Forbidden History - Disappearances of the Bermuda Triangle: SS Cotopaxi

Episode Date: July 1, 2025

In 1925, the SS Cotopaxi vanished without a trace while sailing through the infamous Bermuda Triangle, leaving behind no clear explanation. In this episode of the Forbidden History podcast, we dive into the mysterious theories, and join experts on their hunt for the shipwreck... will they find what they're looking for? Cast List: Chuck Meide: Maritime Archaeologist Michael Barnette: Marine Biologist and Underwater Explorer Douglas Myers: Captain William Myers’s Grandson Guy Walters: Historian & Author Al Perkins: Avid Diver Brendan Burke: Maritime Archaeologist Eric Meyers: Narrator Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the Forbidden History Podcast. This program is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. It contains adult themes. Listener discretion is advised. A team of experts are on a quest to solve a nearly 100-year-old Bermuda Triangle mystery. The SS Cotapaxi. No one knows where it disappeared, how it disappeared, why it disappeared. That lends itself to the Bermuda Triangle myth.

It was nothing, no remains, no bodies. It does give you like chills. Many years after it's sinking, can a team of archaeologists and underwater explorers find the missing ship and solve the mystery once and for all? The ocean is filled with mysteries. Lost ships and lost lives. Now, with cutting-edge technology, new clues are being uncovered.

Unravelling these incredible stories and revealing their sunken secrets. On the northeast side of the coast of Florida lies St. Augustine. As an old city and port, its seabed is clustered with 16th and 17th century shipwrecks. But the remains of one mysterious vessel, known locally as the Bear Wreck, stands out from the rest and has been baffling experts for decades. The bear wreck stands out a bit from other St. Augustine shipwrecks in a number of ways. It's been known since at least the 1980s, maybe late 1970s. It's much further offshore than most of the shipwrecks, certainly the ones that the archaeologists

typically work on. It's obviously a 20th century, it could be late 19th century, steam-powered vessel. Although it's sometimes called the bear wreck, that is not its true identity. The ship's real name and the reason for its sinking remain unknown to this day. It's a mystery that has captured the attention of marine biologist and underwater explorer Michael Barnett, who is being credited with discovering and identifying wrecks of numerous, lost, and previously unidentified ships. It's heavily sanded in, so it looks like it's probably been down there for, you know,

probably at least 70, 80 years. What's interesting though is one of the boilers is upended. 90 degrees from what's normal orientation, which means it was probably a catastrophic sinking event. The fact that no information about the origins of the bear wreck exists intrigued Michael, who has been trying to identify it ever since his first dive over 15 years ago. So when I was diving the bear wreck, you know, having an idea what looks like the general attributes,

I go through my archival information that I've compiled and try to get a suspect list, you know, trying to find the top three vessels that may or may not fit the attributes that I see on the bottom. And in this case, one vessel in particular popped to the top of the list, and that was the Codipaxi. The SS Cotapaxi was an American merchant steamer that disappeared in 1925, and it's widely believed that the ship went missing not in the area of St. Augustine, but somewhere far more notorious for lost vessels.

On November 29th, 1925, Captain William Myers said goodbye to his wife and son and boarded the SS Cotapaxi. Carrying a cargo of 3,800 tons of coal and 32 men, the ship departed Charleston, South Carolina en route to Havana, Cuba. This really has been a family mystery for a long time. It was another, I'll use the term, routine. trip to Havana. This was the last time he would ever see his family. That was it. Nothing was ever heard from the ship and that mystery started.

Douglas Myers is Captain William Meyer's grandson, and for over 90 years, the final resting place of his grandfather and his ship are still unknown. Whatever information was shared, whether it was from the family, whether it was from my father or even my grandmother. There was that connection to the Bermuda Triangle. The Bermuda Triangle, also known as the Devil's Triangle, is a region in the western part of the North Atlantic Ocean, where numerous ships and aircraft have vanished inexplicably.

The region is most commonly defined to be in between Miami, Puerto Rico, and Bermuda. There are many disappearances associated with the Bermuda triangle, probably none as famous as Flight 19, the USS Cyclops, and the Codopaxi, the latter of which the Flight 19 and Cota Paxi was both featured in Steven Spielberg's classic iconic film, Close Encounters of the Third Kind. I remember sitting in a movie theater and everybody's pointing and there's all this activity and everything and the end frame was what they all looking at and pointing at was the ship

in the middle of this desert and it had the Cotapaxi on it. In Spielberg's 1977 film, the Cotapaxi is discovered in the Gobi Desert and presumed to have been delivered there by extraterrestrial beings. But that would not be the last time Douglas would hear about his grandfather's ship. The mystery of the Codopaxi persists.

