The Deadly Enigma of the Devil's Sea

We all have to respect the ocean; not just because it is the foundation of many forms of life, but because this massive body of water can also be quite ruthless when it comes to claiming lives. Many of us know better than to underestimate how many human lives could be lost in an ocean-related tragedy, and needless to say, mankind has had too many of them. Thousands of years of maritime history can attest to the harsh realities that humans have had to face when navigating through Earth’s “final frontier.” 
 
While the vast expanse of the Ocean promises treasures just as much as it forbodes tragedies, certain parts of the planet's hydrosphere pose deadlier dangers to those who dare pass through their waters compared to other sea and ocean regions. And one of those most dangerous stretches of water which is shrouded in curious mystery can be found in the gigantic Pacific Ocean. This region of the Pacific goes by many names. Aside from “The Dragon’s Triangle,” it is also referred to as the “Devil’s Sea,” “Formosa or Taiwan Triangle,” and the “Pacific Bermuda Triangle.” 

The name “Dragon’s Triangle” can be traced back to old Chinese fables which originated from around 1000 BCE. These tales spoke of dragons that lived underwater and, from time to time, capsized and sank naval vessels along with the seamen aboard them for these mythical creatures’ consumption and to satisfy their hunger.

On the other hand, the oceanic area’s name the “Devil’s Sea” or “Ma-No Umi” in Japanese was actually coined by the natives of Japan a long time ago because of the local legends that speak of the area’s notoriety in subduing and consuming even the strongest and the most buoyant of ships, and for being the home of terrifying sea monsters that drowned people to death. 

The “Dragon’s Triangle” is located in the region of the Pacific Ocean near the Japanese volcanic island of Miyake, which is just around 100 kilometers south of Japan’s capital, Tokyo. It is a triangle-shaped danger zone found between the coast of Japan and the Islands of Bonin, and it covers a large part of the Philippine Sea. Although this region is well-known by Japanese fishers, the Devil’s Sea is still not officially labeled on nautical maps, and reports on its size and the area it occupies have provided conflicting estimations that has yet to be reconciled conclusively. 

From the names referring to this part of the Pacific, we can already tell that there is something dangerous about this oceanic area. The reason why people regard the Dragon’s Triangle as a deadly enigma is because of reports of its unpredictable and sometimes violent weather. There are also claims of random and unexplained occurrences of ocean phenomena such as maelstroms, ocean swells, and rogue waves. Another interesting reason is the alleged disappearances of several maritime vessels and aircraft along with many other strange events in the region. 

Because of the perils, it poses to the vessels and the seafaring individuals that pass through it, the Dragon’s Triangle has gained significant notoriety that Japanese authorities went so far as to brand it as hazardous for marine travel and expeditions. 

What is also fascinating about the Dragon’s Triangle that makes it worthy of discussion is that it is one of the 12 Vile Vortices that exist today. Paranormal expert Ivan Sanderson coined the term “vile vortex” in his 1972 article titled “The 12 Devil’s Graveyards Around the World.” A vile vortex is an area found in different parts of the world, where the pull of Earth’s electromagnetic waves is thought to be at its strongest. Five of these vortices are situated on the same latitude below the equator, while five of them are on the same latitude above the equator. The remaining two vortices are the north and south poles of the planet. These 12 areas are said to be prime sites of magnetic anomalies, unexplained disappearances as well as other bizarre phenomena.

The Dragon’s Triangle, in particular, is located above the equator and is aligned opposite to where its Atlantic counterpart – the Bermuda Triangle – is situated. And just like the Devil’s Sea, this region in the western portion of the North Atlantic Ocean is also notorious for being the subject of similar cases of mysterious disappearances and paranormal phenomena. 

Legends, Stories, and Strange Incidents in the “Dragon’s Triangle

Kublai Khan and his men at sea

There are many legends, stories and cases of mysterious disappearances of boats, ships, and aircraft as well as other strange incidents in the Dragon’s Triangle that we know of today.

