All language subtitles for Get.factual - Secrets of the Bermuda Triangle_ Beyond Myths and Legends _ Full Documentary (720p).English

(narrator) The Bermuda Triangle,
an ocean full of secrets.

It's something which even in this world
of science, we cannot fully explain.

Ships disappear without trace.

There's a shipwreck there, and there,
and there. That's just strange.

Airplanes mysteriously go missing.

(man over radio) Mayday, Mayday.
We can see a strange object in our course.

(narrator) Stories of sea monsters
and strange sightings.

When I entered the tunnel
these strange lines instantly formed.

The Bermuda Triangle.
What's really going on there?

The great myths of mankind.

Mysteries passed on
over thousands of years.

Inexplicable events,

places shrouded in legend,
and superhuman heroes:

even scientists are fascinated.

Is there any truth
to these ancient legends?

Researchers across the globe
are working hard to solve

the greatest mysteries of our time.

(mysterious melody)

Bruce Gernon contributed a lot
to the myth of the Bermuda Triangle.

To this day he cannot explain

what happened to the US pilot
almost 50 years ago.

On December 4, 1970,

my father and I were
in Andros Island in the Bahamas.

We were leaving in the morning to return
to Palm Beach International Airport.

Bruce, who was 29 at the time,
and his father often take this route.

(engine starts)

Perfect visibility. No wind.

The two men don't have
any idea of what's to come.

(Gernon) When I lifted off, I looked at
my watch and I remember the second hand

actually struck 12
and it was exactly three o'clock.

In his Beechcraft Bonanza A36,
Bruce takes off from Andros,

the largest archipelago in the Bahamas,

where he is headed northwest
via Bimini to Palm Beach.

The flight is supposed to take 80 minutes.
ETA: 4.20pm.

(Gernon) I reached the shoreline
of Andros in ten minutes.

And I could see that the storms weren't
over the ocean of the Great Bahama Bank,

so that looked good.

A sense of deception.

Then we noticed this strange cloud
right in front of our flightpath.

(man over radio)
What is that in front of us?

It was about a mile long,

half mile wide,
and about a thousand feet thick.

Clouds like this are extremely
unusual at such low altitudes.

Bruce pulls back
the control wheel to veer.

So, we went ahead and climbed up over it.

150 meters above the clouds, they lull
themselves into a sense of security.

I didn't realize that

this small, lenticular-shaped cloud

had expanded tremendously
and it was right below our airplane.

I kept climbing.
I'm on a direct flight to Bimini now.

I'm at, say, 5,000.

I'm inside the cloud
and then I break free.

And I get maybe 200 feet above it

and then the airplane wasn't climbing
fast enough and I go back inside it.

Bruce climbs higher to escape
the surprising weather conditions.

When we got to 10,000 feet, that's about
five times I'd gone in and out of it...

and my dad said to me,

"We better turn around
and go back to Andros."

With over 600 flight hours under his belt,

Bruce had never experienced
anything like this: a force of nature.

(Gernon) Visibility inside
the storm was only maybe 50 feet.

We thought maybe we could keep going
until these flashes start to appear.

The deeper we went,
the more intense these flashes became

and it almost got
to the point where it was... pure black.

My dad was the expert navigator,
so I asked him for a position fix.

-(Dad) Something's up.
-(Gernon) He goes, "Somethings up."

-(Dad) I don't know where we are.
-He didn't know where we were.

Then I noticed the magnetic compass
was slowly spinning all by itself.

What happened to Bruce Gernon that day?

What forces are at play
in the Bermuda Triangle?

The Bermuda Triangle myth is special
because it's a modern myth,

which even in this world of science

cannot be explained
and therefore we are curious about it.

It's is not the first report of this kind.

Charles Lindbergh,
the legendary transatlantic aviator,

experienced something similar.

On February 13, 1928,
he takes off on a non-stop flight

from Havana, Cuba,
to his home, St. Louis, Missouri.