Recently there's been a rash of internet claims that the vessel was actually found off Cuba, intact floating, floating a virtual ghost ship. In 2015, reports started to circulate with surprising news about the vessel. Strewing across the internet were articles claiming that the ship had suddenly reappeared 90 years later sailing into its original destination. Dakota Paxi now just sailed into like Havana Harbor.

And there was, you know, the Cuban Navy bringing in it. Oh, interesting. It's rusty, but it was fully intact. Further research into the claims proved that the reports were false, but it reignited public interest in the Bermuda Triangle and the fate of the vessel and its crew, and no one more so than Douglas Myers. Just to know what happened, and plus the fact that he's not abducted by aliens and is somewhere, know, in another dimension would be also nice to know.

Although the ship's fate had been the subject of wide speculation and false reports, the fact remains that the Cotapaxi's final voyage would have taken it straight through the infamous Bermuda Triangle. Could the vessel have fallen victim to otherworldly forces? Are there more earthly reasons for its disappearance? water explorer Michael Barnett elaborates. Based on my experience, I think there's a much more practical and realistic explanation for these disappearances. That's why I'm setting off to help try to find and identify these vessels

to help bring closure to families. When it comes to Bermuda Triangle Mysteries, finding information that's not been tainted isn't easy. So Michael is speaking with British historian Guy Walters to help with the digging. Lloyd's of London were the insurance brokers of the Cotopaxi. Perhaps they might hold records on the vessel in their extensive archives. Okay, so what I've got here is the Lloyd's missing vessel book, 1918 to 1929, and that's exactly what it says it is. It's a list of missing vessels, and hopefully we should be able to find it.

It is believed that the Cotopaxi vanished without warning. out warning, which means that it could have gone down anywhere along its planned route between Charleston and Havana, an impossible search area. It's a cotapaxi of New York, 2,351 gross tons. Got here a really important box, which is titled The Latest Account. And this says, sailed from Charleston for Havana on the 29th of November, 1925, and sent back wireless signals of distress on 1st December 1925. So this is great because it proves that she did send out a distress signal.

This is crucial information as the distress signals were picked up in Jacksonville, Florida. This places the ship in the area of the Bayer wreck, where for some unknown reason, it ran into trouble. Armed with this new information, Michael and his diving partner, Joe sent to the Telly have traveled to St. Augustine to dive the wreck. Their mission is to locate an artifact on the wreck with the vessel's name on it. This is commonly found engraved on the ship's bell, but finding it will be no easy task. There's such rare finds that in the wreck diving community, most would be considered lucky to find just one in their lifetime. Michael and Joe can only spend one hour at the bottom before running out of air.

And since the wreck is heavily sanded in, this operation will not be easy. They decide to first send down an advanced remotely operated vehicle, nicknamed Baxter, to survey the wreck. It sends a live video stream back to the deck, allowing them to assess the best search areas before they enter the water. All right, Baxter, go find us a wreck. The ROV dive is a success, and Michael now has a better idea of the layout, helping him to focus his search on the areas of interest.

Looks like we're marking real good on center guys if you guys want to get rigged up and ready to drop in. The divers begin their hunt for the bell, but the wreck is not about to give up its secrets that easily. These are notoriously treacherous waters, and the divers must be vigilant at all times. Not only that, but the wreck is also heavily sanded in, making their job even more difficult. Time is quickly running out, and their air supply is running low, so the divers begin to make their way to the surface.

No luck on the bell. Found some nice sections of wood decking, which could have been from the wheelhouse, because a lot Sometimes a wheelhouse, up high, they have just the wood decking. I mean, I dug down, it's just heavy sand, and it's just hit or miss if you've got to find what you're looking for. Michael is determined to prove his theory that the Cotopaxi is the ship lost in the Bermuda Triangle. He has a lead on another diver who claims to have artifacts from the bear wreck. Could this be the evidence Michael is looking for to tie it to the Cotapaxi? We continue the search after the break.