One popular tale supposedly took place back in the 1200s. According to this story, Emperor Kublai Khan of the Yuan Dynasty attempted to conquer Japan twice by crossing the Devil’s Sea. Both efforts to take over the country did not succeed, and they resulted in the loss of the Yuan emperor’s sea-faring vessels, as well as the demise of more than 40,000 crewmen of these ships in the initial attempt alone.

There is a famous Japanese legend dating back to 1803 that talks about another eerie incident in the Dragon’s Triangle. This Japanese Utsuro-Bune legend involves a hollow boat that’s shaped like a box and resembles an incense burner or “kou-hako.” Inside this boat was a foreign-looking female who bore unique physical features. Fishermen who found her brought the woman inland to investigate her, but she did not know how to communicate in Japanese. This has led for some people to speculate that this particular story is an actual case of a close encounter with an extraterrestrial or interdimensional being.

Modern linguist and author Charles Berlitz, in his 1989 book “The Dragon’s Triangle,” made a sweeping declaration that there were a lot of fishing boats, tankers, Japanese and American warships and aircraft, and Soviet submarines that had fallen prey to the harsh waters and weather conditions of the Devil’s Sea. In fact, there are even much-wilder speculations that link the Dragon’s Triangle to the world-famous disappearance of the renowned female pilot Amelia Earhart.

Another popular case of a ship’s disappearance in the Devil’s Sea is that of the Kaio Maru No. 5 back in 1952. The Kaio Maru No. 5 was a research vessel of the Japanese government that investigated the undersea activities of the region. The ship supposedly disappeared in the Dragon’s Triangle along with its crew of 31 people who were never seen or heard from again. 

 

Explanations on the Strange Mystery of the Dragon’s Triangle

As is usually the case with most mysterious phenomena, many theories have been put forward which took a crack at explaining the strange stories and incidents that have taken place within the danger zones of the Devil’s Sea. Some of the explanations are more scientific and rational, but there are also those who fit the realm of the supernatural, paranormal, and speculative science. 
 
There are those who believe that the Dragon’s Triangle could be housing a secret or hidden doorway or a black hole that leads to another dimension or a parallel universe. Some also connect the oceanic region with the lost city of Atlantis, while others have raised the possibility that extraterrestrials have something to do with the sudden and unexplained disappearance of many vessels and sea-faring individuals that passed by the area.

Of course, rational and natural explanations have also been presented to put the questions surrounding the controversial and strange mystery behind the Dragon’s Triangle to rest. For one, deep-sea fishing has always been a dangerous line of work, which is why it should not come as a surprise that many fishing boats have sunk in the region of the Devil’s Sea and other surrounding seas and oceans near Japan. Some even say that the number of incidents of fishing boats that sank in the Dragon’s Triangle is no higher than the average, and so, there could be no big mystery after all. 
 
Another explanation for the disappearance of the boats and ships in the area could be the vast field of methane hydrates that lies at the bottom of the ocean within the zone of the Devil’s Sea. According to this theory, methane hydrates – or ice-like deposits that detach from the bottom of the ocean floor – turn into the gaseous form of methane clathrates which, in turn, produce bubbles on the water’s surface. When methane clathrates surpass the temperature of 18 °C (64 °F), they result to gas eruptions that mess with buoyancy and consequently leave ships vulnerable to sinking easily. 
 
Some of the other natural explanations related to the disappearance of various vessels and people in the Dragon’s Triangle have something to do with undersea volcanic activities, the movement of tectonic plates, as well as agonic lines and magnetic anomalies.
 
The scientific and natural explanations mentioned above should have been sufficient enough for everyone to tear off the shroud of mystery and inexplicability surrounding the Dragon’s Triangle. Even then, many still prefer to believe in more unconventional theories of the paranormal. But regardless of whether or not you choose to believe the scientific or the supernatural explanation, it cannot be denied that the Dragon’s Triangle or the Devil’s Sea is among the world’s most compelling mysteries about the oceans and high seas and that much of it remains to be thoroughly understood.  
 
And so, for those who might find themselves cruising somewhere in the Pacific Ocean, perhaps it would be in your best interest for the time being that you steer clear of this region.