In his logbook, Lindbergh notes:

"Both compasses
malfunctioned over Florida Strait.

"The liquid compass card
rotated without stopping.

"Could recognize no stars
through heavy haze.

"Liquid compass card kept rotating
until the Spirit of St. Louis

"reached the Florida coast."

So we know the compass
spun around uncontrollably.

He wasn't able
to navigate by the stars

and when he finally found out
where he was, he was 300 miles off course

near Bahama Island.

It's the same mysterious phenomenon
Gernon would describe 40 years later.

The waters between Florida, Puerto Rico,
and the Bermuda Islands

have been shrouded
in legend for centuries.

In 1492, Christopher Columbus was
the first European to cross this sea area

with a surface of 1.3 million
square kilometers.

He reports of strange natural occurrences,
and unusual light phenomena.

Christopher Columbus
certainly saw a strange light.

With our understanding of science,
we can say perhaps it was a meteorite,

perhaps bioluminescence from fish.

But Columbus didn't have that knowledge.

To him, it certainly was a mystery.

In the following centuries,
many Spanish and Portuguese ships,

often laden with gold, go missing.

In the 19th century, the number of reports
about ships disappearing skyrockets.

Later, these reports
also include airplanes.

Sailors call the region the Devil's
Triangle or the Graveyard of the Atlantic.

It was not until
the second half of the 20th century

that the waters north of the Caribbean,

between Miami, Puerto Rico,
and the Bermuda archipelago

were famously dubbed the Bermuda Triangle.

Over the last 100 years,
more than 50 ships and 20 airplanes

are said to have vanished here
without a trace.

The exact numbers are a matter of debate.

The Bermuda Triangle
is a mystery,

because of the scale of
the stories associated with it.

A thousand lives have vanished
in mysterious circumstances,

and many questions remain unanswered.

The Bermuda Islands.

This is where the myth begins.

Philippe Rouja knows
the underwater world like no other.

The archaeologist is in charge
of the observation and conservation

of historic shipwreck sites
surrounding the islands.

(Rouja) We think
of shipwrecks romantically today,

but a shipwreck is a tragedy.

Some of which we know
a lot about, some very little.

And there are still many more to discover.

Finding shipwrecks, mapping sites,
and analyzing remains:

For over 16 years, Philippe Rouja
has been studying sunken ships.

(Rouja) Every shipwreck is a mystery.

For all the ones we know about in Bermuda,
there's another hundred we haven't found.

Along busy sea routes, it's not uncommon
to have areas with many shipwrecks.

Oftentimes dozens of wrecks
are found next to each other.

But there's no place in the world

with as many shipwrecks per
square kilometer as the Bermuda region.

Experts know of more than
100 sunken ships that have been plotted,

but believe there could be more than 300.

You can see
we're in the middle of nowhere.

There's a shipwreck there.
There's one there.

There's another one there.
And that's just kind of strange.

Today, Philippe Rouja and his team
are exploring two well-known wrecks.

You never really get
a full picture of what's down there.

And when you dive on a day like this,

when the water is clear and calm,
that's special.

About eight kilometers off the coast,
Philippe prepares for his dive.

His research helps scientists
gain insights

into the causes of the naval accidents.

Ten meters down: the Montana,
a wreck dating back to the Civil War era.

The ship carried weapons
for the Confederates.

(Rouja) There is
a concentration of ships here.

That speaks to something
about Bermuda that's quite curious.

Directly nearby are the remains
of the Constellation, a 1940s cargo ship,

transporting cement bags.

Today, they serve as an artificial reef,
and are a breeding place for fish.

(Rouja) If there is a mystery, it's why
does everything happen in the same spots?

The large coral reef
surrounding the archipelago

provides a very natural explanation.

It's easy to make out from
the air, but not from the water.

Since the 17th century, a busy trade route
has brought thousands of ships to Bermuda.