Michael Barnett has taken the first steps on his mission to find the SS Cotopaxi and to solve a nearly 100-year-old Bermuda Triangle mystery. Now, he has a new lead. I have a local friend that's been diving this area for over 30 years, and I believe he's been on the barrack numerous times, so I want to check with him to see what he might know of this wreck, and if he's recovered any artifacts from his past dives. Al Perkins is an avid diver, who has been diving

who has been diving the bear wreck since the 1980s. The bear is probably the largest wreck in the vicinity of San Augustine. Started diving the bear wreck on spare fishing trips, around 1988. During these dives, Al has collected loose pieces of debris as souvenirs. Most of these items could have come from any number of ships from around. around the world. But one unassuming piece may hold the clue to the Rex origins.

So every time I find something like this that has a logo, I'll get a little excited because that creates possibilities for research and trying to figure this stuff out. The valves we found out later on that it's Scott Valve Company, which is located up in Detroit, Michigan. Detroit is just 12 miles away from where the SS Kodopaxi was built in the city. in E-Course, Michigan. Coincidence, or another piece of evidence linking the bear wreck to the Cotopaxi. The St. Augustine Lighthouse and Maritime Museum is a non-profit organization dedicated to researching and preserving

the 500-year-long maritime history of the region. Working for the organization's research sector, LAMP, leading maritime archaeologist Chuck Mead and Brendan Burke, are experts in discovering, exploring, and identifying wrecks in the area. They, too, are fascinated by the Cotopaxi mystery and have agreed to help Michael out with his quest. The Cotopaxi was built by the Great Lakes Engineering Works, GLEW. Detroit was a major center of American industry. All the ships built up there had to be of a design and size

to be able to get through the Welland Canal out to the salt water, out to the Atlantic Ocean and beyond. And so they were a certain class of vessel, and this was a lake class vessel. The ship was built out of steel, weighing 2,351 tons, and measuring at a length of 261 feet. It's a particular configuration that's quite distinctive.

The wheelhouse, all the superstructure, the boilers, the engine, all of that was crammed into the stern, the very back of the vessel, which leaves the entire front front part of the vessel is just open cargo space with big hatches. We would expect to find the steering equipment, the rudder, that kind of thing, relatively close to the engines, relatively close to the boilers, and then we would have a long expanse of wreckage before we got to the bow.

That will help us as archaeologists if we're trying to identify the Cotapaxi from its remains on the seafloor. Chuck has agreed to accompany Michael and Joe on another dive. This time their mission is to measure the wreck, to see how the data compares with the original layout of the SS Cotopaxi. The divers will be measuring the boilers, steering quadrant hatches, and the overall length,

which can be a little difficult given that the wreckage has deteriorated with time and some structures have shifted. It's not like working on land, working underwater's whole bunch of challenges. That's why we like it. If it wasn't a challenge, you know, be doing something else. Exactly. So we looked around the boilers a little bit,

found a porthole backing plate, concreted down in there. So again, if we look at the general arrangement plans, I think recall from some pictures we looked at, that the accommodations in the wheelhouse actually have portholes right above the boilers. If nothing else, it tells us that that's the same area on the cut of Paxi is what we're seeing on the wreck. Michael and Chuck will head back to the lighthouse and compare the data to the original plans of the ship. They begin to analyze the data retrieved from the dive,

comparing it with the original plans from Great Lakes Engineering. Mike, let's see the data. We'd expect it to be a little off. It's going to be a little bit error. The ship is deteriorated, things have shifted. Yeah. We don't actually have a good scale bar on this, but some things are drawn to scale,

so this hatch here is exactly 24 feet, and I can measure half of that, so this is set for 12 feet. Okay. And look at that. This is the engine. Here, that puts us almost in the exact middle of the engine. Right, and subtracting two feet back. So, yeah, it puts us fairly close.

That's pretty close. Okay. Let's see the next measurement. 49 feet to the first boiler. So 12 feet. Here's 48, so 49 feet is a measurement. We're looking for if we move another foot, that's really close to the after end. Everything here seems consistent with what we would expect if we had the Cota Paxi.

So I think you're definitely on the right path. We still have questions. Maybe we can find that definitive piece of evidence. Michael is now one step closer to confirming that the bare wreck could be the SS Cotopaxi. But more proof is still needed to solve this great Bermuda Triangle mystery. And it seems that what he may have been looking for has been laying hidden in the government archives for nearly 100 years. What this document also contains is a really really important. is a really vital, crucial clue as to where Cotopaxi may lie.

The Cotopaxi, long thought to be lost in the Bermuda Triangle, was built during World War I for the United States Shipping Board as a coastal merchant vessel. Being a product of the Great War, the ship was put together as quickly and as cheaply as possible. So when built SS Cotapaxi was established as a collier, she was designed to carry coal up and down the Americas. from North America to South America. She was also built with some trouble.

