Everyone knows about the mysterious disappearances of ships and aircraft in the Sargasso Sea. In 1964, the American journalist Vincent Gaddis called this anomalous place the Bermuda Triangle. In his article, he wrote about the disappearance of five torpedo bombers - link 19 - in the area in 1945. However, despite the fact that there are enough natural reasons in this place to complicate navigation (shoals, cyclones, storms), many unusual versions of what happened were put forward.
Disappearing
On December 5, 1945, at 14:10, five Evend-Ger torpedo bombers took off from the Fort Lauderdale airbase in Florida. In total, there were five officers and nine crew members on board. The flight was training, the pilots were experienced, the weather was flying, serious problems in the air were extremely rare. True, 15 people were supposed to fly, but one of them refused. As he later explained, because of a bad feeling.
The bombers were to fly to Chicken Shoala, located just north of the island of Bimini. According to calculations, the flight was supposed to last a couple of hours. The bombers were to drop bombs on the shallows and return to base.
Everything went according to plan, and at about 15:00 the planes, having completed the task, turned back. About 40 minutes later, the controllers heard the pilots talking. Flight Commander Taylor was trying to check the compasses. A little later, he himself reported to the base that the navigation devices were not working and his link was off course. The dispatcher advised him to navigate by the sun and return as soon as possible.
After a short time, Taylor again requested the base. He said he saw an island, but did not know which one. It was clear from his voice that he was extremely confused, like some newcomer. He turned on the emergency beacon and asked to determine its coordinates using radars. But the radars didn't "see" the plane. From the base, he was advised to transfer command to the aircraft on which the instruments worked. Captain Stever took command of the flight, but his voice on the air sounded hysterical and messages were incoherent. He also reported complete disorientation.
Taylor's last words, which the dispatchers heard on the air, were very strange. Apparently, because of them, anomalous versions appeared later: “Some object on the left. Vessel? We don't seem to see the sun. White water is everywhere. Heavy interference prevented the entire message from being heard.
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At 18:20, it went on air for the last time. The fuel was running out, and the commander ordered the bombers to descend. No one else heard Taylor.
Rescue operation
When it became clear that five bombers had disappeared, the search seaplane Martin Mariner was sent to search for them at 19:00, with 13 rescuers and all the necessary equipment on board. At 19:30, the commander of the rescue aircraft reported to the base that the wind was raging at an altitude of 1,800 m. Soon, this plane disappeared from radar, as did five bombers. At 20:00, a message was received from the captain of the ship, who was in the area of the alleged disaster. He reported that he saw a flash that looked like an explosion, but, heading to that place, found only an oil slick on the water. By the way, the plane that took off in search was called by the pilots a "flying tank" because of the constant leakage of fuel vapors from it and any spark could provoke an explosion.
The day after the sixth plane also disappeared, a large-scale search operation began. 300 military aircraft were lifted into the air. Destroyers, ships, boats, submarines were looking for the missing at sea.
For several days, the planes cruised over the sea at an altitude of 100 m. But not only did they not find the wreckage or the bodies of the dead - there were no signs of a disaster at all. The rescue operation had to be stopped.
Incredible
The commission set up to investigate could not explain the disappearance of six planes: "We cannot even give a rough estimate of what could have happened." The last time the pilots got in touch at about 17:00, and they were at that moment near Florida. According to calculations, the fuel in the tanks remained for another 2 hours. Why they could not get to land is unknown. Their route ran parallel to Florida. It's strange that they didn't see the coastline. If the planes turned north, they would soon find themselves in the Charleston area, with the Bahamas to the south. The fuel reserves would be enough to reach any of these places. But if they flew east, to Bermuda, they would hardly have reached them in 2 hours.
Over time, this mystical disappearance began to grow into various incredible speculations. It was rumored that after 2 hours, when the aircraft tanks were already empty, Taylor's callsigns were still heard on the air. Moreover, they gradually calmed down, as if the object was moving away.
In 1964, with the light hand of Vincent Gaddis, the topic of the Bermuda Triangle, in which planes and ships too often disappeared under mysterious circumstances, began to be actively discussed in society. 10 years later, in the wake of the popularity of this topic, a version arose about the abduction of pilots by aliens. Allegedly, a certain radio amateur heard Taylor's conversations with the pilots before the connection was lost. Taylor said a strange phrase: “Don't follow me. They look like aliens. " By the way, this version formed the basis of the plot of the film by Steven Spielberg "Close Encounters of the Third Degree". True, in the film everything ended differently, the aliens returned the pilots to Earth. In general, considering that the events took place in 19 * 15, it is unlikely that Taylor could use the word "aliens" - he would rather say "Martians".
There is another pseudo-scientific version, according to which the planes fell into a hole that bends time or space. And again, as arguments, the pilots' negotiations were cited, in which they mentioned strange white water or a whitish haze.
Both versions have a common argument: Taylor had a very rich experience and could not get lost on such an easy training route.
The obvious
There are also more realistic assumptions about what happened in 1945, and they are built on the human factor. The characterization of Taylor says that he was undoubtedly an experienced pilot, but he also mentions his excessive self-confidence and adventurism. He trusted his intuition more than the readings of the instruments. Taylor zealously defended his point of view, even if he was wrong. On that day, he incorrectly identified one of the islands to navigate. As a result, the link went off course. The other pilots argued with him, but the commander stood his ground. And the commander, as you know, is always right. Perhaps Taylor finally got confused and led the link east, to Bermuda. It turned out that the fuel, not designed for such a long flight, ran out, and the bombers could not splash down due to the onset of bad weather. And they all crashed. As for the death of the "Martin Mariner", the aircraft of this design exploded more often than took off. After all, from somewhere there appeared an oil spot on the water, which the captain of the ship saw.
Taylor's strange phrases that sounded on the air are not contained in the documents. And the white haze is not that unusual.
Over the decades that have passed since the disaster, it has been reported many times that aircraft wreckage was found at the bottom off the coast of Florida. However, their side numbers did not correspond to the side numbers of link 19.
Have you saved everyone?
According to one of the conspiracy theories, it was not a training flight, but a secret military operation, during which it was necessary to destroy a ship that was transporting weapons from Europe to the Haitian opposition. When the pilots coped with the task, they ran out of fuel, but the search aircraft managed to save them. And everything that sounded on the air was a staged by the special services in order to divert attention from the operation. I must say that there is no confirmation of this version.
Magazine: All the riddles of the world # 3, Author: Galina Belysheva