During this time, seafarers
saw the island as a landmark,

or used it as a stop-over
on their way to the New World.

A dangerous waterway.

(Rouja) What makes Bermuda's reef
dangerous is what we call breakers.

They come up to the surface, but on a day
like this, they sit just below.

By the time you see it,
you're hitting the reef.

Hundreds of ships were likely doomed
by the razor-sharp reefs.

But this doesn't explain why there are
also ships that sank far off the reef.

(Rouja) The main question
about the triangle is what is the mystery?

The mystery here is solved.
We know what happened.

But there are many others where we don't.

The USS Cyclops
is one of the unresolved cases.

March 3, 1918.
World War I continues to rage on.

It's the last time
the large US Navy supply vessel is seen:

in the harbor
of the Caribbean island of Barbados.

The collier is carrying
10,000 tons of manganese ore

to be used in munition manufactories
along the US east coast.

More than
300 crew and passengers are on board.

In the evening hours, the Cyclops weighs
anchor and disappears into the night.

She will never reach her port
of destination, Baltimore.

To this day, there is still no trace

of what was once
the US Navy's largest ship and crew.

No radio messages.

No distress signals.

No signs of life.

The USS Cyclops became important,

because she was such a big ship
and she was also a new ship.

Because of this
the real mystery was: where did she go?

Over 100 years later,
author Marvin Barrash

is still intrigued by the disaster,
not least for personal reasons.

I remember when I was a young boy

my father used to tell me about his uncle

who was lost
on a Navy ship in the First World War.

So I began to get
into family history research.

I started peeling back
the layers of the onion

and started finding a lot more
then I ever thought I would.

What happened to the USS Cyclops?

Construction plans,
freight reports, pictures.

Marvin Barrash collects
any piece of information he can find.

Following the war,
the US Navy published a document

listing all the ships that were lost.

The Cyclops was the only ship
that right across the page

was listed as "mysteriously disappeared."

In their official report,
the US Navy concludes:

"There has been no more baffling mystery
in the annals of the Navy

than the disappearance of the USS Cyclops.

It seems unlikely that the ship
was sunk by German submarines.

The disappearance of
the USS Cyclops makes headlines.

How can a ship this massive
simply vanish into thin air?

Part of the fame to do with the event
was also associated with the war.

There was a great deal

of fear over what the Germans
might be doing with their U-boats.

The Cyclops was not in waters
that should have been fought over,

but perhaps the Germans
were operating U-boats there.

There's fear associated with the war
which made this myth powerful.

Suddenly, everyone starts talking
about the insidious waters.

Rumors linked German saboteurs,
supernatural forces,

and even giant sea monsters
to its disappearance.

Marvin Barrash is convinced
there's a much simpler explanation

for the fate of the Cyclops.

The main business
of the USS Cyclops was this: coal.

Tons of this coal.

On the final voyage the business
was a lot heavier: manganese.

Lifting the two side by side,

this is like a feather, this is business.

10,000 tons of manganese ore in the hold

and the freight report reveals they had
exceeded this amount by over 85 tons.

The ship was well documented
as having a stability issue.

You have a lot of cargo on board

that nobody had experience with.

And was it loaded correctly?

Did the people that loaded the cargo
take into consideration the balance?

It's just like a formula for a disaster.
They're just waiting for the right time.

The ship's structural engineering
was probably not the only problem.

Marvin Barrash has discovered
another lead in the documents.

(Barrash) The USS Cyclops had two engines,
a port and starboard engine.

The starboard engine broke.

This is probably a significant factor
as to why the ship was lost.

Not having the power maybe to fight off
storms or other sea conditions.

(thunderclap)

During hurricane season,
the Bermuda Triangle is often subject

to major weather changes, dangerous
for even the most experienced seafarers.

There is this US Weather Bureau chart
that indicates

that there is a large weather system
on the east coast of the United States

that could have indeed traveled
with this large low system

into the area
where the Cyclops was on her way home.

