{"id":332607,"date":"2025-12-06T23:25:53","date_gmt":"2025-12-06T23:25:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/american-history\/americanstudies-december-5-2025-urban-legends-the-bermuda-triangle\/"},"modified":"2025-12-06T23:25:53","modified_gmt":"2025-12-06T23:25:53","slug":"americanstudies-december-5-2025-urban-legends-the-bermuda-triangle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=332607","title":{"rendered":"AmericanStudies: December 5, 2025: Urban Legends: The Bermuda Triangle"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

\n

[On December 5th<\/sup>,
\n1945<\/a>, five naval jets disappeared over the
\nBermuda Triangle<\/a>, helping establish an urban legend that has endured to this day<\/a>. So this
\nweek I\u2019ll AmericanStudy five such urban legends, leading up to a crowd-sourced
\nweekend post!]<\/p>\n

On how an
\nurban legend develops, how it gets challenged, and what it tells us about the
\nhuman power of such legends nonetheless.<\/span><\/p>\n

The five naval
\njets known collectively as Flight 19 may have disappeared in 1945, but the
\nlegend of the Bermuda Triangle really began to develop with Edward Van Winkle Jones\u2019s
\n1950
\nMiami Herald<\/i> article<\/a> \u201cSame Big World: Sea\u2019s Puzzles Still Baffle Men
\nin Pushbutton age.\u201d Or maybe it was two years later\u2014Jones charted a number of
\nsuch mysteries in his article, while George X. Sand devoted his entire
\n1952 Fate<\/i> magazine article<\/span><\/a><\/span> \u201cSea Mystery at Our Back Door\u201d
\nto the Bermuda Triangle specifically. Or maybe the legend really took off with
\nAllen W. Eckert\u2019s 1962
\nAmerican Legion Magazine <\/i>article<\/a> \u201cThe Mystery of the Lost Patrol\u201d;
\nor with Vincent Gaddis\u2019s 1964
\nArgosy<\/i> magazine article<\/a> \u201cThe Deadly Bermuda Triangle,\u201d which Gaddis
\nexpanded into the book Invisible
\nHorizons: True Mysteries of the Sea<\/a><\/i> (1965). In truth, it was the
\ncumulative effect of these multiple stories and others across a couple decades
\nthat firmly established this mysterious region as an full-fledged urban legend,
\none that was still very much in force when I was growing up a couple decades
\nlater. <\/p>\n

Yet still in
\nforce doesn\u2019t mean unchallenged, and indeed one of the most extended and
\nsuccessful takedowns of the legend had been published two years before I was
\nborn. In 1975 Larry
\nKusche<\/a>, who as a research librarian and trained pilot was perfectly
\npositioned to challenge the legend, authored the book The Bermuda Triangle
\nMystery: Solved<\/a><\/i> (he would publish a follow-up, The
\nDisappearance of Flight 19<\/a><\/i>, five years later). What I really like about
\nKusche\u2019s work is that he took the legend seriously, not only overall but also
\nand especially in terms of the specific stories out of which it had been built\u2014and
\nthen thoroughly investigated the details and realities of those stories, as
\nwell as those (such as weather events) which had often been left out. For an
\nexample of overall challenges, Kusche found that the number of ships and
\naircraft reported missing in this area was not proportionally greater than anywhere
\nelse on the world\u2019s oceans; while for a specific challenge, he learned that a plane
\npurported to have disappeared in 1937 had really just
\ncrashed near Daytona Beach<\/a> in full view of witnesses. It seems difficult to
\nimagine anyone reading Kusche\u2019s work with an open mind and still giving unquestioning
\ncredence to this urban legend.<\/p>\n

But at the same
\ntime, I hope this whole weeklong series has illustrated not just the prevalence
\nand persistence of urban legends, but the power that they hold in our
\nimaginations. And for an excellent explanation of that power, I think we need
\nlook no further than both main phrases in the title of that first 1950 newspaper
\narticle from Edward Van Winkle Jones. \u201cStill Baffle Men in Pushbutton Age\u201d: who
\nwants to believe that our technological or scientific advancements can take all
\nmystery out of the world? And \u201cSame Big World\u201d: as various factors and trends
\nhave made the world feel smaller and more understandable, it remains crucially
\nimportant to recognize just how much of that world is still outside of our collective
\nunderstanding, with the oceans at the top of that list to be sure. That\u2019s a scary
\nproposition, especially for those who find themselves confronted with those mysteries
\n(as the pilots of Flight 19 seem to have been). But as someone who believes deeply
\nin the power of stories and imagination, it\u2019s also a comforting thing\u2014and a
\ngreat reason why we need, and hopefully will continue to create and propagate, our
\nurban legends.<\/p>\n

Crowd-sourced
\npost this weekend,<\/span><\/p>\n

Ben<\/span><\/p>\n

PS. So one
\nmore time: what do you think? Urban legends you\u2019d highlight for the weekend
\npost? <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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