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Malaysia Airlines Flight 370
Possible causes of the aircraft’s disappearance
 In the weeks following flight 370’s disappearance, theories ranged from mechanical failure to pilot suicide. The loss of the ACARS and transponder signals spurred ongoing speculation about some form of hijacking, but no individual or group claimed responsibility, and it seemed unlikely that hijackers would have flown the plane to the southern Indian Ocean. That the signals had likely been switched off from inside the aircraft suggested suicide by one of the crew, but nothing obviously suspicious was found in the behaviour of the captain, the first officer, or the cabin crew immediately prior to the flight. In 2016, New York magazine reported that the pilot, on his home flight simulator, had flown over the southern Indian Ocean less than a month before the plane vanished, a simulated flight that closely matched the missing aircraft’s final path; this revelation, in addition to the release of greater information about the pilot’s personal life, lent credence to the notion of a premeditated pilot-induced mass murder-suicide. After the discovery of the debris, some speculated that flight 370 was shot down, but no evidence of shrapnel from a missile or other projectiles has been found. |
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 For decades, the Atlantic Ocean’s fabled Bermuda Triangle has captured the human imagination with unexplained disappearances of ships, planes, and people.
Some speculate that unknown and mysterious forces account for the unexplained disappearances, such as extraterrestrials capturing humans for study; the influence of the lost continent of Atlantis; vortices that suck objects into other dimensions; and other whimsical ideas. Some explanations are more grounded in science, if not in evidence. These include oceanic flatulence (methane gas erupting from ocean sediments) and disruptions in geomagnetic lines of flux.
Environmental considerations could explain many, if not most, of the disappearances. The majority of Atlantic tropical storms and hurricanes pass through the Bermuda Triangle, and in the days prior to improved weather forecasting, these dangerous storms claimed many ships. Also, the Gulf Stream can cause rapid, sometimes violent, changes in weather. Additionally, the large number of islands in the Caribbean Sea creates many areas of shallow water that can be treacherous to ship navigation. And there is some evidence to suggest that the Bermuda Triangle is a place where a “magnetic” compass sometimes points towards “true” north, as opposed to “magnetic” north.
Aircraft incidents: & Incidents at sea: Read More---> |
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DB Cooper
 In 1971, a chain-smoking man in a business suit climbed aboard a Boeing 727 in Portland carrying an attache case full of dynamite. Then he committed one of America’s weirdest and most enduring unsolved crimes.
In six hours, the man now known as D.B. Cooper flew to Seattle, extorted nearly $200,000 and four parachutes from Northwest Orient Airlines, strapped on a chute like an old pro, vaulted into the skies over Western Washington and disappeared.
He was never found, however, and this remains the only unsolved case in US aviation history. |
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Amelia Earhart's disappearance
 Amelia Earhart is one of history’s most prominent figures in aviation, having inspired numerous movies, books, and plays. Born in 1897 in Kansas, Earhart rose to fame because of her trailblazing accomplishments as a female aviator. At the time, being both a woman and a pilot meant being met with many obstacles, and even her own family discouraged her from learning how to fly. However, despite those challenges, she set many records in aviation and became the first female pilot to fly alone across the Atlantic Ocean.
For her accomplishments alone, Earhart earned herself a degree of legendary status. However, it is her unfortunate disappearance after she set off on her ambitious global flight of 1937 that has captivated people to this day. On June 1, 1937, Earhart and Fred Noonan, her navigator, set out from Oakland, California, on their eastbound transcontinental flight on a twin-engine Lockheed Electra plane. Less than a month later they reached Lae, New Guinea, having flown 22,000 miles and with 7,000 more to go before they reached Oakland once again. After departing from Lae, they had to fly another 2,500 miles before they reached their next stop—Howland Island, an incredibly small island in the Pacific Ocean—to refuel. Unfortunately, overcast skies, radio transmission issues, and low fuel meant that Earhart and Noonan did not reach their destination. Despite extreme efforts to locate the plane, which ended up constituting the most expensive air and sea search in American history up to that point, there was no sign of Earhart or Noonan anywhere. Earhart was officially declared dead on January 5, 1939.
In its report, the U.S. government concluded that Earhart and Noonan had run out of fuel and crashed into the vast ocean. What happened after the crash is still unclear. Given the mystery surrounding this event, several theories have emerged that are still being debated to this day. One theory suggests that Earhart was a secret agent for the U.S. government and that she was taken prisoner by the Japanese for trying to spy on Japanese-occupied islands. The more widely believed theory is that Earhart and Noonan reached an uninhabited island, Nikumaroro, where artifacts such as tools and aircraft wreckage have been discovered. No theory has ultimately been proven true, and so Earhart’s disappearance remains one of the most popular mysteries of American history. Despite the tragic end to Earhart’s life, her accomplishments and her legacy still serve as an inspiration to thousands of budding young pilots everywhere. |
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WHERE IS JIMMY HOFFA?
