Case file · Anomaly hotspot
USS Nereus vanishes
USS Nereus, third of the Cyclops-class colliers, left St Thomas on 10 December 1941 bound for Portland, Maine, with bauxite, and was never heard from again.
1941 CE · 18.33, -64.95 · status: unexplained
The account
No wreckage or distress call was found. With Proteus and Cyclops, all three of a class of four ships were lost without trace.
The sceptical view
The likely cause is structural failure of an aged ship carrying dense ore in heavy seas.
The researched reading
The third lost Cyclops-class collier. Structural failure in heavy seas is most likely; wartime attack is possible but unrecorded.
| Explanation | Weight | Why |
|---|---|---|
| A known natural phenomenon | 40% | Like her sisters, Nereus was an aged collier carrying bauxite in the stormy winter Atlantic; structural failure of the class’s corroded beams in heavy seas would sink her quickly. |
| Something known, misidentified | 16% | Cargo shifting or overloading in an old merchant ship are ordinary causes. |
| Secret human technology | 16% | She sailed three days after Pearl Harbor; U-boats began operating off the US coast weeks later, and no record links her to an attack, but a mine or unreported sinking is possible. |
| Perception, memory or mind | 10% | Grouping three sister-ship losses into the Bermuda Triangle legend creates a false pattern. |
| Undetermined | 8% | The share a generic explanation had beyond what has been shown for this case: it fits many cases like this one, but has not been demonstrated for this one. |
| A poorly understood natural phenomenon | 4% | Rogue waves are a recognised natural cause, not a mystery. |
| A hoax or fabrication | 3% | No fabrication in the core facts. |
| Genuinely anomalous | 3% | A known weak class and a stormy route explain the loss. |
Official position: No formal finding of cause; she was declared lost with all 61 aboard.