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Not in the Gobi Desert! Lost in the Bermuda Triangle, Cotopaxi finally found

February 2
The tramp steamship Cotopaxi played a prominent role in the 1977 film "Close Encounters of the Third Kind." But the fictional mother ship, seen here as the model used during the filming, had nothing to do with it. (National Air and Space Museum/The Smithsonian Institution)

ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. — Scientists have found the wreckage of a cargo steamship that became associated with the Bermuda Triangle when it disappeared in 1925 off the Atlantic Coast of Florida.

The 250-foot (76-meters) SS Cotopaxi was sailing from Charleston, South Carolina, to Havana when it disappeared along with its 32-person crew. But a team of underwater explorers and maritime archaeologists have identified the wreckage of the ship about 35 nautical miles off the coast of St. Augustine.

“The ship became a part of the Bermuda Triangle myth,'” said Chuck Meide of the Lighthouse Maritime Archaeological Maritime Program.

The ship was missing important structural components and “unbeknownst to the captain and crew, they were sailing into a tropical storm,” Meide said.

The ship set sail on Nov. 29, 1925.

In a scene of the 1977 film “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” the Cotopaxi is discovered in the Gobi Desert.

The findings will be featured in the premiere episode of a Science Channel series, “Shipwreck Secrets”, on Feb. 9 at 8 p.m. EST.

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