is that I didn't necessarily read it. Is skimming. I mean. Yeah, summer reading. Anyway, the point of all that to say is that it's one of those things where you go in knowing the end result. Yeah. Like this happens to me all the time when I read or watch historically based pieces. I get so furious. I'm like, just put more lifeboats on the Titanic, as if me being mad at a TV screen can change history. Yeah, I hate the Titanic movie. Oh, really? I can't watch it. Um i think it's genuinely because I'm sure there's some kid trauma in this of seeing it on TV. Um but that scene of it cracking in half and everyone falling off of it. Well, it's like when we went to go see. So we saw Titanic, the musical. The musical um a few years ago. Now not based on the movie. No, it's based on the actual events, but it's very well done. It's absolutely gorgeous. But when there's spoiler, I don't know how many of you are going to go and see it crashes. But they have people from the boat, especially like the staff, and they have them fall from the ceiling on like wires. They had them fall from the ceiling and one of them was directly in front of us. And I had not noticed him when he was up in the rafters, obviously getting ready, which is great musical magic. But seriously, like him dropping. Then again, had that scene in my head and I'm like, I'm never watching this movie. Again. I can't stand it. It makes me so. You're so funny, I think, because you love listening to and reading things about traumatic or violent events, but you cannot watch them, which cracks me up. I'm like, oh, watch this TV show. And you're like, oh, it's too gory for me. I'm like, you listen to podcasts about murder. Yeah. I think it's because once I have the visual in my head, I can't get rid of it. I'm a very empathetic person. I can't do it. Well, that's the only reason that I'm so interested in all of this stuff, I think, because I just want to know why. Yes. Well, um you're going to be really frustrated, I think, throughout the course of this podcast. Yeah. We have no answers. Absolutely no. Anyway, I want something to make a movie about Flight 19, if there isn't one. It's kind of, like, hinted at in some popular culture. And I don't remember if it's a TV show or if it's a movie, but they somehow have the entirety of, like, 19 picked up by, like, an alien creature and dropped off in the middle of the Sahara Desert. That would be preferable. Yeah. So there's some of that. Their names are different. Their names aren't the same as they truly were. They're different. But the events are the same picture.
Speaker UNK: Like Chris Pine Army Hammer, um Anthony Mackie.
Speaker A: I mean, I don't know if that would be historically accurate. I don't care in terms of integration, but just like a Top Gun sort of thing. But it's sad. It honestly would be really good, though, if they didn't leave it hanging of like, oh, they're gone. Like, if it was like a whole build up to that event and then it's gone. I would love it to start with the event and then have them, like, trying to get back and, like, time warped and all of that. Yes. Anyway, we'll write this later. All right. We'll write a screenplay. Thanks for workshopping this with us every day. So that's the end of Flight 19. Yeah. So the explosion of the rescue plane, it's assumed that because this plane has been reported to having leakage, and so they just filled it up all the way. They were like, fine, it's fine. He just needs enough gas to get there. And 13 people were lost. Military efficiency is my favorite oxymoron. I'm allowed to say that because my dad and my stepmom um service, and we're also both military kids. Yes. My mom, she's got people now. I don't want them coming. She's also a badass. So she probably understands a lot of the inner workings of all that, too. Sure. Um okay. In any case, let's move on to the potential natural explanations of the Bermuda Triangle things. So the first is, of course, basic human error and the chance of getting lost at sea, which is fairly high. Mhm so we all know that it's going to be the entirety of the ocean there's going to be some basic human error that results in tragedy. That's the baseline we're working with next is violent weather. So this area is very prone to Hurricanes and, like, water cyclones and extreme storms. So that is not unusual. And also, like, the weather was bad during the day of Flight 19, and it's variable. It's like living in the middle of Illinois, too. The sun could be up and it could be bright and cloudless, and then within 2 hours, it's like a huge rainstorm. That's just the way that all of that works down there. We also have methane hydrates, which then I wrote Ocean farts because I thought it was funny, which um is due to continental