Scientists Claim To Have Solved the Mystery of the Bermuda Triangle (vice.com) 235
Slashdot reader MyrddinBach shares a report that claims the mystery of the Bermuda Triangle has been solved. The Bermuda Triangle is a loosely-defined region of water between the southernmost tip of Florida, Puerto Rico, and the island of Bermuda to the north. British oceanographers now believe that "rogue waves" are responsible for the disappearance of a number of ships in the region. VICE News reports: So what are rogue waves? Basically, they're abnormally large and unexpected waves in open sea. Dr Simon Boxall, an Oceanographer from the University of Southampton who led the new study, explained on a Channel 5 documentary The Bermuda Triangle Enigma: "there are storms to the South and North, which come together... we've measured waves in excess of 30 meters. The bigger the boat gets, the more damage is done." His team re-created the intense surges of the 30 meter waves by using indoor simulators. Then to see what such a wave would do to a large ship, they built a model of the USS Cyclops, a carrier that went missing in the Bermuda Triangle in 1918 and claimed the lives of 309 people.
Of course (Score:5, Funny)
that's what *they* want us to believe
Re:Of course (Score:5, Informative)
Actually it was a collier, a coal transport cargo ship - there weren't very many carriers around during the Great War.
Re:Of course (Score:5, Funny)
In this age of reporting, be glad what they wrote about was at least a ship and they didn't claim it's a collar.
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Wasn't it a corral?
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Everybody knows, darling, it's better down where it's wetter, take it from me...
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Agilent makes them:
https://www.agilent.com/en/pro... [agilent.com]
Re: Of course (Score:5, Interesting)
How do big waves explain the disappearance of aircraft??
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Ok, maybe this explains ships disappearing in the triangle.....
How do big waves explain the disappearance of aircraft??
Exactly what I came here to post.
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They were flying lower than 30m of course ;)
Re:Of course (Score:5, Informative)
British WWI carriers (Score:3)
Furious and Glorious were converted from "Large Light Cruisers" into carriers during WWI
Eventually they ended up with a full length flight deck
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Actually it was a collier, a coal transport cargo ship - there weren't very many carriers around during the Great War.
Not that I've any time for this 'documentary', but I can see why someone called her a carrier here. Whoever wrote this spiel was being (nautically ignorant) pedantic, as her cargo was manganese ore at the time she was lost, technically she was acting as an bulk ore carrier, a 'bulker', I know when people use 'carrier' they tend to mean a 'flat top', but you can see the way the contraction developed in this case.
'Collier' does sort of imply that coal is the cargo, but yes, the Cyclops was built as a collier,
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Not that I've any time for this 'documentary', but I can see why someone called her a carrier here.
I'm going to invoke Occam here. The guy was posting mobile and got tripped up by autocorrect.
A week ago in Phoenix, a sports reporter filing his story mobile on a Diamondbacks game included a description of a haboob rolling through town during the game, momentarily cutting off stadium power. The word got autocorrected to 'baboon'. Much hilarity ensued:
http://www.azfamily.com/story/... [azfamily.com]
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Even more confusing, USS Cyclops sister ship, USS Jupiter, was converted to a carrier, better known by its post conversion name USS Langley [wikipedia.org].
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Re:Of course (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Of course (Score:4, Interesting)
Not only was it a coal transport, but it was one based on a design that had several known failures. Two sister ships went missing near Europe while carrying heavy loads. Another similar ship was observed to sink in calm seas, and erosion of structural members was observed in other similar ships carrying corrosive loads. Finally, it was overloaded with Brazilian manganese when it disappeared.
I don't think there is much of a mystery here, rogue wave or not.
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Re:Of course (Score:5, Informative)
It also doesn't make any sense because it was also affecting airplanes.
Someone else already solved it to my satisfaction - it's methane out-gassing. It takes takes very little to stall an airplane engine, the bubbling capsizes boats, and there's a large underground deposit in the area.
Re:Of course (Score:5, Insightful)
There is nothing to solve. There is no statistically significant difference between the Bermuda Triangle and any other stretch of ocean with comparable amounts of sea and air traffic. Most of the stories of mysterious disappearances in the Bermuda Triangle are either greatly exaggerated or outright fabrications.
