The mystery of the Bermuda Triangle has still not been solved: do ships continue to mysteriously disappear in the Atlantic Ocean? Bermuda Triangle: secret disappearances and scientific explanations Mysterious disappearances of ships

There have been many cases in history when large and reliable ships disappeared in the seas and oceans without a trace. They simply disappeared and were never found again. Is it any wonder that just recently a South Korean passenger airliner disappeared and no one can find it? Look how many sea vessels have disappeared, even today no one knows where they all went.

Mysterious disappearances. Missing ships. Even today, no one knows where they are now.

1. USS Wasp - missing escort

There were actually several ships that were named USS Wasp, but the strangest was the Wasp, which disappeared in 1814. Built in 1813 for the war with England, Wasp was a fast sloop with a square sail, 22 guns and a crew of 170 men. Wasp participated in 13 successful operations. On September 22, 1814, the ship captured the British merchant brig Atalanta. Typically, the Wasp's crew would simply burn enemy ships, but Atalanta was deemed too valuable to destroy. As a result, an order was received to escort Atalanta to the allied harbor, and Wasp set off towards the Caribbean Sea. He was never seen again.

2. SS Marine Sulfur Queen - a victim of the Bermuda Triangle

The ship was a 160-meter tanker that was originally used to transport oil during World War II. The ship was later rebuilt to carry molten sulfur. Marine Sulfur Queen was in excellent condition. In February 1963, two days after leaving Texas with a cargo of sulfur, a routine radio message was received from the ship saying that everything was in order. After that the ship disappeared. Many speculate that it simply exploded, while others blame the “magic” of the Bermuda Triangle for its disappearance. The bodies of 39 crew members were not found, although a life jacket and a piece of board with a piece of the inscription "arine SULPH" were recovered.

3. USS Porpoise - lost in typhoon

Built during the golden age of sailing ships, the Porpoise was originally known as the "hermaphrodite brig" because its two masts used two various types sails She was later converted to a traditional brigantine with square sails on both masts. The ship was first used to chase pirates, and in 1838 it was sent on an exploration expedition. The team managed to accomplish trip around the world and confirm the existence of Antarctica. After exploring a number of islands in the southern part Pacific Ocean The Porpoise sailed from China in September 1854, after which no one heard from her. It is likely that the crew encountered a typhoon, but there is no evidence of this.

4. FV Andrea Gail – victim of the “perfect storm”

The fishing trawler Andrea Gai was built in Florida in 1978 and subsequently purchased by a company in Massachusetts. With a crew of six, Andrea Gail sailed successfully for 13 years and disappeared during a voyage to Newfoundland. The Coast Guard launched a search, but were only able to find the ship's distress beacon and some debris. After a week of searching, the ship and its crew were declared missing. Andrea Gail is believed to have been doomed when a high-pressure front crashed into a massive area of ​​low-pressure air, causing the nascent typhoon to merge with the remnants of Hurricane Grace. This rare combination of three separate weather systems eventually became known as the "perfect storm." According to experts, Andrea Gail could have encountered waves more than 30 meters high.

5. SS Poet - the ship that did not send a distress signal

The ship was originally called the Omar Bundy and was used to transport troops during World War II. It was later used to transport steel. In 1979, the ship was purchased by the Hawaiian corporation Eugenia Corporation of Hawaii, which named it "Poet". In 1979, the ship left Philadelphia for Port Said with a cargo of 13,500 tons of corn, but never reached its destination. The last communication with the Poet occurred just six hours after leaving the port of Philadelphia, when one of the crew members spoke with his wife. After this, the ship did not make a scheduled 48-hour communication session, and the ship did not issue a distress signal. Eugenia Corporation did not report the ship's loss for six days, and the Coast Guard did not respond for another 5 days after that. No traces of the ship were ever found.

6. USS Conestoga - the missing minesweeper

USS Conestoga was built in 1917 and served as a minesweeper. After the end of the First World War it was converted into a tugboat. In 1921, the ship was transferred to Samoa, where it was to become a floating station. On March 25, 1921, the ship set sail, nothing more is known about it.

7. Witchcraft - a pleasure boat that disappeared at Christmas

In December 1967, Miami hotelier Dan Burak decided to admire the city's Christmas lights from his personal luxury boat, Witchcraft. Accompanied by his father Patrick Hogan, he went about 1.5 km out to sea. It is known that the boat was in perfect order. Around 9 p.m., Burak radioed to request a tow back to the pier, reporting that his boat had been struck by an unknown object. He confirmed his coordinates to the coast guard and specified that he would launch a flare. Rescuers reached the scene within 20 minutes, but Witchcraft had disappeared. The Coast Guard combed more than 3,100 square kilometers of ocean, but neither Dan Burak, nor Patrick Hogan, nor Witchcraft were ever found.