So, weather was probably
a major factor in her disappearance.

But if the Cyclops were in distress,
why didn't she call for help?

And why has no wreckage been found?

I suspect a rogue wave.

The type of thing
that would not have been anticipated.

Without warning, no time to prepare.

And I suspect likely at night.

Could one single, huge wave
really swallow a mighty cargo vessel?

For centuries, sailors spoke
about waves as high as mountains,

coming out of nowhere,
dragging ships under.

For a long time,
their reports were dismissed

as being nothing
more than a sailor's yarn.

But today's scientists
are sure they exist.

Waves up to 30 meters high, known to
seafarers as rogue or monster waves.

Big fish and big wave myths have been told
for as long as humans have been at sea.

Scientists have long wanted to dismiss
the possibility of these gargantuan waves

that are talked about at fishing ports.

But recent science has confirmed
the existence of these rogue waves.

The Coastal Research Center
in Hannover, Germany.

Here, scientists take a closer look at
the destructive power of the rogue waves

from inside a wave channel,
310 meters long, the largest of its kind.

(in German)

(dubbed in English) I wanted to see
which one's the right wave length

when placing the boat in the water.

Can one single wave sink
a large ship like the USS Cyclops,

or even a modern container ship?

When you make short waves,
the boat would respond similarly:

plunge into the trough of the wave.

Stefan hopes an experiment
will lead to answers.

(in German)

(dubbed in English) Our wave machine
can produce any wave,

like single waves to simulate tsunamis,

or rogue waves, as in this case.

Monster waves develop when several swells
of different lengths overlap.

Long waves travel faster
and can overtake shorter waves.

As the wave heights combine,
they become a rogue wave.

Rogue waves can occur very suddenly.

This means they can basically form
at any place, at any time, by pure chance.

And they vanish
just as rapidly as they came.

Using a model ship, the researchers
demonstrate the impact of a rogue wave.

The team simulates rough sea conditions,
using the hydraulic wave machine.

While the waves cause the ship to bob
up and down, it's not in any danger yet.

The waves were 40cm high.

In nature, this would equal
a wave height of 12 meters.

That's quite a storm.

Now, they will conduct
the rogue wave test.

Monster waves are defined
as being extremely high

and extremely short at the same time.

Matthias, you can start the wave now.

OK, wave coming up.

Within seconds,
a deadly wall of water has built up.

By the time the ship's crew have spotted
the wave, it's already too late.

What we could see here was how the ship

first got sucked into that deep trough
preceding the wave...

and then it got pushed up...

after essentially being capsized
by the wave crashing down.

The crew had no chance
to send out a distress signal.

If this had happened in real life,

there probably
wouldn't have been any survivors.

Did the USS Cyclops fall victim
to a similar rogue wave?

The sunken ship falls into oblivion.

But in 1941, during World War II,

the sister ships of the USS Cyclops,
Proteus and Nereus, disappear.

Both were carrying ore.

Wild speculations are spreading.
Newspapers talk about the "sea of doom."

Experts disagree on what
happened to the two sister ships.

One thing is certain:

The freighters' design made them
potentially dangerous

for the crew at rough sea anywhere,
not just in the Bermuda Triangle.

Just four years later,

yet another tragedy draws
public attention to the mysterious waters.

An entire squadron disappears,
for no apparent reason.

Around noon on December 5, 1945...

five US torpedo bombers
take off from their base in Florida.

The weather is good.

It's a routine training flight.

Targeted bombing and navigating
above open water.

Halfway into it, the flight leader
reports difficulties with his compass.

(radio crackles)

The pilots lose orientation.

Soon after, their radio transmissions end.

(radio crackles drown out voices)

To this day, all 14 crew members
and their bombers have yet to be found.

Flight 19 became so famous,

because it wasn't just one plane or ship,

it was five planes.

