At 2 p.m. on December 5, 1945, five Navy aircraft took off in perfect flying weather from a naval air installation in southeastern Florida, on a routine training mission over the Atlantic Ocean. Less than two hours later, the flight commander radioed that he was "completely lost". Then there was silence. A rescue plane was sent to search for the missing aircraft, and it, too, disappeared. Despite one of history's most extensive search efforts, involving more than 300 planes and dozens of ships, the Navy found nothing, not even an oil stain floating on the water. This is just one of the many frightening stories told of "the Bermuda Triangle", a mysterious area of the Atlantic Ocean roughly stretching southwest from Bermuda to the Florida coast and down to Puerto Rico. During the past 30 years, the triangle has claimed the lives of some 1,000 sailors and pilots. Stranger yet are the numerous "ghost" ships that have been found floating crewless within the triangle. On one strange occasion in 1881, the cargo shipEllen Austindiscovered a small sailing ship, sails waving uselessly in the wind. The boat was full of wood with no one on deck. The captain of theEllen Austininstalled a new crew to sail it, but two days later, during a rough storm, the two ships temporarily lost sight of each other. When the captain again boarded the boat, he found his crew had disappeared. After a second crew was assigned, the ship was again lost in a fog bank. This time, no trace of the boat -- or the crew -- was ever found. Charles Berlitz, a man with an interest in Atlantis, the legendary lost island, puts forward his theory that a giant solar crystal, which once was the power generator for Atlantis, lies on the ocean floor. From time to time, according to his theory, passing ships and planes set off the crystal, which confuses their instruments and _ them into the ocean. Officially, the U.S. Navy does not recognize the triangle as a danger zone and is convinced that "the majority of disappearances in the triangle can be due to the unique features of the area's environment." These include the swift Gulf Stream current and the unexplored valleys under water of the Atlantic. Also, the triangle is one of only two places on earth where a compass needle points to true north rather than magnetic north, causing problems in navigation. However, other scientists argue that beings from outer space have established a highly advanced civilization in the unexplored depths of the Atlantic inside the triangle. There, they believe, most of the missing vessels - and their crews - may still be on display for study by these higher intelligences. What did the captain ofEllen Austindo when he discovered a small sailing ship floating crewless?
He had all the wood transferred onto his own ship. He had new powerful sails fixed on the small boat. He sent a message that they were in danger and needed help. He asked some of his sailors to get onto the boat to sail it.