Theories About Bermuda Triangle - Methane Gas

It is known that large amounts of Methane gas are trapped thousands of feet below the seafloor.

If this gas gets released, water density in that area can reduce significantly and the frothy water can no longer provide the buoyancy required to keep a ship afloat.

The Methane Gas theory for disappearances of ships and planes in Bermuda Triangle was not much popular until 1998, when Dr. Ben Clennell of Leeds University England, delivered a lecture at Wales.
His main discussion was on Methane gas becoming a big source of future energy. He mentioned that volumes of Methane gas can get released as a result of landslides under the ocean floor.

He went on to state that in such an event, the water density in that area and right up to the surface can get so low that it can make a ship drop like a rock. And since the gas is highly combustible, an eruption can also cause a plane flying above it to catch fire and completely get destroyed.

Here is a similar Methane gas phenomena that I heard directly from a diving veteran of Bermuda at a 2005 conference in Bermuda. This is what he said while talking about ships and planes disappearing in Bermuda Triangle:

Methane gas bubbles are formed on the sea floor and gradually they rise to the surface. These gas bubbles are formed below the ocean floor due to dying and decomposing sea organisms. Initially they are very small in size. As they come up, they keep growing in size.

These gas bubbles become so big at times that they even get larger than size of a ship as they float right below the surface of the water. When a ship passes over it, the bubble bursts. And the vacuum inside the bubble completely engulfs the ship taking it down into the bottom. Even planes flying overhead could catch fire during such a blowout.

Well, there are many counter reasons why such Methane gas theory may not actually justify disappearances in Bermuda triangle. Here are those:

1. The largest chunks of Methane reserves are actually found at a distance away from the Bermuda triangle and not really inside the area where most of the disappearances have taken place.
2. Even if Methane gas is to erupt, it has to cross thousands of feet of sediments below the ocean floor and then more than a thousand feet of water in Bermuda Triangle to reach the surface, and then sink a ship. And it has to rise far beyond to burn an aircraft. This itself is a remote possibility. To imagine that a ship or a plane will exactly be there that time, possibility is miniscule.
3. How does it explain the lost ships or planes in Bahamas where water depth is only about 50 feet or so, and where any sunken ship can easily be found.
4. In some occasions, drilling rigs had unknowingly bored into Methane layer under the sea floor and it has been observed that they actually sank slowly due to less dense water. But it was a slow process and they all had enough time to send out messages a number of times. There was never any casualty. Also, in many cases helicopters circling around the area took close pictures of such incidences. And in no case, any helicopter hovering around the area was ever affected.