8. USS Insurgent: the mysterious disappearance of a warship

The US Navy frigate Insurgent was captured by the Americans in battle with the French in 1799. The ship served in the Caribbean, where she won many glorious victories. But on August 8, 1800, the ship sailed from Virginia Hampton Roads and mysteriously disappeared.

9. SS Awahou: lifeboats didn't help

Built in 1912, the 44-metre freighter Awahou went through many owners before eventually being purchased by Australia's Carr Shipping & Trading Company. On September 8, 1952, the ship sailed from Sydney with a crew of 18 people and set sail for the private island of Lord Howe. The ship was in good shape when it left Australia, but within 48 hours an unclear, "crispy" radio signal was received from the ship. The speech was almost impossible to understand, but it sounded like Awahou was caught in bad weather. Although the ship had enough lifeboats for the entire crew, no traces of the wreck or bodies were found.

10. SS Baychimo - Arctic ghost ship

Some call it a ghost ship, but Baychimo was actually a real ship. Built in 1911, Baychimo was a huge steam freighter owned by the Hudson's Bay Company. The ship was primarily used to transport furs from northern Canada. The first nine flights were relatively calm. But during the ship's last voyage, in 1931, winter came very early. Completely unprepared for bad weather, the ship found itself trapped in the ice. Most of the crew were rescued by plane, but the captain and several Baychimo crew members decided to wait out the bad weather by setting up camp on the ship. A severe snowstorm began, which completely hid the ship from sight. When the storm subsided, Baychimo disappeared. However, over the course of several decades, Baychimo was allegedly seen more than once drifting aimlessly in Arctic waters.

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According to sailors, ghost ships or phantoms that appear on the horizon and disappear, portend trouble. The same goes for ships abandoned by their crews. Mysterious circumstances and an unusual flair of eerie romance accompany these stories. The ocean hides its secrets, and we decided to recall all these legends - from the “Flying Dutchman” and “Mary Celeste”, to less famous ghost ships. You may not have known about many of them.

The ocean is one of the largest and most unexplored areas of the Earth. In fact, the ocean covers up to 70% of the globe's surface. The ocean is so little explored that, according to Scientific American, humans have mapped less than 0.05% of the ocean floor.

In this situation, all these stories do not seem so incredible. And there are a great many of them - stories about ships that are lost in the seas, and all these empty ships, drifting without a purpose and a crew on board... They are called ghost ships. The entire crew died, or disappeared for unknown reasons...there were many such finds. The mysterious circumstances surrounding the death or disappearance of these teams, even today, with all the technological advances and research methods, remain mysterious. And no one can still explain the disappearance of people on board. Why did the entire crew leave the ship, which is left to drift, and where did they all go? Storms, pirates, disease...maybe they sailed away on boats...one way or another, many crews mysteriously disappeared without explanation. The sea knows how to keep secrets, and is reluctant to part with them. Many disasters that occurred in the sea will remain a mystery to everyone.

15. "Ourang Medan" (Orang Medan, or Orange Medan)

This Dutch merchant ship became known as a ghost ship in the late 1940s. In 1947, the Orang Medan was shipwrecked in the Dutch East Indies, and an SOS signal was received by two American ships, the City of Baltimore and the Silver Star, sailing through the Strait of Malacca.
And the sailors of two American ships received an SOS signal from the cargo ship Orang Medan. The signal was transmitted by a crew member who was extremely frightened and reported that the rest of his crew were dead. After this the connection was interrupted. Arriving on the ship, the entire crew was found dead - the bodies of the sailors froze, as if in an attempt to defend themselves, but the source of the threat was never discovered.

An article written in the late 1960s by the US Coast Guard said the bodies showed no visible signs of damage. The cargo ship was reportedly transporting sulfuric acid that was improperly packaged. After the Silver Star's crew quickly evacuated and the Americans abandoned the ship, they hoped to tow it to shore. But a fire suddenly broke out on the ship, followed by an explosion and the ship sank, which led to the final death of the merchant ship. The widow of one of the sailors who died on Ourang Medan has a photograph of the ship and crew.

14. "Copenhagen"

One of sea ​​riddles- the disappearance without a trace of one of the newest and most reliable ships of the 20th century, the five-masted Copenhagen. In the entire history of the sailing fleet, only six ships similar to the Copenhagen were built, and she was the third largest in the world in the year of construction - in 1921. She was built for the Danish East Asia Company in Scotland - at the shipyard of Romeage and Fergusson in the small town of Leith near Aberdeen. The hull was made of high-quality steel, there was a ship's own power plant on board, all deck winches were equipped with electric drives, which significantly saved time on sailing operations, and even a ship's radio station. The double-deck steel Copenhagen was a training and production vessel that made regular voyages and carried cargo. The last radio communication session with Copenhagen took place on December 21, 1928. There was no reliable information about the fate of the huge sailing ship and the 61 people on board.

A reward was offered to anyone who could indicate the location of the missing ship. Requests were sent to all ports: to report possible contacts with Copenhagen. But the captains of only two ships responded to this call - the Norwegian and English ships. Both stated that, while passing through the southern part of the Atlantic, they contacted the Danes, and they were all right. The East Asian Company first sent the Ducalien ship to search for the missing ship (but it returned empty-handed), and then the Mexico, which also found nothing. In 1929, in Copenhagen, a commission of inquiry into the disappearance of the ship concluded that “a training sailing ship, the five-masted bark "Copenhagen", with 61 people on board, died due to the action of irresistible forces of nature... the ship suffered a disaster so quickly that its crew could neither broadcast an SOS distress signal nor launch lifeboats or rafts." .

At the end of 1932, in southwest Africa, in the Namib Desert, one of the British expeditions discovered seven withered skeletons dressed in tattered sea jackets. Based on the structure of the skulls, researchers determined that they were Europeans. Based on the pattern on the copper buttons of the peacoats, experts determined that they belonged to the uniform of the Danish Merchant Navy cadets. However, this time the owners of the East Asian Company no longer had any doubts, because before 1932, only one Danish training ship, the Copenhagen, suffered a disaster. And 25 years later, on October 8, 1959, the captain of the cargo ship from the Netherlands “Straat Magelhes” Piet Agler, while near the southern coast of Africa, saw a sailboat with five masts. It appeared out of nowhere, as if it had emerged from the depths of the ocean, and with all sails was heading straight towards the Dutch... The crew managed to prevent a collision, after which the sailing ship disappeared, but the crew managed to read the inscription on board the ghost ship - “København”.

13. "Baychimo"

The Baychimo was built in Sweden in 1911 by order of a German trading company. After World War I it was taken over by Great Britain and transported furs for the next fourteen years. In early October 1931, the weather deteriorated sharply, and a few miles off the coast near the town of Barrow, the ship became stuck in the ice. The team temporarily abandoned the ship and found shelter on the mainland. A week later the weather cleared, the sailors returned on board and continued sailing, but already on October 15, Baychimo again fell into an ice trap.
This time it was impossible to get to the nearest city - the crew had to arrange a temporary shelter on the shore, far from the ship, and here they were forced to spend a whole month. In mid-November there was a snowstorm that lasted for several days. And when the weather cleared on November 24, Baychimo was no longer in its original place. The sailors believed that the ship had been lost in a storm, but a few days later a local seal hunter reported seeing Baychimo about 45 miles from their camp. The team found the ship, removed its precious cargo and left it forever.
This is not the end of the Baychimo story. For the next 40 years, it was occasionally seen drifting along the northern coast of Canada. Attempts were made to get on board the ship, some were quite successful, but due to weather conditions and the poor condition of the hull, the ship was abandoned again. The last time Baychimo was seen was in 1969, that is, 38 years after its crew abandoned it - at that time the frozen ship was part of an ice massif. In 2006, the Alaska government made an attempt to determine the location of the "Ghost Ship of the Arctic", but in vain. Where Baychimo is now - whether it lies at the bottom or is covered with ice beyond recognition - is a mystery.

12. Valencia

The Valencia was built in 1882 by William Cramp and Sons. The steamboat was most often used on the California-Alaska route. In 1906, the Valencia sailed from San Francisco to Seattle. Terrible disaster occurred on the night of January 21-22, 1906, when Valencia was near Vancouver. The steamer ran into reefs and received large holes through which water began to flow. The captain decided to run the ship aground. 6 out of 7 boats were launched, but they became casualties powerful storm; only a few people managed to get to the shore and report the disaster. The rescue operation was unsuccessful and most of the crew and passengers died. According to official information, 136 people became victims of the shipwreck; according to unofficial information, even more - 181. 37 people survived.

In 1933, lifeboat No. 5 was found near Barclay. Its condition was good, the boat retained most of its original paint. The lifeboat was found 27 years after the disaster! After this, local fishermen began to talk about the appearance of a ghost ship, which in outline resembled the Valencia.

11. Yacht SAYO; Manfred Fritz Bayorath

The 12-meter yacht SAYO, which disappeared seven years ago, was found drifting 40 miles from Barobo by Filipino fishermen. The boat's mast was broken and most of the interior was filled with water. When they got on board, they saw a mummified body near the radiotelephone. Based on photographs and documents found on board, it was quickly possible to identify the deceased. It turned out to be the owner of the yacht, yachtsman from Germany Manfred Fritz Bayorath. Bayorat's body was mummified under the influence of salt and high temperatures.

