Come with us now on a journey into the mysterious triangular stretch of territory into which people disappear, never to be heard from again.
You might think we're talking about the fabled Bermuda Triangle off the coast of America, but you'd be wrong. This Domain of the Lost is much closer to home: it's just off the M25.
What do you do when you've lost touch with an old pal? You go and look for them on the reunion website Friends Reunited. But what if they're not there?
One in three of the UK population can be found on Friends Reunited, but for those looking for people who haven't yet made it on to the site there is a 'Waiting List'.
People can put their long lost pal onto the List which sends out a kind of 'missing persons message' inviting anyone who knows what's happened to them to get in touch.
Most schools and colleges have just a handful of names on their Waiting Lists, accounting for less than one percent of their total membership.
A few, however, have lists running onto several pages. The uncanny thing is that out of the ten places with the longest lists, EIGHT are all located within a triangle shape sprawling across the south-east's commuter belt.
Workers at Friends Reunited have nicknamed it the 'British Bermuda Triangle' where people inexplicably seem to disappear from everybody's address book and 'whatever happened to.' is a frequently asked question.
Each side of the Triangle is about 22 miles long. Its apex is located in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, where at Apsley Grammar school 15 percent of pupils have completely slipped out of touch with their old friends.
One end of the Triangle's baseline is in Slough, Berkshire, where nine percent of Langley County School have gone incommunicado. The other is in Tottenham, north London, home of Belmont school where nine percent of ex-pupils have since disappeared off the radar.
Within the Triangle are schools in Harrow, Southall and Cricklewood which all have abnormally high numbers of people who have lost touch with their old mates.
Barnet, on the eastern frontier, is where you will find both Southaw School, where seven percent of ex-students have fallen silent, and Arnos Comprehensive, where eight percent are similarly conspicuously absent from anyone's address book.
Meanwhile, Mount Grace school in Potter's Bar, just outside the Triangle, has a seeking quotient of only two percent.
Jon Clark, head of Friends Reunited, said, "There's clearly something special going on in this little corner of Britain, but the question is: why?
"It's a real-life X-files mystery: what is it about this area that makes it such a Twilight Zone when it comes to people keeping in touch?
"If you live in Hemel Hempstead, you are over fifteen times more likely to pass quietly into obscurity than elsewhere. And the effect radiates out for around 20 miles and then suddenly stops. Why?"
Budding Mulders and Scullys might find it significant that the original founders of Friends Reunited Steve and Julie Pankhurst lived in Barnet.
Says Jon Clark: "Perhaps Julie had subconsciously latched on to the strange phenomenon and came up with the idea of Friends Reunited as a way of escaping its clutches."
For more information contact Carolynne Bull-Edwards or Victoria Reed on: 01883 717468 / 07932 723866 or email press@friendsreunited.co.uk
The Bermuda Triangle:
Top 10 Schools with longest 'Waiting List' quota:
School |
Percentage of 'missing' ex-pupils |
1. Carlton Le Willows School, Nottingham; |
19.5 % |
2. Apsley Grammar School, Hemel Hempstead |
15.6 % |
3. Charters Towers School, Bexhill-on-Sea |
13.6 % |
4. Mora Primary School, Cricklewood |
11 % |
5. Langley County School, Slough |
9.1 % |
6. Belmont School, Tottenham |
8.8 % |
7. Dormers Wells Secondary School, Southall |
8.4 % |
8. Arnos Comprehensive School, New Southgate |
7.6 % |
9. Southaw School, East Barnet |
6.6 % |
10. Roxeth Manor Senior School, South Harrow |
6 % |
Friends Reunited was launched in July 2000 as a back bedroom hobby. A combination of word of mouth and immense media attention has propelled the site to phenomenon status, expanding beyond the school friends proposition to include workplaces, teams/clubs and streets. Friends Reunited has touched many thousands of lives, reuniting friends and family around the globe.
12 million people registered (about half of all UK households with internet access)
5,000 new members registered on average per day (more than enough to fill the Royal Albert Hall every day)
4,500 years have been spent looking at the site by the UK public (if you started reading when the Pyramids were built, you'd just be finishing now)
6.5 billion pages of the website have been looked at in total (that's the same as reading 4.2 million copies of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy)