Titanic conspiracy theories

Many alternative theories to the sinking of the superliner RMS Titanic have been put forward. The accepted reason for the sinking, which resulted in the death of more than 1,500 people, is that the ship struck an iceberg at 11:40 PM on 14 April 1912, buckling the hull and allowing water to enter the ship’s first five watertight compartments (one more than the Titanic was designed to survive), and sank two hours and forty minutes later. Hypotheses which have been suggested as the cause of the disaster include a curse on the ship by the Unlucky Mummy, unsafe speed, an insurance scam and an ice-pack rather than an iceberg. Most of the stories have been debunked.

Mummy

The Titanic's mummy curse is an urban legend, possibly based on the Princess of Amen-Ra who lived in 1050 B.C. According to legend, after her discovery in the 1890s in Egypt, the purchaser of the mummy ran into serious misfortune. The mummy was then reportedly donated to the British Museum where it supposedly continued to cause mysterious problems for visitors and staff. The mummy was eventually purchased by journalist William Thomas Stead, who dismissed the claims of a curse as quirks of circumstance. The legend claims that he arranged for the mummy to be hidden under the body of his car for fear that it would not be taken aboard the Titanic because of its reputation. He reportedly revealed to other passengers the presence of the mummy the night before the accident.

Official records state that the British Museum never received the mummy, only the lid of its sarcophagus (which is on display at the museum and known as the "Unlucky Mummy"). Additionally, except during war and special exhibits abroad, the coffin lid has not left the Egyptian room.

Pack ice

In 2003 Captain L. M. Collins, a former member of the Ice Pilotage Service published The Sinking of the Titanic: The Mystery Solved proposing, based upon his own experience of ice navigation and witness statements given at the two post-disaster enquiries, that what the Titanic hit was not an iceberg but low-lying pack ice. He based his conclusion upon three main pieces of evidence.

1. At 11:30pm on the night of the sinking the two lookouts spotted what they believed to be haze on the horizon, extending approximately 20 degrees on either side of the ship's bow, despite there being no other reports of haze at any time. Collins believes that what they saw was not haze but a strip of pack ice, three to four miles (6 km) ahead of the ship. (Collins, 2003, p16)
2. The ice was variously reported as 60 feet (18 m) high by the lookouts, 100 feet (30 m) high by Quartermaster Rowe on the poop deck, and only very low in the water by Fourth Officer Boxhall, on the starboard side near the darkened bridge. Collins believes that this was due to 'an optical phenomenon that is well known to ice navigators' where the flat sea and extreme cold distort the appearance of objects near the waterline, making them appear to be the height of the ship's lights, about 60 feet (18 m) above the surface near the bow, and 100 feet (30 m) high alongside the superstructure. (Collins, 2003, p17-18)
3. A ship such as the Titanic turned by pivoting about a point approximately a quarter of the ship's length from the bow, with the result that with her rudder hard over, she could not have avoided crushing her entire starboard side into an iceberg were such a collision to occur, with the result that 'the hull and possibly the superstructure on the starboard side would have been rent. In all probability the ship would have flooded, capsized, and sunk within minutes.

Coal fire

Ohio State University engineer Robert Essenhigh released a theory in November 2004 that claims a coal fire led indirectly led to the iceberg collision. He claims a pile of stored coal had started to smolder, and to get control over that situation, more coal was put into the furnaces, leading to unsafe speeds in the iceberg-laden waters.

Essenhigh states that records prove that fire control teams were on standby at the ports of Cherbourg and Southampton because of a fire in the stockpile, and that such fires are known to reignite after they have been supposedly extinguished. He suggests that the Titanic actually set off from Southampton with one of its bunkers on fire, or that a spontaneous combustion of coal occurred after the ship left port. Such fires were a common phenomenon aboard coal-fired ships and one of many reasons why marine transportation switched to oil in the early 1900s. It is similarly theorized that such a bunker fire was responsible for the explosion of the USS Maine in 1898, by setting off her powder magazines.

Gardiner's "Ship That Never Sank"

One of the most controversial and complex theories was put forward by Robin Gardiner in his book, 'TITANIC: The Ship That Never Sank?' In it, Gardiner draws on several events and coincidences that occurred in the months, days, and hours leading up to the sinking of the Titanic, and concludes that the ship that hit sank was in fact the Titanic's sister-ship RMS Olympic, disguised as the Titanic, as an insurance scam.