A drifting ship with the captain's mummy discovered off the coast of the Philippines surprised many. German traveler Manfred Fritz Bayorath was an experienced sailor who traveled on this yacht for 20 years. Judging by the pose in which the captain's mummy froze, last hours throughout his life he tried to contact rescuers. The cause of his death still remains a mystery.

10. "Lunatic"

In 2007, 70-year-old Jure Sterk from Slovenia set off on a trip around the world on his “Lunatic”. To communicate with the shore, he used a radio he assembled with his own hands, but on January 1, 2009, he stopped communicating. A month later, his boat washed up on the coast of Australia, but there was no one on board.
Those who saw the ship believe it was approximately 1,000 nautical miles off the coast.
The sailboat was in excellent shape and appeared undamaged. There was no sign of Sterk there. No note or journal entry about the reasons for his disappearance. Although the last entry in the journal dates back to January 2, 2009. And at the end of April 2019, “Lunatic” was spotted at sea by the crew of the research vessel “Roger Revelle”. It was drifting about 500 miles off the coast of Australia. His exact coordinates at that time were Latitude 32-18.0S, Longitude 091-07.0E.

9. "The Flying Dutchman"

The "Flying Dutchman" refers to several different ghost ships from different centuries. One of them is the real owner of the brand. The one with whom the trouble happened at the cape Good Hope.
This is a legendary ghost sailing ship that cannot land on the shore and is doomed to forever roam the seas. Usually people observe such a ship from afar, sometimes surrounded by a luminous halo. According to legend, when the Flying Dutchman encounters another ship, its crew tries to send messages ashore to people who have long been dead. In maritime beliefs, an encounter with the Flying Dutchman was considered a bad omen.
Legend has it that in the 1700s, Dutch captain Philip Van Straaten was returning from the East Indies with a young couple on board. The captain liked the girl; he killed her betrothed, and proposed to her to become his wife, but the girl threw herself overboard. While trying to round the Cape of Good Hope, the ship encountered a severe storm. The navigator offered to wait out the bad weather in some bay, but the captain shot him and several dissatisfied people, and then swore by his mother that none of the crew would go ashore until they rounded the cape, even if it took forever. The captain, a foul-mouthed and blasphemous man, brought a curse upon his ship. Now he, immortal, invulnerable, but unable to go ashore, is doomed to plow the waves of the world's oceans until the second coming.
The first printed mention of the Flying Dutchman appeared in 1795 in the book A Voyage to Botany Bay.

8. “High Em 6”

This ghost ship was reported to have left a port in southern Taiwan on October 31, 2002. Subsequently, on January 8, 2003, the Indonesian fishing schooner Hi Em 6 was found adrift without a crew near New Zealand. Despite a thorough search, no trace of the 14 team members could be found. The captain reportedly last contacted the ship's owner, Tsai Huan Chue-er, in late 2002.

Oddly enough, the only crew member who showed up later reported that the captain had been killed. Whether there was a rebellion and its reasons are unclear. Initially, the entire crew was missing, and when the ship was discovered, no one was found. According to the results of the investigation, there were no signs of distress or fire on the ship. However, it was said that the ship could be carrying illegal immigrants. Which also doesn't explain anything...

7. Phantom Galleon

Legends about this ship began in the late 1800s when it was built. The ship was going to be built from wood. Once at sea, among the ice, the wooden ship froze into part of the iceberg. Eventually, the water began to warm up, the weather changed, it became warmer, and the iceberg sank the ship. The White Fleet searched for its ship throughout the winter, each time returning to port empty-handed, under cover of fog. At some point, it became so warm that the ship thawed and separated from the iceberg, and rose to the surface, where it was discovered by the crew of the White Fleet. Unfortunately, the crew of the galleon was killed; the remains of the ship were towed to the port.

6. "Octavius"

One of the first ghost ships, the Octavius ​​became one because its crew froze to death in 1762, and the ship drifted for another 13 years with the dead on board. The captain tried to find a short route from China to England through the Northwest Passage (a sea route through the Arctic Ocean), but the ship was covered in ice. Octavius ​​left England and headed for America in 1761. Trying to save time, the captain decided to follow the then-unexplored Northwest Passage, which was first successfully completed only in 1906. The ship is stuck in arctic ice, the unprepared team froze to death - the discovered remains indicate that this happened quite quickly. It is assumed that some time later Octavius ​​was freed from the ice and, with its dead crew, drifted on the open sea. After an encounter with whalers in 1775, the ship was never seen again.
The English merchant ship Octavius ​​was discovered drifting west of Greenland on October 11, 1775. A crew from the whaler Whaler Herald boarded and found the entire crew frozen. The captain's body was in his cabin; he died while writing in the logbook; he remained sitting at the table with a pen in his hand. There were three more frozen bodies in the cabin: a woman, a child wrapped in a blanket, and a sailor. The whaler's boarding crew left Octavius ​​in a hurry, taking with them only the logbook. Unfortunately, the document was so damaged by cold and water that only the first and last pages could be read. The journal ended with an entry from 1762. This meant that the ship had been drifting with the dead on board for 13 years.