---

Sources:

http://www.crystalinks.com/bermuda_triangle.html
http://www.unexplainedstuff.com/Places-of-Mystery-and-Power/Japan-s-Dragon-s-Triangle.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil%27s_Sea
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/TRAVEL/05/31/sea.legends.bermuda.triangle/index.html
http://listverse.com/2013/05/10/10-places-as-mysterious-as-the-bermuda-triangle/
http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/beyond-bermuda-triangle-devils-sea/
http://www.wisegeek.org/what-is-the-dragons-triangle.htm
http://www.marineinsight.com/maritime-history/unexplained-mystery-the-devils-sea-the-dragons-triangle/
http://mysteriousfacts.com/mystery-of-the-devils-sea/
http://www.paranormal-encyclopedia.com/d/dragons-triangle/
https://skeptoid.com/episodes/4337

The Black Knight Alien Satellite

    This black knight is not at all related to the bat-costumed dark knight that we know all too well. In fact, many people think it’s an alien satellite that has been kept secret by NASA and the government for more than a decade since it was first discovered. Over the decades, there have been many sightings of the strange object, but no one knows why it’s up there floating in space. All reports from US, Russia, And Europe in general say that the satellite is of “unknown origin”. So what is this curious object anyway? When was it discovered? What does it do? What is its purpose? Let’s start from the very beginning.

    Although there are varied opinions, it is generally believed that Nikola Tesla was the one who “discovered” the black knight when he set up a magnifying transmitter at his Colorado Springs facility in 1899 to investigate wireless distribution of electricity. What he didn’t expect were strange signals that were repeated periodically with number and order. They were timed pulses coming as ...1, ...2, ...3, that led him to believe that the signal was coming from an extraterrestrial source. Tesla originally thought that the signals were being sent from Mars, but he later restated that the signal was actually coming from another part of space. It’s not surprising that Tesla associated the signal with alien intervention, because a lot of people believe that Tesla has had contact with aliens. It is believed that he received information from aliens in a number of different cases. For example, once he was trying to find an equation/principle for the AC machine and suddenly, out of nowhere, he got the answer via telepathy or from an unknown source. Apparently he also invented many things for the government that were kept from the public, but that’s another story on it’s own.

    Not long afterward Tesla’s discovery, Guglielmo Marconi, Italian inventor and electrical engineer, was also intercepted by a strange unknown artificial signal. He found that some of his morse code messages were being returned to him, which fascinated and frightened him at the same time.

     Following his discovery in 1927, another man named Jorgen Hals, a civil engineer in Oslo, was using a radio receiver to listen to shortwave transmissions and noticed something very peculiar was happening. His signals were being reflected back to him. He didn’t know what it was, but the echoes were being reflected back to him at strange intervals ranging from 3-15 seconds. These irregularly reflected intervals were later known to be LDES, or Long Delayed Echoes.

    After the occurrence of all of these events that might have been related to alien interaction (especially the LDES),  the press was majorly stirred up. From 1928 to 1930, a experiments were performed that tested the legitimacy of the reflected signals, and it turned out that they were very real indeed. The only problem was that no one had an explanation for the signals’ reflections. As a result, even more experiments were run in France and the UK in the 1930's, but at the end of the day scientists could do nothing but be confused and speechless. Even today, we don’t have an agreed upon explanation for the occurrence and location of these LDES.

    Of course, after the experiments were run, the black knight became an even hotter topic for many news outlets, and the first story of the alien shuttle appeared on May 14th, 1954 when St. Louis Dispatch and The SF Examiner wrote about it, explaining that the U.S had found a strange satellite in space and that it could possibly be a surveillance satellite launched by the Russians.

     Then, on August 23, 1954, another story was released about the Black Knight, this time by the tech mag Aviation Week and Space Technology. They basically told the world that the Pentagon found two satellites orbiting the earth, both of which were natural. The pentagon was furious when they heard about the release of the story because want the satellites to be known by the public. As a result, they lied to the public and told them that the satellites were asteroids (as if anyone would actually believe them). By then the public already knew that something was up, and that either the Russians had managed to put something into orbit or there was something more...supernatural at work.

