Forbidden History - Mysteries of the Bermuda Triangle

Episode Date: August 6, 2024

In this episode, we delve into the mysterious waters of the Bermuda Triangle. This stretch of water off the coast of Florida has long been notorious for strange disappearances and unexplained sighting...s. Investigators weigh up the possible causes – are there scientific explanations such as bad weather? Or is there something more mysterious hidden in the depths… Cast List: Lynn Picknett: Historian and researcher specialising in exposing historical conspiracies. She is also the co-author of several notable works Andrew Gough: Writer, presenter and editor of The Heretic Magazine Guy Walters: A British author, historian, and journalist who has written several books on WWII. As a journalist for The Times, he writes on historical topics for the national press. Tony McMahon: Former BBC news producer, author, print journalist and historian  Richard Felix: A historian and lecturer specialising in local and paranormal history Joe Nickell: Paranormal Investigator Cary Gordon Trantham: Private Pilot Dr. Hugh Willoughby: Department of Earth & Sciences at Florida International University David Childress: Author Dave Malcolm: Former AUTEC Weapons Technician Yaniel Garriga: Pilot Dr. Philippe Rouja: Marine Anthropologist, Custodian of Shipwrecks Dr. Simon Boxall: School of Ocean & Earth Science, University of Southampton Eric Meyers: Narrator Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to the Forbidden History Podcast. This program is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. It contains mature adult themes. Listener discretion is advised. Over the centuries, hundreds of ships and dozens of aircraft have gone missing in a mysterious stretch of water. One minute they are there, the next, they vanish. They have one thing in common. They dare to enter the Bermuda Triangle.
Starting point is 00:00:28 There's portals. Underground vortices, advanced technologies, secret naval bases. These are just some of the many explanations. It's possible that the presence of the military in the area of the Bermuda Triangle is actually attracting UFOs. You've heard of UFOs, but there are also USOs, unidentified submersible objects. Of course there are aliens, of course there are UFOs. There's something out there.
Starting point is 00:01:03 The Bermuda Triangle has both struck fear and captivated the imagination of people around the world. Yet no one can explain it. Commercial, private and military craft all have fallen victim to this most mysterious region. The Bermuda Triangle literally is an area of water in North Atlantic, defined in triangular shape by Puerto Rico, Bermuda and Miami. It's believed over the course of many years that over 75 planes have disappeared. mysteriously in that area, and hundreds of ships have just gone without any trace. Although we've only given the Bermuda Triangle a name in the last 50 years,
Starting point is 00:01:48 it's been wreaking havoc on sailors for hundreds of years before now. The kind of romantic story of the Bermuda Triangle, there might be the part of the planet where seriously strange things happen. And once you go in there, you can never get out, and it's very dangerous, because you may disappear forever down some time warp into another dimension. There's certainly been some very high profile and unusual disasters and disappearances within the Bermuda Triangle. Whether or not it's disproportionately high, a lot of people, for example, the Coast Guard services say it's not true, but there's a widespread belief that it is true.
Starting point is 00:02:28 Arguably the most famous disappearance occurred in 1945, when five US bombers and a rescue plane disappeared while on a training flight in the Bermuda Triangle. The most intriguing story involving the Bermuda Triangle is the Flight 19 mission. Five Avenger torpedo bombers that all fly out together on what was a routine training mission. And at some point, they seem to become totally disoriented. Their last messages back to base showed that they had no idea where they were going. Their instruments had gone haywire, and they simply didn't.
Starting point is 00:03:10 know if they could get back. They were also running out of fuel because they've been out far longer than they expected. At some point contact was lost. All five planes, all 14 personnel wiped out, disappeared. A search party was sent out to find the five planes, or at least to look for the wreckage, and a flying boat was sent out with 13 members of crew on board. That was never heard of again. It vanished. We can imagine that there's some mysterious voice vortex, some other dimension, some phenomenon called an electronic fog. But in fact, this was a training mission. These were rookies out on their flight with a commander, but he got disoriented.
Starting point is 00:04:07 And the flew and flew in a wrong direction until they ran out of gas and all of them went down. We were more confident about the search plane that went out and also vanished. That make of plane was nicknamed the flying gas tank and had a history of blowing up. And it appears that this was an untimely accident at that point. The official explanation was human error, tragic human error, that the fuel ran out and that simply ditched and were killed. The unofficial explanation is that something very strange happened to lead to five aircraft disappearing simultaneously.
