Myths and Legends
According to a legend which grew up around the incident, the RMS Homeric received a cryptic SOS from the Raifuku Maru on April 21, 1925, which read, in broken English: "Danger like a dagger now! Come quick!" Reportedly, the Homeric traveled to where the vessel had given the SOS, but found not a trace of the ship. There was much speculation over what the "dagger" was (popular opinion seems to be divided between waterspouts and UFOs), and this was regarded as a genuine mystery of the sea by many. Popular writers on the Bermuda Triangle, specifically Charles Berlitz and Vincent Gaddis, propagated the myth of the vessel's "mysterious" sinking.
Read more about this topic: Raifuku Maru
Famous quotes containing the words myths and, myths and/or legends:
“Myths and legends die hard in America. We love them for the extra dimension they provide, the illusion of near-infinite possibility to erase the narrow confines of most men’s reality. Weird heroes and mould-breaking champions exist as living proof to those who need it that the tyranny of “the rat race” is not yet final.”
—Hunter S. Thompson (b. 1939)
“In New York—whose subway trains in particular have been “tattooed” with a brio and an energy to put our own rude practitioners to shame—not an inch of free space is spared except that of advertisements.... Even the most chronically dispossessed appear prepared to endorse the legitimacy of the “haves.””
—Gilbert Adair, British author, critic. “Cleaning and Cleansing,” Myths and Memories (1986)
“Therefore our legends always come around to seeming legendary,
A path decorated with our comings and goings. Or so I’ve been told.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)