5. Corsair "Duc de Dantzig"

This ship was launched in the early 1800s in Nantes, France, and soon became a corsair. Corsairs are private individuals who, with the permission of the supreme power of a warring state, used an armed vessel to capture merchant ships of the enemy, and sometimes even neutral powers. The same title applies to their team members. The concept of “corsair” in the narrow sense is used to characterize specifically French and Ottoman captains and ships.

The corsair captured several ships, some were plundered, and some were set free. After capturing small ships, most often the corsair abandoned the captured ships, sometimes starting a fire on them. Mysteriously, this ship disappeared in 1812. Since then he has become a legend. It is believed that shortly after the mysterious disappearance, this corsair could have been a cruiser in Atlantic Ocean or perhaps in the Caribbean. There are rumors that it may have been captured by a British frigate. Napoleonic Gallego reported the discovery of this ship, drifting at sea completely aimlessly, with the deck covered in blood and covered with the corpses of the crew. However, there were no visible external signs damage to the vessel. The frigate's crew allegedly found and took the logbook, covered in the captain's blood, and then set the ship on fire.

4. Schooner "Jenny"

It is stated that the schooner Jenny, originally English, left port on the Isle of Wight in 1822 for the Antarctic regatta. The voyage was supposed to take place along the ice barrier in 1823, then it was planned to enter the ice in southern waters, and reach Drake Passage.
But a British schooner got stuck in the ice of the Drake Passage in 1823. But it was discovered only 17 years later: in 1840, a whaling ship called Nadezhda stumbled upon it. The bodies of the Jenny crew members were well preserved due to the low temperatures. The ship took its place in the history of ghost ships, and in 1862 it was included in the list of Globus, a popular German geographical magazine of those times.

3. Sea Bird

Most “meetings” with ghost ships are pure fiction, but there were also quite real stories. Losing a vessel or ship in the infinity of the world's oceans is not so difficult. And it's even easier to lose people.
In the 1750s, Sea Bird was a trading brig under the command of John Huxham. A merchant ship ran aground off Easton Beach, Rhode Island. The crew disappeared to an unknown location - the ship was abandoned by them without any explanation, and the lifeboats were missing. It was reported that the ship was returning from a voyage from Honduras, carrying goods from the southern to the northern hemisphere, and was expected to arrive in the city of Newport. Upon further investigation, coffee was found boiling on the stove on the abandoned ship... The only living creatures that were found on board were a cat and a dog. The crew mysteriously disappeared. An account of the ship's history was recorded in Wilmington, Delaware and made news in the Sunday Morning Star in 1885.

2. "Mary Celeste" (or Celeste)

The second most popular ghost ship after the Flying Dutchman - however, unlike it, it really existed. “Amazon” (as the ship was originally called) was notorious. The ship changed owners many times, the first captain died during the first voyage, then the ship ran aground during a storm, and finally it was bought by an enterprising American. He renamed the Amazon the Mary Celeste, believing that the new name would save the ship from trouble.
When the ship left the port of New York on November 7, 1872, there were 13 people on board: Captain Briggs, his wife, their daughter and 10 sailors. In 1872, a ship traveling from New York to Genoa with a cargo of alcohol on board was discovered by the Dei Grazia without a single person on board. All the personal belongings of the crew were in their places; in the captain’s cabin there was a box with his wife’s jewelry and her own sewing machine with unfinished sewing. True, the sextant and one of the boats disappeared, which suggests that the crew abandoned the ship. The ship was in good condition, the holds were filled with food, the cargo (the ship was carrying alcohol) was intact, but no traces of the crew were found. The fate of all crew members and passengers is completely shrouded in darkness. Subsequently, several impostors appeared and were exposed, posing as crew members and trying to profit from the tragedy. Most often, the impostor posed as the ship's cook.

The British Admiralty conducted a thorough investigation with a detailed examination of the ship (including below the waterline, by divers) and a thorough interview with eyewitnesses. It is the materials of this investigation that are the main and most reliable source of information. Plausible explanations of what happened boil down to the fact that the crew and passengers left the ship of their own free will, differing only in the interpretation of the reasons that prompted them to such a decision. There are many hypotheses, but they are all just assumptions.

