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Below is a document containing reflective discussion questions.

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Post 11 reflective discussion questions.docx

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Summary & Analysis
Below is a photograph of one of the many shipwrecks surrounding Bermuda.  This photo links to the 'Mystical Energy' red flag, as many people believe that an evil energy or curse is plaguing the triangle and causing the shipwrecks.

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Post 9- Image #2: The Wrecks Surrounding Bermuda

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Post 9- Image #2: The Wrecks Surrounding Bermuda

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Summary & Analysis
Below is a picture depicting the sunken ships surrounding Bermuda Island alone. There are reportedly over 200 shipwrecks in total surrounding the area, and several snorkeling boat tours are available to explore many of these wrecks (those wrecks are labeled on the map below). It is believed that a highly magnetic naturally-occurring material that surrounds the Island could be causing compasses to malfunction around Bermuda, perhaps causing the wrecks. This photo relates to the 'All Natural' red flag; the naturally-occurring magnetite and iron may be causing the shipwrecks and disappearances.

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Summary & Analysis
A photo of hexagonal clouds is displayed below; these clouds may be one explanation for the many disappearances that have occurred within the Bermuda Triangle. Hexagonal clouds are often spotted around the Bermuda area, and cause extremely powerful downdrafts of air, or 'air bombs'. These types of conditions would be sufficient to take down planes and/or ships. This photo relates to the 'Ideological Support' (a set of ideas that make up goals, expectations, actions) as this photo supports the use of science and scientific evidence to solve mysteries.

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Summary & Analysis
A link to the National Geographic website has been provided below. Additional theories and speculations are provided, including one that states the Bermuda Triangle is no more dangerous than any other area of the Atlantic ocean, but rather that it is traveled more. The legend began in 1945 when Flight 19 took off and never returned from the U.S. Naval Air Station in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The term 'Bermuda Triangle' was later coined in 1964. This post relates to the 'Agenticity' reason for belief; people are assigning meaning to an invisible agent (the Bermuda Triangle).

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With the search for survivors called off, the investigation into what caused the El Faro to sink begins.

While experts say the huge container ship sank after sailing into the path of Hurricane Joaquin off The Bahamas, conspiracy theorists point to the location of the sinking - inside the "Bermuda Triangle."

The Bermuda Triangle is the area extending between Bermuda, Puerto Rico, and Miami, famous for its high volume of shipwrecks. The area's waters are suspected to have claimed up to 300 vessels.

The legend began on 5 December 1945 when Flight 19 took off from the U.S. Naval Air Station in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Flight 19 was a squadron of five TBM Avenger Torpedo Bombers on a routine training mission, all of which disappeared. To this day, despite a massive land and sea search, no bodies or wreckage have been found.

(Image: National Ocean Service)

The phrase Bermuda Triangle wasn't used until 1964 when an unusually high number of ship disappearances took place.

From sea monsters and giant squid to alien abductions and alternate dimensions, there are many theories about what happens to planes and ships that go down in the Bermuda Triangle.

But the truth is likely a combination of less far-fetched causes including human error, treacherous weather, and plain bad luck.

The U.S. Coast Guard's official response to Bermuda Triangle inquiries states, "It has been our experience that the combined forces of nature and the unpredictability of mankind outdo science-fiction stories many times each year."

Scientists argue that the triangle is no more or less dangerous than any other stretch of open sea. No one has been able to prove that mysterious disappearances occur more frequently there than in other heavily-used sections of the ocean.

"The region is highly traveled and has been a busy crossroads since the early days of European exploration," said John Reilly, a historian with the U.S. Naval Historical Foundation.

"To say quite a few ships and airplanes have gone down there is like saying there are an awful lot of car accidents on the New Jersey Turnpike - surprise, surprise."

What happens when scientists 'drain' water from the Bermuda Triangle location? Find out what lies on its ocean floor here.

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With the search for survivors called off, the investigation into what caused the El Faro to sink begins. While experts say the huge container ship sank after sailing into the path of Hurricane Joaquin off The Bahamas, conspiracy theorists point to the location of the sinking - inside the "Bermuda Triangle."

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Summary & Analysis
The next website I chose to research the Bermuda Triangle was https://www.bermuda-attractions.com/bermuda2_000061.htm. This website contains a long list of theories that could possibly explain the disappearances that have taken place within this region over the past several decades. Some of these theories include methane gas being released in the ocean, hexagonal clouds creating air bombs, electronic fog, and much more. This link relates to the "proof by verbosity" red flag, as the website provides so much information relating to the Bermuda Triangle that it is hard not to believe that something strange is occurring within the area.

