The History of the Bermuda Triangle (on TV)

You don’t hear all that much about the Bermuda Triangle these days, probably because there’s really nothing to it. It's a part of the ocean, a beautiful part, but no more mysterious or weird than any other part of the ocean. But there was a time, especially in the 1970s, when the Bermuda Triangle seemed to be the only topic on Hollywood's mind.

Of course, for those who of us who have kind of a wild imagination, it can be fun wondering if just maybe, there is something to this Bermuda Triangle business.

So what is the Bermuda Triangle? And how did the legend get started that there is something mysterious and not quite right about this part of Atlantic Ocean (essentially a big area of water between Bermuda to Florida to Puerto Rico)? And (because this is, after all, the TV Professor blog), what TV shows helped fuel the myth? We’ll get into all of that, if you dare. Because while you’ve started reading this article, I can’t promise that you’ll still be around to finish it [insert maniacal laugh here].

[Regular reader of the the blog]: That’s pretty much the case with most of the articles on The TV Professor.

The TV Professor: Heh, heh, hilarious. So, anyway—

[Regular reader of the the blog]: --Get it? Because the articles are long and bor—

The TV Professor: —And that's all the time we have for reader questions! And now, onto the TV history of the Bermuda Triangle!

Today's "TV Lesson" Breakdown:

• What is the Bermuda Triangle?
• 1492 (Christopher Columbus and the Bermuda Triangle)
• 1800s (Ships Going Down in the Bermuda Triangle)
• 1918 (306 Crew Members and Passengers... Gone)
• 1945 (A Plane... Gone)
• 1963 (A Tanker Ship... Gone)
• 1964 (The Term, “The Bermuda Triangle” is Coined)
• 1969-1974 (More “Bermuda Triangle” Books)
• 1975 (Hollywood Notices the Bermuda Triangle)
• 1976 (Cartoons and Superheroes Notice the Bermuda Triangle)
• 1977 (Among Other Things, the Hardy Boys Solve the Mystery of the Bermuda Triangle)
• 1978 (Bermuda Triangle Mania)
• 1983 (The Bermuda Triangle and... Inspector Gadget?)
• 1985 (Those Meddling Kids Are Back For More)
• 1987 (The Bermuda Triangle Becomes Disney-fied)
• 1988 (The Bermuda Triangle Jumps the Shark)
• 1998 (Yes, Hollywood is Still Cranking Out These Bermuda Triangle Movies)
• 2001 (Still Cranking Them Out...)
• 2006 (The Bermuda Triangle Again: Ruh-Roh...)
• 2011 ("Are Ya Ready, Kids?")
• 2018 (The Bermuda Triangle's Manifest Destiny?)
• 2022 (Reality TV Finally Goes to The Bermuda Triangle)
• The Bermuda Triangle: What’s Next?

What is the Bermuda Triangle?

The Bermuda Triangle is at least half a million square miles of ocean between Miami, Florida, Bermuda and Puerto Rico. In popular culture, it’s a triangle of doom, a place where ships and airlines pass through and may or may not return.

But in reality? Well, some ships and airlines have, indeed, disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle. But it’s the ocean. You can unfortunately find plenty of examples, in real life, and pop culture, where bad things happened elsewhere. The Titanic famously did not sink in the Bermuda Triangle but in the North Atlantic Ocean. The Andrea Gail, the real-life ship portrayed in the movie The Perfect Storm, was closer to Nova Scotia than, say, the Bermuda Triangle. Amelia Earhart’s plane disappeared over the Pacific in 1937. And seven stranded castaways who went on a three-hour tour disappeared in the Pacific.

So if you’re sailing or flying over the Bermuda Triangle soon, terrific, and have a blast and don’t worry. There’s no real evidence that the Bermuda Triangle waters are any more dangerous than anywhere else.

But, boy, Hollywood would beg to differ.

1492 (Christopher Columbus and the Bermuda Triangle)

According to legend and lore, Christopher Columbus saw a fiery crash into the ocean (a meteor?) and then a strange light appearing in the distance several weeks later (lightning?). His compass also acted strangely (it was 1492… maybe it wasn’t a great compass?). In any case, later, Bermuda Triangle sleuths would look back at this time and wonder if something weird was going on, even back then.

1800s (Ships Going Down in the Bermuda Triangle)

There were quite a few ships that disappeared into the Bermuda Triangle during the 19th century. For instance, in 1800, the USS Pickering heading from Guadeloupe to Delaware, disappeared with 91 people on board.