It was an entire squadron
who were never found.

Sylvia Wrigley, pilot and author,

investigates
the mysterious disappearance of Flight 19.

Back in the 1940s, navigating a plane was
much more of a challenge than it is today.

We can see all the instruments here
that they were looking at.

You got the compass up top.

You've then got the directional indicator,
which you set in line with your compass.

You've got a clock there
that you use to time each leg.

You can see
your indicated air speed,

so you are using
the time that you're flying

and the speed
that you're flying

and you multiply them to get the distance.

and that's how you work out your location.

Berlin. Sylvia Wrigley sets out to
re-enact the military training operation

using a flight simulator.

Foxtrot Tango 28 departing.

We are now departing from Fort Lauderdale,
heading straight to the east.

We'll just take-off

and start climbing.

Flaps up.

Now we are heading
straight out over the Atlantic.

Because we're in an Airbus A320,

I'm able to set the power
to go automatically

and the autopilot on and the autopilot
is now doing almost everything for me.

If you were in a 1940s plane,
you would have none of this.

You are flying by dead reckoning.

Wrigley turns off
the electronic instruments

to simulate the squadron's
flight conditions 75 years ago.

There's all these alarms going off
and tones and I have lost my map.

OK, the pilots of the flight
also didn't have a map

or the different gadgets
that we've turned off here.

So this is similar
to the situation they were in,

but they were probably
better than I am at it.

Flight 19 got in trouble
when the compass stopped working,

and then the weather deteriorated, too.

Wrigley simulates the situation.

The wind is worsening, so a magnetic
compass bounces around.

It's not easy to use.

Even with that still working,

it would be hard to know whether
I was going due north or not.

If I'm worried my compass
isn't working it's nerve-wracking.

At this point,
I have no idea where we are.

The brewing storm makes it impossible
for the pilots of Flight 19

to know where they're going.

The sun is setting,
so I'm hoping that that is west,

but because of this weather it's difficult
to really feel confident about that

and it's just impossible
to really know where I am.

The machines have been up for four hours.

They're running out of fuel.
There's no land in sight.

Sylvia Wrigley ends up
in the same situation.

-(beeping)
-I'm out of fuel. I can't climb.

All I can do is try to come down gently,

but there are high waves
and a thunderstorm.

There's no way I'll land on this water.
I'd freeze to death.

I crashed.

That was so realistic, it was frightening.

I am so relieved
that this is a simulation.

I never want to have to go
through that in real life.

This was such a high stress situation,

using every bit of my mental power
just to try and keep a plane in the air.

How much worse,
when you know not only your life,

but the life of 14 people are dependent on
you making the right decision right now.

Navy flying boats try
to localize the missing squadron.

After searching for hours, they give up.

One of the machines calls
in a radio message.

Moments later,
it disappears without a trace.

The 14 young men of Flight 19
and their bombers are missing to this day.

Sylvia Wrigley has a theory
on what exactly happened.

A fateful decision by flight leader
Charles Taylor may have caused the men

to fly further and further out to sea.

(Wrigley)
The Navy investigation is very useful.

So, we've got
the original transcript here.

We have exactly what Foxtrot Tango 28

said whilst in the air
to his other pilots.

He is continuously modifying
the instructions for the squadron

to head towards the east,

when the entire time
they needed to go west.

As they run out of fuel,
the pilots are left with one option:

an emergency landing on the water.

At rough sea, this is a death sentence.

No wreckage from Flight 19
has ever been found.

(in German)

(dubbed in English) Even today we don't
always find plane wreckages.

There are explanations for this,
such as they've sunk down to the sea bed

and been covered by sand,

or they have broken to small pieces that
can no longer be identified as wreckage.

But there are
unanswered questions to this day.

Why did the flight leader
become so disoriented?

And why didn't his compass work?

There are only a few true mysteries that
are connected to the Bermuda Triangle.