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Last Updated: March 29, 2017

Bermuda Triangle Theories

Howard, an expert on Bermuda Triangle, claims that more than 50 ships and 20 planes have disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle over the last century itself, and up to 1000 over the past 500 years. So how did the planes and ships disappear? What went wrong?

Actually there is no single theory that can explain all disappearances. The planes and ships have been victims to different circumstances & situations while cruising over the vast triangle area and were in different physical locations. And therefore there are several theories that explain the different incidents of missing ships and planes. Here are the most popular theories that try to explain and solve the mysteries.

Large amount of methane gas is known to exist below the ocean floor trapped in the sediments in form of methane hydrates. If such gas finds its way out and starts rising through the water, it can significantly reduce the density of water in that area. And ships passing over that area can sink in no time. Such gas release can also create explosions and saturate the atmosphere with methane gas causing planes to crash.

Sargasso sea is a strange area within Bermuda Triangle that has no shores but bounded by ocean currents on all sides. This has been the trap for many sailing vessels in the past. Many sailing boats and ships are believed to have become completely motionless while passing through this area and later found in derelict conditions without a soul on them. Dense seaweed on water surface and exceptionally low winds have been the main cause of making vessels motionless in this area.

Check out Sargasso Sea for more information about the incidents and their causes.

Hexagonal clouds forming Air Bombs

Scientists have noticed formation of strange hexagonal shaped clouds with straight edges on Bermuda Triangle. This is a strange and rare phenomena. Meteorologists confirm from other such formations of cloud at North Sea and evidences shown by satellite images that they are like air bombs. The air bombs can blast and send out winds to the ocean beneath at speeds of up to 170 miles per hour which can be dangerous for aircraft or ships passing through it. Additionally such air bomb explosion can create gigantic waves as high as 45-foot and ocean surface wind of about 100 miles per hour which too can be extremely dangerous.

The Gulf Stream is an ocean current that originates in the Gulf of Mexico, and then moves through the Straits of Florida, into the North Atlantic and passes through Bermuda Triangle area. It is like a river within an ocean and can easily carry floating objects along its flow. A small plane making a water landing or a boat having engine trouble will be easily carried away.

It happened to the cabin cruiser Witchcraft on December 22, 1967, when it reported engine trouble near the Miami buoy marker one mile from shore, but was not there when a Coast Guard cutter arrived.

Electronic Fog: A Hutchison effect

It has been heard several times that ships and aircraft get engulfed in some kind of electronic fog and the fog keeps moving along with the ship or the plane. And eventually, all the electronic equipment and other instruments start malfunctioning. Then the ships and airplanes either disintegrate or disappear without a trace. Vancouver based scientist John Hutchison through his experiments has shown occurrence of Electronic Fog that causes some strange phenomena.

Do you know that magnetic and absolute North are not the same. Which means that the north where a compass points and the absolute geographic north which is the north pole are different. So ships need to make adjustment for this difference to keep to the right direction. But in Bermuda Triangle, there is a narrow strip where both these North's become the same. Some claim that such Compass Variation could have been the cause for fatal accidents as ships failed to determine the correct direction.

Strange Weather & Hurricanes

At times there are violent storms in the Bermuda Triangle area. These short but intense storms can build up quickly and go away so fast that even a satellite can't detect them properly. But these storms are strong enough to destroy ships or planes completely. There are also waterspouts seen in this area. A waterspout is like a tornado at sea that sucks water from the ocean thousands of feet into the sky.

Hurricanes are extremely powerful swirling storms that sometimes appear in the Atlantic near the equator. They usually originate from south eastern Atlantic and pass through the Bermuda Triangle area towards the south eastern coast of the US. June to November is the time when possibility of such hurricane occurring is the most. Such hurricanes have historically been the cause for loss of many lives and extensive damage. The sinking of Francisco de Bobadilla's Spanish fleet in 1502 was the first recorded instance of such destructive hurricane. Hurricanes have in the past caused a number of fatal damages to the sailing vessels passing through the area.

Very large waves can appear suddenly even in calm seas. One such rogue wave caused the Ocean Ranger, then the world's largest offshore platform to capsize in 1982. Research has shown that freak waves up to 30m high & capable of sinking a large ship within moments, can and do happen. Although these are very rare, in some areas ocean currents indicate that they happen more often than normal.

The seafloor in Bermuda Triangle area is also found to be quite strange. There are some unusual formations. From a gentle slope it takes a sudden deep drop. In fact, some of the deepest trenches in the world are found in this area. Ships or planes that sink into these deep trenches will probably never be found as they are virtually inaccessible.

