September 17: Pilots measured the sun’s amplitude and found that the pointers on the compass had deviated to the northwest by a full point. The sailors were shocked and dismayed.
The position of the magnetic north pole, where the compass points, is variable. It moves at around 55 kilometers per year. Over the last two centuries he has traveled more than a thousand kilometers. The sailors of the 15th century were already aware of this magnetic variation, even if they did not have precise numbers as they do today, and knew how to make the necessary compensations when calculating routes.
But in some places on Earth, on the socalled Agonic Line, the magnetic declination is zero, that is, the north, where the cardinal points coincide with the geographical north, there is no need to make adjustments. If ships passed the line without realizing it, they could miss the trajectory.
The position of the agony line changes as the magnetic north pole changes. From time to time it lies over the Bermuda Triangle, like in 1945 when the planes disappeared. But that doesn’t make it a particularly mysterious or dangerous area, let alone an exclusive area. The agony line crosses the entire planet. In the 18th and 19th centuries, the Brazilian coast moved from the northeast to the south and our coast didn’t have a bad reputation as a result.
Colombo recorded the compass needles behaving normally the next day. Still, he left a rich account for those eager to see something in the Triangle 460 years later: the crew saw flickering lights over the water, a fireball falling from the sky, and a stretch of ocean with strangely calm, still water. .
Theories about the supposed danger posed by the Bermuda Triangle ranged from the scientifically possible to the insanity worthy of a drugged Flat Earther. Wellknown and proven phenomena such as dangerous ocean currents and hurricanes as well as magnetic anomalies occur side by side with sea monsters, giant squids, aliens and portals to another dimension.