The teamster union leader known for his involvement in organized crime disappeared in Oakland County, Michigan, on July 30, 1975, and was declared legally dead in 1982. The identity of his killer(s) and the location of his body are ongoing mysteries. Police and forensic anthropologists have searched a number of sites in Detroit and Oakland County to no avail.
 One popular theory was that Hoffa's body was buried beneath Giants Stadium in New Jersey. However, this theory has been debunked. On Oct. 25 and 26, 2021, FBI agents visited a former landfill in New Jersey to conduct a "site survey," according to The New York Times. The survey is a follow-up to a a deathbed confession by a landfill worker claiming that people had charged he and his father with burying Hoffa's body in a steel barrel under the dump in 1975. The agents apparently didn't find the steel barrel, Live Science reported.
"Nothing of evidentiary value was discovered during that search," Mara Schneider, an FBI spokeswoman in Detroit, said according to The Guardian in July 2022. "While we do not currently anticipate any additional activity at the site, the FBI will continue to pursue any viable lead in our efforts to locate Mr Hoffa."
The identity of his killer is also unclear. Before his death in 2006, Richard "The Iceman" Kuklinski, a hit man, claimed to have killed Hoffa and dumped his body in a scrap yard, The Guardian reported. An author named Philip Carlo visited Kuklinski in prison before he died and wrote a book on Kuklinski's confessions. After the book came out, a number of police officers cast doubt on the confession in media interviews. As the years go by, it appears increasingly unlikely that Hoffa's remains will ever be found. |
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 The Frederick Valentich disappearance
Valentich radioed Melbourne Flight Service at 7:06 pm to report that an unidentified aircraft was following him at 4,500 feet (1,400 m). He was told there was no known traffic at that level. Valentich said he could see a large unknown aircraft which appeared to be illuminated by four bright landing lights. He was unable to confirm its type, but said it had passed about 1,000 feet (300 m) overhead and was moving at high speed. Valentich then reported that the aircraft was approaching him from the east and said the other pilot might be purposely toying with him. Valentich said the aircraft was "orbiting" above him and that it had a shiny metal surface and a green light on it. Valentich further reported that he was experiencing engine problems. Asked to identify the aircraft, Valentich radioed: "It's not an aircraft." His transmission was then interrupted by unidentified noise described as "metallic, scraping sounds" before all contact was lost. |
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 IS THERE A CITY OF ATLANTIS?
Writing in the fourth century B.C., the Greek philosopher Plato told a story of a land named Atlantis that existed in the Atlantic Ocean and supposedly conquered much of Europe and Africa in prehistoric times. In the story, the prehistoric Athenians strike back against Atlantis in a conflict that ends with Atlantis vanishing beneath the waves.
While no serious scholar believes that this story is literally true, some have speculated that the legend could have been inspired, in part, by real events that happened in Greek history. One possibility is that the Minoan civilization (as it's now called), which flourished on the island of Crete until about 1400 B.C., could have inspired the story of Atlantis. Although Crete is in the Mediterranean, and not the Atlantic, Minoan settlements suffered considerable damage during the eruption of Thera, a volcano in Greece.
Additionally, archaeologists found that the Minoans were eventually overcome (or forced to join with) a group of people called the Mycenaeans, who were based on mainland Greece. It's unlikely that this debate will ever be fully settled. |
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 The MV Joyita
On October 3, 1955, the merchant vessel, MV Joyita, departed Samoa for the Tokelau Islands. A month later, she was found drifting in the South Pacific, 600 miles off her course. All her passengers, crew, and cargo were gone. Some believe the ship was the victim of piracy. Another theory has it that the boat was taking on water (it was listing when it was discovered) and the 25 people on board abandoned ship—prematurely—and were lost. |
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n February 1979, five friends departed the coast of Maui for a fun day of fishing on a small boat called the Sarah Joe and motored into one of Hawaii’s worst storms on record. When they failed to return, a massive search was conducted, to no avail. Sad, but not that surprising when it comes to maritime tragedy. Then things got weird: A decade later, the Sarah Joe was found wrecked on the coast of one of the Marshall Islands—next to the grave of what turned out to be one of the five men. How did he get there? Who buried him? And where is that person now who could help explain this mystery? We’ll never know.
Jodi Huisentruit