For centuries, people have been fascinated by the Bermuda Triangle -- a stretch of the Atlantic Ocean where countless planes and boats have disappeared.
There's another place that captivates the mysteries of the unknown. It's called the Bermuda Triangle on land, and part of it lies right here in the Central Valley.
Mystery or myth? A vast, deadly landscape that encompasses the Central Valley, has invited question and intrigue for decades. A place where pilots and planes have vanished. A place much like the Bermuda Triangle.
Nathan Magsig, Fresno Airport Land Use Commission Chairman says, "My father was an avid pilot, he was in the air force for a number of years as well as the air national guard. He flew F4's and F101's and always grew up loving to fly planes."
On November 6, 1998, Nathan Magsig's father, Lowell, took his last flight. The Clovis man was flying from Nevada back to Fresno's Chandler Airport. His flight plan would take him over the rugged Sierra mountains. A route famous for high peaks, dangerous winds and turbulence.
Magsig says, "Apparently a freak storm had come in. Unfortunately my father's plane had crashed into Mt.Goddard and all three members on that plane passed away."
After an intensive, six day search, the men and the plane were found. But that's not always the case.
Part of the Sierra Mountain Range lies in an area called the Nevada Triangle. It covers 25,000 square miles of land, with Fresno at it's southwest corner. It's a place where more than 2,000 planes have gone missing in the last 60 years.
"We have three in the Sierras now, one that dates back to 1941, where the pilot bailed out and was eventually rescued, but his fighter plane has never been found and that's in Kings Canyon," says Aviation Accident Historian, G. Pat Macha.
Pat Macha has researched more than 550 crash sites in the High Sierra.
Macha says, "It's weather, weather and weather."
But is it just weather that has caused the pilots of these small planes to crash? Some people believe there have just been too many cases, too many lives lost, and think something else, something more mysterious might be happening.
"I believe there's more to it than just wind, I really do. A lot of weird stuff happens in that area, a lot of people see weird lights and weird cloud formations and a lot of missing planes just like the Bermuda Triangle," says Paranormal Activity Expert, Jeffrey Gonzalez.
Jeffrey Gonzalez runs the Sanger Paranormal Society in the Central Valley. He says the Nevada Triangle, which also includes Area 51 and China Lake military base, is a hotspot for UFO activity.
"There's something else going on in the Nevada Triangle. There are many UFO's being seen, triangles that I believe our top secret military aircraft. I really do believe that there is somebody else out there."
"I really don't believe that there are aliens or anything out there that are zapping these planes," says Magisig.
So can these accidents in the Nevada Triangle be explained through logic, or do the mysteries of missing planes go far beyond explanation?
Gonzalez says, "My job here is to give you the most credible evidence I can so you can decide for yourself if this stuff is real. The evidence speaks for itself."
TXT 24
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