The Bermuda Triangle: Facts and Myths Quiz

Answer: No, it sank in the Gulf of Mexico

The V. A. Fogg was on its way from Freeport, Texas to Houston at the time of her sinking. Having just unloaded a cargo of benzene at the Phillips Petroleum and DuPont Chemical terminals, they needed to clean their tanks, and had five workmen aboard for that purpose.

While the exact cause of the sinking was never determined, it is likely that benzene fumes exploded in the tanks. The ship sank in a matter of minutes.

Answer: Yes

The case of the Witchcraft is one of the more baffling mysteries of the Bermuda Triangle. On December 22, 1967 Dan Burack, owner of the craft and a highly experienced sailor, and Father Patrick Horgan went out on the boat to view the Christmas lights of Miami.

Their last reported position was near buoy #7, still in the Miami harbor. Burack radioed that he had hit something, but thought that the boat was in no danger. Neither the boat nor its occupants were ever seen or heard from again.

Answer: Yes, deathbed confessions of two men indicate that pirates murdered everyone aboard, plundered the cargo, and then set the ship adrift under full sail.

The Patriot disappeared in 1813 on a voyage between Charleston and New York City. On board was Theodosia Burr Alston, the daughter of former vice president Aaron Burr and wife of South Carolina Governor Joseph Alston. Numerous versions of what happened to the ship were told, but eventually two men made deathbed confessions to having been part of a pirate crew that murdered everyone aboard, plundered the cargo, and then set the ship adrift under full sail.

While some doubt these confessions, they are similar enough to indicate that they may be true, and they do serve to explain the fate of the Patriot.

Answer: No, it sank off the New England coast

According to at least three authors, Raifuku Maru was lost east of the Bahamas, disappearing without a trace. In fact, the April 1925 disappearance of the wheat laden ship happened soon after leaving Boston, and was witnessed by crewmembers and passengers of the New York bound liner RMS Homeric, which was attempting to render assistance despite a storm and heavy seas.

Answer: A routine position report from just west of the Dry Tortugas

The Marine Sulphur Queen was last heard from on February 4, 1963 when she radioed a routine position report placing her just west of the Dry Tortugas. Interestingly, neither the Coast Guard, the ship's owners, nor the consignee who was to receive her cargo of liquefied sulfur realized she was missing until an investment broker called the Coast Guard after being unable to reach the ship to confirm a wheat futures order he had received via radio from crewmember Willie Manuel.

Although not yet confirmed, wreckage discovered in 423' of water near the Dry Tortugas may be the Marine Sulphur Queen.

Answer: In the Gulf of Mexico, southeast of Brownsville

Although often listed as a casualty of the Bermuda Triangle, the tug Southern Cities was making her fourth trip from Freeport, Texas to Tuxpan, Mexico, towing a loaded barge. Heavy seas and high winds were reported by other vessels. On November 5, 1966, the barge was found adrift approximately 105 miles northeast of Tuxpan with the towing hawser still connected and the cargo still aboard.

The Southern Cities, designed as a harbor tug, was ill suited to coastal and ocean going work and had had problems on two of her previous trips.

Although no bodies or debris were ever found, it is assumed that she sank somewhere between her last reported position, which was approximately 95 miles east-southeast of Brownsville, and the place where her barge was found.

Answer: It was found four years after it disappeared

The Crystal disappeared in 1964 and, as is often the case with disappearances in the Triangle, there was no distress call. In 1968 the Crystal was found, although details of the circumstances have proven difficult to find, possibly because they don't readily support any of the myths or theories about the Triangle.

Answer: Off the coast of New Jersey

Sailing from Newport News, Virginia to Germany, the Norse Variant had no reason to enter the Bermuda Triangle, although its disappearance is often listed as happening in the Triangle. The ship last reported her position as southeast of Cape May, New Jersey, but she was not seen by other ships on the busy routes just outside New York Harbor, indicating that she disappeared somewhere along the New Jersey coast.

Answer: Off the coast of Maine

The Gulf Stream, a 55' research vessel, left Boothbay Harbor, Maine in January of 1975 bound for its home port of Fort Lauderdale. Debris was found off the Maine coast and, in 1998, shipwreck hunter John Fish announced that he had found wreckage that appeared to be the Gulf Stream off Cape Porpoise, just a short cruise down the Maine coast from Boothbay Harbor.

Answer: Liverpool to Philadelphia, probably lost in the North Atlantic

In spite of at least one writer's insistence that the City of Glasgow left New York bound for Liverpool "by the southern route" as supporting his belief that she disappeared in the Triangle, manifests on file with Lloyd's show that the vessel left Liverpool on March 1, 1854 with 480 passengers and crew.

In all likelihood, she would have sailed a normal "great circle" route through the north Atlantic, where she may have met a fate similar to the one RMS Titanic would meet in those waters some 58 years later: without benefit of wireless telegraphy or radios, she was never heard from again after she cleared Liverpool.