Bermuda Triangle: Science of the Abyss

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The Bermuda triangle,

one of the most enduring

mysteries of all time.

Strange lights, phantom fogs,

ships that go missing

with no wreckage.

For over 70 years,

people claimed mysterious forces

caused boats and planes

to disappear without trace.

Our instruments

are going haywire.

But is all that just a myth

that's grown out of hand?

One of them just disappeared

and never came back.

Experts try to get to

the bottom of this enigma...

It's like a water cage of ice.

So this is what it's like to be

right on top of a hurricane.

By using the latest technologies

to discover the truth.

We kind of think of ourselves

as high-tech

forensic detectives.

Can science

finally answer what decades

of legend and myth cannot?

Look at that!

What actually happens

in the Bermuda triangle?

Captions by vitac...

captions paid for by

discovery communications

over the last 70 years,

a popular legend

originating deep in

the waters off Florida

refuses to die.

That's where the DC-3

was last reported.

Hundreds of boats and planes

have disappeared seemingly

without trace.

Star tiger was here.

Investigator Brian j. Cano

has it all mapped out.

In 1950, we have the ss Sandra,

which was last reported here.

Scorpion, 1968.

Flight 19,

a little closer to Miami.

That was in 1945.

This is where the USS cyclops

was last reported.

1996, the intrepid.

Each one of these x's

represents a lost ship or plane,

and it's forming a shape

with concentrations

here in Miami,

here in Bermuda,

and finally, San Juan,

Puerto Rico.

A triangle, and in this case,

the Bermuda triangle.

The stories

behind these disappearances

have grown to

often-outlandish heights,

as people struggle

for an explanation.

So what's fact

and what is fiction,

and where did it all begin?

The first

Bermuda triangle mystery

was the disappearance

of flight 19.

On December 5, 1945,

flight 19 left fort lauderdale

on a low-level bombing exercise.

The pilots were mostly trainees,

but the commander,

Charles Taylor,

was an experienced combat pilot.

Weather clear

over fort lauderdale,

over the Bahamas, cloudy.

The five bombers flew east

and completed their mission

over sandbanks in the Bahamas,

but their problems began

when they hit fog.

The pilots appeared to

lose track of where they were

and in what direction

they were heading in.

What does your compass read?

We must have got lost

after that last turn.

The crew of flight 19 were lost,

but luckily, a separate mission

flying over the Bahamas

overhead their confusion.

The lead pilot,

lieutenant Robert Cox,

offered his help.

What is your trouble?

I'm trying to find

fort lauderdale.

Cox asked Taylor

for his position.

I will come meet you.

He replied that his squadron

had somehow drifted

over the Florida keys,

hundreds of miles

south of his flight plan.

Put the sun on your port wing

if you are in the keys

and fly up the coast

until you get to Miami.

Taylor took Cox's

advice and headed north,

but found no sign

of the mainland.

The radio cut out.

And now, in fading light,

the squadron began

to be battered by

hurricane-force winds.

Taylor was desperate.

He still couldn't see land.

So he started to think he must

be to the west of Florida,

in the Gulf of Mexico.

The five bombers were now

running dangerously low on fuel.

Taylor made a series of

increasingly irrational

commands.

Turning east...

Change course to zero-90 degrees

for ten minutes!

Then west...

We'll fly 270 degrees west.

Then east again.

But it was all in vain.

At 6:
20 P.M., over four hours

after taking off,

flight 19's last message

came over the airwaves.

When the first plane

drops below ten gallons,

we all go down together.

The pilots were

never heard from again.

That same night,

a Martin mariner seaplane

was dispatched to search

for the missing squadron,

but it too disappeared.

A nearby warship

reported a distant fireball

on the surface of the sea.

The Navy spent five days

searching for the wreckage,

but astonishingly,

they didn't find a single trace

of either of the missing planes.

What are the hard facts behind

this dramatic disappearance?

How could simple fog

cause such confusion?

And why has no wreckage

ever been found?

We're going to go out

to where the last

reported position was

and we're going to start...

start running a survey

around that area.

We've already bounced between...

Former army pilot Jon myhre

has spent the last 30 years

trying to find them.

Looks like we are where

for the position?

Today, with aviation

archaeologist Andy marocco,

he's surveying yet another patch

of the Bermuda triangle

for the aircraft remains.

Flight 19 is probably

the biggest aviation mystery

in... in the world.

The answer to what happened,

nobody really knows.

Jon believes

that finding the wreckage

is the only way to solve

the mystery of flight 19.

Started in 1982.

Read a short article

on flight 19.

And I said, based

on some data in it,

I could probably figure out

where one of the planes crashed.

And I've been on it ever since.

That wreck that we saw?

Right.

I have all that in here.

So this is your

position presently...

Jon and Andy search for answers

in order to separate

fact from fiction.

We also have a search pattern...

we don't get paid to do this.

We're just researchers

and we love it

because of the history

and the subject matter.

So for us, we kind of

think of ourselves as

high-tech

forensic detectives

that are trying

to solve mysteries.

29.59.

Right.

They believe

that when Taylor reported

he was over the Florida keys,

he was actually

over the Bahamas.

Headed out

on a 3-6-0 heading.

And if they're right,

it means that the squadron's

desperate search for land

simply took them further

and further

into the Atlantic ocean.

This is the background noaa map.

During each expedition,

Jon surveys a different patch

of the ocean floor for wreckage,

ticking it off the list

and then moving on

to the next likely spot.

Basically we're using

side-scan sonar

and echo sounding devices

that will help us build

3D models

of what is on the ocean floor

and be able to give us

a profile of things.

Today,

despite a full day of scanning,

the team draws

yet another blank.

But it's a big ocean,

and they're not ready

to give up.

I truly believe flight 19

is going to be found.

It's just a matter of when,

and I think right now we have

the best shot in history

to find them.

Jon's convinced

he'll find flight 19

because the technology today

is better than it's ever been.

But what if the planes

aren't there to be found?

Is it possible

the entire squadron

were transported somewhere else

by a ripple in space-time?

This wild theory has long been

derided many experts,

but one man believes

he has proof,

because he claims

it happened to him.

Experienced pilot Bruce gernon

believes he once had

a brush with death inside

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