Vincent Hayes Gaddis (December 28, 1913 – February 26, 1997) was an American author who invented the phrase "
Bermuda Triangle
The Bermuda Triangle, also known as the Devil's Triangle, is an urban legend focused on a loosely defined region in the western part of the North Atlantic Ocean where a number of aircraft and ships are said to have disappeared under mysterio ...
", which he used first in the cover article for the 1964 February issue of the magazine
''Argosy''. He popularized many stories about anomalous and
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. Nota ...
phenomena in a style similar to that of
Charles Fort
Charles Hoy Fort (August 6, 1874 – May 3, 1932) was an American writer and researcher who specialized in anomalous phenomena. The terms "Fortean" and "Forteana" are sometimes used to characterize various such phenomena. Fort's books sold w ...
.
Career
Gaddis was born in
Ohio
Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...
to Tilden H. and Alice M. (Smith) Gaddis. He married Margaret Paine Rea on July 14, 1947. Gaddis worked as a newspaper reporter and writer-editor for a
Warsaw, Indiana
Warsaw is a city in and the county seat of Kosciusko County, Indiana, United States. Warsaw has a population of 13,559 as of the 2010 U.S. Census. Warsaw also borders a smaller town, Winona Lake.
Etymology
Warsaw, named after the capital of P ...
, radio station from 1947 to 1952. He was a feature writer for the ''Elkhart Truth'', a daily newspaper in
Elkhart, Indiana
Elkhart ( ) is a city in Elkhart County, Indiana, United States. The city is located east of South Bend, Indiana, east of Chicago, Illinois, and north of Indianapolis, Indiana. Elkhart has the larger population of the two principal cities of th ...
, from 1952 to 1959. He then worked as a public relations writer for
Studebaker-Packard Corporation
The Studebaker-Packard Corporation was the entity created in 1954 by the purchase of the Studebaker Corporation of South Bend, Indiana, by the Packard Motor Car Company of Detroit, Michigan. While Studebaker was the larger of the two companies, P ...
and Mercedes Benz Sales in
South Bend, Indiana
South Bend is a city in and the county seat of St. Joseph County, Indiana, St. Joseph County, Indiana, on the St. Joseph River (Lake Michigan), St. Joseph River near its southernmost bend, from which it derives its name. As of the 2020 United S ...
. In 1962 he became a
freelance
''Freelance'' (sometimes spelled ''free-lance'' or ''free lance''), ''freelancer'', or ''freelance worker'', are terms commonly used for a person who is self-employed and not necessarily committed to a particular employer long-term. Freelance w ...
writer. He died in
Eureka, California
Eureka (Wiyot: ''Jaroujiji'', Hupa: ''do'-wi-lotl-ding'', Karuk: ''uuth'') is the principal city and county seat of Humboldt County in the Redwood Empire region of California. The city is located on U.S. Route 101 on the shores of Humboldt ...
.
Reception
Gaddis' statements on the
Bermuda Triangle
The Bermuda Triangle, also known as the Devil's Triangle, is an urban legend focused on a loosely defined region in the western part of the North Atlantic Ocean where a number of aircraft and ships are said to have disappeared under mysterio ...
and
spontaneous human combustion
Spontaneous human combustion (SHC) is the pseudoscientific concept of the combustion of a living (or recently deceased) human body without an apparent external source of ignition. In addition to reported cases, descriptions of the alleged phen ...
have been criticized by skeptics for being inaccurate and misleading. Gaddis has also drawn strong criticism for ignoring possible natural explanations and inventing mysteries where none exist.
Historian William K. Powers from
Livingston College
From 1969 to 2007 Livingston College was one of the residential colleges that comprised Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey's undergraduate liberal arts programs. It was located on Livingston Campus (originally Kilmer) in Piscataway, N ...
,
Rutgers University
Rutgers University (; RU), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a Public university, public land-grant research university consisting of four campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's ...
has described Gaddis' ''American Indian Myths and Mysteries'' as an "outrageous and intolerable book" filled with
crackpot
Crackpot may refer to:
* Crackpot, North Yorkshire, a village in the United Kingdom and home of Crackpot Cave
* Crackpot Hall, a landmark ruin near Keld, North Yorkshire
* a DC comics character, see Blasters (comics)
* Crackpot (band), an Austral ...
claims and "
Danikenesque delusions".
[Powers, William K. (1979). ''American Indian Myths and Mysteries by Vincent H. Gaddis''. '']Journal of American Folklore
The ''Journal of American Folklore'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal published by the American Folklore Society. Since 2003, this has been done on its behalf by the University of Illinois Press. The journal has been published since the society' ...
'' 92 (366): 501-503.
Published works
* ''Winona Lake: A Memory and A Vision,'' 1949
* ''Invisible Horizons: True Mysteries of the Sea,'' 1965
* ''Mysterious Fires and Lights,'' 1967
* ''Wide World of Magic,'' 1967
* ''Strange World of Animals and Pets,'' 1970
* ''The Curious World of Twins,'' 1972
* ''Courage in Crisis: Dramatic Tales of Heroism in the Face of Danger,'' 1973
* ''American Indian Myths and Mysteries,'' 1977,
* ''Gold Rush Ghosts,'' 1990,
See also
*
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 ...
*
Crawfordsville monster
*
Raifuku Maru
The was a Japanese :ja:第一大福丸型貨物船, Dai-ichi Taifuku Maru-class cargo ship, which was built in 1918 at Kawasaki Dockyard in Kobe, Japan, and owned by K Line, Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha, Ltd. In April 1925, it sank in a heavy storm d ...
References
External links
"Electrical Ghosts,"article by Gaddis in ''Borderland Sciences Journal,'' 1988
article by Gaddis in ''Strange Magazine''
list of stories by Gaddis
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gaddis, Vincent
1913 births
1997 deaths
20th-century American non-fiction writers
American fortean writers
Ancient astronauts proponents
Bermuda Triangle
Parapsychologists
People from Eureka, California
Pseudohistorians