by Scott Corrales, ©1998 by author

Derrick City, PA

On June 11, 1998, US Airways Flight 1844, heading to Philadelphia out of San Juan, Puerto Rico (P.R.), ran into considerable turbulence along the way -- enough to cause the onboard food and drink service to be suspended early in the flight. The captain apologized profusely to the apprehensive passengers, indicating that the aircraft was currently "out of the range of any ground-based radar" and consequently unable to request a change to a lower elevation. As the Boeing 737 was buffeted ever harder by the choppy air, thoughts of the Bermuda Triangle began to manifest themselves in the minds of some passengers. After what seemed an eternity, the turbulence decreased somewhat and the airliner managed to reach its destination without incident. Turbulence and air pockets can indeed be frightening, but smooth rides can also hold perils of their own, as we shall see.

In the July 1973 issue of Pursuit magazine, Robert J. Durant describes the case involving a sighting made by an airliner pilot plowing the route between New York City and San Juan, P.R. This particular crossing is subject to choppy air at high altitudes and unsecured passengers have found themselves being tossed around the cabin on certain occasions. In this case, Durant's source remarked that his crew had been surprised by the unusual smoothness of the flight.

Shortly after this observation had been made in the cockpit, streaks of violet static electricity began to appear on the windshield, increasing in intensity until a white glow seemed to coat the entire windshield -- all of this without the characteristic presence of turbulence.

To add even more urgency to the situation, the onboard instruments began to give conflicting readings: gyroscopes and compasses on the pilot's and co-pilot's sides were at odds with each other while the autopilot was causing the airliner to stray from its course.

Unable to trust the instruments, the pilot opted for flying the aircraft completely on the indications of a portable gyroscope kept on board for precisely such emergencies. Luckily, perhaps, for the flight, they were within radar coverage of Bermuda and were able to request an emergency landing, which was successfully accomplished. Research into the causes behind the disturbances to the equipment were fruitless, and the incident was ultimately chalked up to the infamous "Triangle".

On the other hand, events having truly paranormal overtones have been reported in the air and sea of this region. In 1980, pilot José Pagán' aircraft disappeared in mysterious circumstances somewhere over the Mona Passage as he returned with a friend from a visit to the Dominican Republic. Pagán, who is still officially listing as "missing", was the son of a high-ranking officer in the police force.

At around 8:00 p.m. on June 28th of that year, the twin-engine Eurocoupe emitted a frantic Mayday directed at the air traffic control center of San Juan's international airport. The small plane was being stalked by an unidentified object that appeared to be blocking their progress. The distress call was received by the captain of a Spanish airliner (Iberia Flight 966) whose jet had just taken off from Santo Domingo, and who relayed Pagan's message to the San Juan tower. At one point during the exchange, a loud metallic sound interrupted the transmission, and Pagán and his passenger were never heard from again.

The average passenger lucky enough to land a window seat on a cramped commercial flight these days sometimes has more to look at than just an endless panorama of unnaturally blue skies and puffy clouds that extend into infinity. As the sky lanes become increasingly congested, one can even see other airliners passing by at stratospheric altitudes. During a recent flight to the Caribbean, this author was able to look out the window and see a freighter plowing the waters of the Atlantic Ocean from an altitude of thousands of feet. If the casual observer is treated to such sights, can we even imagine the curious sights to which airliner crews get to witness?

On April 13, 1963, the crew of a 707 on a regular flight from San Juan, P.R. to New York City managed to see something utterly unexpected: after a normal departure from Isla Verde Airport and an uneventful climb to the prescribed cruising altitude of thirty thousand feet half an hour away from Puerto Rico, the co-pilot advised his companions of an unexplained phenomenon occurring below the jet: an enormous "bubble" was forming on the surface of the Atlantic Ocean. The watery bubble increased in girth and height as the three men in the 707's cockpit looked on in amazement. Subsequent calculations estimated that the phenomenon was roughly one mile across and half a mile high. Did the airliner's flight crew witness an underwater detonation, a volcanic eruption, or an unknown phenomenon characteristic of the area? Thirty-five years later, the situation remains a mystery. Some have gone as far as to suggest that there is the possibility that the pilot's may have witnessed the submarine detonation of an atomic weapon or some artificial test being performed beneath the ocean surface.