The USS Wasp had 140 people aboard it when it went down in 1814.

There were at least two more ships that disappeared in the 1800s, but you get the point. These waters were starting to get a reputation for being dangerous, except they really weren't more deadly than anywhere else. Ships sailed into the ocean and sometimes things happened to them.

1918 (306 Crew Members and Passengers... Gone)

Yes, we’re speeding through Bermuda Triangle history here. But it’s worth stopping in 1918 and mentioning the USS Cyclops.

The USS Cyclops left Barbados on March 4, 1918, with 306 crew members and passengers heading to Baltimore, Maryland, and… the ship never arrived. It was, along with the tragedy, a mystery. World War I was raging: Did a German sub bring it down? Was it engine trouble? The USS Cyclops was known for having engine trouble. There were soldiers in trouble with the military aboard the ship, heading to America, to be court-martialed. Maybe they took over the ship, somehow?

Was it the name Cyclops? If you ask me, that just sounds like you’re asking for trouble, taking a ship named for a creature in Greek mythology and then sailing into waters known as the Bermuda Triangle. (To be fair to the Navy, however, these waters weren’t yet dubbed the Bermuda Triangle.)

At any rate, the ship disappeared, and nobody had any idea of what happened to it.

"Not one of the many vessels engaged in the search have reported the finding of wreckage or of any other clue that would aid in solving the mystery," according to an Associated Press report that ran in papers on May 1, 1918.

In fact, it’s fair to say that dozens of ships and airplanes went down in the Bermuda Triangle throughout the first half of the 1900s.

1945 (A Plane... Gone)

In December 1945, after World War II, a plane with five Navy torpedo bombers disappeared.

As a United Press International news report, syndicated in papers around the country on December 6, put it, “Five Navy torpedo bombers were missing today under mysterious circumstances, and the Navy revealed that one of hundreds of planes which have sought them since yesterday had gone down in flames into the sea last night with perhaps 12 men aboard."

Yes, a Navy plane disappeared, and then a Navy plane looking for the men disappeared. Sure, there were hundreds of other Navy planes searching for the missing aircraft in the Bermuda Triangle that did return safely, but let’s ignore that. Future Bermuda Triangle conspiracy theorists would.

1963 (A Tanker Ship... Gone)

Another famous Bermuda Triangle mystery dates to 1963, when the tanker ship SS Marine Sulphur Queen sank near Key West, Florida. Life preservers and other items were later discovered drifting in the water, but the exact cause of the disaster remains unknown. The wreck has never been recovered.

1964 (The Term, “The Bermuda Triangle” is Coined)

Vincent Gaddis, a freelance writer, wrote an article called “The Deadly Bermuda Triangle,” which appeared in Argosy, a magazine that ran off and on from 1882 to 2016. (If you are thinking, "Gosh, it folded in 2016, and I've never heard of it," keep in mind that it shut down in 1978 and then started up again in 2016, when one issue came out.)

So, anyway, Argosy may be barely remembered, and Gaddis died in 1997. But, boy, his phrase “The Bermuda Triangle,” endures.

In fact, Gaddis really came up with something. Newspaper reporters almost immediately making references to “the Bermuda Triangle" and buying into the idea that there was something wrong about these waters. One veteran Air Force pilot said to the Miami Herald, of the Bermuda Triangle, in 1965: "It is a junkyard of metal -- sunken ships, and lost airplanes."

1969-1974 (More “Bermuda Triangle” Books)

Other authors knew a good idea when they saw it, and so that’s how we got Limbo of the Lost by John Wallace Spencer in 1969, which was revised into a more detailed book in 1973.

The country also devoured the 1974 book by Charles Berlitz, The Bermuda Triangle. The same year, author Richard Winer came out with The Devil’s Triangle, which was just another name for The Bermuda Triangle.

1975 (Hollywood Notices the Bermuda Triangle)

Television finally notices the Bermuda Triangle. Satan’s Triangle, a TV movie, debuts.

Satan's Triangle starred Doug McClure, of The Virginian fame, and film legend Kim Novak. The plot centered around some coast guard officials (McClure and Michael Conrad) boarding a driftless, captain-less ship with three dead bodies on it and one survivor (Novak). And, well, being the Bermuda Triangle, bad things happen.

