Case file · High strangeness
Disappearance of the Witchcraft
On 22 December 1967 Dan Burack and Father Patrick Horgan took his cabin cruiser Witchcraft out to see Miami's Christmas lights and radioed for a tow, saying they had hit something; the Coast Guard arrived within about 20 minutes and found nothing.
1967 CE · 25.77, -80.11 · status: unexplained
The account
The boat was said to have built-in flotation. It is often cited as one of the strangest Bermuda Triangle cases.
The sceptical view
Rough seas and a mistaken position may explain why searchers missed it.
The researched reading
A small boat lost at night after striking something, quickly enough to escape searchers. It is unusual but well within what the sea can do.
| Explanation | Weight | Why |
|---|---|---|
| A known natural phenomenon | 40% | A small cabin cruiser that had struck something off Miami at night in a rough winter sea could swamp and drift or sink quickly; a wrong position given over the radio would send rescuers to empty water, and the Gulf Stream moves debris fast. |
| Undetermined | 26% | 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 cultural story | 14% | Retellings in Bermuda Triangle books stress the "unsinkable" boat and the 19-minute response, details that are hard to verify and make the loss seem stranger. |
| Perception, memory or mind | 8% | The men may have misjudged their position or the damage, a common factor in small-boat losses at night. |
| A hoax or fabrication | 6% | A staged disappearance or crime is conceivable but nothing points to it. |
| Something in the surroundings | 4% | Night, wind and a busy shoreline of lights make a small boat hard to spot. |
| Genuinely anomalous | 2% | Vanishings near a busy coast need no special cause. |
Official position: The US Coast Guard searched and found nothing; no cause was established.