The Bermuda Triangle|百慕大三角

At 2 PM on December 5, 1945, five Navy planes took off in perfect weather on a routine1 training over the Atlantic Ocean. Less than two hours later, the flight commander radioed that he was “completely lost”. Then there was silence. A plane was sent to search for the missing one, and it, too, disappeared. With great efforts, more than 300 planes and dozens of ships, the Navy found nothing.
　　This is just one of the many frightening stories told of “the Bermuda Triangle2”, a mysterious3 area of the Atlantic Ocean stretching4 southwest from Bermuda to the Florida coast and down to Puerto Rico5. Among sailors, it is known as “the Graveyard6 of the Atlantic”. During the past 30 years, the triangle has claimed7 the lives of some    1,000 sailors and pilots. When entering this part of the Atlantic, Christopher Columbus noted curious shining of “white water”. The mysterious light is still visible8 today and so bright that they have been seen from U.S. spaceship in orbit9 around the earth.
　　The triangle has aroused much public interest through three best-selling books, a television show and a special exhibition. None of these has produced convincing10 answer to the mystery of the triangle, but there is no shortage of interesting theories. Some scientists and popular authors even suggest that the triangle is a place where beings from outer space hunt human specimens11 for their “zoos”.
　　Whatever the truth may be, planes and ships regularly12 disappear in the triangle. On July 3, 1947, a U.S. Army airplane disappeared 100 miles off Bermuda without sending any word of difficulty. An immediate search was carried out over 100,000 square miles of sea, but failed to discover anything. On January 30, 1948, a British airliner13 disappeared over the triangle with 31 passengers and crew aboard. A year later, the missing airliner's sister plane disappeared. Seventy-two search planes, plus dozens of ships, failed to discover any sign of the missing plane.
　　One of the largest ships lost in the mysterious triangle was a 500-foot coal ship that disappeared on March 4, 1918. Investigations14 showed no evidence of bad weather, no messages for help, no wreckage15 and no sign of the 309 men aboard. Stranger yet are the countless “ghost16” ships with no crew that have been found floating within the triangle. On one unusual occasion in 1881, the cargo ship17 Ellen Austin discovered a small sailing ship, sails waving uselessly in the wind. A look through the captain's telescope showed no one on deck18. The boat had a full cargo of timber19, but there was no sign of human life. The captain sent a new crew to sail it, but two days later, during a rough storm, the two ships lost sight of each other. When the captain again boarded20 the boat, he found his crew had disappeared. After a second crew was sent there, the ship was again lost in a fog. This time, no trace21 of the boat—or the crew—was ever found.
　　Officially, the U.S. Navy does not admit the triangle a danger place and believes that “most of disappearances are caused by the unique22 environment of the area.” These include the swift Gulf Stream current, the unexplored23 undersea valleys of the Atlantic and the often violent24 weather within the mystery zone. Then too, the triangle is where a compass needle points to true north rather than magnetic25 north, causing problems in navigation26. “There are mysterious and strange things going on out there,” admits Richard Winer, author of The Devil＇s Triangle, “But I believe that all the answers lie in human mistake, mechanical27 problems, strange weather events, or unusual magnetic phenomenon.”
　　On the contrary, some other government officials report,“So far no reasonable explanation has been made for the disappearances.” Because of these uncertainties28, private29 investigators have sought more strange explanations. One author argues that beings from outer space have set up a highly advanced30 civilization in the unexplored depths of the Atlantic inside the triangle. There, he believes, most of the missing ships and planes—and their crews—may still be on display31 for study by these higher intelligences32.
　　These theories are all examined in Charles Berlitz's The Bermuda Triangle. A man with an interest in Atlantis, the legendary33 lost island, Berlitz expands upon the theory that a huge solar crystal34, which once was the power generator35 for Atlantis, lies on the ocean floor. From time to time36, according to his theory, passing ships and planes touch the crystal, which confuses their instruments and absorbs37 them into the ocean.

