I've been reading through Charles Berlitz's books on fringe topics, and one theme becomes rapidly clear: Berlitz repackages the same book over and over. In Without A Trace, Berlitz says that after publishing The Bermuda Triangle in 1974, former military personnel emerged from the woodwork to offer their own stories of strange things they witnessed and were told never to share. "The aim of this present book is neither to refute, inform, nor educate critics of the reality of the mystery but rather to examine previously unrecorded and new incidents as well as current developments within the Triangle." Only about 20% of the book matches that description. The rest is Berlitz recapitulating the same anecdotes he's shared before, making completely new errors of fact and logic, and branching off into esoteric topics. He does make good on his promise not to address critics, though manages to work in a dig at Lawrence Kusche (author of The Bermuda Triangle Mystery-Solved) for conducting his [infinitely superior] investigations remotely.
One thing Berlitz muddles from the very start is the definition of the Bermuda Triangle, which you think he would have locked down by now. Usually, it is said to connect Miami, Bermuda, and Puerto Rico. In his introduction, Berlitz describes the triangle as "an area between Florida, the Sargasso Sea, and Bermuda". Florida is not a point on a map, and the Sargasso Sea is a large and amorphous patch that roughly centers on Bermuda and extends far north and east of the traditional triangle. In the introduction [2 pages later!] he defines it as "the general area bounded by Bermuda in the north, Florida in the west, and in the east, a point in the ocean in the vicinity of 40° west longitude." This last boundary pushes the triangle far east, nearly in line with the eastern tip of Brazil. These are incompatible definitions, and provide extensive wiggle room. On page 20, Berlitz further obscures the area of effect: "We do not know whether the area where the disappearances have occurred and are occurring is truly a triangle, a rectangle, or trapezoid..."
In a thirteen page chart listing boat disappearances between 1800 and 1976, many of the listed locations of disappearance don't even correspond to Berlitz's inflated triangles. The Caribbean? Nope. West Indies? Nope. East of Hampton Roads, Virginia? Nope. Southwest/North/West of Azores? Double nope. Those were just on the first page! Elsewhere, Berlitz talks about a similar anomalous zone near Japan called the "Devil Sea", and claims that it is located on the opposite side of the planet from the Bermuda Triangle. While that may jibe with some of his magnetic fluctuation theories, it contradicts other explanations such as the purported location of Atlantis. And once again, he's wrong on basic facts! Antipodal to the Bermuda Triangle is the sea off the west coast of Australia... not anywhere close to Japan. Wrong hemisphere, Bud.
When Berlitz asserts "calculated odds in the Bermuda Triangle of more than a thousand to one against the same number of unexplained disappearances taking place in another specified area of the same size" (I'd love to know who performed that calculation), he quickly offers an about-face. "This does not necessarily mean, of course, that a trip to or through the Bermuda Triangle is any more, or even nearly as, dangerous as taking a Sunday drive on an expressway." Well, then, why are we even writing this book?
In the category of esoteric diversions, here are some wild geese Berlitz chases in this book:
- A crew member of the Alvin submersible claims he saw a creature in the "Tongue of the Ocean" deeps (near the Bahamas). When Berlitz's associate J. Manson Valentine shows that crew member a drawing of a plesiosaur, the man says that's exactly what he saw. This implies that... the Loch Ness Monster has a cousin in the Bermuda Triangle?
- A diver from Miami is quoted as saying he spotted "an underwater abominable snowman". Sure, why not?
- Hollow Earth theory gets a mentioned here, in support of the notion that planes can travel through wormholes that open up rifts in time and space. Not only does Berlitz lend credence to the story that Admiral Byrd discovered a polar entrance to the center of the Earth; he also claims that Hitler traveled to Antarctica seeking to contact the wise ones who live in the Earth's interior.
- Glowing patches of the ocean, visible from space, are explained as bioluminescent diatoms. And yet, Berlitz feels compelled to offer: "Another theory, equally unacceptable to the scientific establishment, would be the existence of present day, underwater or submarine and subterranean power complexes administered by as yet unidentified entities."
- There are more UFO stories in this book than you can throw a stick at, and Berlitz speculates that stories of fairies, ghosts, gods, miracles, time travel, and cattle mutilation could all be attributed to these mysterious craft (and their inhabitants).
- The entire final chapter is about the Philadelphia Experiment, an alleged military operation to test a cloaking device that ended up killing and/or disabling most of the target boat's crew. It has nothing to do with the Bermuda Triangle, though something to do with vanishing. Berlitz even admits that "Whether the Philadelphia experiment actually took place or not is difficult to prove." And yet, this would constitute the subject of his next book, The Philadelphia Experiment (1979), which just happens to be the first work of Berlitz's that I read as an 8th grader.
And it wouldn't be a Charles Berlitz book without some racism sprinkled in. From the final paragraph of the book: "…One may observe, however we feel about the justice of the European incursion, that it subsequently proved unquestionably better for survival purposes, to have been a questing and curious European rather than a non-questing Amerindian, the greater number of which were destined for extinction." That's rich... implying that Indigenous Americans, whose ancestors came here first, lacked the capacity for discovery.
There are so many more inconsistencies and failures of logic listed in my notes, but the key phrase to describe Berlitz's approach is "anomaly hunting". Berlitz is uninterested in solving mysteries. He is in the business of selling mystery, and curates hearsay and speculation in support of his wild and contradictory theories.