In the days of commercial sailing ships, the Sargasso Sea was notorious for its endless calms and glassy waters, on which boats could wallow for weeks under blazing skies and in suffocating humidity. Its western edge lies just east of Florida and extends east to the 40W meridian. This vast, stagnant mass of water sits on the Tropic of Cancer, and is the origin of many a frightening tale of lost, drifting ships and their skeleton crews. Aircraft have gone missing there, too, and have often reported strange optical phenomena. Almost at the heart of the Sargasso Sea lies the island jewel of Bermuda, where nearby strange happenings gave rise to the legend of the Bermuda Triangle. I had always been a sceptic about mysterious and unexplained phenomena, as long years of high-altitude cruising in commercial jets had not given rise to any inexplicable event or sighting, or a formation flight with a UFO. During one late-night departure in 1994, however, that opinion changed.
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