1. Cruiser USS Salem (CA-139)

The cruiser USS Salem was laid down in July 1945 at Bethlehem Steel Company's Quincy Yard, launched in March 1947, and entered service on May 14, 1949. For ten years, the ship served as the flagship of the Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean, and the Second Fleet in Atlantic. In 1959, the ship was withdrawn from the fleet, and in 1995 it opened to visitors as a museum. Now the USS Salem is docked in Boston, Massachusetts in Quincy Harbor.

Boston, one of the oldest cities in the United States, has several spooky historic ships and buildings on display. This ship, being an old warship, is a bundle of stories - from the dark sights of war to the loss of life, if you have the opportunity to take a tour there, you will be able to relive thrill and chills from all the ghosts of this ship. He's been nicknamed the "Sea Witch" and is rumored to be so creepy that you can feel the chill just by looking at his photo online.

A sailor is one of the most romantic professions. Just imagine - you wake up in the morning, and instead of a boring gray city, before your eyes is the vast expanse of the ocean, clean air. Your comrades are always ready to accompany you on raids on taverns, and in each port there is a beautiful girl waiting... This is how this profession seems to any uninitiated.

But there is also back side medals - anything can happen to a ship during a long voyage. You can get caught in a storm or be captured by pirates, which, oddly enough, have not disappeared into the 21st century. And sometimes mysterious disappearances of ships happen, and then the ships disappear without a trace. Some blame this on supernatural forces and legendary inhabitants of the deep sea - such as the giant octopuses krakens, while others blame the Maelstrom whirlpool, the Bermuda Triangle and others natural phenomena.

1943 - disappearance of the ship Capelin (SS-289)

Capelin (SS-289) - submarine, launched on January 20, 1943. On November 17, 1943, the ship patrolled the waters of the Celebes and Molucca Seas, paying special attention to the Gulf of Davao, the Morotai Strait, as well as the trade routes located near the island of Siaoe.

The last time an American submarine was seen was on December 2, 1943, as reported by the ship Bonefish (SS-223). The official reason for the disappearance of the ship is considered to be enemy minefields that could have been located in the submarine’s patrol area. There was no exact confirmation of this fact.

There is another version of this disaster, which official sources rejected due to its fantastic nature. According to it, Capelin (SS-289) could have become the victim of an unidentified sea monster, which local fishermen have repeatedly reported. According to the sailors, the animal resembled a huge octopus.

1921 - disappearance of the SS Hewitt

This cargo ship made voyages along the US coast. On January 20, 1921, a fully loaded ship left the Texas city of Sabine. The ship was under the command of Captain Hans Jacob Hensen. Last signal The radio call from this ship was received on January 25 and did not report anything unusual. The ship was then spotted 250 miles north of Florida's Jupiter Inlet. Then the thread breaks, and the SS Hewitt, like the other missing ships, became part of history.

A thorough check was carried out along the entire route that the ship followed, but it did not yield results - the mystery of the disappearance of the SS Hewitt has not yet been solved. There were many rumors and speculations about this incident. It was even suggested that the ship's crew became victims of a rare natural phenomenon, as curious as the Maelstrom whirlpool - the voice of the sea.

for reference: the voice of the sea is a natural phenomenon that affects the human psyche and health. The sea generates infrasound that is below the limit auditory perception person, but affects his brain. Infrasound can have a variety of effects, from auditory and visual hallucinations to nausea and other symptoms of seasickness. Strong exposure to infrasound can cause death - vibrations lead to cardiac arrest.

Who is responsible for the disappearance of the ships?

It is believed that one of the most dangerous areas on the surface of the sea is the Maelstrom whirlpool. Literary sources describe this natural phenomenon as having terrifying power and detrimental to any ship caught in its zone. In fact, the danger of the Maelstrom is somewhat exaggerated.

If this whirlpool was dangerous for ancient ships - wooden sailing boats, then modern ships Once in these waters, they do not receive any damage. The current speed of the Maelstrom whirlpool does not exceed 11 km/h. And yet one should not be careless about this natural phenomenon - the direction of water movement can change in the most unpredictable ways. Therefore, even modern ships avoid the strait located north of Mosque Island; there is a danger of breaking on the coastal rocks.

The Maelström whirlpool is located between the islands of Moskenesøy and Förö. It is formed at certain hours due to the collision of ebb and flow waves, which contributes to the formation of a whirlpool difficult terrain bottom and broken coastline. The Maelstrom is a system of eddies in the strait. But despite all the dangers, tourism in Lofoten is very popular. The guidebooks state that “winter fishing in the archipelago is an incomparable pleasure.”

