Eventually, many of the captives were heavily drugged and loaded onto aircraft, from which they were thrown alive while in flight over the Atlantic Ocean in the so-called "death flights" or ("vuelos de la muerte"), so as to leave no trace of their death. Without any dead bodies, the government could easily deny any knowledge of their whereabouts and any accusations that they had been killed. In addition, the forced disappearances was the military junta's attempt to silence the opposition and break the determination of the guerrillas. People murdered in this way (and in others) are today referred to as "the disappeared" ("los desaparecidos").