Geographic Mysteries: The Origins and Legends of the Bermuda Triangle

The story of the most famous urban legend began in the early 16th century when the Spanish navigator Juan de Bermúdez traveled across the Atlantic Ocean and discovered a previously unknown archipelago. The sea around the islands was teeming with dangerous reefs and shoals, and frightening cries of unfamiliar birds could be heard from the land and a storm raged in the sky. The place came to be known to Europeans as “Devil’s Island” — a nickname perhaps coined by Bermúdez himself. The colonists, understandably, did not take a liking to this name, so the islands were ultimately called the Islands of Bermuda.

Journalists sounded the alarm in the mid-20th century — it turned out that, over the past centuries, many ships had disappeared around Bermuda. The anomalously dangerous zone could even be pinned down: people, aircraft, and ships were said to have disappeared exclusively inside an imaginary triangle bounded by Miami, Bermuda, and Puerto Rico.

Some were quick to attribute the events to paranormal activity, blaming aliens, black holes, and the inhabitants of the legendary sunken island of Atlantis.