Larry Kusche

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Lawrence David Kusche (born November 1, 1940) is an American author and pilot. He had been a commercial pilot, flight instructor, instrument-rated pilot, instrument instructor and librarian by the time he wrote The Bermuda Triangle Mystery - Solved (ISBN 0-87975-971-2) (1975) and The Disappearance of Flight 19 (1980).

Larry Kusche was born in Racine, Wisconsin, but grew up in Phoenix, Arizona. In the early 1970s he became interested in the Bermuda Triangle mystery while working as a librarian in his hometown, as he was confronted by numerous queries related to the Triangle. This prompted him to start gathering information from varied sources. When he began his research for the first book he thought the Triangle truly was a mystery, but as he researched in reliable sources, the incidents that were used to show that strange things were happening "in that small wedge of the ocean," he found that virtually all the incidents had been caused by storms or accidents, or they happened far from the Triangle, or no proof could be found that they ever occurred at all. His conclusion was that the Triangle was a "manufactured mystery," the result of poor research and reporting,^[1] and occasionally, deliberate falsification of facts.

He wrote The Disappearance of Flight 19 after studying the Navy's report of the investigation, interviewing many of the Navy personnel who were involved at the time, and flying the route himself. At the time, the lost flight of five torpedo bombers was said to be a victim of the mysterious forces in the Triangle. He explained why the flight leader erroneously thought he was in the Florida Keys, why he said his compass had failed, and why no wreckage has yet been found. After publication of the books, Kusche became a Fellow of CSICOP^[2] - the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal.

Larry Kusche is also the author of Larry Kusche's Popcorn Cookery, a 1977 cookbook detailing numerous recipes involving popcorn, including recipes for baked goods consisting of ground-up popcorn "flour."

[edit] References

^ The Bermuda Triangle page from The Skeptics Dictionary:
According to Kusche, what isn't misinterpreted by Berlitz is fabricated. Kusche writes: "If Berlitz were to report that a boat were red, the chance of it being some other color is almost a certainty."
^ CSICOP's List of Fellows listed as Lawrence Kusche.