Beyond the Bermuda Triangle also came out this year, a 90-minute TV movie starring none other than Fred MacMurray, who, of course, was the dad on My Three Sons, among many other things. MacMurray, in his second to last role, played Harry Ballinger, a retired businessman who notices that a lot of ships and planes are vanishing off the Florida coast. So he decides to play amateur detective and discover the reasons behind these mysterious disappearances. Also co-starring Donna Mills, five years before starring on Knots Landing, and Dana Plato, before her Diff’rent Strokes days.

"A calm sea and prosperous voyage, God's answer to the prayerful voyager,” the narrator starts at the beginning of this movie. “But this cruel and possibly evil sea off the Florida coast was never meant for man and maybe not for God. Once known as the Devil's sea, for its legends abound with unnatural mysteries of disappearance and death, we now speak of it in simpler terms. This is the Bermuda Triangle."

Cue ominous music, and we get Fred MacMurray's name in the credits.

Sample dialogue: "This whole Bermuda Triangle is filled with things you can't understand," MacMurray tells Plato, who plays a little girl named Wendy, whose mother disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle and is now hearing her mom’s voice. "You know, the ancients would go right up to the limits they could explore, and then they'd write up on their maps, beyond this place, there'd be dragons. They swore that what they couldn't see was there."

The entire film is on YouTube. Not the best quality, but Fred MacMurray, as usual, is completely watchable.

1976 (Cartoons and Superheroes Notice the Bermuda Triangle)

Now, it’s clear the Bermuda Triangle has hit the mainstream. The cartoon Jabberjaw addresses the deadly, mysterious body of water in “The Bermuda Triangle Tangle.”

The gang is in their underwater submersible, and Shelly (Patricia Parris) is complaining about their next gig.

“It’ll be a great gig, Shelly. You'll thank me when we get there,” says Biff (Tommy Cook).

“You mean if we get there. Look,” says Clamhead (Barry Gordon), pointing to a newspaper headline. “Another vessel disappears mysterious in Bermuda Triangle."

“Oooh, that's where we are, right now,” says Jabberjaw (Frank Welker), worried.

“Oh, that's silly. I don't see any triangle,” says Bubbles (Julie McWhirter).

“Look on the map, yo-yo,” Shelly says. “See?” Shelley shows Bubbles a map of the Atlantic Ocean. “Hundreds of ships have disappeared right here, without a trace.”

“Relax, gang,” Jabberjaw says, with slightly ominous music playing. “Why, with me along, you don't have to worry about a thing.”

And, of course, the sorcerous pops up, and the usual Hanna-Barbera antics commence.

That same year, Wonder Woman, also known as Diana Prince (Lynda Carter) on the TV series, Wonder Woman, found herself at the Bermuda Triangle, in the episode, “The Bermuda Triangle Crisis.” An Air Force pilot goes missing, and a bad guy tries to set up operations in the Bermuda Triangle (“The Triangle’s mine,” he tells Diana Prince), and we learn that Paradise Island, Wonder Woman’s home, is near the Bermuda Triangle. There's more to the plot than that, but you get the gist.

And in its third season, on June 27, 1976, none other than the respected PBS TV series Nova examined the Bermuda Triangle in the episode titled, “The Case of the Bermuda Triangle.”

1977 (Among Other Things, the Hardy Boys Solve the Mystery of the Bermuda Triangle)

We get an entire TV series (!) wrapped around the Bermuda Triangle. Unfortunately, ratings were not so hot.

The Fantastic Journey aired from February 3 to June 16. But it starred, among others, Roddy McDowall (from The Planet of the Apes and all around popular character actor) and Ike Eisenmann, who you would probably recognize as the kid from the original movie, Escape From Witch Mountain. The plot involved university scientists stuck in the Bermuda Triangle, where the past, present and future co-existed.

On November 6, America got to see none other than the the Hardy Boys tangle with the Bermuda Triangle in “The Strange Fate of Flight 608.” It was the eighth episode of the second season of The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries, the best TV series ever made (according to my seven-year-old self). It also had one of the best TV theme songs ever (according to my 54-year-old self).

In this episode, Joe Hardy (Shaun Cassidy) and Frank Hardy (Parker Stevenson) wind up on a flight with fake diamonds believed to be real (just run with it). The pilots are drugged, there is a storm, and Frank and Joe land the passenger jet on a deserted island – in the Bermuda Triangle!