Bermuda Triangle - secrets of the deep sea

The Bermuda Triangle is one of the most famous anomalous zones located between Bermuda, Puerto Rico and Miami in Florida. Its area occupies over a million square kilometers. Until 1840, this zone was unknown to anyone, until the mysterious disappearances of ships and then planes began.

People first started talking about the Bermuda Triangle in 1840, when the crew completely disappeared from the Rosalie ship, which was drifting near the capital. Bahamas- Port of Nassau. The ship had all the equipment, the sails were raised, but the crew was completely absent. However, as a result of checks, it was established that the ship was called "Rossini" and not "Rosalie". The ship ran aground while sailing near the Bahamas. The crew evacuated on boats, and the ship was carried out to sea by tidal waves.

The greatest activity of the Bermuda Triangle in terms of disappearances of ships or crew occurred in the 20th century. For example, on October 20, 1902, the German four-masted merchant ship Freya was spotted in the Atlantic Ocean. There was no crew on the ship at all. There is still no explanation for this incident.

In 1945, scientists became interested in the waters of the Bermuda Triangle. The data obtained by the researchers did not solve the mystery of this anomalous zone, but only added more questions. Since the start of tracking, there have been more than 100 cases of disappearance of ships and aircraft of both civil and military aviation. Most of the equipment disappeared in the most mysterious way - no oil stains, no debris, no other traces.

And yet, scientists managed to make one important discovery. In the disappearing ship zone, in the very center of the Bermuda Triangle, a giant pyramid was discovered. It was discovered by American researchers in 1992. It seems incredible, but its dimensions exceed the dimensions of the Egyptian Great Pyramid of Cheops by more than 3 times. The pyramid is interesting not only for its size. Its surface is in perfect condition - sonar signals showed that there are no algae or shells on the surface. It is likely that the ocean cannot have any effect on this mysterious material from which the pyramid is made.

The Devil's Sea - another mystery of nature?

Oceanologists believe that our planet is surrounded by a certain zone called the “Devil's Belt”. It includes five “lost” places - the Afghan anomalous zone, the Bermuda Triangle, the Hawaiian anomalous zone, the Gibraltar wedge and the Devil's Sea. This sea is located approximately 70 miles from the east coast of Japan.

What are the characteristics of anomalous zones, and what is their danger? A person present in such a zone is subject to causeless panic attacks; it seems to him that he is being watched. From time to time he is overcome by attacks of insomnia, which are replaced by restless sleep. Abnormal zones also have a negative impact on plants - the extremes of yeast respiration undergo changes, the germination of beans, cucumbers, peas, and radish seeds stops. Mice raised in such places are characterized by numerous abnormalities - the development of tumors, lack of weight, and even devouring their offspring! In addition, in anomalous zones The disappearance of ships and planes is observed.

Sailors began to fear the Devil's Sea after a number of strange disappearances occurred in this zone. At first government authorities were skeptical of the reports since only small fishing boats were missing. But in the period from 1950 to 1954. There have been 9 cases of ship disappearances in the Devil's Sea. These were massive cargo ships equipped with reliable radios and powerful engines. A number of cases of ship disappearances occurred against the backdrop of beautiful weather.

Natural phenomena such as the Maelstrom are quite understandable from a physical point of view. And the phenomenon of the Bermuda Triangle or the Devil's Sea has not been solved to this day. Who knows - technological progress will win, or the mysterious disappearances of ships will continue? And who responsible for these disappearances - killer jellyfish , abnormal natural phenomena or otherworldly mystical forces?

Many of them disappeared without a trace, and some were found, but not a single living soul remained on board. All crew members seemed to have disappeared into thin air or were dead. The reasons for the disappearance or death of the team still remain a mystery. The only version is that the missing ships became victims of terrible supernatural phenomena. There is no other rational explanation yet.

"Seabird"

An unusual discovery was made at the end of the 19th century by residents of the coastal regions of Rhode Island (USA) - the ship Seabird, which crashed into the rocks. When eyewitnesses of the incident decided to inspect the ship, they were amazed: despite the fact that there were traces of the recent presence of people on board (food boiling on a fire, fresh food leftovers on plates), none of the crew members were found on the sailing ship. The only thing Living being- frightened dog. It seemed that the sailors left the ship in a hurry. But what made them flee and where they disappeared is not clear.

"Mary Celeste"

The ship, previously called the “Amazon,” was considered cursed from the first days of its existence. Tragic events haunted the sailors working on the ship. For example, the first captain of the Amazon died after accidentally falling overboard. In order not to tempt fate, the ship was renamed. However, the ship, which now became the Mary Celeste, was doomed. In 1872 he mysteriously disappeared. The missing ship was found a month later, but there was not a soul on board. All the sailors' belongings remained in place. But where did their owners go?

