For most travelers, vacations are all about the sunshine, sandy beaches, and quaint local culture. But for novelists such as myself, inspired by the world’s enigmas and the unexplained, a recent cruise to Bermuda with my wife became much more about the monsters, mermaids, and yes, even Martians.

With very little idea of what to expect, we left our home near Seattle, WA and flew into New York City a couple days before our ship was scheduled to depart. This would give us time to explore the Hamptons and surrounding areas before setting sail. Almost immediately we found ourselves in Montauk, a hamlet at the east end of Long Island and the epicenter of several popular conspiracy theories.

After walking through the sands of Ditch Plains Beach along the Montauk Peninsula, it later occurred to me that this was where the so-called Montauk Monster had been found back in 2008. Discovered by a group of locals, the “monster” was a bloated and hairless animal carcass that had seemingly washed ashore. About the size of a cat, but with an apparent beak and fingers, wildlife experts claimed it was a severely decomposed raccoon, coyote, or dog, but admitted it was just as likely to have been a hoax. It was impossible to know for sure, especially since the ragged, smelly corpse disappeared shortly after its discovery.

This led others to speculate that it was some sort of sick or genetically modified creature that had escaped from the nearby Plum Island Animal Disease Center, a notoriously secretive government research facility. And that scientists there quickly retrieved and disposed of the body before it could be examined.

I suspect we’ll never know the true story, but either way it was fun to imagine that we may have walked over the exact spot where the thing was found.

And while some conspiracies remain cloaked in perennial secrecy, others choose to flaunt their existence in plain sight. Such was the case with Camp Hero, a state park just 2 miles southwest of Ditch Plains Beach, and our next stop.

Officially, Camp Hero is a decommissioned 415-acre military base and radar station, featuring abandoned WWII buildings and inaccessible sealed bunkers. But thanks to a handful of somewhat questionable “whistleblowers”, I knew there was a bit more to the story. A lot more.

If certain people are to be believed, Camp Hero was actually a cover for The Montauk Project, a series of top-secret underground experiments involving children, mind control, time travel, teleportation, and more. Experiments that, though unproven, were not without some precedent in the U.S. military. The rumors surrounding Camp Hero proved so compelling, that they formed the basis for the Stranger Things television series, which was originally titled Montauk.

Perhaps it was this controversial knowledge that made our brief visit here so unsettling. The place was almost completely empty, and it felt like we were trespassing on restricted property while being watched the entire time.

There is no question that the crazy lore surrounding Camp Hero makes for rich story fodder. But sometimes, when the idea is already there, what a novelist really needs is education.

Case in point, I’m currently outlining a technothriller that takes place aboard an incredibly unique type of seagoing vessel. I have the plot and characters down, but what is needed to help bring the story to life is first-hand knowledge of how large ocean liners work in terms of design and logistics. And what better way to learn about all of this than with a behind-the-scenes tour of our state-of-the-art cruise ship, the Norwegian Prima?

Led by our extremely knowledgeable guide, our small group was first led through restaurant galleys, laundry rooms, and crew quarters. Which was interesting, but not exactly what I was looking for. Saving the best for last, the second half of the tour took us through the engineering room and an extended stay on the bridge. We were allowed to ask general questions of the engineers, bridge crew, and captain, but nothing too detailed or specific, especially relating to technology. Alas, to that end, photography was prohibited anywhere in the engineering sections, but thankfully the captain allowed us to take pictures on the bridge. Though we were to avoid close-ups of consoles and computer monitors.

Ultimately, the tour provided some much-needed insight into maritime terminology, ship layouts, and crew procedures, which I very much appreciated. Though I remain a bit surprised by how much they kept secret from the general public.

Our first day in Bermuda was spent visiting shops and absorbing the local culture. On the second (and final) day, we visited the famous Fantasy and Crystal Caves. Discovered in 1905 by two young boys, the somewhat adjacent limestone caves are about 200ft deep and filled with spectacular stalactites, stalagmites, and crystal-clear aquamarine pools.

Stepping down into these rocky alcoves was like descending into a forgotten corner of Hell; they were silent and dim, yet very warm and humid. And the jagged, foreboding environment was both utterly surreal, yet unnaturally fake, like a sprawling set from some big-budget fantasy film.

Speaking of which, the 1914 movie, Neptune’s Daughter, was filmed on-location in the Crystal Cave, telling the story of a mermaid who visits a sea witch and begs to be made mortal. And beyond that, Michael K. Frith, a Bermuda native and co-creator of Fraggle Rock, actually based the children’s puppet series on his personal experiences inside the caves. Clearly, this was a literal hotspot for creative inspiration.