Before all of that happens, however, before the airplane taxis down the runway, Joe is quite nervous, when he learns what they’re going to be flying over.

Frank: No matter how many times you do it, there's nothing quite like a takeoff.

Joe: Takeoffs don't bother me. The Bermuda Triangle? That bothers me.

Frank (always the more level-headed one): Oh, come on.

Joe: Haven't you read any of those books? Boats and planes have disappeared like mad in that Triangle. Whole squads of planes. Poof, gone. Some people say they disappear into a different dimension.

A passenger (to Frank): He's right. That's exactly what they say.

Frank: Wait a minute, wait a minute. There are scientific explanations for all those things.

Joe: Like what?

Frank: Like magnetic fields.And the Caribbean is famous for tropical storms. Real scientists say that, too.

Beverly: What’s this all about?

Frank: Oh, nothing. My brother here was just saying we're about to disappear into another dimension.

Also in 1977 – Leonard Nimoy’s TV series, In Search Of… got the Bermuda Triangle treatment.

And, sure, it’s a movie and not TV, but we’d be remiss to not mention the feature film Airport ’77 that came out this year. It followed the adventures of a private Boeing 747 that goes crashing into the Bermuda Triangle -- and starred a lot of big names, including Jack Lemmon, James Stewart, Joseph Cotten and Olivia de Havilland.

1978 (Bermuda Triangle Mania)

This may be the year that the Bermuda Triangle truly reached true Bermuda Triangle mania, at least on TV.

The Bermuda Depths, another TV movie, aired. This time we got Connie Sellecca, in her first TV role and who would go onto greater fame co-starring in The Greatest American Hero and Hotel.

The can-do-no-wrong, beloved and recently dearly departed Carl Weathers, of Rocky fame, was also in The Bermuda Depths, as was Burl Ives. The plot involves scientists, the Bermuda Triangle and a dangerous giant (Godzilla-sized) prehistoric… sea turtle?

Scooby-Doo also got involved with the Bermuda Triangle in the episode, “A Creepy Tangle in the Bermuda Triangle,” in the third season of Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? The episode ran on September 16, 1978.

Most of the episode has the usual Scooby-Doo shenanigans, but the Bermuda Triangle does have a nice starring role. The episode begins with a plane being swallowed up by a flying saucer in the Bermuda Triangle, and then we see the Scooby-Doo gang on a boat, somewhere in the Florida waters (a radio announcer mentions being based out of Miami). Velma’s kind of hanging out on the boat. Shaggy's eating a sandwich. Fred and Daphnie are dancing. Scooby is fishing (for Shaggy’s sandwich).

They hear on a radio newscast that a hurricane hunter plane has disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle, which catches Scooby’s attention, just as the weather starts turning foul.

“Yeah, Scooby. Ships and planes have been disappearing in the Bermuda Triangle for years,” Shaggy says.

“Ships and planes?” Scooby-Doo says.

“And the storm is blowing us right into it,” Fred exclaims.

Scooby gulps, and soon they’re trying to survive a hurricane while lost in the Bermuda Triangle, and before you know it, they end up on an island with a mystery to solve. It turns out that there weren’t space aliens grabbing aircraft. Instead, three crooks, using the legend of the Bermuda Triangle to give them cover and cause confusion, stole planes and then sold them overseas.

Alas, nobody says at the end of this particular episode, “Yeah, and we would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren’t for you meddling kids…”

This year, the Saturday morning cartoon Superfriends also tackled the Bermuda Triangle when Aquaman is attacked by two hypnotized octopi.

And, of course, there was Man from Atlantis, and while not a show specifically about the Bermuda Triangle, it’s pretty obvious that the series was at least somewhat inspired by it – or at least, it benefited from the interest in the Bermuda Triangle.

Man from Atlantis was a show about a guy who was discovered on the beach, barely alive. Doctors try to save him and discover that he didn’t almost drown. In fact, the problem is, he’s out of the water and needs to get back in. Yes, the lead character is from the mythical lost civilization of Atlantis. Starring Patrick Duffy, it was a great show (at least my eight-year-old self thought so), and it was a crime that it only lasted 13 episodes.

After 1978, it isn’t that the Bermuda Triangle stopped being a thing, but it’s as if Hollywood TV producers got together and said: “You know, maybe this is a bit much…”

Which isn’t to say that Hollywood completely ignored it. In 1980, Michael Caine starred in the feature film The Island, a mysterious island that was located in… you guessed it. And TV continued -- as you'll see -- to address the Bermuda Triangle. But it was never quite like it was in the heady days of the mid-1970s.

