ON THE JOB IN THE DEADLY "DEVIL'S TRIANGLE" by Peter Michelmore

Live! Writer Peter Michelmore is on the scene with the Coast Guard as they investigate distress calls in the deadly Bermuda Triangle! Who will they find, and what will be left of them? 

All told, it's a quiet time out there, so Michelmore details superstitions that still bedevil even the Coast Guard's finest, and goes over a couple of close calls that could have become Triangle lore if things had gone a little differently. The spooky highpoint of Michelmore's ride is a sudden drop in oil pressure which inexplicably resets itself ... phew!

Detail of the article's main map, courtesy of Wide World

Michelmore namechecks Charles Berlitz and Lawrence David Kusche as the two extremes of Triangle writing and poopoos both, despite falling very neatly in line with Kusche when he says that the most important factor in the Triangle is "the human element." Some of it comes down to nitpicking over exact wording, as Michelmore wants to get across that the Triangle is a very dangerous place indeed even without any paranormal elements, and he feels that Triangle debunkers may overstate the lack of danger and the hard work that goes into the Coast Guard's patrol of these devilish waters.

And the secondary map, with less detail

This article is also available to read and download at archive dot org.

Courtesy Argosy magazine, Vol. 282 - No. 2, August 1975.

 

THE BIBLE AND THE BERMUDA TRIANGLE by George Johnson and Don Tanner

We're getting back to our roots here for our big 400th post with some classic crank writing on the Bermuda Triangle courtesy Christian authors George Johnson and Don Tanner, as they run us through the connections between THE BIBLE AND THE BERMUDA TRIANGLE! Their religious POV gives us some great Triangle tidbits like missionary couple Warren and Betty Miller of East Lansing, MI, who fly their Beechcraft through a mysterious yellow fog over the Triangle that kills their instruments and leaves them SOL at 11,000 feet! The authors make some biblical interpretations of this yellow fog later on ...

I assume that "the movie" referenced on the cover is Richard Winer's 1971 documentary The Devil's Triangle, narrated by Vincent Price. Typical of '70s Christian authors, everything here is laid out plainly and flows logically within the busted frameworks of biblical literalism and young Earth creationism. Johnson and Tanner quote classic Triangle stories extensively from authors like Charles Berlitz, Adi-Kent Thomas Jeffrey, psychic Page Bryant, Richard Winer, and most interestingly Lawrence David Kusche, whose skeptical book The Bermuda Triangle Mystery - Solved is used to deflate some of the Triangle myth making of the other authors. One example has Johnson and Tanner using the phony line "they look like they're from outer space" from retellings of Flight 19 in an early chapter (quoting Art Ford specifically) and then correcting it later with Kusche's work to prove a point about occultic lies. Our authors have us coming and going though, because both the fake Triangle myths and any genuine weirdness going on out there spring from the same source: Satan! Another heavily cited work is the Christian text UFOs: What on Earth is Happening? by John Weldon and Zola Levitt, which posits that flying saucers are emissaries of Satan.

Johnson and Tanner dredge up Ignatius Donnelly, of course, and W.S. Cerve's 1931 text Lemuria: The Lost Continent of the Pacific for evidence of sunken lands proving biblical catastrophism. Velikovsky and those old flash frozen mammoths also buttress this argument. Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monsters are bad portents of rising occultism, and monster hunting creep Frank Searle puts in an appearance for some satanic synchronicity.

Edgar Cayce and other psychics like Darwin Gross, ECK Master, are also quoted to support catastrophism and the idea of an imminent Atlantean resurrection in the Bermuda Triangle, with the authors disclaiming that, of course, any funny business involved is straight from Satan! Johnson and Tanner work in some Creationist cant too, with clumsy references to the coelacanth and "index fossils" that aren't fully explained. These and many other references come from the 1961 blockbuster catastrophist work The Genesis Flood by John C. Whitcomb and Henry M. Morris.

There's plenty of well done maps and illustrations, including a mysterious deep hole in the Gulf of Oman (relevant to Revelation 9:14) and a diagram of the Devil's Triangle and Bermuda Triangle both leading to Sheol, the biblical underworld. This is Johnson and Tanner's big idea, that Satan and his demonic minions are luring lost souls with UFOs, USOs, sea monsters, Bigfoot, and assorted occult phenomenon into the Triangles and vile vortices of Ivan T. Sanderson, which lead straight to Hades, where they'll await the final judgement to be cast into the eternal lake of fire! The authors suggest getting right with God to avoid this fate, in their specific manner of course.

