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Two of the so-called Bermuda Triangle's most mysterious disappearances in the late 1940s may have been solved. Scores of ships and planes are said to have vanished without trace over the decades in a vast triangular area of ocean with imaginary points in Bermuda, Florida and Puerto Rico. But journalist Tom Mangold's new examination for the BBC provides plausible explanations for the disappearance of two British commercial planes in the area, with the loss of 51 passengers and crew.
One plane probably suffered from catastrophic technical failure as a result of poor design, while the other is likely to have run out of fuel. Sixty years ago, commercial flights from London to Bermuda were new and perilous. It would require a refuelling stop on the Azores before the 2,000-mile flight to Bermuda, which at that time was the longest non-stop commercial overseas flight in the world. The planes would have been operating at the limit of their range. Today planes arriving at the tiny Atlantic island have sufficient reserve fuel to divert to the US East Coast 700 miles away, in case of emergency.
And the planes of the post-war era were far less reliable than today's airliners.
British South American Airways (BSAA), which operated the route, had a grim safety record. In three years it had had 11 serious accidents and lost five planes with 73 passengers and 22 crew members killed.
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One of the most amazing sights in Antarctica, the Blood Falls have been a mystery ever since they were discovered, in 1911. A bloody column of water coming out of a glacier isn’t what you’d expect to see in the frozen land of Antarctica, but if you visit Taylor Glacier, that’s exactly what you’re going to find. At first, scientists thought they were dealing with some sorts of red algae, but further research proved the bloody color was caused by something spectacular.
A mystery has cropped up in a wheat field just west of Stettler, Alta. Someone or something has laid down a set of crop circles in a field owned by Vera Shuckburgh, occupied by members of her family and farmed by Gordon Smith. Custom sprayer Colby Squires says discovered the circles while desiccating the field in preparation for harvest at about 7 p.m. on the evening of Tuesday, Aug. 25. Because his sprayer is fully automated, managed by a GPS and computer mapping program, Squires says it was already heading through the circles when he realized something was amiss.
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