What is the 'Bermuda Triangle of the North'?

According to popular lore, the Bermuda Triangle, an infamous area in the North Atlantic Ocean stretching between Miami, Puerto Rico and Bermuda, has mysteriously swallowed planes and ships for centuries, with barely a trace. Far less well known—but equally as perilous for aircraft and vessels—is the so-called Lake Michigan Triangle, or Great Lakes Triangle, sometimes called the Bermuda Triangle of the North.

Located on the southeastern side of Lake Michigan, the Great Lakes Triangle—a name made popular by a 1977 book of the same name by aviator Jay Gouley—stretches roughly from Manitowoc, Wisconsin to Ludington, Michigan and southward toward Benton Harbor. It encompasses more than 3,800 square miles.

The area has drawn comparisons to the infamous Bermuda Triangle for its legacy of hundreds of unexplained disappearances and eerie phenomena. Mariners and aviators have reported strange lights, malfunctioning instruments and vessels vanishing from calm waters.

The first recorded disappearance in this region dates to 1679, when the French ship Le Griffon, with its entire crew and cargo of furs, vanished after departing from Washington Island, Michigan. Historians have speculated that it may have been lost in a storm, attacked and sunk by Native Americans angered by the Anglo fur trade or even sunk in a mutiny by ship hands looking to abscond with the valuable cargo. But Le Griffon’s remains have never been found. 

Hundreds more vessels and planes have suffered a similarly disastrous, and mysterious, outcome. While skeptics point to more logical causes—the region’s volatile weather, deep freshwater currents and heavy traffic—their fate remains a source of enduring fascination and speculation.

The Great Lakes—Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie and Ontario—are all notorious for their treacherous conditions. Carrie Sowden, archaeological and research director for the National Museum of the Great Lakes in Toledo, told Cleveland magazine there have been more than 8,000 known shipwrecks across all the Great Lakes throughout history. 

Reportedly, Lake Michigan has endured the most losses of all five lakes. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly how many vessels have gone missing specifically in its "triangle," since record-keeping was far less rigorous in the 18th and 19th centuries and some wrecks have never been conclusively identified. But it’s almost certain that hundreds of ships and dozens of aircraft have been lost there.

After leaving Chicago for Muskegon on May 21, 1891, the schooner Thomas Hume tried to sail through a sudden squall, while Rouse Simmons, a ship on the same journey, turned back to Chicago. The Thomas Hume and its six passengers were never seen again, and no debris was ever found. 

On November 22, 1912, the Rouse Simmons itself and its 17-person crew sank during a storm after setting off from Thompson, Michigan, for Chicago, with several thousand Christmas trees on board. Its veteran schooner captain, Herman Schuenemann, was even nicknamed Captain Santa because of the Christmas cheer he regularly brought to the city. While its shipwreck was eventually discovered in 1971, it has long been reputed to be a ghost ship. 

After setting off from LaGuardia Airport for Seattle, Washington, Northwest Orient Flight 2501 was 18 miles from Benton Harbor when it encountered a severe storm and crashed on June 23, 1950. Fifty-eight people perished, making it, at the time, the deadliest commercial plane crash in American history. Despite large-scale searches, only minimal debris and one body was ever found. 

Lake Michigan is known for having both severe and unpredictable weather patterns, which have long challenged ship captains and air pilots. Intense storms have been known to suddenly manifest, spawning strong winds and currents, large (and rogue) waves and thick fog. This is especially true in the penultimate month of the year, when the “gales of November” have caused a large number of shipwrecks.

Reports have also speculated that Lake Michigan’s ”triangle” has magnetic anomalies—a variation in strength of Earth's magnetic field caused by magnetism in rocks on lakebed—which might have contribute to navigational error, resulting in more incidents. 

Conspiracy theorists cite regular UFO sightings over Lake Michigan as evidence that aliens are somehow connected to the Great Lakes Triangle’s many tragedies. The 2007 discovery of a prehistoric stone structure at the bed of Lake Michigan—referred to as the North American Stonehenge—has only added to the supernatural speculation. 

Another Great Lakes area, not too far away, has also been called the Bermuda Triangle of the North. Located in the eastern region of Lake Ontario, the so-called Marysburgh Vortex has a similarly long and tragic history of shipwrecks and disappearances, with as many as 500 ships and 40 aircraft believed to have gone missing.