Nevada's 'Bermuda Triangle on land' where 2,000 planes are rumoured to have crashed
You've heard of the mysterious and deadly Bermuda Triangle where many a plane has flown into but never come back out again.
However, there's another triangle, which has ended up being quite dangerous for aviation enthusiasts, with claims of around 2,000 planes crashing in it.
As you might have guessed from the headline it's located in Nevada, and is rather unimaginatively called the 'Nevada Triangle'.
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It's a 25,000 square mile triangular shape in the space between the Nevada cities of Reno, Las Vegas and Fresno over in California. Since it's located near to Area 51, it's spawned all sorts of conspiracy theories about what really happened to those planes.
While some people reckon that the flights were disrupted by aliens or something harder to explain, the reasons behind the Nevada Triangle being so dangerous are actually a bit more understandable.
According to KNPR, one of the main reasons behind those missing planes is as simple as pilot error.
Climatologist professor Kelly Redmond said that the mountainous terrain would pose quite a problem for an inexperienced pilot in a light aircraft, with canyons and cliffs making it very possible for a pilot to get lost and run into misfortune.
However, there is another reason he identified as being behind some of the dangers the Nevada Triangle, and that's the dangerous wind conditions which can occur in the area.
The cause of this has been identified as a scientific phenomenon known as a 'mountain wave', where the winds sweeping in from the Pacific Ocean hit the barrier of the Sierra Nevada mountain range in the neighbouring state of California.
The wind goes up and over the peaks of the mountains, where it gets cold and drops suddenly, which can cause problems for planes caught in a mountain wave.
Nowadays, we know much more about mountain waves and the impact they can have on planes, explaining why so many aircrafts went missing in the Nevada Triangle.
Professor Redmond explained that winds sweeping up and over the mountains got cold and then had a 'rapid descent', which caused a 'tremendous amount of turbulence'.
He said that a small plane getting caught in such conditions might 'not have the power or just the capability to get out of the way of that', and compared it to being caught in a downpour as strong as Niagara Falls.
Not everyone is as convinced about the notorious reputation of the Nevada Triangle and the supposed 2,000 crashed planes.
Fox 26 News reports that a number of aviation enthusiasts reckon the actual figure is 'nowhere close to 2,000', even if the conditions of the Nevada Triangle do pose quite a challenge to pilots.
They said it was a 'myth' that was dangerous due to 'bad weather' and 'poor navigation', challenging the high number of plane crashes in the area and striking down the idea that they vanished.
As for the rather more famous Bermuda Triangle, that one's also apparently down to a mix of 'human error and bad weather'.
Joe Harker