Re:Of course (Score:5, Interesting)
I appreciate that it doesn't benefit the makers of what I'm assuming is going to be a cheesy, "Ancient Aliens" level documentary made for bloody Channel 5 [wikipedia.org] for this to be the case, but I'd at least expect better from Slashdot than to waste time promoting this fluff.
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Hey Ancient Aliens was great! Some the most my wife and I had laughed in a long time!
"Is it really so hard to believe?" has become a meme between us :D
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This. The four-sided Bermuda Triangle was an invention of a writer at Argosy magazine in the 1950's.
Re:Of course (Score:4, Insightful)
I wonder if the development of GPS and other navigation technologies also further reduced any risk that area had simply by making shipping much safer. No longer would a large ship become lost at sea due to a storm. You could just check your GPS and head for the nearest port or use your radio to call for help. In a similar way that putting a high resolution camera in everyone's pockets hasn't led to a ton of high res photos/videos of Bigfoot and UFOs.
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Waasn't there a PBY Catalina that also went missing right after being sent out to look for a squadron of TBF Avengers that had just gone missing?
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Someone else already solved it to my satisfaction - it's methane out-gassing. It takes takes very little to stall an airplane engine, the bubbling capsizes boats, and there's a large underground deposit in the area.
What if the pilot lights a match?
Re:Of course (Score:4, Funny)
Not a mystery (Score:5, Interesting)
"The number of ships and aircraft reported missing in the area was not significantly greater, proportionally speaking, than in any other part of the ocean."
and
"In a 2013 study, the World Wide Fund for Nature identified the world's 10 most dangerous waters for shipping, but the Bermuda Triangle was not among them."
Instead this looks like an advertisement for Channel 5's latest TV show. I won't be watching it.
A bit of both I'd guess (Score:2)
Rogue waves were big news a couple decades ago. They are nasty - basically breakers in the middle of nowhere, so do require the right conditions to form. Like a tornado requires the right conditions.
Maybe they've demonstrated that the right conditions do regularly occur in that area.
Re: A bit of both I'd guess (Score:4, Insightful)
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The two aren't necessarily separate. A demonstration can be a simulation of possible conditions that fits known parameters.
The TV'ised version probably will be more sensational than showing any hard numbers though.
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The ship in question was overloaded, had only one functional engine out of two, and had two sister ships that both sank due to structural failure.
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Doesn't need any ship present for demonstrating rogue wave potential.
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You don't need a rogue wave to explain why a limping, overloaded, structurally unsound ship sank.
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You don't need a rogue wave to explain why a limping, overloaded, structurally unsound ship sank.
But apart from the fact that it was limping, overloaded and structurally unsound, what other explanation for the sinking, that doesn't involve mysterious alien forces, have you got?
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The Bermuda Triangle is one of the safest places on Earth to sail in.
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Hello to you too, sailor!
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Re:Not a mystery (Score:5, Interesting)
They did do their research, only they left that part to the last paragraph of the article.
Also, he noted that the Bermuda Triangle, which is one of the most heavily trafficked parts of any ocean, doesn't actually see a statistically unlikely rate of disappearances. âoeAccording to Lloyds of London and the US coast guard, the number of planes that go missing in the Bermuda Triangle is the same as anywhere in the world on a percentage basis,â Dr Karl told News.com.
I remember seeing this in some TV show about the Bermuda Triangle. They talked about "killer waves" and "methane clouds" that would destroy ships and kill the engines in airplanes. But then at the end of the program they talked about how these phenomenon are not unique to the area, which "sunk" the entire idea of this being a particularly dangerous part of the sea.
I thought the methane clouds idea was very interesting. What would happen is a "burp" of methane from deep in the ocean could come up randomly in front of an airplane. The cause of the "burp" would likely be a seismic shift in the ocean floor which would release some pressure on a "sludge" of liquefied methane on the ocean floor, from decayed plants or what had seeped up from the earth and liquefied by the pressure, and turn it to a gas bubble. This bubble would get very large as it rose and when it popped up to the surface it would create this cloud of water and methane that could deprive oxygen to an airplane engine. Someone flying low and slow, which often happens in recreational and military airplanes, could mean being left with little time to react before hitting the water. Having multiple engines in this case wouldn't help because all engines would be deprived of oxygen at the same time. For this to happen though would be a very tiny chance of someone flying low to the sea, the bubble happen right in front of them, and be sufficiently large to kill all the engines. The chances are small but given enough time it could happen.