    A few years later, in March of 1960, another satellite was found orbiting earth. This satellite was a spectacular discovery because it wasn’t like the previously discovered satellites at all. It was a large black object weighing about 15 tons that was in POLAR orbit around earth, which means that it passes over polar regions and has a plane that contains the polar axis. This is amazing because first of all, the US and soviets didn’t even KNOW how to put an object in polar orbit. Second of all, neither country was capable of putting an object that weighs so much into space either. Third of all, the satellite was twice as fast as any known satellite at the time. As a result, the strange polar-orbiting satellites acquired a name: the Black Knight. No one knows for sure the origins of the name, but it’s believed that the name is based on a rocket the British had developed, which was also called Black Knight. After the amazing discovery, astronomers across the country conducted research on the satellite and realized that it had one of the strangest patterns of appearance and disappearance, because it would disappear for long periods of time before reappearing again YEARS later. 

   Robert L. Johnson, director of the Adler Planetarium, said that "‘THE OBJECT ‘DOESN’T EVEN HAVE THE DECENCY TO MAINTAIN A REGULAR SCHEDULE,LIKE ANY OTHER HEAVENLY OR MAN MADE OBJECT...‘WE DON’T KNOW WHEN TO WATCH FOR IT.’" What was it trying to do?

      Stanford space scientist Ronald Bracewell had an explanation for the phenomenon and believed that the satellite was a way for a distant alien civilization to communicate with earth. He said that the aliens might have sent out a probe, or ‘Bracewell probe’ as it’s we now call it, into the universe to look for other planets that seemed promising and contained intelligent lifeforms. He said that the satellite would remain dormant until humans found a way to send signals to it, in which it would send signals back.

     Duncan Lunan, a Scottish science writer was so intrigued by Bracewell’s theory that he decided to test it out for himself. He reexamined the data from the LDE experiments of 1928 and was absolutely and completely baffled. He mapped out the delays from the echos he recorded in 1928, and found that they formed the pattern of the  Boötes constellation, a constellation the in the northern sky. Not only that, Lunan was also able to decode the message that was being conveyed from the LDE Data at a stable point between the orbits of Earth and Moon called L5. the message read:

“  START HERE.OUR HOME IS EPSILON BOOTIS. WHICH IS A DOUBLE STAR. WE LIVE ON THE 6th PLANET OF 7 — CHECK THAT, 6th OF 7 — COUNTING OUTWARDS FROM THE SUN WHICH IS THE LARGER OF THE TWO.OUR 6th PLANET HAS ONE MOON,OUR 4th PLANET HAS THREE,OUR FIRST AND THIRD PLANETS EACH HAVE ONE.OUR PROBE IS IN THE ORBIT OF YOUR MOON THIS UPDATES THE POSITION OF ARCTURUS SHOWN ON OUR MAPS.”

If this doesn’t send chills down your spine, I don’t know what does.

     What’s even more amazing is that, along with the decoded message, Lunan also realized something else. Although he made his discovery in 1972, he realized that the star system he saw from the LDE data was not like the star system he saw in the skies at all. He concluded that if the black knight really was an alien probe, it must have taken ages to reach earth. He was right. By looking back in time, Lunan realized that the map he created matched how Epsilon Bootis looked like the Epsilon Bootis that was in the skies 13,000 years ago. This means that the satellite, possibly sent from a distant alien civilization, could have been orbiting the planet since pre-history.

     By then, Lunan was pretty much convinced that an alien civilization living near the Bootes constellation was trying to contact earth. It’s possible that the the same signal was also intercepted by Tesla and Macroni as well, but we will never know for sure. Sadly, since there wasn’t solid proof regarding the existence of such a supernatural satellite, people started believing the Pentagon’s excuse that the Black Knight was just some “space debris”.