A triple expansion steam engine, located in the back of the ship, left her wallowing in the seas on numerous occasions. So she was kind of fraught with some gremlins early on in her life. On one of those occasions, she actually made it aground and washed up on the beach in South America. That did a catastrophic amount of damage to the ship

that today may have actually consigned the ship to the breaker. But Kota Paxi was fixed. and the value of the repairs almost equal the value of the ship. Despite this, the Kotopaxi caught the attention of Clinchfield, one of the biggest coal producers in the United States at the time. In 1919, the US Shipping Board, the USSB, starts selling off ships, and Clinchfield looks at the Kotopaxi and thinks, yeah, okay, we want that, because we need that to transport coal from Charleston to Havana, Cuba.

It puts in a bid of $375,000. That's a lot of money. That's worth about $10 million today. It was added to a fleet of vessels operated by its sister company, Clinchfield Navigation. Clinchfield, it definitely was a big part of my family back at that time with my great-grandfather, being the port engineer down in Charleston, and my grandfather being the camp. captain of the Cota Paxi. He was the youngest ship captain in the Port of Charleston,

which is still to this day, I believe, one of the busier ports on the east coast of the U.S. It was a good job, but also a difficult one. Having to spend weeks on end, constantly navigating the dangers and perils of the sea was an unenviable task. This was also during a time when cargo and profit, came before the lives of those out at sea.

Despite this, Captain William Myers had countless journeys successfully mastering the Cotopaxi. So what happened when the ship steamed through the Bermuda Triangle and sent out distress signals on December 1st? I've been looking through lots of press cuttings about the fate of the Cotopaxi, and actually the story that unfolds is really quite disturbing in a paper called the Thomasville Times Enterprise, hope abandoned for steamer Cota Paxi. There was an exhaustive search carried out by the Coast Guard vessels from Norfolk down to Cuba.

What we also have here is this pretty gut-wrenching quote from a man called Joseph G. Myers of Charleston because it's his son, Captain William Myers, who actually commands the Cota Paxi. Says that he never expects to see his son again. But five days after, the relatives of these crewmen got a glimmer of hope. Now we've got another twist in the tail with these cuttings here. A company called the Pallaya Brothers, based in Havana, have actually sent a signal to Clinchfield, reporting Cotapaxi crew safe, ship lost.

But this was the miraculous news that Mrs. Myers and the relatives of the other crewmen had been waiting to hear. Their loved ones had been rescued and were now on their way back home. But were those hopes about to turn to despair? First you had the distress calls, then you had the waiting. You know, so it was now hanging there like, well, maybe, maybe not. You know, you didn't have anything definitive. Just 24 hours later, doubts were raised over the accuracy of these reports.

It was determined that there were just rumors. After an agonizing wait, it was confirmed to the families that the reports were false. And there was still no trace of the crew or the ship. The Pallaya brothers say, it wasn't our fault. Actually, it was the fault of the port security. The police in Havana told us that actually the crew was safe. And of course, that's terrible for the relatives to read headlines like this.

A little over a month later, the ship and its crew were officially declared missing. But Guy Walters has uncovered a document from the National Archives of New York that reveals that some of the families of the missing crewmen had taken legal action against clinch field navigation. Their claim was that the ship was unseaworthy and of a type totally unsuited for the rough conditions of the ocean. After doing lots of digging, what I've unearthed are several documents from that legal case. And what I've got here is absolutely fascinating because it's a petition from Charles, M. Barnett, who is president of the Clinchfield Navigation Company. Now, he argues very strongly

that the Cotopaxi was seaworthy, and the reason why she was lost was simply because of this really big storm. Historical weather records confirm that a tropical storm had hit Florida on the same day the distress signals were sent out. But a key witness in the legal case would also reveal that the Cotopaxi had been doomed before it even lost. left port. New evidence uncovered in the legal case points not towards the storm as the reason for its sinking, but a series of preventable measures that saw profits put before the lives of crewmen. What we've got here is a direct examination of a man called C.N. Costa, who was an employee of Clinchfield, who worked as a carpenter on board the Cotapaxi before she set sail.