Starting point is 00:04:56 But can the disappearance of Flight 19 really be attributed just to pilot error? In 1995, civilian pilot Carrie Gordon had a truly terrifying experience while airborne, and close to the original flight path of the doomed mission. Her account echoes some of the strange anomalies the pilots' reported over their radios just minutes before they vanished. It was actually a beautiful day. I was, and I can actually see the Everglades in the area that I know exactly where it happened. I know exactly where it happened.
Starting point is 00:05:27 It's a little scary going over it again. Everything was going great. It wasn't a smooth flight. It was a little bumpy. I was flying along the Everglades. I could see Miami lights coming on. And then all of a sudden it was like somebody threw a blanket over my airplane. My instruments were going crazy with my airplane indicator was showing me upside down.
Starting point is 00:05:54 And I wasn't really sure if I was upside down, right side up, how far I had drifted east or west. I was totally in the black. I know people said, well, what did you see? I didn't see anything. It was black. And I was so, so scared. And, you know, I didn't have engine problems. I didn't have, it was just like something, it's hard to explain.
Starting point is 00:06:25 So when I finally did get control of the airplane, I tried to get radio contact because I had lost radio contact and nobody was responding. Finally, I saw the marathon lights and I was able to make it to the airport. When I landed, I actually had to pry my hands off the yoke because I was just frozen. I was still in the state of shock and I couldn't hardly walk when I climbed out of the airplane.
Starting point is 00:06:53 Very scary. Like something like that, you just don't get over. This could well be, for all we know, a portal to another dimension. These aircraft, these huge ships, it doesn't matter how big they are, all of a sudden, for some reason, disappear into another dimension. Are they still out there in that dimension?
Starting point is 00:07:17 Will they come back one day? Our scientists are young yet. There's so much we don't know. And quantum physics has opened up a few doors. And who knows? A parallel universe? You know, a tunnel, you know, to a parallel universe? Because these people went someplace where?
Starting point is 00:07:45 You know, I'm just thankful to whomever that I'm still here. Hugh Willoughby is a professor of meteorology at Florida International University. He lectures on the dangers of extreme weather, and he's certain that what happened to Flight 19 and Carrie Gordon can be attributed to one simple reason, atmospheric conditions. A interpretation of Carrie Gordon's experience could be cast in terms of meteorology over the over the overglades. You have turbulence, you get almost invisible precipitation falling from the cloud,
Starting point is 00:08:22 You get a strong electric field. You get clear air turbulence. And all of those things combined to challenge a pilot's perception of what's going on around him or her. There could also be another more rare explanation for what Cary experienced. St. Elmo's fire is a possibility having some sort of mist which you can fly into
Starting point is 00:08:47 without knowing it's there. St. Elmo's fire happens with you. Almost fire happens when the airplane accumulates an electric charge. It can produce a hissing sound in the radios and can interfere with electrical devices inside the airplane. What happens is you can see the ground because you're looking through a little bit of mist, but when you look horizontally, you're looking through the layer and you can't see the horizon. St. Elmo's fire is a glow, usually kind of yellowish. It appears on leading edges of wings, anything that sticks out from the airplane, but it can spread over much of the fuselage.
Starting point is 00:09:28 So can the weather and pilot error really be responsible for all the disappearances and strange occurrences? Or is there another explanation? One that is connected to an underwater anomaly that some believe is the mythical city of Atlantis. Some of the more extreme melodramatic ideas to explain the alleged disappearances in the Bermuda Triangle include sages from Atlantis, drawing them down to their doom, or portals to other worlds. It's certainly one of the most enduring mysteries around. But just how much truth is there in it?
Starting point is 00:10:08 In recent years, one hypothesis has gained scientific approval, and it has to do with gas. Scientists have recently developed a technology that is a radar examination of the ocean floor. And what they find is that there's pocket of methane gas, which are exploding up through the ocean, creating this change in density and these huge sort of bubbles that come up to the surface that would have a detrimental impact
Starting point is 00:10:36 and any ship that happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. And the effect that this has is at sea level to make it very hard for vessels to float. If the methane rises into the air and there's a plane flying overhead, head, it can react with the electrical devices on board, effectively ignite. And of course, the result of that is you then have a plane exploding, suddenly disappearing, crashing into the sea without trace.