"Beychimo"

The history of the cargo ship is reminiscent of the story of the mystical Flying Dutchman. From 1911 to 1931, the ship made nine very successful voyages. But one day he got stuck in the Arctic ice. The team decided to wait out the bad weather in the nearest Eskimo settlement. Having left the ship, the captain hoped to return there as soon as the situation returned to normal. But after another winter storm, the ship was not there. Assuming that the Beichimo sank, the command stopped searching for it. However, there were eyewitnesses who claimed that they not only saw a mysterious ship in the waters of the Arctic, but even boarded it. Their testimony was very plausible, because they could quite accurately describe what “Beichimo” looked like. Over the course of many decades, the ship disappeared and then reappeared in the sight of sailors. No one can explain how a ship without control could navigate the ocean waters for so many years.

An Australian fishing yacht that set off for the high seas in the spring of 2007 was found abandoned a week later. There was no damage to the ship, but all three crew members were missing. Objects found on board (a radio on, a working computer, a set table) indicated that no one intended to leave the yacht. The team's search did not bring any results. According to the official version, one of the fishermen suddenly began to drown, and his two friends rushed to the aid of their drowning comrade. All three died. But no direct evidence of this version was found. Any explanation for the incident has no evidence.

The mysterious Bermuda Triangle in the Atlantic Ocean, bounded by Florida, Bermuda and Puerto Rico, is world famous for the disappearance of planes and ships in it. There are different hypotheses that explain these anomalies, including the tricks of aliens and inhabitants of Atlantis. Scientists, however, adhere to more prosaic explanations - for example, they point to the abundance of shoals in this area, as well as the frequent occurrence of storms and cyclones, which causes problems with navigation.

The Bermuda Triangle was first discussed in the press in 1950, and it received its name from writer Vincent Gaddis in 1964. Since then, between skeptics and supporters of the existence anomalous phenomena There is fierce debate about the reasons for the disappearances of ships and aircraft in this region.

Research team from University of Southampton in the UK has found a new explanation for the disappearance of ships in the Bermuda Triangle. In their opinion, 30-meter “rogue waves” are to blame for everything.

“There is no doubt that there are high waves in this area,” says oceanographer Simon Boxall, one of the team members. “They appear wherever there are multiple storms at the same time.”

Such waves are very steep and high, they look like a wall of water and appear unexpectedly, explain experts from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. For example, certain regions are predisposed to them South Africa, where they are generated by storms coming from the Indian, Southern and Atlantic Oceans. According to Boxall, there have been similar disappearances of ships and planes there over the years.

To test their guess, the researchers recreated models of some of the missing ships, and then simulated the movement of water in the Bermuda Triangle in a special container. It turned out that high waves can really quickly sink a ship, and the larger it is, the faster this happens. Small ships could get out on the crest of the wave, but large ones simply broke in two.

The researchers also commented on other hypotheses that could lead to the disappearance of ships, for example, magnetic anomalies.

“There aren’t any,” Boxall explains briefly. Magnetic anomalies do exist and are associated with the movement of the Earth's mantle beneath the crust, but the nearest one is more than 1,500 km to the south, near Brazil.

Another theory involves accumulations of explosive gas hidden in air pockets underwater. Due to the movement of water, it can rise up and flood the ship. However, according to Boxall, this has not yet been proven experimentally.

“Theoretically, it's possible, but there are many places in the world where it could happen,” he says. “Not only in the Bermuda Triangle.”

Boxall believes the most likely reason for the disappearance of ships and planes is human error.

Thus, he cites the example of the disappearance of five American military aircraft in 1945 during a training mission - most likely, they simply ran out of fuel.

About a third of all registered and privately owned oceangoing vessels in the United States are located in states and islands near the Bermuda Triangle, he explains. At the same time, according to the Coast Guard, 82% of incidents in this territory occurred with people who did not have the skills to work in the ocean and did not undergo appropriate training.

“We take a third of all US ships and send them to the Bermuda Triangle - here you have mystical disappearances,” Boxall shrugs.

In addition, not all ships have radios or navigation devices.

“Several times while working at sea, we came across people who navigate by road map. Some relied on their mobile phones for navigation and communication, but when you sail 50-60 kilometers from the coast, the signal is lost,” says the scientist.

Changeable weather conditions also contribute - a sudden storm can confuse inexperienced sailors, or even sink a ship. Shallows pose an additional danger. Thus, finding themselves in the heart of a storm without the ability to straighten course or call for help, unlucky sailors have every chance of dying.

“The Bermuda Triangle can be expanded to cover the entire globe,” says Boxall. “Waves appear everywhere, underwater pockets of dangerous gas are found everywhere, and where amateurs with no experience are concentrated, we will get a large number of mysterious disappearances.”