Charles Frambach Berlitz (November 22, 1913 – December 18, 2003) was an American

polyglot Multilingualism is the use of more than one language, either by an individual speaker or by a group of speakers. It is believed that multilingual speakers outnumber monolingual speakers in the world's population. More than half of all Eu ...

, language teacher and writer, known for his language-learning courses and his books on

paranormal Paranormal events are purported phenomena described in popular culture, folk, and other non-scientific bodies of knowledge, whose existence within these contexts is described as being beyond the scope of normal scientific understanding. Not ...

phenomena.

Life

Berlitz was born in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. He was the grandson of

Maximilian Berlitz Maximilian Delphinius Berlitz (or Maximilien Berlitz, born David Berlizheimer; April 14, 1852 – April 6, 1921) was a linguist and the founder of the Berlitz Language Schools, the first of which he established in 1878 in Providence, Rhode Islan ...

, who founded the

Berlitz Language Schools Berlitz Corporation is a language education and leadership training company which is based in Princeton, New Jersey. The company was founded in 1878 by Maximilian Berlitz in Providence, Rhode Island in the United States. Berlitz Corporation is o ...

. As a child, Charles was raised in a household in which (by his father's orders) every relative and servant spoke to Charles in a different language: he reached adolescence speaking eight languages fluently. In adulthood, he recalled having had the childhood delusion that every human being spoke a different language, wondering why he did not have his own language like everyone else in his household. His father spoke to him in German, his grandfather in Russian, and his nanny in Spanish. He began working for the family language school, The Berlitz School of Languages, during college breaks. The publishing house, of which he was vice president, sold, among other things, tourist phrase books and pocket dictionaries, several of which he authored. He also played a key role in developing record and tape language courses. He left the company in the late 1960s, not long after he sold the company to publishing firm Crowell, Collier & Macmillan. He graduated ''

magna cum laude Latin honors are a system of Latin phrases used in some colleges and universities to indicate the level of distinction with which an academic degree has been earned. The system is primarily used in the United States. It is also used in some So ...

'' from

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

. Berlitz was a writer on paranormal phenomena. He wrote a number of books on

Atlantis Atlantis ( grc, Ἀτλαντὶς νῆσος, , island of Atlas (mythology), Atlas) is a fictional island mentioned in an allegory on the hubris of nations in Plato's works ''Timaeus (dialogue), Timaeus'' and ''Critias (dialogue), Critias'' ...

. In his book ''The Mystery of Atlantis'', he claimed Atlantis was real, based on his interpretation of

geophysics Geophysics () is a subject of natural science concerned with the physical processes and physical properties of the Earth and its surrounding space environment, and the use of quantitative methods for their analysis. The term ''geophysics'' so ...

, psychic studies, classical literature, tribal lore, and archeology. He also attempted to link the Bermuda Triangle to Atlantis. He claimed to have located Atlantis undersea in the area of the Bermuda Triangle. He was also an

ancient astronaut Ancient astronauts (or ancient aliens) refers to a pseudoscientific hypothesis which holds that intelligent extraterrestrial beings visited Earth and made contact with humans in antiquity and prehistoric times. Proponents suggest that this ...

proponent who believed that

extraterrestrials Extraterrestrial life, colloquially referred to as alien life, is life that may occur outside Earth and which did not originate on Earth. No extraterrestrial life has yet been conclusively detected, although efforts are underway. Such life might ...

had visited Earth. Berlitz spent 13 years on active duty in the

U.S. Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cl ...

, mostly in

intelligence Intelligence has been defined in many ways: the capacity for abstraction, logic, understanding, self-awareness, learning, emotional knowledge, reasoning, planning, creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving. More generally, it can b ...

. In 1950, he married Valerie Seary, with whom he had two children, a daughter Lin, and son, Marc. He died in 2003 at the age of 90 at University Hospital in

Tamarac, Florida Tamarac is a city in Broward County, Florida, United States. At the 2020 census, the city had a population of 71,897. It is part of the Miami metropolitan area, which was home to an estimated 6,012,331 people in 2015. History In the early 1960s ...

Reception

Berlitz's statements about the Bermuda Triangle and the

Philadelphia Experiment The Philadelphia Experiment was an alleged event claimed to have been witnessed by an ex- merchant mariner named Carl M. Allen at the United States Navy's Philadelphia Naval Shipyard in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, sometime around ...

were heavily criticized by researchers and scientists for their inaccuracy. He has also drawn criticism for ignoring possible natural explanations and promoting pseudoscientific ideas.

Larry Kusche Lawrence David Kusche (born November 1, 1940) is an American author, research librarian, and pilot. He investigated unexplained disappearances and other unusual events related to the Bermuda Triangle to answer queries he was getting as a research l ...

has accused Berlitz of fabricating evidence and inventing mysteries that have no basis in fact."Bermuda (or "Devil's") Triangle"
The Skeptic's Dictionary.

Bibliography

Anomalous phenomena

* ''The Mystery of Atlantis'', 1969 * ''Mysteries from Forgotten Worlds'', 1972 * ''The Bermuda Triangle'', 1974, * ''Without a Trace'', 1977 * ''The

– Project Invisibility'', 1979 * ''The Roswell Incident'', 1980 * '' Doomsday 1999 A.D.'', 1981, * ''Atlantis – The Eighth Continent'': G. P. Putnams Sons, New York, 1984 * '' Atlantis: The Lost Continent Revealed'', Macmillan, London, 1984 * ''The Lost Ship of Noah: In Search of the Ark at Ararat'', 1987 * ''The Dragon's Triangle'', 1989 * ''World of the Incredible but True'': Ballantine Books, New York, 1991 * ''World of Strange Phenomena'': Little Brown & Company, New York, 1995

Language

* ''

Native Tongues The Native Tongues were a collective of late 1980s and early 1990s hip-hop artists known for their positive-minded, good-natured Afrocentric lyrics, and for pioneering the use of eclectic sampling and jazz-influenced beats. Its principal me ...

'', 1982

References