Starting point is 00:11:03 Convincing as the methane gas theory is, it doesn't explain all of the strange anomalies reported within the Bermuda Triangle. In 1968, an archaeological discovery in the Bahamas threatened to challenge not just our understanding of history, but of science itself. itself. Geologists say this is just a natural rock formation under the sea, but it has a very kind of angular look to it. It looks like it could be the ruins of some kind of ancient structure, and that's exactly what some people believe it is. The Bimini Road is allegedly a man-made structure in the Bahamas on the floor of the ocean that runs for about a third of the mile. Now, many believe this is proof of a Lanty.
Starting point is 00:11:50 David Childris is an author and self-confessed rogue archaeologist. He has ventured into and dive the Bermuda Triangle multiple times. David believes that the mysterious vanishings are connected to this ancient rock formation known as the Bimini Road, which many believe is the gateway to the mythical Atlantis. Right now, we're just off the coast of Florida in the Bermuda Triangle. And this is where a lot of the mysteries of the Bermuda Triangle occur right in this area. Not far from here is the island of Bimini.
Starting point is 00:12:27 And on the northwest coast of Bimini is what's called the Bimini Road. And I have scuba dive this a number of times. It's only in about 30 feet of water, actually. But what you see at the Bimini Road is very similar to the megalists that we see in Peru, particularly at Saksawaman Fortress above Cusco. And what that is is huge, pillory. blocks of stone that are perfectly fitted together. And it's a megalithic formation that appears to be man-made.
Starting point is 00:13:00 So the big question with the Bimini Road is whether it is an artificial structure or somehow just an unusual natural structure, as some geologists believe. But if it is an artificial structure and it's underwater, what is it doing there? And that's where Atlantis comes in. And that is why many people think that the lost city of Atlantis is somewhere in the Bermuda Triangle.
Starting point is 00:13:28 In the 1970s, it was very widely believed that the Bermuda Triangle may indeed have been the site of the legendary Kingdom of Atlantis, which included a pyramid, on top of which was a magnetic crystal that powered that society, some kind of primitive, maybe extraterrestrial form of electricity. But unfortunately, this magnetic crystal also seems to have drawn in cosmic forces that led to the terrible destruction of Atlantis. The whole thing collapses, and that magnetic crystal falls to the bottom of the sea. And it's believed by some, it's still there. It's still pulsating, and it's these shock waves from that magnetic crystal
Starting point is 00:14:13 that's responsible for downing planes and sinking ships. The story of Atlantis comes to us from the Greek philosopher Plato, It was a city with concentric canals that went to it. They had a huge navy, but they also had electricity. They had airships. And many people think that these energy crystals that were part of these pyramids and perhaps obelisks that were part of Atlantis were a power source
Starting point is 00:14:46 for these airships and for the electrical power in Atlantis. Now you have to wonder if the American military isn't interested in this too. And it's very possible that if there is evidence of Atlantis in the Bahamas or elsewhere in the Bermuda Triangle, that the American Navy has actually discovered it and that they know about these pyramids. And perhaps they are studying these pyramids here in the Bermuda Triangle. The Bermuda Triangle is the stuff of legends, with hundreds of ships and planes disappearing within it.
