Some Call Los Roques New Bermuda Triangle

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The sea between Los Roques and Venezuela is becoming as infamous as the Bermuda Triangle. (Image credit: Carloscastilla | Dreamstime)

The disappearance last week of the airplane carrying Italian fashion mogul Vittorio Missoni and five others across the Caribbean Sea has been blamed on everything from mechanical failure to kidnapping by drug smugglers.

Now, a new theory has emerged: The airplane and its passengers fell victim to the "Los Roques Curse," a phenomenon that some have likened to the Bermuda Triangle, according to the British newspaper The Guardian.

In 2008, 14 people died when a plane making the same journey from Los Roques disappeared. No wreckage was ever found, and only one body was recovered, according to VolarenVenezuela, a website on civil aviation in Venezuela.

Some have claimed that disappearances like these result from massive releases of methane gas from the seafloor. Others have suggested, with no evidence, the cause may be aliens from outer space living beneath the waves, or souls from the lost underwater civilization of Atlantis.

But like the Bermuda Triangle — the stretch of open ocean between Bermuda, South Florida and Puerto Rico infamous for mysterious disappearances of ships and planes — people with less superstitious minds believe there's a rational explanation.

The Bermuda Triangle is heavily traveled, and, proportionally, sees no more disappearances than any other area. The region also produces unpredictable tropical storms, and the Gulf Stream is particularly fast and turbulent in that area.

"There's always some explanation for these things, even if it takes many years to uncover the answer," Nick Wall, editor of Pilot, told the Guardian. "Pilots prefer to concentrate on the things that genuinely will help them live longer, such as fuel gauges, weather reports and engine inspections … it is too early to know for sure what caused this latest incident."

Other mysterious waterworlds linked with doom are the so-called Michigan Triangle in Lake Michigan and the Sargasso Sea. Several ships have been found drifting without any crew through the calm Sargasso Sea. And, legend has it that in 1840, after sailing through the Sargasoo Sea, the French merchant ship "Rosalie" was discovered with its sails set but without any crew members on board.

The Michigan Triangle has been blamed for the mysterious disappearances of ship crews and entire aircraft. Another, the Devil's Sea (also called the Pacific Bermuda Triangle), sits in the Pacific Ocean around Miyake Island off the coast of Japan. Ancient legends have it dragons lived there, giving the area another moniker: the "Dragon's Triangle."

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Marc Lallanilla
Marc Lallanilla
Live Science Contributor
Marc Lallanilla has been a science writer and health editor at About.com and a producer with ABCNews.com. His freelance writing has appeared in the Los Angeles Times and TheWeek.com. Marc has a Master's degree in environmental planning from the University of California, Berkeley, and an undergraduate degree from the University of Texas at Austin.