1945年12月5日下午两点，天气晴好，五架海军飞机起飞，在大西洋上空作例行训练。不到两小时，机长用无线电报告说，他已“完全迷失了方向”。接着是一片寂静。一架飞机被派去搜寻失踪的飞机，同样，它也消失得无影无踪。尽管作了最大努力，动用了300多架飞机和几十艘船只，美国海军依然一无所获。
　　这仅是众多有关“百慕大三角”的恐怖故事之一。“百慕大三角”是大西洋的一处神秘地带，范围从百慕大朝西南沿佛罗里达海岸再至波多黎各。水手们传说它是“大西洋的墓地”。在过去的30年里，该三角吞噬了近1，000名水手和飞行员的生命。当年哥伦布进入大西洋这片水域时，注意到“白色的海水”泛起奇特的光。这些亮光如今仍然可见，而且明亮得绕地球作轨道飞行的美国飞船都可以看到。
　　这个三角地带通过三本畅销书、一部电视片和一个特别展览引起了公众极大的兴趣。虽然它们都未能就百慕大三角之谜提供令人信服的答案，但其中不乏有趣的理论。有些科学家和通俗作家甚至猜测此三角地带是外星人为他们的“动物园”捕捉人类标本之地。
　　不论真相如何，飞机和船只仍常常消失在这个三角地带。1947年7月3日，一架美国空军飞机消失在百慕大附近100英里的地方，事先没有发出任何遇难警示。随后立即展开了范围宽达100，000平方英里的海面搜索，但一无所获。1948年1月30日，一架英国客机消失在该三角地带上空，机上有31名乘客和机组人员。一年后，失踪飞机的姊妹机也消失了。72架搜索飞机加上几十艘船只，都没能找到失踪飞机的任何踪影。
　　被神秘三角吞噬的最大船只之一，是一艘500英尺的运煤船，它于1918年3月4日消失。调查发现没有天气恶劣的迹象，没有求救信号，没有船只残骸，也没有船上309人的踪迹。更怪的是，人们发现无数“鬼船”漂游在三角地区，船上却空无一人。1881年一个诡异的日子，货轮“艾伦·奥斯丁”号发现了一艘小帆船，帆在风中无望地飘动。船长通过望远镜看见甲板上没有人。船上载满了木材，但没有人类生命的迹象。船长派了一组新船员前去开船。但两天以后，一场暴风雨使两艘船失散了。船长再次登上那艘船，发现自己的船员都失踪了。他又派去了一组船员，这艘船又在一场大雾中迷失。这一次，船只和船员都不见了踪影。
　　美国海军官方并不承认此三角区为危险地带，他们相信“大多数失踪事件，都应归咎于该地区独特的环境”，其中包括墨西哥湾的湍急海流，尚未探测的大西洋海沟，以及该神秘区域时常变幻莫测的恶劣天气。此外，罗盘指针在此地区指向真正的北方而不是磁极北方，造成了航行麻烦。“那里的怪事、奇事层出不穷，”《魔鬼三角》一书的作者理查德·文纳说。“但我相信，所有的答案都在于人为失误、机械故障、怪异的天气或者异常的磁场现象。”
　　与此相反，另一些政府官员报告：“迄今为止，还没人对失踪事件做出合理的解释。”由于这些不确定因素，私下的调查者往往寻求更为荒诞的解释。一名作者认为，外星人在三角区内尚未考察的大西洋海底建立了高度发达的文明。他相信大部分失踪的船只和船员可能依然被陈列在那里，供那些高级智能生命研究。
　　所有这些理论都在查尔斯·伯利茨的《百慕大三角》一书里得到研究。伯利茨对传说中消失的岛屿亚特兰蒂斯很感兴趣，他扩展了这一学说，认为曾是亚特兰蒂斯发电机的巨型太阳能水晶现在就在海底。按照他的理论，过往的船只或飞机不时触动那块水晶，水晶于是干扰它们的仪器，把它们吸入海底。