Starting point is 00:15:30 Some speculate the lost city of Atlantis is buried below and still emitting strange forces. Perhaps the U.S. Navy has discovered the ancient city and harnessed its power. With several naval bases located within the triangle, one installation in particular stands out, the top secret Autech. Autech is the Atlantic Undersea Test and Evaluation Center. And what that is, is a naval base where underwater forms of warfare are being tested by scientists. And that might involve submarines and other secret technology. But it's also believed that those scientists may have been working with alien technology
Starting point is 00:16:12 and may even have made contact with extraterrestrials. Atec is a laboratory under the water that performs advanced warfare test with technology that is highly confidential. It's unidentified flying objects, but also unidentified submersive objects. We really don't know what they do, but we do know that they operate in the vicinity of the so-called Bermuda Triangle. And isn't that curious? Self-confessed rogue archaeologist David Childress has his own theories about Autec and how this top-secret military installation is connected to the mysterious vanishings. On the Bahamian island of Andros, which is the largest of all the islands of the Bahamas,
Starting point is 00:17:00 is a U.S. naval facility known as Autech. It's a top-secret submarine and oceanography base. What goes on there? we don't really know. This is right in the heart of the Bermuda Triangle. And you have to suspect that some of the things
Starting point is 00:17:19 that are happening in the Bermuda Triangle might have to do with secret technology that's being developed by the U.S. military. One of the big stories about Bermuda Triangle
Starting point is 00:17:33 is about U.S.Os, unidentified, submersible objects. So these are essentially mystery submarines that people are seeing here in the Bermuda Triangle. And this may have been going on for hundreds of years. We don't really know. But what is interesting is that some of these unidentified submersible objects are suddenly seen emerging from the water, then come out of the water, and they fly, and they're now
Starting point is 00:18:02 UFOs. Incredible as David Childress's assertions are about USOs, there is one of the other man who can corroborate his extraordinary claims. David Malcolm is an ex-employee of Aotech, and he believes beyond a shadow of a doubt that the top secret naval base is connected to the strange anomalies within the Bermuda Triangle. In the early 70s, I worked as a defense contractor at a base on Andros Island called Autech. It was the Atlantic Undersea Test and Evaluation Center. Some people consider it to be the Navy's Area 51.
Starting point is 00:18:40 a lot of testing of naval warfare and equipment. It takes place there. Andros is the largest Bahama island, but it's also the least inhabited. So it's a pretty remote location, and the tongue of the ocean is an area where it's a deep trench. It's actually a thousand fathoms deep. And it's a perfect place for acoustical testing and a place for the military to operate without endangering commercial shipping, because no one else. is in there. It's a very beautiful location, but it's also a very secure location.
Starting point is 00:19:15 It's guarded, fenced, and patrolled, and no one gets in or out without having a need to be there. The job required a top secret security clearance because of the nature of what was going on there with nuclear submarines and other classified warfare systems. My job title was a weapons technician, and we'd go out during the military submarines and the into testing operations and we'd chase down missiles or torpedoes, whatever had been fired, recovered them, bring them back into the shop to be analyzed for telemetry and any other items they might be interested in. You've heard of UFOs, but there are also U.S.Os, unidentified submersible objects.
Starting point is 00:20:02 And these U.S.Os have been reported, have been seen in the Bermuda Triangle by, for example, fishing fleets. And there is a strong belief among many that there's a link between these objects and whatever Autec is up to and possibly proof that Autec has indeed developed alien technology. We were on a recovery operation one winter day and I was in the back of the boat, recovering a torpedo that more than likely had been fired from that sub in the background. and I noticed something rising up out of the depths. And I wasn't quite sure what it was as it slowly rose. It looked like a pipeline.
Starting point is 00:20:46 And I remember thinking, what is a pipeline doing in the middle of the ocean? And as it continued to rise silently, I noticed I couldn't see either ends. And as quickly as it rose, it again faded into the depths and it was gone. At the time, I was used to seeing odd things in the world. because of the nature of the work we were doing. It never occurred to me to say anything, mainly because we didn't discuss things we saw on the test range. It was classified information not to be discussed.
Starting point is 00:21:20 And years later, I came to wonder, especially when news of U.S.Os became more widespread, I started thinking perhaps that's what I might have seen. And it's interesting now because I've read accounts since then of cigar-shaped office. cigar-shaped objects that people tend to find flying around in the sky. I could pretty much relate to that and, you know, you could consider this pipe a cigar-shaped object as well. It's possible that the presence of Ortec in the area of the Bermuda Triangle is actually attracting UFOs, just like in Area 51, where the military seemed to be attracting UFOs. We don't know how it happens, which comes first.
Starting point is 00:22:08 But certainly the two do go together. If Atec is connected to the mysterious U.S.Os, then what about their more famous flying counterparts, UFOs? Is it possible that recent sightings of UFOs in the Bermuda Triangle could be linked to highly classified military craft? Over the centuries, navigators through the Bermuda Triangle have reported strange anomalies, from bizarre lights and spinning compasses
Starting point is 00:22:39 to giant unidentified submersible objects. With a strong presence in the world, area. Could the U.S. military have discovered something mysterious and otherworldly? Historically, traditionally, the intelligence behind the UFO phenomenon, it seems, are attracted to the military, maybe out of curiosity, maybe they get some kind of power out of it. Maybe they're just keeping an eye. A curious event occurred in 2015 that might change how we think about what's been occurring in the Bermuda Triangle. There was an unidentified. flying object that was observed by about a dozen Air Force personnel.