Sadly, we never found any Fraggles or Doozers, though. Or mermaids or witches, for that matter. Maybe next time.

Of course, no trip to Bermuda would be complete without an excursion into the Bermuda Triangle itself. After all, we were told to lose ourselves on vacation, so naturally we had to give it our best shot.

On our final night, we scheduled a sunset cruise to Daniel’s Island, the westernmost point of the Bermuda Island chain, and the northernmost point of the Triangle. Unfortunately, the trip was mostly without incident—no aliens, parallel universes, time warps, or magnetic anomalies.

Just a glorious sunset painting the vast unknown. And a fabled shipwreck, nearly invisible in the fading light.

Here lay the H.M.S. Vixen, a steam-driven British gunboat deliberately scuttled in 1896. It was turned into an artificial barrier reef to help protect the Royal Naval Dockyard from naval attacks.

After dark, though, things got a little more interesting, as the ride back to the cruise ship was filled with far more “satellites” arcing across the night sky than my wife and I had ever seen before in one sitting. At least we think they were satellites.

After passing through a long stretch of stormy seas, the Prima eventually found its way back to port in New York City. From there we drove to Staten Island, where we would again stay an extra couple days to explore the region before flying back home out of Newark on December 2nd.

To reiterate, my wife and I are avid skywatchers. Together we have witnessed eclipses, meteor showers, comets, the Northern Lights, satellites, airshows, and aircraft of all types. And while in New York and New Jersey, we surely saw a plethora of random lights in the unfamiliar skies. However, being new to the area, and staying relatively close to the airport, we thought nothing of it and never really talked about it.

However, once we got home, it quickly became apparent that we had unwittingly been in the middle of something rather extraordinary. Since mid-November, Northern New Jersey, Staten Island, and the surrounding areas have been inundated nightly by swarms of unidentified car-sized drones coming in from the Atlantic Ocean and flying low over neighborhoods, water reservoirs, power lines, train stations, police departments, and military bases.

The incursions continue as of this writing and have been reported by all major news outlets, with politicians, law enforcement, the FAA/FBI/DHS/DOD, Congress, and the White House all having gotten involved. And yet, all they have done is provide conflicting statements that fail to explain the nature of the phenomenon, mostly floating the idea of mass hysteria despite some credible evidence to the contrary.

Which is somewhat ironic given that Orson Welles’ radio play of H. G. Wells’ War of the Worlds purportedly caused similar panic in the exact same region some 86 years ago. The broadcast, which some listeners mistook for an actual news story, described in great detail how Martians had landed in Mercer County, New Jersey, killing 7,000 soldiers on their rampage towards New York City.

And even more strange, the Martian spaceships from the 1953 War of the Worlds movie even look a little like the current invading drones.

The bottom line is that nobody seems to know what is going on–if anything–or they know and aren’t talking. I’m not sure which scenario is more disconcerting. At any rate, we’re just glad we got out of there when we did, just in case there is something nefarious is going on.

Upon arriving home, I found myself a little disappointed that the Bermuda Triangle refused to yield any of its secrets. But upon further reflection of our incredible, once in a lifetime journey, I realized I may have been looking in the wrong place. As they say, perhaps the answers were in the journey, not the destination.

After all, at the beginning of our trip, I had made a wonderful new friend in Marvin, the Montauk Stop-N-Shop security robot. I mean, with a name like that, he’s got to be Martian, right? (He didn’t deny it. And just look at those shifty eyes.)

And while we might not have seen any little green men in New Jersey, we did get to see three fairly tall blue men in the middle of New York City. That’s got to count for something.

Plus, I can now say with some certainty that late one night aboard the Prima, my wife and I were definitely pulled into a long, glowing portal, where we witnessed several large UFOs flying by inside. Some may argue that the event never happened, but our photos of the experience should put their skepticism to rest.

Finally, it occurred to me that had I not traveled through New York and New Jersey during the recent drone flap, I probably never would have come across this statement by Elon Musk, who recently posted to X/Twitter that “drone swarm battles are coming that will boggle the mind”.

And while he probably wasn’t referring to giant alien space bees, the quote is the perfect tagline for my upcoming sci-fi novel, MONARCH, which does, in fact, feature giant alien space bees.

So there you have it. In the end, everything was brought back full circle. Or, in this case, full triangle.

Until next time, everyone!

Michael Penman, Owner/Publisher/Author

Noble Worlds Press

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