Strange manifestations are not uncommon in this part of the Atlantic, even though there may be a prosaic explanation behind them. On August 21, 1969, people throughout the island of Hispaniola were able to see an enormous white cloud which expanded to a prodigious size, forming concentric rings before finally dissipating. Panicked witnesses believed that the "end of the world" was at hand or that the cloud was a portent of hidden significance, but it turned out to be an operation known as Project Stormfury, whose aim was that of pelting hurricanes with silver iodide in order to minimize their potency. These experiments, carried out at stratospheric altitudes, are often visible many hundreds of miles away.

Puerto Rican mariner Roberto Gainer almost managed to gain his place in the lore of those who have vanished in tropical waters. Setting out of San Juan on October 1976 in a sloop, the 23 year old sailor went out for what should have been a day's boating when his rudder suddenly broke. The helpless vessel was swept hundreds of kilometers out into the ocean by the powerful currents; Gainer's on-board radio lacked the necessary range to communicate with the shore, and for the following two and a half weeks, his little boat was swept five hundred and fifty miles away from Puerto Rico. Had it not been for the almost providential appearance of a West German freighter who picked up the missing sloop on its radar, Gainer's disappearance would have been ascribed to supernatural causes.

As with aviation, there are mysterious vanishings which do have paranormal and even ufological overtones, and which are much more spellbinding than any Bermuda Triangle yarn. The Freddy Miller case is certainly one of them.

On May 5, 1959, a boat sailed out of Santo Domingo, D.R., headed for the beach at Boca Chica some twenty miles away. Despite the excellent spring weather and calm azure seas, the nineteen-foot boat carrying 45 year old television producer and director Freddy Miller and his passengers (two women and two children), disappeared without a trace. A search of Dominican and adjacent waters was made using the less-than-adequate services available at the time, but the five people were never seen again

Thirteen years later, on September 22, 1973, Virgilio Gómez, a sales manager at one of the Dominican Republic's better-known insurance companies, was on his way to visit an experimental farm belonging to a national university on the outskirts of San Cristobal, some 15 miles west of Santo Domingo, in order to advise the farm of the proper insurance policies to carry.

At around 9 a.m., Gómez was driving along the road toward his destination when he saw a person waving him down by the roadside. "I thought it would be best to avoid him," Gómez would later state in an interview. "But when I got closer I noticed the character was dressed completely in green and that there were two other individuals standing some 5 or 6 meters away from the first one. Thinking it might be a military checkpoint or some accident, I decided to slow down with caution. I stopped some 10 meters away from the person who flagged me down and kept the engine running..."

According to Gómez, the man in the green outfit informed him that he was Freddy Miller, adding that he had "supposedly" drowned along with some other people, but that he had in fact been rescued by a modern device, "a module known to people as a UFO".

Thinking it was some sort of joke, Gómez played along and asked the man which planet he came from. He was stunned when the man soberly answered that he thought he came from Venus, and that he had been rescued "on account of his knowledge of radio technology," adding that there had been no room for the other hapless boaters and that they would not have survived the "adaptation process."

In subsequent interviews, Gómez remarked that his alien interlocutor had a disgusting grayish-yellow skin tone that he found repulsive, spoke in a thick, deliberate voice and was virtually hairless. The entity's body was covered by a form-fitting green coverall without zippers or pockets. A large wristwatch "similar to the ones worn by scuba divers" adorned the wrist of its left hand.

The insurance agent was shown a half-concealed vehicle in the woods by the roadside -- a fact that caused him to realize that the situation was no joke, by his own admission. The oval-shaped craft had a chrome-like sheen to it and largely resembled "an American football" (unlike the traditional soccer ball used throughout Latin America) and was windowless, betraying no external seams or rivets.

The putative Freddy Miller went on to inform him that he and his companions were conducting research on the "Milwaukee Deep" -- the undersea trench whose depth reaches some twenty-thousand feet and which forms part of the Puerto Rico Trench. The alleged extraterrestrials were greatly concerned about the likelihood of destructive seismic activity at this location, which would have a catastrophic effect on the Dominican Republic and Haiti.

After having been reassured that the aliens "would try to avoid the cataclysm" slated for the 28th or 29th of October, Gomez was told to leave the area as soon as possible, since the space vehicle was about to lift off. Reluctantly obeying the strange character's command, the insurance agent drove away, checking his rear view mirror to see if he could see the UFO bolt skyward. Suddenly feeling afraid, Gómez hit the gas and sped off to his original destination.

Upon returning home that evening, Gómez told his wife and relatives about "Freddy Miller" and his experience that morning. The story slowly became known throughout Gómez's extended family, and before long, the insurance agent found himself in the position of having to reveal his story during a Rotarian dinner.