Starting point is 00:23:19 No one knows what it was, but it gives credence to the fact that there are unexplained events occurring in the area of the Bermuda Triangle that might be causing these disappearances. Having seen the video taken by the pilots, it does actually fit precisely with other descriptions of UFOs over decades. and leaves us really no closer to putting our finger on what they are. It's not enough to say, oh, there's some form of alien craft. UFOs don't necessarily imply alien anyway. But they are something outside our comprehension,
Starting point is 00:24:01 because they shape-shift. One minute you're looking at them and they look like a hard nuts and bolts craft, then suddenly they seem to be amorphous and made of light, and they just turn like that and zip around. And one that I saw many years ago started as I thought it was a plane crossing a night sky. And suddenly it split into five different lights, danced around the sky, went back together and zoom. So personally, I think it's all part of the same phenomenon, whatever that might be. It's not just military air force pilots in rare circumstances who have reported seeing UFOs in the Bermuda Triangle.
Starting point is 00:24:40 Yaniel Garega is a commercial pilot whose job requires him to regularly fly into the Bermuda Triangle. He encountered two UFOs while flying near the Bahamian island of Andros, home of the top secret naval base, Atec. We're flying right now on the Bermuda Triangle. I fight all the time through the Bermuda Triangle, even my parents asked me, hey, you're scared of flying at the Bermuda? I say, it's my job I have to do it. It's been a couple of times I noticed two little squares flying right now.
Starting point is 00:25:10 next to me in the radar. It's steady right next to me. I don't see nobody around. And all of the sudden, it starts big in speed and get out of my radar. Like quick speed. If I'm going, 180 nuts, that is 230 miles an hour, right? And all of the sudden, you see them moving, moving,
Starting point is 00:25:32 moving, moving fast and boom, they're gun. It's like something supersonic. That's not a civil aircraft. He could be a military. I never find an explanation. Of all witnesses to UFOs, surely the most reliable must be members of the military or professional pilots. They are trained observers, and they are trained not to be fanciful. There's so many theories about the Bermuda Triangle,
Starting point is 00:26:02 but when you hear a firsthand observation by Air Force personnel, There's something about hearing about these unusual observations from someone who is so well trained to discern the ordinary from the extraordinary that it just makes you believe there's a lot more that we don't understand. Why are these UFOs attracted to this triangle? It's obviously because of energy in the same way as we possibly believe that Stonehenge and various other sites also, for some reason, attracted UFOs or still attract you have, it's all back to earth energy.
Starting point is 00:26:48 The Bermuda Triangle instills both wonder and fear. The very name itself is a catchphrase for all that is dark, strange and mysterious. But is there anything in the island's history that could help explain the enigma? Although the Bermuda Triangle is a label that we've created in the last half century, The area around the Bermuda Triangle has been the source of mystery and fear and confusion for hundreds, if not thousands of years. Philippe Rousa is an anthropologist, historian, and Bermuda native who believes that the answer to the Bermuda Triangle may lie in its dangerous past.
Starting point is 00:27:30 It's entirely logical that this would be the place where in the 20th century, when they started talking about or inventing the myth of the Brueira Triangle, it makes sense that it's not just a triangle. It's the Bermuda Triangle. Bermuda can literally handle that sort of tagline, because Bermuda has this true history of disaster and tragedy surrounding it, literally surrounding in terms of the number of shipwrecks we have. So we speculate that there's over 300 shipwrecks around Bermuda.
Starting point is 00:27:55 And my job as the custodian of historic wrecks is to essentially try and locate those shipwrecks. Because in Bermuda, shipwrecks were something the locals hoped for. Every ship that sank off of Bermuda, especially in those early days, was like a store. store, you know, all the things that you couldn't possibly produce here, iron, rope, cloth. Imagine all those things suddenly arriving all in one basket. And so, Beredians became very adept at actually what they call wrecking. They would actually encourage shipwrecks so that they could create this kind of like, almost like a delivery, if you want, of the goods and products that they needed.
