Over the centuries, theories have abounded over the mystery behind the Bermuda Triangle where more than 75 planes and hundreds of ships are said to have disappeared. Scientists may now have an answer.
It’s thought that hexagonal clouds over the 1.3 million sq km (500,000 square miles) of ocean between Bermuda, Florida and Puerto Rico, could be creating huge 106kph (170mph) wind “air bombs” and these deadly blasts of air can tear down trees, topple over ships and bring planes crashing down.
Researchers analyzed imagery from a NASA satellite and found the hexagon-shaped clouds 240km off the coast of Florida and over the Bahamas.
Speaking to the Science Channel, Dr Steve Miller, a satellite meteorologist from Colorado State University said traditionally, cloud shapes don’t have straight edges.
“You don’t typically see straight edges with clouds,” Miller explained. “Most of the time clouds are random in their distribution.”
With the hexagon shapes differing in sizes between 32 and 88km in width, their location in the western part of the Bermuda triangle could explain why so many aircrafts and ships have gone missing.
Scientists examined similar cloud shapes from the North Sea off the coast of the UK and found sea level winds of up to 160kph, which are powerful enough to create waves more than 45ft (14 meters) high.
Similar wind patterns were found underneath the hexagons in the Bahamas and the team believe these “air bombs” are connected.
“These types of hexagonal shapes over the ocean are in essence air bombs,” Dr Randy Cerveny from the University of Arizona told the channel.
“They are formed by what are called microbursts and they’re blasts of air that come down out of the bottom of a cloud and then hit the ocean and then create waves that can sometimes be massive in size and they start to interact with each other,” he added.
Researchers will continue to analyze satellite images with the hope of alerting authorities, should an air bomb appear in the future.
Notable disappearances from the area include the USS Cyclops, a US Navy ship that mysteriously disappeared with 309 crew members on board around March 4, 1918, and Flight 19, where five TBM Avenger torpedo bombers vanished on December 5, 1945, over the Atlantic.