American meteorologists have put forward a plausible and scientific explanation for the many unexplained disappearances of aircraft and ships over the past centuries in an area bounded by Bermuda, Florida and Puerto Rico, often referred to by its fearsome name, the Bermuda Triangle.
An average of four planes and 20 ships go missing in the Bermuda Triangle each year, and scientists now believe they know why.
They've traced the disappearances to the weather, more specifically, to a deadly and hurricane-force weather phenomenon called a "microburst," otherwise known as an "air bomb."
The word microburst is deceiving since this freakish event is a sudden, powerful, localized air current, especially a downdraft, which can hit hurricane speeds of up to 270 km/h (75 m/s). That overwhelming speed is more than enough to instantly tear to bits any airplane, or a group of airplanes, or generate terrifying waves with a height of 15 meters or more.
Microbursts are found in strong thunderstorms and have flattened forests when they release their massive energy over land. Microbursts occur without warning, which is what makes them so deadly.
While the existence of microbursts has been known for decades, it's only recently the telltale signs that indicate their location have been discovered.
American scientists claim that hexagonal clouds create these air bombs. They also noted large-scale clouds regularly appear over the western tip of the island of Bermuda.
Using radar satellite imagery, they discovered bizarre "hexagonal" shaped clouds between 20 and 50 miles wide forming over patches of water.
"You don't typically see straight edges with clouds," said Dr. Steve Miller, a satellite meteorologist at Colorado State University. "Most of the time, clouds are random in their distribution."
The radar satellites data also allowed them to measure what was happening underneath the unusual clouds. Meteorologists found sea level winds reached dangerously high speeds, creating waves as high as 15 meters.
Meteorologist Randy Cerveny said the hexagonal shapes over the ocean "are in essence air bombs."
"They are formed by what are called microbursts and they're blasts of air that come down out of the bottom of a cloud and then hit the ocean," he noted.
These environmental factors "create waves that can sometimes be massive in size as they start to interact with each other."
"The satellite imagery is really bizarre ... the hexagonal shapes of the cloud formations," said Cerveny.