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A Christian psychiatrist and the curse of the Bermuda Triangle
by Michael H. Brown
Years ago, back in the mid-1970s, there was a stir over the "Devil's Sea" or "Bermuda Triangle," an area of the Atlantic that stretches from Fort Lauderdale to Puerto Rico and then north to Bermuda.
Through the years, say those who believe in it, planes and ships crossing the area have mysteriously disappeared. In 1892 a vessel called the Mary Celeste was found abandoned, its crew strangely gone, and in 1945 five Navy Avengers inexplicably vanished while on a routine mission. There are reports that the horizon seems to shift, compasses go wild, and radio transmissions fail. In no time this area became a favorite of those with theories of UFOs (which they claim abduct crews in this area), the lost continent of Atlantis (which some believe sunk in this region and still "beams" strange energy), and New Agers who simply believe it is a focus of some form of cosmic energy.
A while back a Christian psychiatrist, Dr. Kenneth McAll of Brook Lyndhurst in England, came up with a fourth explanation: the area is cursed, he speculated -- haunted by slaves who had been thrown overboard.
Dr. McAll, an associate member of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, wrote in a little book called Healing the Haunted of his own excursion into these waters during a cruise. At one point the ship's boilers burst and caused a two-day delay. "As we drifted gentle in the now warm and steamy atmosphere, I became aware of a continuous sound like mournful singing," he said of a sound that reminds us to pray for suffering souls this All Souls' Day. "It was particularly clear when we were in our cabin. I thought it must be a record player in the crew's quarters and as it continued through a second night, I finally, in exasperation, went below to ask if it could be stopped. However, the sound down there was the same as it was everywhere else and the crew were equally mystified."
It was upon his return home that McAll happened to read a law book on suits against insurance companies that mentioned how in the 18th century British sea captains had milked insurance companies by throwing slaves into the water and making a claim on them.
That led Dr. McAll to organize Mass and prayers in June of 1977 for the souls who were killed in the triangle. In prayer he and others apologized for what their ancestors had done and implored God to show the dead slaves the path to heaven.
I don't what has gone on recently (some say that two planes were missing in that area between May, 1999 - January 2000). I'm not sure they were inexplicable, however, and Dr. McAll claimed that it had been at the point of the Mass and prayers that the strange incidents had stopped. "A few weeks after the service, an American newspaper contacted me inquiring what had made these incidents suddenly come to a halt. Six months later there had still been no further unexplained disasters and at the end of the year, the Bishop of Bermuda proposed a similar service to be held in his cathedral and another clergyman, Father Don Oman, suggested that one should also be held out at sea. The bishop set up a scientific team to monitor the accidents while I contacted the Florida Coast Guard who informed me that up to that time an average of one ship a month and one airplane every 13 months had been lost without a trace. The last one to vanish was a large Japanese cargo vessel in apparently calm weather. Two years after the service had been held, The National Enquirer asked my permission to write up the story of what had been done. Ten and a half years later the Australian Broadcasting Company researched through their library for a program and found that there had been no more unexplained disasters within the Bermuda Triangle."