And now what this shows is absolutely damning to Clinchfield. Mr. Costa held a master pilot certificate and had nearly 20 years of experience. He testified that Captain Myers had ordered him to go aboard and examine the hatch covers, and that when he did, he was shocked to find that most, if not all, were in terrible condition. Some were not bolted correctly, while others were in pieces. He began constructing new ones, but the decision was made for the ship to depart before he was finished. To make matters worse,

he recalls not seeing any protective tarp designed to prevent water from coming in should the hatches fail. That's going to be absolutely fatal to the Cotapaxi. These are straightforward explanations for how and why the ship sank. But the fact that no remains were ever found is perhaps why it has been linked

to strange phenomena throughout time. Hidden within this legal jargon, Guy has discovered perhaps the biggest clue to finding the final resting place of this ship and its crew. What this document also contains is a really vital, crucial clue as to where Cotapaxi may lie. Because on page two, what we have here is Barnett reporting the following. After Cotapaxi's departure on the voyage, she was last heard on, or about noontime, November the 30th, 1920. when she reported by wireless her then position. And that's longitude 80 degrees, 49 minutes west, latitude 30 degrees, seven minutes north.

This could be very close to her last ever position. For underwater explorer Michael Barnett, these coordinates offer the intriguing possibility of pinpointing the last known location of the Codopaxi. This is huge. We knew from New Zealand newspaper articles that the vessel was last heard of off Jacksonville. Very vague. I mean, it could be north of Jacksonville, northeast. We don't really know. But here we actually have coordinates, which is

just basically a mark on the map. So I was plotting it out here. I see the Codipaxia here just to the north-northeast of St. Augustine, whereas the Barra wreck is almost due east of St. Augustine. And this is, you know, the Cota Paxi would have been leaving Charleston, heading from Havana. That was her normal, her route. And she's parallel to the coastline, so that's reasonable. We're 22 miles away from the Barreck, again on the same course. So she'd be continuing on her journey down to the southeast, basically passing right over the Barrake. I mean, it doesn't get much better than that.

Michael meets the team back at Lamp to see if they can piece together all the evidence from this Bermuda Triangle mystery and finally conclude how, why, and where the Cotopaxi sank. So we know Cotopaxi left Charleston on the 29th of November, take. of hurricane season. On the 30th, the next day she radioed, status update. Meanwhile, that storm is forming and that storm is going to engulf Cota Paxi somewhere south of here and it's right in line with the bear rack. I mean that's right where we'd expect that ship to have gone down given the fact that we know she couldn't have

handled that storm for very long. With the measurements from the seabed matching the original plans, the information about the hatches uncovered from the legal case, the weather reports, and finally its last known location. The team seemed to have solved the mystery. But is it enough to identify the bear wreck as the Cotopaxi? I don't think we have a single piece of evidence that could contradict the identification of the Cotopaxi and really, I mean, my gut is definitely telling me that you've solved this mystery.

That's pretty exciting. Congratulations. Case closed? I mean, I'd say case closed. Sure. As Michael fills out the official shipwreck identification form, there is still one person waiting to find out more. Michael has traveled to Long Island, New York,

to give Douglas the closure he and his family never got, the location of his grandfather's final resting place. You can see the Cotopaxi steaming south on the coast of Florida. Going through the evidence the team has collected, Michael explains in detail how his grandfather's ship sunk. and that its resting place has now been identified as the Bayer wreck off the coast of St. Augustine. Your explanation and all of this really, yeah, I would say that that is the final resting place of the Cota Paxi. Michael explains that despite the evidence against them, Clinchfield won the case,

and the relatives of the crew never received justice for the loss of their loved ones. It does bring a sense of closure to the mystery. Maybe I'm getting hung up on, you know, it's something probably that should not have happened. All right. These 33 individuals, you know, it shouldn't have happened to them. And their families. Diver that's been visiting this wreck for several decades actually found something that he wants to, to present to you and came across this valve right here. You want me to give us to you.

Oh. Wow. Another piece of the, well, now solved, mystery. Yeah, I put this piece next to the captain. The discovery of the wreck of the SS Kodopaxi has put an end to almost a century of speculation, theorizing, and Bermuda Triangle conspiracies. But more importantly, it has brought closure

to the relatives of the 32 crewmen who lost their lives in a tragedy at sea. Thanks for exploring the past with us today. If you like this episode, please be sure to follow for more. We post new episodes every Tuesday and Thursday. Don't forget to leave a comment below, and feel free to leave us a rating or review. Your feedback helps us reach more listeners like you. And for more from the Like a Shot Network,

Check out Where Did Everyone Go? Histories of the Abandoned. A deep dive into the incredible stories behind forgotten places. Available now on your favorite podcast platforms. Thanks for listening.