Curse of the Bermuda Triangle Comes to Life Under the Eye of a Local History Luminary

Arm chair travelers and history buffs are in for a treat this week when a local history luminary offers a presentation on one of the most talked about – and maybe the most misunderstood –  places on the globe, the Bermuda Triangle.

Laurie Davis Osseck, Scenic Regional Library adult outreach coordinator, a master at uncovering histories mysteries, will be at the Tri County Senior Center, 800 West Union Street, Friday morning at 9:00 a.m. to present a show and tell about the Bermuda Triangle. There is no cost to attend the presentation.

A former law researcher and 20-year history teacher, Laurie uncovers the details of history that bring past events into focus for her modern day audiences.

She has researched and presented 100 big historic topics, but few elements of the past offer more titillation than the Bermuda Triangle – that million square mile stretch of ocean between Miami, Florida; San Juan, Puerto Rico; and the island nation of Bermuda. Some 50 ships, 20 airplanes and a staggering 8,000 people have entered that space only to disappear off the face of the earth.

They just vanished, without a trace. In most cases there was no floating debris, no recovered hulls, no successful ocean salvaging operations. There were a couple of sailing ships found still underway but completely abandoned, bereft of their crews and passengers and supplies.

As early as Christopher Columbus’s first visit in 1492 it was obvious that something unusual was going on there. The great explorer had crossed an unknown ocean only to run into a section of water where he recorded seeing lights bob up and down on the ocean and his ships compass went haywire.

It even caught Shakespeare’s eye. In 1609 the emigrant ship Sea Venture on its way to supply the Jamestown colony was caught in a tempest and purposely run onto a reef in Bermuda to save the passengers, crew and supplies. Scholars are convinced that William Shakespeare learned about the great storm and used the shipwreck as the inspiration for his play The Tempest.

For the next three hundred years ships of all sizes disappeared. After the age of flight, some ill fated airplane flying into the region never returned.

One of the most reported incidents was when 14 airmen flying five World War II torpedo bombers called Avengers took off from Naval Air Station Fort Lauderdale on a routine training mission over the Bermuda Triangle on Dec. 5, 1945 and were never seen again. The search plane sent to locate them also disappeared.

With the eye of a professional historian, Laurie has looked at scores of these disappearances and followed up by researching the scholastic and scientific studies that attempt to explain them, which I’m intrigued to hear.

I learned how seriously some people take the mystery of the the Bermuda Triangle in 1980 when I was recovering from catastrophic spine surgery in Southern California. Every Friday a teenage neighbor helped me with my house and garden. Her name was Sheryl Lynn and the Bermuda Triangle was her bugaboo. She fretted about it and brought along pictures and newspaper articles. She could not get it out of her mind and she could now understand how or why people could be so afraid of stretch of the ocean. 

“What is the big secret? She said. “I would just get in a boat and go out there.”

As luck would have it, I did once get in a boat and go our there. I signed on to crew on a one-day sailing venture out of Miami on a two masted tall ship. My job was to secure the jib after each tack, which didn’t happen a lot. We sailed a long stretch out and a long stretch back.There are few things as beautiful as a tall ship under sail. The weather was perfect, enough wind to move us along at a good clip but not enough to cause any worry. I kept thinking of Sheryl Lynn the whole day and couldn’t wait tell her she was right. There was nothing to worry about.

I have to tell you . . . I hadn’t thought about Sheryl Lynn or my sailing venture in the Bermuda Triangle for years. But a brief telephone conversation with Laurie Osseck brought it all back, reminding me that the past never really leaves us. I can’t wait for Friday.