1983 (The Bermuda Triangle and... Inspector Gadget?)

When the Bermuda Triangle becomes a plot in an Inspector Gadget cartoon, you know the Bermuda Triangle premise is starting to wear thin. Inspector Gadget (Don Adams), his niece Penny (Cree Summer) and their dog Brain (Frank Welker) solve the mystery of missing ships.

1985 (Those Meddling Kids Are Back For More)

Scooby, Shaggy, Velma, Fred and Daphne go back to the Bermuda Triangle well in the short-lived series The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo.

1987 (The Bermuda Triangle Becomes Disney-fied)

The cartoon DuckTales came out with their 31^st episode, “Bermuda Triangle Tangle.” Maybe the writer or producer was inspired by Jabberjaw’s episode, “The Bermuda Triangle Tangle,” or Scooby-Doo’s 1978 episode, “A Creepy Tangle in the Bermuda Triangle.”

1988 (The Bermuda Triangle Jumps the Shark)

Oh, boy. Magician David Copperfield starred in The Magic of David Copperfield 10: The Bermuda Triangle. With special guest Lisa Hartman.

The hour long show also featured a trick, in which he had to escape the approach of a six-foot buzz saw.

But mostly, on the show, Copperfield was, as he put it, challenging the mysterious forces of the Bermuda Triangle. "These forces are responsible for the disappearance of over 100 ships and planes," Copperfield told Newsday. "I'm not completely sure I know what I'm getting into. Or if I'll ever get out."

Indeed, he did not.

Well, sure, David Copperfield is still performing, but then again, how we do know that’s really been him in the years since his Bermuda Triangle experience? Maybe the magician people have seen ever since is an illusion.

1998 (Yes, Hollywood is Still Cranking Out These Bermuda Triangle Movies)

A TV-movie that came out on the Syfy network called Lost in the Bermuda Triangle about a husband and wife who sail into the triangle on a romantic cruise – the wife disappears, and the husband has to prove his innocence when the authorities suspect he killed her. One critic said that the movie matched the quality of an episode of Baywatch Nights.

2001 (Still Cranking Them Out...)

TBS releases The Triangle, a TV movie starring Beverly Hills 90210’s Luke Perry and Dan Cortese (a prolific TV actor, probably best known for his work on the TV sitcom Veronica’s Closet). It was about three high school pals who go on a pleasure cruise through the Bermuda Triangle, and bad things happen involving a voodoo priestess and a voodoo sacrifice.

Sounds cheesy, and it probably was, but it did well for TBS’s ratings.

2006 (The Bermuda Triangle Again: Ruh-Roh...)

In another Scooby Doo episode that I believe was titled, “Beating a Dead Horse,” Scooby-Doo and the gang once again visit the Bermuda Triangle.

2011 ("Are Ya Ready, Kids?")

SpongeBob and his friends were trapped in the Bikini Bottom Triangle in the seventh season of SpongeBob SquarePants.

2018 (The Bermuda Triangle's Manifest Destiny?)

Manifest. The entire TV series is about how Montego Air Flight 828 has something weird happen to the passengers when they’re traveling from Jamaica (part of the Bermuda Triangle) to New York City.

2022 (Reality TV Finally Goes to The Bermuda Triangle)

The History Channel airs the reality TV series, The Bermuda Triangle: Into Cursed Waters, which are 17 episodes about historians searching for sea wrecks in the Bermuda Triangle.

The Bermuda Triangle: What’s Next?

The Bermuda Triangle days where it appeared on everybody’s TV set every other week or so, it seemed, are long gone and probably won't be repeated, but as the timeline suggests, Hollywood hasn’t completely forgotten about it – and probably never will.

As long as there are TV characters or reality-TV performers who happen to be traveling in the Atlantic Ocean near Florida, and especially if they’re working with a Hollywood screenwriter or producer who is mesmerized by the idea of a mysterious body of water waiting for its next victims, the Bermuda Triangle will never die. Nor will the actors, if they have a good agent.

Articles similar to this one: Maybe you’ll enjoy this look at what we can learn about the history of dynamite if you watch the TV series Lost, which was, granted, in the Pacific Ocean, and not Atlantic Ocean.