They Found a Ship That Disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle 90 Years Ago

What's the most mysterious and blood-chilling  place on Earth?  The first thing that comes to my mind is the  infamous Bermuda Triangle!  This area earned its terrifying reputation  by swallowing countless ships and airplanes,  leaving no trace behind.  But recently, the Bermuda Triangle has added  another mystery to its record: Cuban coast  guards came across a ship that had gone missing  more than 90 years ago!  It was November 29, 1925, when the S.S. Cotopaxi  left Charleston, South Carolina, and headed  for Havana, Cuba, carrying a big load of coal  and 32 crew members.  The story has it that several days later,  the steamer ran into a violent storm, got  water in its hold, and started to tilt dramatically.  On December 1, the ship sent out a distress  call, and since then, nothing was ever heard  from the crew again.  The ship seemed to have vanished into thin  air... until 2018!  On May 18, the Cuban coast guards announced  that they’d come across a ship that wasn’t  answering their calls.  Since it happened close to a military zone  with limited access, it caused a bit of turmoil.  The mysterious ship was nearing the island  west of Havana, and seemed to ignore all attempts  by the coast guards to communicate.  That's why three other vessels surrounded  and blocked the intruder.  To tell you the truth, even at first sight,  the ship looked bizarre.  Rusty and run-down, it seemed to drift mindlessly,  without any destination in mind.  And when the crew climbed on board the ship,  which indeed seemed to have been abandoned  for decades, they found nothing but more oddities.  First of all, there was not a living soul  on board.  It baffled the guards to no end: a ship sailing  across the ocean, unmanned and uncontrolled?  But that wasn't the only abnormality they  found.  However unbelievable it may sound, upon closer  inspection, the coast guards realized that  the discovered ship was S.S. Cotopaxi, lost  in the waters of the North Atlantic Ocean  almost 90 years before!  What gave it away was the chief's logbook,  related to the Clinchfield Navigation Company,  which was the very company S.S. Cotopaxi belonged  to.  After Cuban experts confirmed the authenticity  of the logbook, researchers got super excited.  And no wonder - now they could finally find  out what happened to the ship in 1925!  Unfortunately, pretty soon, they realized  that the logbook wasn't living up to their  expectations.  It contained tons of interesting information  about the everyday life of the ship's crew,  but nothing at all about what caused the disappearance  of the massive ship.  On December 1, 1925, the entries in the book  simply came to an abrupt stop.  It was the very day when the ship sent out  a distress call and then stopped replying  to any radio signals.  So, as you see, the mysterious finding brought  more questions than answers.  If S.S. Cotopaxi sank almost 9 decades ago,  how did it reappear on the surface?  What happened to the crew, and how did they  disappeared without a trace?  And finally: does the finding mean that the  Bermuda Triangle has started to return the  prey it’s been collecting for centuries?  But the worst thing about this discovery is...  that it might have never happened!  Soon after this breaking news appeared in  different mass media sources, too many people  started to question the truthfulness of the  story.  Not only did it seem too unbelievable to be  real, but there was also no convincing evidence  that the ship had been found in the first  place.  There were indeed numerous photos of a rusty  steamer on the Internet, but was it S.S. Cotopaxi?  Unlikely.  That's why there's probably no use in combing  through the Atlantic Ocean in search of other  long-lost vessels and planes just yet.  On the other hand, over centuries, there have  been so many mysterious disappearances in  that area that the chances are high that you'll  find one or two ships that fell victim to  the infamous Triangle.  Maybe it’ll be the Patriot, a passenger  schooner that left Charleston, South Carolina,  on December 30, 1812, and headed for New York  City.  The ship, which had Theodosia Burr Aston on  board, the daughter of former American Vice  President Aaron Burr, went missing soon after  departure, and no one ever heard from the  schooner again.  Or you may come across S.S. El Faro, a much  more recent disappearance.  This cargo ship left Jacksonville, Florida,  on October 1, 2015, with 33 crew members and  countless vehicles, trailers, and containers  on board.  The 790-ft vessel was supposed to deliver  its load to Puerto Rico, but something went  terribly wrong.  A violent tropical storm that started miles  away suddenly transformed into a powerful  hurricane that rushed toward El Faro.  It started to circle around the cargo ship,  making communication from the vessel go silent.  But the most shocking thing was that after  causing all this turmoil, the hurricane miraculously  retreated in the same direction it came from!  Weeks later, after a thorough and extensive  search, rescuers finally located the ship;  it was still in one piece and sitting upright  on the bottom, at a depth of 15,000 ft.  But the blood-chilling truth was that there  was no trace of any of the crew members on  board.  The Bermuda Triangle had already gained popularity  in the 15th century when Christopher Columbus  documented weird compass readings and bizarre  lights in the area.  Its nickname, "Hurricane Alley," speaks for  itself.  The weird thing about the Bermuda Triangle  is not that too many ships and planes disappear  there (after all, it's the menacing and unpredictable  Atlantic Ocean!), but that in most cases,  even if the wreckage is found, there are no  people on board, living or not.  One of the most infamous Bermuda Triangle  disappearances of all times was USS Cyclops,  a huge carrier ship that used to supply fuel  to the American fleet.  On January 8, 1918, heavy and full of Manganese  ores, the ship departed from Rio de Janeiro  and headed for Baltimore.  Being only a few years old, the ship shouldn’t  have experienced any problems, and all 309  people on board felt safe and calm.  But this feeling turned out to be deceptive,  because somewhere around March 4, 1918, the  ship disappeared into thin air, without sending  out a distress call or indicating it was having  problems in any other way.  In the history of the U.S. Navy, it remains  the accident which caused the largest loss  of life at sea.  As for airplanes, probably the most inexplicable  disappearance happened on December 5, 1945,  and got the name "The Lost Patrol."  Flight-19 was the code name for 5 bomber planes  that flew from the naval base in Florida on  a training flight.  No one knows for sure what happened to the  planes, but they never returned to the base.  Most experts believe that the commander of  this group, Charles Taylor, got lost and led  the planes in the wrong direction.  Those machines could land on water, so, hypothetically,  after getting low on fuel, the pilots could  ditch and wait for help, rocking on the surface  of the ocean.  But that didn't happen.  Although two rescue Martin Mariner planes  were searching the area all through the night  and the next day, they found no trace of the  five disappeared planes.  But the most spine-chilling coincidence was  that one of the rescue planes failed to return  to the base as well!  All 6 planes vanished into thin air as if  they’d never existed!  There’ve been several other plane disappearances  when the aircraft went off the radars and  never returned.  In some cases, pilots had time to send out  a Mayday distress call.  In others, they disappeared at the blink of  an eye when everything seemed to be going  perfectly fine.  Well, no doubt, it all looks very suspicious,  and the notoriety of the Bermuda Triangle  might be well-earned, but think of this.  The area of the Bermuda Triangle varies from  500,000 to 1,510,000 square miles, depending  on the person describing the anomalous zone.  Besides, it's one of the most heavily traveled  routes in the world, with thousands of vessels  crossing it to get to the ports of Europe,  America, and the Caribbean.  On the other hand, only several dozen ships  and planes have been lost in the Bermuda Triangle  over the last centuries.  I mean, if you think about it, it's not that  much more than in any other dangerous area  of the Ocean, right?  Do you know any other exciting stories about  the Bermuda Triangle?  Let me know down in the comments!  If you learned something new today, then give  this video a like and share it with a friend.  But – hey! – don't go anywhere just yet!  We have many  cool posts for you.

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