THE BERMUDA TRIANGLE
At 2 pm on 5 December 1945, five US
*bombers took off from Fort Lauderlale in the USA for a training *flight in
perfect weather. Shortly afterwards, the pilots radioed that their flight
instruments were all malfunctioning. Two hours after take-off, all contact with
the planes was lost. A reconnaissance plane was immediately *dispatched to *search
for the missing planes. Within 20 minutes, radio contact with it had also been
lost. No trace of any of the planes was ever found. In all, six planes and 27
men had *vanished into the air.
The disappearance of the six planes
was far from being the first mysterious incident in the *area: for years,
navigational problems and strange magnetic forces had been reported. The
disappearance was not even the greatest disaster within the triangle. The
Cyclops, a 19,000-ton US ship was sailing from Barbados to Norfolk, Virginia.
In March 1918, when it vanished with its *crew of 309 from the surface of he
ocean without making a distress call and without the slightest *wreckage ever
being found.
The losses of boats and planes in
that area defy explanation. The disasters are the origin of a new phrase in the
English language – the Bermuda Triangle and this phrase has entered legend. The
Bermuda Triangle has been called the *Devils’ Triangle, the Triangle of Death,
the *Graveyard of the Atlantic. It has *swallowed up 140 ships and planes and
more than 1,000 people. Today many airmen and sailors are *still afraid of that
area of the Atlantic Ocean.
QUESTIONS
A)
What
happened to the five US bombers on 5 December 1945?
1)
They arrived in Europe
2)
They
couldn’t take off because of the fog
3)
They
disappeared
B)
What
is “the Cyclops” in this text?
1)
a
mythological monster
2)
the
nickname of a sailor
3)
the
name of a boat
C)
Where
is the Bermuda Triangle?
1)
in
Europe
2)
in
the Atlantic Ocean
3)
in
North America
ANSWERS
A3 | B3
| C2