     Thankfully, visual evidence of the satellite was found in 1998 when the crew of the space shuttle Endeavor was able to take high-resolution pictures of the strange black object while they were in space. The old stories of Tesla, LDES, and Lunan’s constellation map once again resurfaced in the minds of people across the country. Until today, we are still not sure what the Black Knight is, what it does, or where it comes from, but we DO know for a fact that it’s no regular satellite.

Berenstein Bears proof of Parallel Universes? Mandela Effect Explained

The Mandela Effect

Human memory is truly a peculiar thing. We are astonished by its scope and power, but we also recognize its dismaying fallibility. For years, scientists and researchers in the field of cognitive psychology and neuroscience have been studying extensively how memory works, but while they have taken great strides in gaining a better understanding of it, much of human memory remains a mystery. One thing about it remains certain though – memory isn’t perfect at all. And proof of this imperfection is the phenomenon of false memories – erroneous or unconsciously fabricated recollections of past events that seemingly feel so real and true that those who experience them often refuse to accept any evidence contrary to what they think they know or recall.

While the topic of errors in human memory in general is a fascinating subject matter that has gained the interest of curious men and women of science, one type of glitch in human memory has generated a lot of buzz in in recent years, and people of the Internet refer to it as the “Mandela Effect.”

What is the Mandela Effect

The Mandela Effect is essentially defined as a collective misremembering of a fact or event. It refers to a phenomenon where a group of people all misremember the same detail, event or physicality.

The term was coined by self-described “paranormal consultant” Fiona Broome who claims to have become aware of the phenomenon after discovering that she shared a particular false memory with several other people. This memory was their incorrect knowledge that South American human rights activist and president Nelson Mandela died in prison during the 1980s when in reality, he passed away more recently in 2013. Beyond this particular memory she allegedly shared with other people, she also began to notice other examples of the phenomenon, leading her to believe that these instances are not simply errors in memory. They exceed the normal range of forgetfulness because for some reason that remains unclear, other people seem to have identical memories of something that supposedly never came to be in our reality.

Examples of the Mandela Effect

One particular example of the Mandela Effect that has generated a very loud online buzz involves the children’s book series and animated TV show “The Berenstain Bears.” As it turns out, a good number of people who grew up knowing the series apparently remember its title to be “The Berenstein Bears,” with the name ending in “ein” instead of “ain.” Some of those who recall this false memory even go so far as to claim that the fictional bears’ surname was changed along the way to make the series seem “less Jewish.”

Another example of the Mandela Effect is the recollection of many people that the United States has 51 or 52 states, and not 50. At present, the United States of America is composed of 50 states, with Washington D.C. considered as a federal district. But the US also has several unincorporated territories such as Puerto Rico, Guam, and American Samoa, which could be the reason why some people have the erroneous notion that there are more than 50 states considered to be a part of the Union. While this misconception is generally expected to have come from non-US residents, there are U.S. citizens that allegedly claim that 51 or 52 states was what they recall they were taught by their educators at school in their younger years.

A last example of the Mandela Effect that we will briefly discuss involves HBO’s popular TV series “Sex and the City.” According to some people, the series was originally named as “Sex in the City” until the network censors decided to make it less overtly suggestive of people engaging in sexual activities. Many people remember that for the first season, the show’s title was originally “Sex in the City,” while some maintain this to be the real title for its entire run. But as far as our current reality is concerned, the title of this classic cable TV show had been nothing else but “Sex AND the City.”

Explanations for the Mandela Effect

How do we explain the fact that many people share the same false memory? Because of the popularity of the Mandela Effect as a phenomenon in recent years, the discussion about the topic has sparked an intense debate that has trapped the issue in a tug of war between two sides – the side of logic and mainstream science against the side of paranormal territory and fringe science.

One far-out theory based on the principles of quantum mechanics argue that those who have personally experienced the Mandela Effect may have actually “slid” between parallel realities. According to this theory, those who grew up in a universe where “Berenstein” Bears is spelled with an “ein” found themselves waking up one day in an alternate universe where the title of the children’s book is spelled as “Berenstain” Bears with an “ain.”