Flight 19 is absolutely one of them.

I find it amazing that with so many
people interested with the...

the mystery that started
the Bermuda Triangle

and from which so many
of our Bermuda Triangle myths are created

that we don't know what happened,
and there's no way to find out.

And I find that bewildering,
but also fascinating.

The report from the Navy's
final investigation states:

"The disappearance of Flight 19
is one of the greatest mysteries

of the Bermuda Triangle."

A legend is born.

Flight 19 is a powerful part of the myth,

partly because it was
the loss of a group of young men,

who mythically become heroes.

They are the main characters in this saga.

As a consequence, they have huge power.

Hollywood capitalizes on the story.

Author Charles Berlitz
writes a bestseller.

The whole world is captivated
by the enigmatic events

taking place in the "sea of doom."

The Bermuda Triangle
first became popular

when American Charles Berlitz
wrote a book in the 1970s.

Some 20 million copies were sold.
It was translated into 30 languages.

He identified
a number of alleged incidents

which happened in the Bermuda Triangle.

The problem was, however, that a lot
of Charles Berlitz's evidence was wrong.

And indeed, many of
Charles Berlitz's examples are fake news.

Statistics show there are
as many accidents in the Bermuda Triangle

as in any other
highly frequented maritime area.

But the myth takes on a life of its own.

Soon, rumors spread, saying aliens

or the crystal energy
from the lost city of Atlantis

are responsible for
the sinking of countless planes and ships.

Many people don't want to believe
in a world without miracles,

because this means that it's a world
without soul or free will.

And so we project our desire
for there to be a soul or free will

onto a desire for there to be
miracles and odd events.

If this strange stuff can't happen there,
maybe it can't happen anywhere.

But the compass anomalies experienced
in the Bermuda Triangle are not a myth.

They're real.

But what causes these interferences?

For decades, scientists were
in the dark about this.

Today, they've found
a plausible explanation

at the bottom of the sea.

The Bermuda Islands are
the remnants of an ancient volcano

that formed more than
30 million years ago.

Witnesses of an apocalyptic moment
in the history of our planet.

Nick Hutchings explores this region.

If we were standing at this exact spot
33 million years ago,

we would be under
3,000 feet of lava.

This was a big
volcanic island then.

Over millions of years, the volcanic rock
is eroded by wind and weather

and washed into the sea.

It probably took 19 million years
to erode away down to nothing,

down to sea level.

Most of that
is now spread out around Bermuda.

Today, a layer of lava sand
150 meters thick

covers the ocean floor around the islands.

Hutchings believes the volcanic floor
could explain some of the phenomena

observed in the Bermuda Triangle.

You can see clearly here, this black sand.

This is the volcanic remains
of the old volcanic island.

This is really the only place
we can see this up on dry land.

The rest is washed
into the sea and is in a big layer.

And in that layer is
about 500 billion tons of magnetite.

And magnetite is the most magnetic
naturally-occurring mineral on Earth.

With the magnetite
in these heavy minerals here,

this is enough to affect a compass.

Just this little bit here.

And as you can see,
as we move the compass over here...

it moves.

It's not a lot, three or four degrees,

but enough
to cause a disaster.

You can imagine what
500 billion tons might do.

Official nautical charts warn seafarers
of compass anomalies

with deviations of up to 14 degrees.

Essentially Bermuda is a huge magnet
sitting in the middle of the ocean.

Conventional compasses have been known

to suddenly point
in a different direction.

This can cause ships and planes to go
off course or accidently fly into storms.

This likely explains many disasters.

Yet the myth
of the Bermuda Triangle lives on.

For some, it's more
about believing than knowing.

The Bermuda Triangle myth persists partly
because scientists haven't explained

what happens in the triangle,

so it's fulfilling
the function of all myths

and that is to explain the inexplicable.

Like the experience
of Bruce Gernon and his dad,

on their flight from the Bahamas
to Palm Beach on December 4, 1970.

