9. Compass failures from supernatural causes is a popular theory about the triangle
One of the more popular theories to explain the loss of ships and airplanes within the Bermuda Triangle holds that the region has an ability to cause compasses to deviate from true north. The deviation causes mariners and pilots to deviate from their intended course and instead sail or fly off to their doom, whatever and wherever that may be. True north and magnetic north are two different locations, and deviation from magnetic north is a fact across most of the globe. In fact, deviations shift dependent on the compass user’s location, a fact known to mariners for centuries. There is only a small narrow band of the globe in which magnetic north is aligned with true north, and that band shifts over time. The American Practical Navigator, originally published in 1802, gave the formula for calculating the variation.
The American Practical Navigator, updated and revised, is still carried onboard all US Naval ships. Many other navigational guides carry the same information. But the sensationalist writers of the stories of mysterious occurrences within the triangle banked on the belief that most readers would not be aware of or comprehend the vagaries of magnetic declination. Instead, they focused their stories on belief in the supernatural, or conspiracies, or alien intervention. But ships lost because they could not determine direction due to a failed compass were just part of the story. They could and should turn up somewhere. The sensationalists used compass failure to explain how a ship or airplane could be diverted, but not as the answer to the question of what happened to it and its occupants. They knew their readers wouldn’t know better, and likely wouldn’t attempt to educate themselves.