Scientists also speculate that there can be large deep ocean craters on the sea floor of Bermuda Triangle. This can be caused by large amount of oil leaks or bursting of Methane gas that were trapped at different layers below the sea floor. Such giant craters (about half a mile wide and 150ft deep) have already been discovered at Barent Sea off the coast of Norway in March 2016. Similar such deep ocean craters are likely to exist in Bermuda Triangle as well because the sea floor in the area is known to contain large amount of Methane gas. If a ship is wrecked due to Methane blow out or any other reason and drops into the crater, it can easily disappear without leaving any trace.

Human mistakes can not be ruled out in this area. More so because the vast water area in Bermuda Triangle has so many islands that look so similar. It is easy to make a mistake confusing one with another. And in such confusion if the captain takes a wrong turn or direction, then he can slowly but surely get to such water area where it would be too late to turn back and reach a land to refuel. And then eventually it'll be a question of how long the ship can sustain the foul weather.

There are also explanations based on some supernatural theories like the lost city of Atlantis, UFOs and Aliens. Check out Supernatural Theories to know about such explanations that try to explain the disappearances.

And like in any other subject, there are skeptics and critics here who do not believe that Bermuda Triangle area has any mystery to be solved at all. They say there is nothing unusual about all these disappearances... it's nothing different from any other ocean area where such incidents also take place in similar numbers, and most can be explained with science or some logic.

Check out the Skeptics Theory to find out what the skeptics of Bermuda Triangle have to say.

Strange magnetic fields from the bottom of the ocean causing compass to malfunction, pirates capturing ships, explosive cargo destroying vessels etc are also believed to be other causes. Another possibility is underwater earthquakes. Scientists have actually observed a great deal of seismic vibrations taking place in the Bermuda triangle area and under the seafloor.

1) Check out Bermuda Triangle Mystery to know more about the mystery of Bermuda Triangle, amazing stories of planes and ship disappearing and how it has been solved.

NOTE: I manually evaluate all posts and include only the ones that are original (not copy pasted from other sources) and having some serious matter. Unless the post adds further value to this article, I do not include them.

Thanks for the updates- one of the creepiest books I read in the 70's was Richard Winners "The Devils Triangle" and this part of the Atlantic has always been fascinating. I guess what I don't understand given today's technology is how ships and planes are not fitted with Lo-Jack technology. If my car is stolen, the police will be able to pinpoint it's location in minutes- how is it possible, as in the Malaysian Flight that disappeared a few years ago, that commercial shipping and aircraft do not have the same locator technology? I would be most interested to hear anyone's explanation for this. Thank you very much.

Todd Rickey (October 2016)

Methane bubbles probably affect buoyancy to varying degrees, while there is more to consider regarding the methane budget. Most of it is in storage. Primarily, the cause of many phenomena there involves the outgassing of methane "ice" (clathrates) from the sea floor.

As you know, another name for much of the area is the "Sargasso Sea" due to thick mats and subsurface extents of sargasso seaweed (algae). Over millions of years, dead algal deposits accumulate and are buried along the continental shelf at varying depths. In this environment, plant material decomposes anaerobically (without oxygen).

The microbial anaerobes produce methane within the sedimentary deposits. Given the conditions of pressure and temperature there, water molecules arrange in a cage (Latin: clathrate) surrounding methane molecules. This results in a crystalline lattice of methane-water ice, stable in the submarine subsurface environment. Such deposits are also found below land surface in the Arctic permafrost.

When conditions occur that disturb this methane ice (seismicity, warming, turbidity flows), the water cage decomposes rapidly, while the natural gas explosively sublimates. Into lower pressure areas the expanding methane essentially explodes toward the surface. Given some source of ignition though, a chemical explosion would occur where enough oxygen is present.

Watched a documentary on Bermuda triangle few days ago, seamed there are lots of lightning strikes in the area. What if massive lightning that strikes the sea/gulf stream brought massive amount of electrons that could not dissipate immediately. You have the gulf stream moving at 5 knots northwards, slow, but as a whole the pool of water could still constitute a massive charge. Can we apply the Right Hand Rule, i.e. a magnetic field generated? If so, the magnetic field and force could possibly be strong enough to wrack havoc.

