The Vile Vortices Of Ivan T. Sanderson

The most well-known of these areas, as well as the one which initially piqued his interest, is the Bermuda Triangle. According to Sanderson, the mysterious disappearances in this area were mostly overlooked until December 5, 1945, when five TBM Avenger torpedo bombers disappeared after taking off from the Fort Lauderdale Naval Air Station on a routine patrol. Sanderson claims the pilots were in radio contact with each other right up until the time of their disappearance, reporting that they had no idea where they were and that the ocean looked wrong. However, other reports of this incident omit any mention of the pilots’ radio conversation, resolving the disappearance as a navigational error which caused the planes to run out of fuel. Sanderson states that a Martin mariner was deployed to search for the planes and that it disappeared “within fifteen minutes.” Other reports claim that a nearby tanker witnessed an explosion as well as an oil slick leading to the conclusion that the Mariner had exploded, most likely a result of vapor leaks from being overloaded with fuel.


The next area to catch his attention was in the Mediterranean, near the site of the Algerian megaliths. While the megaliths themselves are a source of mystery, it was the disappearance of two submarines and four small vessels which made him take notice. Shortly, thereafter, Sanderson received a letter from a woman who supposedly had no knowledge of his investigation of the Bermuda Triangle. The woman claimed that there was an area near Afghanistan where planes transporting gold bullion had been disappearing, with some of the gold being found but no trace of the planes. This particular area also happens to be the site of Mohenjo-Daro, an ancient city that was one of the largest settlements of the Indus Valley Civilizations. Sanderson’s article does not mention the city or the mystery of its demise.



Sanderson figured out the next two just by assuming they would be seventy-two degrees apart like the ones in the northern hemisphere. He identified Easter Island, yet another site of megaliths, and the Wharton Basin, which his friend described as “an area of deadliness.” The Wharton Basin would later be associated with the disappearance of Malaysian flight 370 in March of 2014. The final two vortices, the North and South Poles, were suggested to Sanderson by professional fliers and, while he acknowledges that time seems to be a little off in these areas, he suggests that it could be due to the fact that compasses don’t work and it’s easy to get disoriented there.
Are these vortices real? The only data Sanderson offers as concrete evidence are reports by professional fliers, which he claims are backed by official records, of planes arriving impossibly early and other such time anomalies. He presents no specific (a.k.a., verifiable) examples of such incidences, but states that they occur frequently in some of the twelve vortices. He admits that he only has rumors of them occurring in the rest. Without any real evidence, these twelve vortices, while interesting to consider, are not so vile after all. The biggest mystery is why no one has written a horror novel called The Thirteenth Vortex.