The case soon appeared in Santo Domingo's major newspapers and periodicals. According to an unconfirmed report, Virgilio Gómez was later shown a family group photo and was able to pick out the real Freddy Miller from the crowd.

In spite of the high-strangeness implications of Gómez's roadside encounter, the fact remains that seismic activity was in fact quite considerable on the day that the event took place. According to UFO researcher Sebastian Robiou, a tremor occurred in the Milwaukee Deep only a few hours after the "Freddy Miller" incident.

But what about "Freddy Miller" himself? Photos of the missing sportsman and TV personality show a balding, bespectacled older man that in no way resembled the being that spoke to Virgilio Gómez. In spite of his exposure to television, the real Freddy Miller had no significant knowledge of radio technology -- the reason given by the alleged alien for the "Venusians" interest in resurrecting him. Although largely forgotten, the case remains one of the great mysteries of the Caribbean

Forget the Marie Celeste and the Ellen Austen. Possibly one of the greatest maritime disappearances of all time -- one which remains unexplained to this very day -- involves the Spanish passenger liner Valbanera in 1919. This spectacular case eluded the chronicles of the late Vincent Gaddis (Invisible Horizons) and those of Ivan T. Sanderson (Invisible Residents). The six hundred lives lost forever on this passenger vessel did not disappear in the middle of some mysterious triangle or circle in the middle of the ocean: they vanished as the ship entered the busy port of Havana, Cuba.

The six thousand-ton Valbanera, which plowed its habitual route between the Canary Islands and the Caribbean, had been built by British shipwrights and owned and operated by a company in the business of ferrying European migrants to Cuba. Its crossing of the Atlantic had been uneventful, and the thirteen hundred people aboard -- mostly Canary Islanders looking for opportunities in the canefields and plantations of the largest of the Antilles -- awaited landfall in Santiago de Cuba (the island's major eastern city) with a mixture of trepidation and excitement. The ship made port as scheduled on September 5, 1919, where it discharged seven hundred passengers. After refueling, the steamship sailed out of Santiago and doubled Cape Maisi in the Windward Passage...never to be seen again.

On the evening of September 9, 1919 the port master's office in the Port of Havana heard the booming sound of a ship's horn. Officials were able to make out its lights dimly and assumed that it would be the Valbanera, since no other ships were expected that evening. But no ship ever entered the spacious harbor.

Perplexed by the fact that the ship appeared to have never entered Havana, a number of Cuban gunboats were mobilized to find the missing passenger liner. A U.S. Navy frigate out of Key West joined in the maneuvers. The vessels swept the Old Bahama Channel without much success, until the frigate came across the remains of the hapless Spanish liner on September 19, 1919.

The Valbanera's hull turned up in the waters between the Tortugas and Key West; divers reported finding lifeboats still in their divots and no major structural damage was evident. No bodies were found in the closed staterooms or the common areas of the ship: 600 people had been claimed by the maw of the unknown.

Boards of Inquiry in three countries sought answers in vain for the questions that burned brightest in people's minds: why was no distress signal sent? What had been the ship's fate during the ten days between its disappearance and its being found in Floridian waters, when those very same waters were being scoured by warships?

Carmen Machado, a writer for Spain's Año Cero magazine, uncovered a fascinating lead while investigating the trail of the missing passengers of the doomed Valbanera. Machado came across the relatives of a man named Domingo Almenar, who died in 1957 and maintained for over thirty years that he was the sole survivor of the ship. An alleged stowaway, Almenar was known to the passengers who disembarked in Santiago de Cuba, and who knew that he had gone on to Havana aboard the Valbanera. Three days after the disappearance, Almenar got in touch with his family and informed them that he was the ship's sole survivor. For the remainder of his life, the one-time stowaway would insist that the fate of the passenger ship was known but to God and himself.

Conclusion

Are certain parts of the ocean scarier or more mysterious than others, or is it just our perception that makes them that way? After all, each of the world's bodies of water boasts its own share of unsolved enigmas and patches where anomalous things are reported. Due to our continent's location with regard to the Atlantic Ocean and the conquest and migration patterns followed by the Western European countries, perhaps we know a little more of this area than we do of all the others. Perhaps Columbus, becalmed in the weed-filled waters of the Sargasso Sea, may have at some point thought that the "Here be Dragons" which ornamented the maps of his time may have conveyed the sense of mystery after all.