Starting point is 00:28:28 They couldn't get any other way. And so that reputation then of Bereda just being dangerous from an environmental point of view is enhanced by the Bermidians themselves, who are then actively encouraged encouraging shipwrecks. And so that's why Bermuda was early on, from the earliest days, called the Isle of Devils. In the early charts, Prameter's actually painted upside down. And that doesn't make sense because these guys knew how to draw charts. And so we imagine that it's done on purpose as a warning to mariners to say, look, this place
Starting point is 00:28:55 is dangerous. You know, when you put a flag upside down, it's a sign that you're in distress. There are also naturally occurring dangers surrounding the island. This is an area that's extremely volatile. It's where three weather systems meet. And you get phenomena like, obviously, hurricanes, which are growing in frequency and in strength. But you also get phenomenon like rogue waves,
Starting point is 00:29:16 which can capsize a ship, even ships of huge size. And history can prove this has been happening for hundreds of years. This is the wreck of the Lardington. She sunk in 1879. And what's interesting about this shipwreck in terms of the myth of the Brune of Triangle is it actually does speak to one particular element particular element that has some veracity to it.
Starting point is 00:29:39 You know, this ship supposedly encountered a 100-foot wave. That's literally just a mass of hard, heavy water. The ship was literally bowled over by 100-foot wave. This notion of rogue waves in the Atlantic, these sort of random appearances of massive waves, and the damage that it caused to the ship, they couldn't keep up with the water coming in. It meant that they gave up on their journey from Savannah, Georgia, to Russia, and ran from Bermuda. And so they purposely crashed from Bermuda. So it's as much a shipwreck as it is a crash.
Starting point is 00:30:10 This was done with intention. The thing about the area around the Bermuda Triangle is that the weather conditions are really extreme. Not only is this literally hurricane alley, but there's also this phenomena of a rogue wave where conflicting weather fronts and weather events literally create a perfect storm, a perfect wave that could have all sorts of detrimental effect
Starting point is 00:30:35 for any ship or boat that comes in its path. Professor of Oceanography from the University of Southampton, Simon Boxall believes what caused the Lardington's demise can happen just as easily today, because while rogue waves may be rare, they are firmly rooted in science. So the scenario we have in the Bermuda Triangle is that we have storms coming across the Atlantic,
Starting point is 00:30:58 along the tropics, the classic hurricanes that come across. And these storms are creating the classic sort of textbook, child textbook pictures of waves. Those waves are maybe as much as 10 meters high. Maybe we've got another storm system for Grand Banks, and that's creating waves, and they're coming along at about 10 meters high as well. Now, where these two come together,
Starting point is 00:31:19 the two waves can combine. And we're gonna find that if you've got your two waves, they're slightly out of phase, sometimes they'll add up, sometimes they'll cancel out. And that means that when these two storms come together, we get a perfect storm, and we then end up with a 20 meter wave. and that can be faithful to the ship.
Starting point is 00:31:38 We see that every time we go down to the coast, you'll stand on the shore side and you'll see those waves lapping in and every so often your feet get wet because an extra big wave comes in. Or if you're standing there on a stormy day, the wave crashes over the harbour off the pier. And that's exactly what's happening
Starting point is 00:31:54 in the big of a triangle area. And if a ship gets caught on one of these super waves, one of these rogue waves, then it's in trouble. The dark history of the shipwrecks off the mainland of the island of Bermuda certainly contributed to the legend of the infamous triangle, but there is still one more secret the island has to reveal.
Starting point is 00:32:16 The Bermuda Triangle is an area with three points, Bermuda, Miami, Puerto Rico, and it's believed that within that area there are a disproportionate number of accidents, of tragedies, of fatalities, way more than other areas of sea around the world. Theories about the Bermuda Triangle include things such as UFOs, underground vortexes, entrances to the hollow earth, weather conditions that are extreme and unique to this area, really, it's all over the map. But the Bermuda Triangle still has one more secret to reveal.
