The Dragon's Triangle

We’ve all heard of the Bermuda Triangle. It is notorious among the unexplained mysteries of the world for all the ships that have gone missing there, and all the planes that have disappeared.

But how many of us can honestly say that we’ve heard of the Dragon’s Triangle?

Located near the Japanese coast in the Pacific Ocean, the Dragon’s Triangle, also called the Devil’s Sea by many, is one of the 12 Vile Vertices located around the world. It exists, as the title says, in the shape of a triangle between Japan and the Islands of Bonin, taking up a large portion of the Philippine Sea.

The exact location of the Triangle is a disputed claim, but geographically speaking, it is located around the Miyake, a Japanese island that lies at a distance of around 100km from the city of Tokyo. Some reports claim that it is actually located 110km away from Japan’s East Coast, while others state that its near Iwo Jima, a volcano located 1,200km away from the Japanese coast.

The Devil’s Sea is not, however, officially included in the map, which makes it hard to pinpoint its exact location.

Legend has it that Kublai Khan, the fifth Great Khan of the Mongol Empire, grandson to Genghis Khan, had tried to build inroads to Japan in 1274 AD and 1281 AD. Both attempts were unsuccessful, however, because he reportedly lost all of his ships, along with a total of 40,000 men in the area due to a typhoon. When Kublai Khan gave up his plan to invade the country, the Japanese thought that the typhoon was sent by God as a way to protect them.

Divers and marine archeologists have also found the remains of a Mongol fleet submerged under the sea, in the general area where the Triangle is reputed to be situated.

There have also been stories that speak about the sightings of a mysterious woman sailing a ship on the Devil’s Sea. The vessel apparently looked like an instrument used traditionally for burning incense. The identity of the woman, and her destination, still remain unknown.

In the 1940s and 1950s, a number of fishing vessels and military ships had disappeared in the area between Miyake and Iwo Jima. Japan then sent a research vessel in 1952, named Kaio Maru No.5, to investigate the fate of those boats and ships, but it, along with its crew, met the same end. The remnants of the Kaio Maru No.5 were found later, but the whereabouts of its 30 crew members were never determined.

Some theories that attempt to unravel this enigma include:

• Some scholars have suggested that the currents of cold and hot air running through the Vile Vertices lead to the disappearances. According to Ivan Sanderson, these currents result in electromagnetic disturbances within the area, which trap the ships passing by.

• Another hypothesis suggests that underwater volcanoes cause the disappearance of the vessels. This theory insinuates that the eruptions of these volcanoes could’ve fed the people’s belief that a dragon had been causing the vanishings.

• A scientific research argued that environmental phenomena could also be at play here. The researchers stated that the area had a presence of methane hydrates on the seabed. When the trapped methane (methane hydrate gases, or methane clathrates) explodes, bubbles are formed on the surface of the water as the ice-like deposits separate themselves from the bed of the ocean. These activities can interfere with buoyancy, and destroy vessels without leaving a single trace.

Many people have raised their eyebrows at the very existence of this area. The author of Skeptoid, Brian Dunning, once conducted a search to look for books, articles, and such about the Dragon’s Triangle. His reasoning was that, with such a dramatic history, one would expect for it to be all over newspapers and journals. Surprisingly, his results came up completely empty.

Apparently, the very existence of this legendary region hadn’t been invented very recently.

The Dragon's Triangle, like so many of the other inexplicable phenomena around the world, has been subjected to a lot of critique over time. Regardless, its continued and mysterious existence is proof of the fact that there are many anomalies in this world that we can neither control, nor explain.