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This is 2018. You need to most replace most occurrences of "scientist" so "some dude".
All flows nicely then.
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Don't know what happened there...
so = with
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I know what happened there. You were already thinking about typing 'some' when you were still typing the word 'scientist'. I do that a lot. It's very annoying.
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"In a 2013 study, the World Wide Fund for Nature identified the world's 10 most dangerous waters for shipping, but the Bermuda Triangle was not among them."
When it comes to measuring the most dangerous waters for shipping, does the human element of piracy tend to blow other hazards out of the proverbial water?
Re:Not a mystery (Score:4, Informative)
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But, maybe not, because the citation you gave isn't to any report, just a news article which mentions neither piracy nor rusty ships.
Re: Not a mystery (Score:2)
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Re: Not a mystery (Score:2)
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You then went on to make claims which were totally unsupported by that "citation." You lose. *plonk*
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This.
And the waves hypothesis for the non-existing phenomenon we're talking about here was already talked about in the 1970s, and probably much earlier.
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Re:Not a mystery (Score:4, Informative)
If they were scientists, they wouldn't be peddling their wares on Channel 5.
Channel 5 is, how shall we say, "a the lower end" of the TV market in the UK. That probably pegs it in the up quartile of US TV, but that's really nothing to boast about. Typical Channel 5 programming includes Big Brother (because none of the other channels want it any more), those 'Building Megastructures' shows that advertise a few building contractors and a bunch of other, really terrible reality TV. Tonight it looks like even that level of quality might be tough to maintain: http://www.channel5.com/tv-gui... [channel5.com]
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It sounds... healthy. And fucking amazing.
Things (Score:5, Funny)
Re: Things (Score:5, Funny)
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Things melt in the Bermuda Triangle. It's always exactly 180 degrees in the triangle.
It is actually much worse in Times Square.
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I don't know how people function at the Pentagon all day.
Re:Things (Score:5, Insightful)
As the three points used to denote the triangle are on a sphere (the Earth... or a close approximation of a sphere at such scale), there would be more than 180 degrees inside the triangle if it were measured on the surface of the ocean.
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Re:Things (Score:5, Funny)
Actually..... As the three points used to denote the triangle are on a sphere (the Earth... or a close approximation of a sphere at such scale), there would be more than 180 degrees inside the triangle if it were measured on the surface of the ocean.
Cliff Claven! Long time no see!
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Actually, it's even more [wikipedia.org].
Air planes don't get missing by rogue waves (Score:2)
Actually the theory is that methane from methane hydrate from the ground and/or fresh water "sinkholes" cause the trouble. ... ...
OTOH there was no plane loss since roughly 1955
No idea if ships/planes avoid the area
Nevertheless the old stories are interesting reads, as many pilots, regardless of ship or plane, made super stupid mistakes.
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Ships and planes do not avoid the area. It is one of the most heavily trafficked stretches of ocean in the world, and statistically just as safe as any other. Most of the stories of mysterious disappearances are either greatly exaggerated or outright fabrications.
This shouldn't be on Slashdot (Score:5, Informative)
This garbage article isn't news that matters.
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You must've been sleeping a really long time...
Now that's a lot of damage (Score:3)
Boats (Score:2)
...The bigger the boat gets, the more damage is done...
***Cringe*** A boat is a small to medium size vessel that stops being a boat and becomes a ship at a displacement of about 500 tons, larger than that and it's a ship. As a rule of thumb a ship can carry a boat, a boat cannot carry a ship and this [maritime-executive.com] does not count, a destroyer is a 'warship' not a 'warboat'. In fact some modern destroyers should probably be re-classified as light cruisers so the are most definitely not 'boats'. In the Navy they also apply the word "boat" to very large submersibles and even t
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Ship is a subset of boat.
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As a token of appreciation, you get to choose: gunship or gunboat?
This'll really blow your mind: a gunboat refers to a type of sailing vessel while a gunship refers to aircraft. You could theoretically have a coastal bombardment ship with a complement of ground attack helicopters on board and you would have the only instance where it is possible for a boat to carry and launch a ship.