Starting point is 00:32:58 The US military came here post-War-2 and established quite a significant military base, essentially to keep a watch on the Atlantic during the Cold War. during the Cold War, and they set up some very advanced listening sort of systems to listen to what was going on in the Atlantic, what was the traffic of the Russian submarine fleets and all the rest of it. And so Bermuda was a central part, if not the central sort of hub, to figure out what was going on in the Atlantic and the Cold War. Just along the coast is the now decommissioned, top-secret Naval Underwater System Center at Tudor Hill,
Starting point is 00:33:30 where American intelligence used advanced technology to listen for Russian submarines. We're heading up to the old naval, one part of the naval base called Tudor Hill, which was the landing point for the underwater array that went out into the Atlantic and around Bermuda and listening for Russian submarines. And this is essentially the sort of seawward edge of that naval annex. No one really understood or knew what the Americans were doing here. There was like a weather station out at sea, and these cables purportedly communicated with that weather station,
Starting point is 00:34:02 and that was the sort of cover story for the actually incredibly technologically advanced activities that were going on here. They were testing really the first arrays of sort of underwater long-distance sonar, and they were detecting things literally hundreds of kilometers away. And they did tests that encompassed the entire Atlantic, trying to figure out just how this machine worked and just what it could detect. And so over time, they got super refined at figuring this out to the point where they could detect and identify each individual Russian submarine and know where it was going, where it was on its route,
Starting point is 00:34:35 you know, by its sound, by its movements, et cetera. So it was a really important part of the Cold War. It's kind of difficult to see how this ties into this whole of the myth of the Bermuda Triangle and all the rest of it, but having people imagining that there was some myth or some otherworldly story that explained a lot of the things they might be seeing that might be military and, you know, might be connected to military activities,
Starting point is 00:34:57 that probably was very convenient for the military. So it doesn't surprise me at all that this might actually have some part to play in the Bermuda Triangle myth story. Author David Childress is convinced that the military presence in the Bermuda Triangle region connected to the top secret installations like Auteck and Tudor Hill are the real explanation for the more recent disappearances. I genuinely feel that there is real mysteries to the Bermuda Triangle and that they go back for centuries.
Starting point is 00:35:26 There's no doubt that high-tech experiments and high-tech submarines are being launched from on a new-tech. The United States Navy has all kinds of unusual technology. It's quite possible that they are also creating anti-gravity-type UFO craft. The idea of making submarines that can also fly. These are all things that the U.S. Navy is for sure looking into and studying. And it's quite possible that for decades they've even had this technology and have kept it as well. and have kept it a secret.
Starting point is 00:36:06 Personally, I don't believe there's anything otherworldly going on in the Bermuda Triangle. There have been some fantastic examples of lost planes and ships. They're really quite curious. But the world is a big place. The oceans are two-thirds of that world. And we don't understand half of what we think we do. The Bermuda Triangle is one of the most enduring
Starting point is 00:36:32 and iconic enigmas around the world. It's impossible to deny that genuine mystery surrounds the region, the disappearance of Flight 19 continues to cast a long shadow and today people are still vanishing without a trace. I think what's also seductive about the Bermuda Triangle is that it appeals to our frustration when we don't get the sense of an ending. And that's why disappearance I think is scary on a very, very deep level. This idea of people neither being dead nor alive or we don't know them to be that. is very compelling and very scary.
Starting point is 00:37:07 It's this idea of people being on the threshold. Liminality is what it's called. And so therefore, that is endlessly fascinating. So there might be a part in the world in which you end up being neither dead nor alive. I can see why that is always gonna be seductive. It is true that the Bermuda Triangle does have a unique meteorology and dangerous weather patterns could certainly explain
Starting point is 00:37:30 some of the disappearances. There may well be something going on, energies, different sorts of earth energies that happen to be there that we haven't proved yet. But storms and rogue waves do not explain the U.S.O. and UFO activity that has been reported by highly credible witnesses, including civilian and military pilots. It is plausible that top-sec bases like Aotech have been working on advanced warfare technology for decades, and historically there is a correlation between heightened UFO activity and the military. But how far has the U.S. Navy taken their top secret projects,
Starting point is 00:38:07 and is it possible they may have found and be using alternative power from the mythical lost city of Atlantis? It is strange because the area does seem to have some kind of relationship with weirdness, and some areas do. They seem as if the veil is thin and that they're portals to another world or another dimension or another dimension of being. But it's the whole idea that there's this place that is weird, and anything that's weird can happen there.
Starting point is 00:38:40 Perhaps we will never know. Human kind has always been drawn to and pondered the unexplained. There is something primal which drives us to try and understand the unknowable.

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