shelves shifting and um then forming bubbles, methane bubbles that can decrease the density of water, which once you decrease the density of water, what's supposed to sit on top of it? Like a boat will sink because the density is decreased. And so um this has led to the possibility of sinking ships that suddenly sink with no explanation. So is it sort of like quick sand butt water? Like you're going along in your boat and then it's like, yes, although I've learned that quicksand doesn't work that way. Uh isn't that weird? Apparently, Quicksand lied to me. Oh, it lied to you? Don't tell me. Yes, but for quicksand, if you move quickly on it, you can get over it. But if you stand still, that's when you start to sink. All right. Quick feet. Quick feet, right? Yes. What we assumed as children as, like, quicksand what we hoped quicksand would be like a sinkhole in the ocean, then. Yes. Okay. Yeah. All right. Ocean farts. Got it. Ocean farts. The next is the Puerto Rico Trench, which reaches about 3100ft of death, which is so far down. And um it makes it almost impossible to recover sunken ships or downed planes in the area ever again because it is so far down. So if anything sinks and it sinks all the way, then you're never finding it. Your garbage just does a little bit. Basically, it's one of the deepest places in the ocean. The Mariana Trench, I think is the only other deep portion um of the ocean that competes with it. Competes. They're fighting overall ships. Anyway, there are tons of ships and planes. I'm sure down there. There's stuff down there. Let's say the last is Compass variations, which um may be tied to some unusual magnetic anomalies in the area, but this hasn't been proven. And a lot of skeptics are like, magnetic anomalies are not a thing. Whatever. Compasses have magnetic variations in relation to the magnetic poles. And so if you find the one portion uh of the one section of Earth where the Compass meets true north because the alignment moves true north around the globe. But if you find that uh with your Compass and it meets true north and they match up, uh it can cause a shift so that when you move away from it, from either side. It's still trying to pull that Compass towards it, and so it can vary up to, like, 20 degrees before it finally breaks free of it and recalibrates. So at one point, this happened in Christopher Columbus time within the Bermuda Triangle, which is probably why his Compass readings were really off. There's also the possibility because I don't know if they track it. I'm sure they do now. Uh and when you circumnavigate the globe now, people who do that often, they account for this so they know it's going to happen. But I don't know where the true north line was in 1945. So maybe it was back in the Bermuda Triangle and was making things screwy, making Taylor think he was in the floor of keys possibility. But it can completely Warp your sense of direction if you have no clue is coming. So let's move into the unnatural explanation. Our own little Twilight. Um i like it. That's Twilight Zone, right? Okay, so number um one, my favorite Atlantis. Mhm and it's leftover technology might be messing with these magnetic fields in the new tech. So Atlantis is sometimes connected to a submerged rock formation off the island of the Mini in the Bahamas, which is within the bounds of the Triangle. Uh and the thought is that there are some Atlantean devices that used the magnetic field at one point and so are latent now and are potentially messing with magnetic field within those bounds. I love Atlantis, the movie and the Theory. Milo was my very first. He was my second movie crush, and he's a cartoon. If you haven't seen Atlantis, please watch it. How are you named your cat Milo? Yes, it is. It genuinely is my cat. Is there Milo? I love him. I love, like, goofy nerd. He's so cute. Stay tuned for our Atlantis episode for more thoughts uh on the movie, as well as on Emma's feelings as well as The Theory. Anyway, so there is another thought that the Triangle is used as a portal for UFOs to travel to and from our planet. And the area is more like a gathering station for them to conduct research on people, ships, aircraft, tech, whatever they feel like. I don't know why they would choose the Triangle as this portal rather than, I don't know, Texas. It's more popular. I don't know, maybe it's like a visual thing is like making sure nobody sees them. The other thought is that there is a space time Warp where there's a rift in space and time and things get lost and are never found again because there's somewhere else in the universe or somewhere else in the timeline. I like that option. I do think maybe they just flew into the rift and Flight 19 got to grow old somewhere in a different