Bermuda Triangle

Bounded loosely by Miami, Bermuda, and Puerto Rico, the Bermuda Triangle earned its ominous nickname in a 1964 Argosy magazine article by Vincent Gaddis, building on decades of maritime disappearances that fed a public appetite for mystery. The case that launched the legend into folklore was Flight 19, five US Navy Avenger bombers that vanished during a routine training exercise on December 5, 1945, along with the rescue plane sent after them — 27 men lost with no wreckage ever found. Writers throughout the 1960s and 70s piled on further disappearances, from the freighter USS Cyclops in 1918 to the tanker SS Marine Sulphur Queen in 1963, attributing them to everything from methane eruptions to alien abduction. Lloyd's of London and the US Coast Guard have both stated the region sees no more incidents than any other heavily trafficked stretch of ocean, pointing instead to sudden Gulf Stream storms — but the "Devil's Triangle" label has proven far more durable than the statistics meant to debunk it.