Bermuda Triangle — Key Persons Directory

Bermuda Triangle — Key Persons Directory

The following individuals played significant roles in the documented incidents, the development of the Bermuda Triangle legend, and the critical examination of that legend.

Incident Principals

Lt. Charles Carroll Taylor

Flight leader of Flight 19. A 28-year-old naval lieutenant with 2,500 flying hours and Pacific combat experience. Arrived late to the December 5, 1945 briefing; did not bring navigational equipment. His navigation error — mistaking the Bahamas for the Florida Keys — led to the flight's loss. The Navy initially blamed him, then amended its finding to "cause unknown" at the request of his mother. Lost at sea with 13 others.

Lt. Cdr. George W. Worley

Commanding officer of the USS Cyclops on its fatal 1918 voyage. Reported by the American consul at Barbados to have been in a "peculiar state of mind" before departure. Had previously been investigated for alleged pro-German sympathies. Lost with 308 others.

Dan Burack

Owner of the Witchcraft, the luxury cruiser that vanished in December 1967. Experienced boater who had made the radio call reporting no emergency minutes before his complete disappearance with Father Patrick Horgan.

Writers and Researchers — Pro-Triangle

Charles Berlitz

Author of The Bermuda Triangle (1974), the book that transformed the Triangle from a regional curiosity into a global phenomenon. Berlitz's bestselling account has been criticized for inaccuracies and selective reporting but is credited with creating the modern Bermuda Triangle legend.

Vincent Gaddis

Writer who coined the term "Bermuda Triangle" in his 1964 Argosy article "The Deadly Bermuda Triangle." Gaddis was among the first to treat the pattern of disappearances as a defined, named phenomenon.

Ivan T. Sanderson

Paranormal researcher who proposed the "Vile Vortices" theory — twelve equally spaced points of anomalous activity around the Earth, of which the Bermuda Triangle was the primary example.

John Wallace Spencer

Author of Limbo of the Lost (1969), an early Bermuda Triangle book that promoted paranormal theories including the possibility that the missing ships and aircraft had been taken by extraterrestrials.

Writers and Researchers — Skeptical

Lawrence David Kusche

Author of The Bermuda Triangle Mystery — Solved (1975). A librarian and pilot who systematically investigated the primary sources behind each Triangle incident. His findings demonstrated that many incidents were fabricated, mislocated, or had conventional explanations omitted from popular accounts. His work remains the most rigorous examination of the Triangle's evidentiary basis.

Edward Van Winkle Jones

Miami Herald journalist whose September 17, 1950 AP article was the first major publication to document the pattern of disappearances in the region. Jones's article was journalistic rather than sensational and is considered the factual seed from which the legend grew.

George X. Sand

Fate magazine writer whose 1952 article "Sea Mystery at Our Back Door" first defined the triangular geography and popularized it as a regional phenomenon.

Official Investigators

U.S. Navy Board of Investigation (Flight 19)

The board that produced the 500-page investigation of Flight 19. Its initial finding of pilot error was later amended to "cause unknown" under family pressure, preserving the ambiguity that fuels ongoing fascination with the case.

FBI (Carroll A. Deering)

The FBI investigation of the Carroll A. Deering ghost ship was among the most thorough governmental investigations of a Triangle incident. Its inability to determine what happened to the eleven-man crew remains one of the Triangle's most credible genuine mysteries.