timeline. Yeah. Sad, but alive. Yeah. At least they have each other. Hello? What is it? Anthony Mackey and Chris Pine. Yeah. Just happy to have each other. Yeah. It's like a band of brothers. All right, so the last one, which is the most interesting theory that I've found uh because it's ghosts, so I really like it. Um so this is the sold the slaves theory, that this portion of the ocean, which was a key three way during the slave trade, is haunted now by ghosts of stolen people who were tossed overboard to defraud the insurance companies of the sea captains who would then cash in this insurance claim to collect money for property thrown overboard, which is awful to think about. But this thought was produced by psychiatrist Dr. Kenneth McCaul of Brooklyn's in England. And he wrote a book called Healing the Haunted. And he said, because he went, I don't know if it was while he was writing this book or before, but um he was traveling through the area, I guess, to maybe figure out what was going on here. Um and he said, as we drifted gently in the now warm and steamy atmosphere, I became aware of a continuous sound like mournful singing. I thought it must be a record player in the cruise quarters. And as it continued through the second night, I finally, in exasperation, went below to ask if it could be stopped. However, the sound down there was the same as it was everywhere else, and the crew was equally mystified. So he's hearing this, like, sad singing that doesn't stop within the Bermuda Triangle. It's just so sad. But he later learned about the defrauding and cruelty in the 18th century from these sea captains and believed that this was the cause of the Triangle's mysterious disappearances. So, like, paranormal activity, basically not necessarily retaliation, but more so just they're there and adding to the energy of the space, all of that. So what do we think? My thought is that especially for Flight 19, there's some kind of weird human error thing going on that's added into all of the uh hierarchy and the potential. Like, I can do this by myself kind of feeling. But also, like, the reason why we haven't found them is maybe because of the Puerto Rico Trench, because I don't know where they ended up. Right. Well, also, my thought, based on what you said about the rescue, the leaky rescue plane that they still sent out, I wonder, is there some sort of, like, I don't know, is it something wrong um with those two, like, powers and tailors planes that they check? Right. Yeah. Or if it's just that or if it's some combination of a different air composition, I don't know. Um but that they would be affected and um basically like a lack of oxygen. And with that explain why they were so disoriented and no one in their planes were stepping out to be like, actually, you know what I mean? Yeah.
Speaker UNK: I mean, that would be removing elements of supernatural.
Speaker A: But like. Yeah, no, that's interesting because that's a possibility when you're up that uh high. Like, if there's and these are small planes. Tiny planes because they're only built to carry like, one bomb. Mhm yeah, maybe it's Atlantis. Maybe it's just like Milo chilling down there. No, guys, if you haven't seen Atlantis, this is not the Atlantis I know, but it's so good. All right, let's wrap this up. We've gone on many a journey on this. Sorry. Hope you enjoyed it, though. I certainly did. But if you would like to see any of the photographs that I have for this episode, especially the one that shows you where the flight path was supposed to be and where they found the 120 miles radius of where they triangulated them to be, you uh can go to our Instagram at this podcast doesn't exist on Instagram no apostrophe and doesn't just handle but um you can also send us your theories as to what happened. Yes, if you have theories, you have.
Speaker UNK: Thoughts, your feelings about Emma's taste and animated cartoon characters.
Speaker A: He's beautiful. You all know it. Just please email us at this podcast doesn't exist at uh@gmail.com, once again, no.
Speaker UNK: Apostrophe because that's not how the internet works.
Speaker A: Yeah, I think that about does it for today. So remember this podcast doesn't exist.

Sources:
The Basics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bermuda_Triangle and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_19
Some theories: https://www.liveabout.com/theories-of-the-bermuda-triangle-2593654 and https://www.theweek.co.uk/95557/bermuda-triangle-five-theories-on-the-mysterious-disappearances and https://www.marineinsight.com/maritime-history/5-famous-mysterious-stories-of-the-bermuda-triangle/
Actual historians writing about the Bermuda Triangle: https://www.history.com/topics/folklore/bermuda-triangle#section_2