A ship that disappeared almost 100 years ago, helping build the legend of the Bermuda Triangle, has finally been found.

The SS Cotopaxi left Charleston, South Carolina, on November 29 1925. She was bound for Havana, Cuba, carrying a cargo of coal.

That was the last anyone heard of the Cotopaxi, and Captain W. J. Meyer and the ship’s complement of 32 sailors were listed as lost at sea, victims of the treacherous Bermuda Triangle.

The Cotopaxi was dumped in the Gobi desert by UFOs, according to the 1977 science fiction classic Close Encounters of the Third Kind, but the truth lies a little closer to home.

In 2015, a news report saying that the ship had reappeared near a restricted military zone off the coast of Cuba caused a brief flurry of excitement, but that appears to have been a complete hoax, and the Cotopaxi remained lost without a trace.

But now a new Science Channel documentary, Shipwreck Secrets, has uncovered a sunken vessel off the coast of St. Augustine, Florida, that is exactly the right size to be the Cotopaxi.

Marine biologist and underwater explorer Michael Barnette undertook several dives to the wreck site, using a remote underwater drone to help him track down any piece of hard evidence to link the wreck – known as the Bear Wreck – to the Cotopaxi.

 

Al Perkins, a diver who has been exploring the Bear Wreck for some time, seemed to have at least a partial answer when he recovered a valve that was manufactured in the same place as Cotopaxi: Ecorse, Michigan.

Together with precise measurements of the ship’s hull, and documents from the Cotopaxi’s insurers, Barnette and Perkins narrowed down the details to prove almost conclusively that they had uncovered at least one victim of the notorious ‘Devil’s Triangle.’

The area has been the focus of conspiracy theories since the age of sail

Barnette said:

“A lot of times it is very emotional because first you are excited that your theory is correct. There’s also an emotional rollercoaster because you realise, ‘wait a second, this is a gravesite which marks the final resting spot of the crew members that went down with the vessel.’

“So,” he explained,” there’s a responsibility to try and reach out to the families so we can help give closure to them.”