No one can still explain how Thomas Brown, 56, survived the Bermuda Triangle after being allegedly trapped for seven years. It all happened on October 29, 2009, when the man decided to sail alone on the Florida coast, intending to clear his head. He left a note to his wife at the hotel where he indicated that he would be back soon without knowing that he wouldn’t see her again until August 25, 2016.
The Disappearance of Thomas Brown
On the day Thomas disappeared, he and his wife had planned to attend a ceremony recognizing Thomas’ career, who had worked for 30 years building swimming pools. No one knew what had happened to Thomas, he had no reason to run away, nowhere to run to, no clue to his whereabouts.
Marta, his wife, did not hesitate to alert the police, and an intense search was conducted by sea and land, but to no avail; there was no sign of Thomas or his boat. As time went by, and eventually years passed, the authorities began to forget his case, and the rescue operations stopped. Marta felt the helplessness and nostalgia of not knowing what had happened to her husband, the father of her children and now grandfather of her grandchildren.
Marta kept her house, she did not want to lose the only reference that Thomas could have, in case one day he came back, or someone could give her an explanation. Everyone had given up hope except her, who, on August 25, 2016, received the call she had been waiting for so long: the Florida authorities told her that a meeting to discuss Thomas Brown’s disappearance was urgent, something inside her told her that they had found him.
The Rescue of Thomas Brown
Martha found him in a medical center, lying on a couple of gurneys. The man looked tired, dirty, toothless, and worn. The woman hugged him tightly, and they both wept with joy. Thomas was evidently accosted by a sea of questions from the interrogations by the police, to the explanations demanded by Martha and her relatives, to the press and the media. Everyone wanted to know where he had been all this time.
Thomas’ version was consistent all the time: that morning in 2009 the man was looking to relax on the boat, found a quiet area in the sea, turned off his engine, and reflected for a few minutes on his life, his wife, his career. When he tried to start the engine again, he had a lot of problems, although he could not really find the cause of the malfunction. Later, when he tried to use the radio, he realized that it didn’t work either.
Thomas was near an island where there were some boats like his and some wreckage of what looked like an airplane. He decided to go down and explore cautiously. He found a monkey and some kind of red moss with a ferrous smell. He found no human trace, he knew his only hope was to be rescued. But there were no signs of aircraft or ship routes either.
When the food and drinking water ran out, Thomas managed to get water from the dew of the plants and some food from the island such as roots or fish. The castaway learned to make a shelter and tried to hunt the monkey he had seen, but he never saw it again. With time (according to the man’s accounts it was a year), Thomas managed to design and build a boat, he knew that setting sail from an unknown place was putting his life at risk, but at the same time, he knew that waiting for a rescue could be a death sentence. Thomas would rather die taking the risk than die without trying.
He set sail without much hope, as night fell, he curled up in his boat and managed to fall asleep. Unexpectedly a couple of loud bangs woke him up, Thomas stood up and saw a couple of Coast Guard cutters; he realized that he had finally been rescued. The rest is history, though many questions remain. Thomas thought he had been lost for a year, when in fact it was seven. They were never able to locate the island he was on…
The Bermuda Triangle
This is the name given to the space in the sea that is formed between the Bermuda Islands, Puerto Rico, and Miami, linking these ports to form an equilateral triangle. This site has been the site of multiple mysteries that include the disappearance of people, airplanes, or ships, as well as magnetic disturbances. The case of Thomas Brown is considered to be the only person to have returned from this site.
Story originally published in Spanish in Cultura Colectiva
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