REVEALED: The truth behind the mysterious Bermuda Triangle where boats and planes vanish!

Hundreds of boats and planes have been lost to the mysterious triangle

The disappearances in the infamous region has repeatedly been blamed on the paranormal - with suggestions it could be a vortex to another dimension which has transported the poor souls on board away from our universe.

But now scientists believe there could be a much more Earthly, and provable explanation, for the legend also known as the Devil's Triangle.

Researchers have found huge undersea craters which could be tell-tale signs on why vessels went missing and were possible blown to smithereens, to end up at the bottom of the sea.

The up to half-mile-wide and 150ft deep craters in the Barents Sea are thought to have been caused by a build-up of methane.

This graphic shows the vast extent of the triangle

They are just off the Norweaigan coast - a country rich in natural gas reserves.

Methane is likely to have leaked from deposits of natural gas deeper below the sea bed, then created cavities which eventually burst, once the pressure gets too high, the scientists said.

This would lead to a massive blow up of gas, which could cause a boat or ship to fail if it was passing at the height of the explosion.

Russian scientist Igor Yeltsov, deputy head of the Trofimuk Institute, said: "There is a version that the Bermuda Triangle is a consequence of gas hydrates reactions.

"They start to actively decompose with methane ice turning into gas.

"It happens in an avalanche-like way, like a nuclear reaction, producing huge amounts of gas.

"That makes the ocean heat up and ships sink in its waters mixed with a huge proportion of gas.

"The crater area is likely to represent one of the largest hotspots for shallow marine methane release in the Arctic."

Hundreds of boats and planes have been lost within and just outside the triangle since Christopher Columbus was the first to record its existence, noting his ship's compass stopped working and he saw a fireball in the sky.

An average of four planes and 20 boats have been reported lost a year, with no trace of any debris, due to the Gulf Stream being believed to move them away.

Disappearances have been blamed on UFOs, strange mists, and even time travel.

The biggest recorded loss was in 1945 when five US Navy Avenger torpedo bombers flying from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, to Bimini Island never showed up after a radio call from the 14 men on board that their compasses stopped working.

Three rescue planes also disappeared.

The Bermuda Triangle covers 440,000 square miles of sea - from the British Overseas Territory in the North Atlantic Ocean, to the Florida coast and on to Puerto Rico.