At 3,500 meters altitude, the aircraft is
suddenly surrounded by a mysterious cloud.

And then I see this horizontal tunnel.

I thought it would
be the only way

to escape the inside
of the storm.

When I entered the tunnel
these strange lines instantly formed.

And then I noticed the lines were slowly
rotating counterclockwise

and went all the way
to the other end of the tunnel.

The navigational instruments
weren't working.

Even the compass
was slowly spinning all by itself.

The plane disappears
from air traffic control radars.

Miami Radio couldn't find our location,
so my dad got on the radio and he said:

"What do you mean
you can't find our location?"

He started cussing the guy,
something he's never done before.

Trying to get out of the tunnel, Bruce
pushes the 300 HP machine to its limits.

When I looked back
after we got out of the tunnel...

I watched it collapse right behind us

And at the same time,

I felt this incredible sensation
of zero gravity...

combined with the feeling of hydroplaning,

like skidding forward at zero gravity.

The air traffic controller comes back
on the radio and he's really excited.

And he says he's got an airplane
directly over Miami Beach.

I look at my watch and I've been
flying just over 33 minutes.

I told him, "No, that's not us."

Then my eyes started to focus.

I look below and there's Miami Beach
right below us and we're at 10,000 feet.

Once Gernon reaches Palm Beach
as planned and checks the time,

he realizes that only 47 minutes
have passed since take-off.

I'd made that identical flight
at least a dozen times on a direct course.

It took an hour and 20 minutes.

This was an indirect course,
maybe 50 miles longer,

and it took only 47 minutes.

I didn't understand what had happened,

but I realized
that something amazing had happened.

Bruce Gernon believes he got
sucked into a time tunnel.

To this day, there is still no evidence
corroborating his theory.

But he's not the only one who believes
in mysterious, unknown forces.

Gian Quasar has investigated
mysterious events in the Bermuda Triangle

for over 30 years.

He was the first to systematically study
the accident reports

of the US Transportation Safety Board.

This is the entire
computer database printout

at the National Transportation
Safety Board from 30 years ago

when I made a request for them
to give me a database search

of all aircraft listed
as missing or not recovered.

Nowadays, the records are
available in digital form.

The database lists every incident that
took place in US air space since 1964.

What's important is to compare cases

and data over
a long period of time,

instead of just one incident
and speculating on it.

I discovered aircraft that had vanished
while coming in for landing on radar,

that had eyewitnesses
and vanished close to shore,

that vanished over
shallow water and left no wreckage.

Quasar claims he has identified
75 mysterious events in the database

that happened in the Bermuda Triangle.

It's not subjective,
like sighting Big Foot

or flying saucers or the Lochness Monster.

These were real aircraft and real ships.

They're in the records. People were
aboard them, and they vanished.

Like Flight NH3808, a light-sport aircraft
flown by Maldonado Torres

and his friend José Pagán Santos.

One of the most interesting cases
is the documented case

of the encounter with a UFO.

This one was on June 28, 1980.

This was an Ercoupe,
a twin engine, small light aircraft

owned by the passenger's father.

That's the passenger.

The aircraft is presumed ditched
at sea and both occupants deceased.

And the transcript
was completely preserved.

And here it is.

Quasar has the radio messages.

(man) Mayday, Mayday.

We can see a strange object in our course.

We are lost, Mayday, Mayday.

This is José Maldonado Torres
and Pagán Santos' last words

as they transposed into mystery.

This is the mayday
he sent off Puerto Rico.

(radio crackles)

June 28, 1980. The two men are on
their way from Santo Domingo to San Juan

in a small sports aircraft

when they suddenly see
an unidentified flying object.

(man on radio)

The pilot tries repeatedly to get away
from the object, but to no avail.

(man on radio) Mayday, mayday,
this is Ercoupe three eight zero.