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I can confirm his assertion about the rule of thumb. Ships carry boats, boats don't carry ships. Naval traditions are very strict, especially where naming things is involved. Not necessarily consistent, but strict.
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OP specifically gave the example of semi-submersible heavy lift ships. They're a new class of very special purpose ship (remember, we're talking about tradition) that can carry other ships. The ships carrying boats thing is a rule of thumb, which means there's more to it. Ships often carry, and launch, utility boats because the boats can do things the ships are too big for.
Your second example is a dinghy. It's in the title. Dinghies aren't really boats in the naval sense, only the colloquial one. Howeve
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Naval tradition affects a lot more than the navy. If you belong to a (civilian) yacht club you may decide to participate in a regatta where the participants will salute the commodore. You will likely refer to many of the parts of your boat using the same terms that were used in Napoleonic-era navies. You may even roll your eyes at "landsmen" who call ships boats, charts maps, and talk about how many ropes there are.
Like a puppy? I didn't know boats grew up (Score:3)
> A boat is a small to medium size vessel that stops being a boat and becomes a ship
A boat becomes a ship, like a puppy becomes a dog and a kitten becomes a cat? That's really cool; I didn't know that.
The times, they are a‘changing (Score:2)
Years ago it was supposed to be rogue aliens or rogue pirates, now it‘s rogue waves.
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Just the mere mention of the new Space Force has scared off the rogue aliens and pirates.
Rogue waves. (Score:5, Interesting)
Rogue waves are more interesting than the original article.
In deep water rogue waves fall into two categories. There are areas in the ocean where two currents meet, for example along the east coast of Southern Africa. This can result in increased incidence of rogue waves in those areas. These are quite well known to mariners. But the others are what are sometimes called "Schrodinger waves".
Historically, mathematicians have treated ocean as classical waves with a normal distribution of wave heights because that was a very good match to what was observed. But when you apply the Schrodinger wave equation it predicts a low probability of extremely large waves which appear from nowhere and vanish equally quickly. The probability of these events is extremely small, but there are a large number of ships spending very long times on the open ocean. Consequently, there will be a small number of ships which encounter waves many times larger than the average wave height and sink without warning.
The final class of rogue wave is a 'soliton' wave. These have been generated by ships travelling at a high speed in moderate depths (30-40m) of water. The wave picks up energy from the wake but is almost invisible in deep water. Because it is a soliton the wave packet continues to propagate with little loss of energy instead of dissipating quickly like a normal wake. If the wave hits a beach, a rogue wave appears and sweep sunbathers into the sea.
Much more mathematically interesting than you might think.
Re:Rogue waves. SHIPS CAT WARNING (Score:3)
Rogue waves are more interesting than the original article.
In deep water rogue waves fall into two categories. There are areas in the ocean where two currents meet, for example along the east coast of Southern Africa. This can result in increased incidence of rogue waves in those areas. These are quite well known to mariners. But the others are what are sometimes called "Schrodinger waves".
With Schrodinger waves it is always the death of the ships cat that causes the sinking, at least in the Bermuda triangle.
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Very interesting. How about this (Score:2)
Solution to the Bermuda Triangle mystery? Riiiight (Score:2)
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Indeed, there are more unexplained losses per square mile in the Great Lakes than the Bermuda Triangle, but I've yet to see the book on the Great Lakes Triangle.
There was a book that went into all of this in excruciating detail. All the author did was go and get the official reports of the various "mysterious" losses. In many cases, there was no loss in the first place. For instance, one ship that was claimed to have disappeared forever was actually working the east coast of Africa and never ventured into t
Didn't we know this already (Score:2)
I thought we already knew this. I recall watching a documentary maybe 10 years ago that said this is the most likely explanation for these disappearances.
Also, the fact that it's over open water explains a number of small airplanes going down in the area.
All right then the Bermuda Triangle. Go on explain (Score:2)
That is genuine mystery. How did a song like that become a massive hit. It defies all reason.
Wave eats Squadron of Fighter Pilot whole... (Score:2)
Wave theory now suggests Bermuda Triangle is a cemetery where nothing can survive the physics of its waves - sure.
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Between Vice and Slashdot, do you expect even the a cursory review for facts?
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Depends on how low they fly. During WWII, one tactic for knocking down torpedo bombers was to aim ships' artillery ahead of them and knock them down with the resulting column of spray.