Bermuda Triangle Mystery Solved? The Culprit May Be Sea Farts From Underwater Craters
Of all the wild theories put forth to explain mysterious disappearances in the Bermuda Triangle, giant sea farts is probably the least exciting.
That’s what researchers at the Arctic University of Norway believe may be happening after they discovered a series of underwater craters off their country’s Arctic coast under the Barents Sea. This potential explanation will be discussed at length, and the findings released, in April.
Everything from aliens to the lost island of Atlantis have been blamed for the disappearance of ships and planes over the years, the Local reported. This latest theory is a little more practical.
“Multiple giant craters exist on the sea floor in an area in the west-central Barents sea… and are probably a cause of enormous blowouts of gas,” the researchers explained. “The crater area is likely to represent one of the largest hotspots for shallow marine methane release in the Arctic.”
According to this theory, oil and natural gas have leaked from deposits under the sea floor, which created the cavities. Eventually, the bubbles of methane reach critical mass and explode on the surface, where they cause “sizeable eruptions.”
It’s not clear yet if these eruptions are large or strong enough to sink ships — that question will be discussed at a geosciences conference next month.
Science has turned to the underwater craters before to explain the Bermuda Triangle. According to Stuff.co.nz, in 2016, a Russian scientist named Igor Yeltsov offered this theory, suggesting that the mysterious region was a “consequence of gas hydrates reactions.”
“They start to actively decompose with methane ice turning into gas. It happens in an avalanche-like way, like a nuclear reaction, producing huge amounts of gas. That makes the ocean heat up and ships sink in its waters mixed with a huge proportion of gas.”
In the past, mariners have reported a strange sight, accounts which remained firmly in the anecdotal evidence category. These stories described the water “suddenly starting to foam and bubble.”
Researchers hope to use a new radar technology that produces detailed images that could uncover more underwater craters.
Could "oceanic flatulence" be the explanation for the Bermuda Triangle? https://t.co/XoFoozPtEo pic.twitter.com/HWB5BfNXDO
— Atlas Obscura (@atlasobscura) March 15, 2016
So far, the Norwegian scientists who made this discovery only theorize that the underwater explosions could been sinking ships in the Bermuda Triangle. There is currently no proof that similar craters exist on the seafloor in this part of the world.
The nature of the Bermuda Triangle and why it has been the sight of so many disappearance has been debated for decades. The paper that described the underwater craters recognized that ships vanish in other parts of the world perhaps as much as they do in the Bermuda Triangle.
But this more natural explanation will certainly be easier for skeptics to swallow than Atlantis or UFOs. Sea farts are a far more practical, less “far-flung” theory than the rest.
Whether or not people believe that’s its real or what they believe makes the Bermuda Triangle so mysterious, the area has allegedly swallowed 20 planes and 50 ships over a century. It’s located in the North Atlantic between Bermuda, Puerto Rico, and Melbourne, Florida. Over 8,000 people have reportedly gone missing here.
Nonetheless, the U.S. Coast Guard doesn’t recognize the Bermuda Triangle’s existence.
“In a review of many aircraft and vessel losses in the area over the years, there has been nothing discovered that would indicate that casualties were the result of anything other than physical causes. No extraordinary factors have ever been identified.”
[Photo by orangecrush/Shutterstock]