You're listening
to a man die basically....

Or rather transpose into mystery.

(man on radio)

(narrator) It's the last time
anyone heard from the men.

After that message,
their aircraft vanishes from the radar.

Nobody knows what the two men encountered.

The ultimate fate of flight NH3808
remains unknown to this day.

Time and again,
reports and videos surface,

allegedly documenting
similar encounters with UFOs.

An amateur video, taken on a cruise ship
in the Bermuda Triangle in 2009.

(man on recording) Two UFOs on the...
Damn, what ship are we on?

-(woman on recording) Carnival Sensation.
-(man) What's the date?

-(woman) Today is October 1.
-(man) October 1, 2009.

Two UFOs, one of them
moving to the left. Look, come here.

The left one is moving. Are you watching?

(inaudible)

There is a helicopter, there is
an airplane in the cloud up to the right.

For perspective, to see how low they are.

Look at the right one. It disappeared.

It's very commonplace
what they are reporting.

Lights floating on the horizon.

He mentions that they're pacing the ship.

(man on video) Look at the one
on the right moving. It disappeared.

The one on the left is still here.

(woman on video) Oh my God.

It's impossible to prove
the authenticity of the footage,

just as it remains unclear
what it really shows.

But to Quasar, online findings
like this support his theories.

They put this up on YouTube,

and so it, er, seems authentic.

It's reporting things
that are commonly known.

It's reported
since the earliest UFO investigations

that when aircraft approach these,
they'll wink out or zip away.

That's the case here.

An aircraft is approaching
on the right of the screen

and then the one closest to it zips out.

Ufologists like Quasar can now even
refer to official US government releases.

(man on recording) Echo, six, one...

(pilot) Oh golly!

(narrator) The US Navy has declassified
footage supposedly documenting encounters

between UFOs and their fighter jets.

(pilot on video) Oh my gosh, dude.
Wow, what is that, man?

Look at it fly. (he laughs)

Remarkably, the Pentagon
released the footage of all this.

Another sighting that the Pentagon
is refreshingly admitting to.

People have tried to explain
UFO sightings like these.

Theories range from
weather balloons, to hang gliders,

and secret weapon systems.

Gian Quasar doesn't have a logical
explanation for the events either.

But he doesn't believe
in "little green men."

Ships and planes do vanish
and that obviously has a cause.

So if you uncover real mystery,
it should be considered more unnerving,

because there's a real cause
behind it to deal with.

A dark cloud, malfunctioning instruments,

and a mysterious time tunnel.

Now, Bruce Gernon thinks
he knows what happened to him

50 years ago above the Bermuda Triangle.

It took me 30 years of researching this

thinking about it every day

before I finally came up with the theory:

that this fog, and I call it
electronic fog, connects to the aircraft.

If it attaches to you, you can...

become disorientated and it can induce
spatial disorientation into your mind.

A theory without evidence.

But Gernon is convinced
it will be proven one day.

It's been tough sometimes
when people try to debunk me.

But I'm always willing to talk to anybody
that wants to challenge me about it,

because I know exactly what happened.

So this is an incredible
event that happened.

It's going
to take incredible proof to prove it.

I know it'll be proven in the future.

It may be another 50 years or so.

The Bermuda Triangle,
a place for speculation of every kind.

The Bermuda Triangle doesn't stand out
statistically, but in our imaginations.

It becomes a place
where we project whatever our myth is.

If you're myth is
everything's explainable,

you project that on the Bermuda Triangle.

If your myth is aliens or Atlantis,

that also will be what you project
onto the Bermuda Triangle.

Whether it's a dark force,
or a force of nature,

paranormal activity, or physical forces,

people won't stop trying to solve
the mysteries of the Bermuda Triangle,

and the myth is sure to be the subject

of wild speculations
and extraordinary theories

in the years to come.

Subtitles:
EUROTAPE - Nordkurier Mediengruppe - 2020