The back page ads are a snapshot of American Christian concerns in the late '70s, covering economic woes, Eldridge Cleaver's conservative conversion, effective ministry, and another book by Tanner called On the Other Side, dealing with the near death experience of one Martin Ford. Tanner cowrote it with Dave Balsiger, who was also behind In Search of Noah's Ark, which was adapted post haste by Sunn Classic Pictures into the smash hit documentary of the same name. Tanner mentions On the Other Side in the introduction to this title as a reason he began investigating the occult/biblical connections to the Bermuda Triangle.

The Bible and the Bermuda Triangle is available to read and download at archive dot org. Here's to a new year, and some new old friends. Don't step into any bottomless pits!

Logos International, 1976

THE BERMUDA TRIANGLE CALENDAR: November and December 1974

Kusche's 1975 calendar also features as a courtesy November and December 1974, showcasing the mighty USS Proteus and five Grumman TBF Avengers like those lost in Flight 19. All events are identical to those listed in November and December 1975. The complete calendar can be viewed and downloaded at archive dot org.

Lawrence David Kusche, 1974

THE BERMUDA TRIANGLE CALENDAR: December 1975

December greets the Triangle Legend with two heavy hitters: the discovery of the abandoned Mary Celeste in 1872 and the disappearance of the legendary Flight 19, a group of five Navy trainers who were lost with all hands in the Triangle in 1945, along with a search and rescue plane that followed them into oblivion. Kusche's The Bermuda Triangle Mystery - Solved demystifies some of the legend around Lt. Charles C. Taylor and his crew, including the full flight transcript which lacks the famous line "they look like they're from outer space!" which populated more sensational midcentury retellings, implying the fliers had been kidnapped by flying saucers.

Grumman TBF-1 Avengers, identical to Flight 19

The doomed Lt. Taylor

A Martin PBM-5 Mariner, the same type lost in search of Flight 19

Kusche's book included his best estimates of Flight 19's doomed path, with Lt. Taylor becoming disoriented and believing his flight had gotten turned around and was over the Florida Keys, leading him to fly the team out into the empty North Atlantic until their fuel ran out in an attempt to reach land that was actually far south behind them:

This modern reconstruction from wikipedia matches Kusche's work:

The photo star of the month, however, is a DC-3 that disappeared on a flight from Puerto Rico to Miami in 1948, with the loss of 29 passengers and 3 crew.

Lawrence David Kusche, 1974

THE BERMUDA TRIANGLE CALENDAR: November 1975

November's Triangle is full of TERROR as we mark the finding of the wreck of the USS Scorpion, the final departure of the Mary Celeste, and one of the Triangle's most famous victims, Joshua Slocum - the first man to circumnavigate the globe solo! After a lifetime at sea, Slocum had become a major celebrity with his bestselling book Sailing Alone Around the World (1900), but "by 1909, Slocum's funds were running low; book revenues had tailed off. He prepared to sell his farm on Martha's Vineyard and began to make plans for a new adventure in South America. He had hopes of another book deal." He made his fateful departure and was never seen again. Kusche covered the facts as known and some speculation in The Bermuda Triangle Mystery - Solved:

It's not known if Slocum ever made it near any of the nominal borders of the Triangle, or managed to sail on through to the Orinoco River or elsewhere, but his legend lives on as a mystery of the sea, as does debate over the seaworthiness of the Spray, the sailing sloop in which he sailed across the world and then disappeared.

Lawrence David Kusche, 1974

THE BERMUDA TRIANGLE CALENDAR: October 1975

Picking up where we left off some years ago, here's the Bermuda Triangle Calendar entry for October 1975! This month yields a handful of minor league mysteries like the Freya and Columbus' "strange light" that will be familiar to dedicated Triangle heads. Kusche had some fun with the Freya in his The Bermuda Triangle Mystery - Solved on account of that doomed vessel actually being lost and found in the Pacific!

Musicians Stefano DiCarlo and Mauro Ruvolo named a track for the Freya on their 1992 Deep House EP The Bermuda Triangle:

Lawrence David Kusche, 1974

COVER UPDATES: THE BERMUDA TRIANGLE MYSTERY - SOLVED

A handsome reprint of Lawrence David Kusche's magnum opus from the titans of pulp at the New English Library. 

Dig the full page ads for a twofer of WWII merchant marine tales from authors Paul Lund and Harry Ludlum, plus a corker of a back page selection including The Rats, Carrie, and a little paranormal thriller called Thin Air ... more about that last title some other time ...

This copy also yielded a coupon for 42 cents off a bacon cheeseburger sandwich from Hardee's, valid only at the Manitowoc and Two Rivers locations! Turns out those towns are in Wisconsin, and neither location is extant - which is fine, because the offer expired February 15, 1987!

Around the world and through the decades! Courtesy the New English Library, 1981 (original pub. 1975).