Another far-fetched theory posits that unbeknownst to ourselves, we are actually within a virtual reality the provides us with a manufactured human experience. And according to this theory, this virtual world is prone to “glitches,” which in turn, cause inconsistences in our perception of reality.

While there is nothing inherently wrong with this kind of wild speculation, these theories bordering on science fiction yield no practical explanation or testable hypotheses. And from a logical and scientific standpoint, nor are they necessary, since some experts don’t consider the Mandela Effect as a phenomenon at all that deserves to be distinguished from existing types of false memories already well-established in the field of psychology.

A leading psychological theory sees memory as constructive and not reproductive – which means the brain “creates” memories out of various bits and pieces of information it was fed with as opposed to just accurately playing them back like a recording. Memories are not pure; they are fallible. And there are several psychological and social factors that can disrupt and distort the recollection of a particular memory, which include but are not limited to bias, association, imagination and expectations.

From a psychological standpoint, it is generally agreed on that there is normally an identifiable solution and explanation to most cases of the Mandela Effect, and many of these theories or key factors have nothing to do with parallel universes and virtual realities.

One key psychological factor in many cases of the Mandela Effect is what is referred to as the “misinformation effect.” Misinformation affects people’s reports of their own memory. This happens when information presented at a later time interferes with the ability to retain the previous information gathered for a particular memory. In essence, the new information received works backwards in time to distort a person’s memory of the original event. Misinformation Effect reflects two of the cardinal sins of memory: suggestibility – or the influence of other’s expectations on our own memory – and misattribution – or information attributed to an incorrect source. Studies about this phenomenon has raised issues over the reliability and permanence of human memory.

Confirmation bias is also one of the factors that could help explain the Mandela Effect. This type of bias is described as a person’s tendency to search for, interpret, or recall information in a way that confirms one’s beliefs and hypotheses. Those who are seeking cases supporting the Mandela Effect will often be more easily persuaded by other claims that supposedly validate the phenomenon. And just as they are so easily inclined to agree with such claims supporting the Mandela Effect, these people are also just as prone to discarding any evidence or claim that is contrary to their belief in the phenomenon’s existence.

But out of the many existing psychological concepts and theories about the frailties of human memory that have been raised over decades of research, perhaps the psychological concept that is most similar with the Mandela Effect is what psychologists refer to as “confabulation.” Confabulation is a clinical term used to refer to memory defects experienced by patients with brain damage, but it also describes a common phenomenon that involves the embellishment of truth when recounting events, and the non-deliberate and rarely-conscious invention of facts to fill in gaps in memory. People who have this type of memory disturbance produce incorrect memories from the most trivial details – which is often the case in the Mandela Effect – up to the more complex fabrications as well. Those who produce such misinterpreted memories typically resist any contradictory evidence to what they recall.

Although it might be very tempting to believe that the Mandela Effect is evidence of the existence of parallel realities or proof that our universe is nothing more than glitchy simulation, these kinds of speculations have yet to pass the requirements established by mainstream science that will allow them to be recognized as real theories worthy of consideration. And in light of known and widely-accepted cognitive phenomena that can give rise to shared false memories, most of us are more inclined to believe that well-known cognitive errors sufficiently explain the Mandela Effect and that there is no need to introduce concepts like parallel dimensions or alternate realities to explain the fallibility of human memory. And had Fiona Broome been a cognitive psychologist instead of a psychic ghost hunter, perhaps the term Mandela Effect might have never existed at all.

Nonetheless, it cannot be denied that the Mandela Effect is still a fascinating topic of interest regarding the quirks of human memory, while also serving as an example that human truth can actually be much stranger than fiction.

---

Sources:

http://www.snopes.com/2016/07/24/the-mandela-effect/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_memory
http://www.debunkingmandelaeffects.com/mandela-effect-introduction/
http://www.debunkingmandelaeffects.com/category/mandela-effects/
https://skeptoid.com/episodes/4560
http://www.debunkingmandelaeffects.com/common-explanations/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misinformation_effect
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/2017/02/16/mandela-effect-false-memories/#.WSDZh2iGPb0