Ok I have a theory. It's a little out there but here me out. Ok our government is very secretive and look at all of the things that have disappeared, almost 80 percent of them were either military ships or military aircraft. most people overlook that fact or say that it is coincidence but I think differently. Look at all of the things that our government hides from us, like for instance Area 51. There are many theories about it but no civilian has ever entered the facility. I believe that the government knows more about the Bermuda triangle than they tell us. It could be many things. It could be a worm hole or a portal. It could be a place where an alien race has settled or it could be a secret military base under or above water that contains things that could either cause panic or chaos in everyday life. The fact that all devices go crazy could be something as simple as a magnetic cloaking device to help conceal whatever is hidden. Call me crazy but think about it. The government gets away with anything even killing people. What makes you think they won't kill to protect something that secretive and important to them. What if they have made contact with another race?

What if they found some type of ancient portal. They have found pieces of the ancient city of Atlantis near the Bermuda triangle. I think the theories of the Sargasso sea and the electronic fog and the methane pockets are all cover ups framed by the government. I know this all sounds pretty off the wall but it's just a thought from myself after years of research. The only way to truly find out is a very simple answer involving a little hi tech technology. Build a vessel such as a boat with cameras, microphones and recording devices and send the ship into the triangle while anchoring it to a secondary vessel strong enough to pull the venturing vessel back to its original starting location. It may not work but it's worth a shot. Now if an average C student can come up with ideas like this how come our government and the scientist who work for our government haven't tried this or thought of it? That is something for you to think about. Well that's about all I have for now, if I get any other ideas, facts or thoughts on the great mystery of The Bermuda Triangle, I will be sure to post but until then thank you for your time and thank you for reading my article.

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Last Updated: March 29, 2017 Bermuda Triangle Theories Howard, an expert on Bermuda Triangle, claims that more than 50 ships and 20 planes have disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle over the last century itself, and up to 1000 over the past 500 years. So how did the planes and ships disappear?

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Summary & Analysis
The first website I chose is https://www.history.com/topics/bermuda-triangle. It provides information as to why the Bermuda Triangle has become such a well-known region; including Christopher Columbus writing about strange phenomenon occurring in this region during his own travels, and William Shakespeare perhaps basing "The Tempest" off of a real-life Bermuda shipwreck. This source claims it is most likely that the Bermuda Triangle mysteries cannot be solved with a single theory. This source relates to the "Appeal to Authority" red flag, as I chose this website believing the History Channel website would be a reliable and credible source of information.

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Bermuda Triangle - Facts & Summary - HISTORY.com

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Find out more about the history of Bermuda Triangle, including videos, interesting articles, pictures, historical features and more. Get all the facts on HISTORY.com

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Assignment 2 - The Mysteries of the Bermuda Triangle 

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Assignment 2 - The Mysteries of the Bermuda Triangle 

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Made by Nicole Russell (Post 1)

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Post 4- Video #3: What Makes Compasses Go Haywire In The Bermuda Triangle?

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Post 4- Video #3: What Makes Compasses Go Haywire In The Bermuda Triangle?

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Summary & Analysis
Below is a video explaining a strange phenomenon that occurs to marine archaeologists when travelling around Bermuda island. Compasses often malfunction when travelling this area, which is believed to be caused by tonnes of naturally-occurring magnetic materials surrounding Bermuda. This video relates to the "confusion of correlation with causation" red flag, as it has not yet been proven that the materials surrounding the island could cause such malfunctions, but these researchers believe it to be true.

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What Makes Compasses Go Haywire In The Bermuda Triangle?

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Post 3- Video #2: 2017 Bermuda Triangle Disappearance 

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Post 3- Video #2: 2017 Bermuda Triangle Disappearance 

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Summary & Analysis
Attached is a video detailing one of the more recent disappearances that has occurred within the Bermuda Triangle. A plane carrying 4 passengers crashed into the Atlantic about 15 miles off the coast of the Island of Eleuthera; debris from the plane was recovered, but no survivors. This video relates to the Emotional Connection reason for belief, as emotions can interfere with our rational thought processes and this is an emotional story involving the disappearance of 4 people, including 2 children.

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Small Plane Disappears In Bermuda Triangle With Family Aboard | TODAY

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Post 2- Video #1: What Actually Happens in the Bermuda Triangle 

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Post 2- Video #1: What Actually Happens in the Bermuda Triangle 

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Summary & Analysis
Below is a video explaining some of the mysterious disappearances that have taken pace within the Bermuda Triangle. One of the more outlandish theories claims that this area of the Atlantic is paranormal or cursed. This theory connects to the Red Flag "Simplicity"; people scratch up strange circumstances to something relatively simple on its surface, rather than look at scientific evidence, research, or other proof to support their claim.

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What Actually Happens in the Bermuda Triangle