The Olympic was the older sister to the Titanic, built alongside the more famous vessel but launched in October 1910. Her exterior profile was nearly identical to the Titanic, save for small detailing such as the promenade deck windows. These were not glazed in the Olympic. In the Titanic the front half of the promenade deck was fitted with smaller glazed windows to protect passengers from spray.

On 20 September 1911, the Olympic was involved in a collision with the Royal Navy cruiser HMS Hawke near Southampton. The cruiser smashed its ram into the side of the Olympic, seriously damaging both ships. The inquiry found the Hawke free of all blame. This set in motion Gardiner's theory. White Star Line was allegedly not insured for the cost of fixing the damaged Olympic (which, according to Gardiner, had damage to the central turbine's mountings and the keel). The White Star's flagship would also be out of action during any repairs, and the Titanic's completion date would have to be delayed. All this would amount to a serious financial loss for the company. Gardiner proposes that, to make sure at least one vessel would be earning money, the 95% complete Titanic was converted to become the Olympic. Gardiner states that few parts of either ship bore the name, other than the easily removed lifeboats, bell, compass binnacle, and name badges. Thus, Gardiner believes the Titanic spent 25 years in service as the Olympic.

Gardiner uses as evidence the length of Titanic's sea trials. The Olympic's trials in 1910 took two days, including several high speed runs, but the Titanic's trials reportedly only lasted for one day, with no working over half-speed. Gardiner says this was because the patched-up hull could not take any long periods of high speed.

Gardiner suggests the plan was to dispose of the Olympic to collect insurance money. He supposes that the seacocks were to be opened at sea to slowly flood the ship. If numerous ships were stationed nearby to take off the passengers, the shortage of lifeboats would not matter as the ship would sink slowly and the boats could make several trips to the rescuers.

Gardiner maintains that on the 14 April, Officer Murdoch was not officially on duty yet was on the bridge because he was one of the few high-ranking officers that knew of the plan and was keeping a watch out for the rescue ships. One of Gardiner's most controversial statements is that the Titanic did not strike an iceberg, but an IMM rescue ship that was drifting on station with its lights out. Gardiner based this hypothesis on the idea that the supposed iceberg was seen at such a short distance by the lookouts on the Titanic because it was actually a darkened ship, and he also does not believe an iceberg could inflict such sustained and serious damage to a steel double-hulled (sic) vessel such as the Titanic.

Gardiner further hypothesizes that the ship that was hit by the Titanic was the one seen by the Californian firing distress rockets, and that this explains the perceived inaction of the Californian (which traditionally is seen as failing to come to the rescue of the Titanic after sighting its distress rockets). Gardiner's hypothesis is that the Californian was not expecting rockets, but a rendezvous. The ice on the deck of the Titanic is explained by Gardiner as ice from the rigging of both the Titanic and the mystery ship it hit. The collision, according to Gardiner, caused the already fragile structure of the ship to give way, sinking the ship.

Researchers Bruce Beveridge and Steve Hall took issue with many of Gardiner's claims in their book, Olympic and Titanic: The Truth Behind the Conspiracy. Author Mark Chirnside has also raised serious questions about the switch theory.

Expansion joints theory

Titanic researchers continue to debate the causes and mechanics of Titanic’s breakup. In his seminal book, A Night to Remember, Walter Lord described Titanic as assuming an “absolutely perpendicular” position before its final plunge. This view remained largely unchallenged even after the wreck’s discovery in 1985 confirmed that the ship had indeed broken in two pieces at or near the surface; paintings by noted marine artist Ken Marschall as well as James Cameron's 1997 Titanic depicted the ship attaining a steep angle prior to the breakup. Most researchers acknowledged that Titanic’s after expansion joint--designed to allow for flexing of the hull in a seaway--played little to no role in the ship’s breakup, though debate continued as to whether the ship had broken from the top downwards (like a stick) or from the bottom upwards (like a cardboard tube).

In 2005, a History Channel expedition to the wrecksite scrutinized two large sections of Titanic’s keel, which constituted the portion of the ship's bottom from immediately below the site of the break. With assistance from naval architect Roger Long, the team analyzed the wreckage and developed a new break-up scenario which was publicized in the 2006 television documentary Titanic’s Final Moments: Missing Pieces. One hallmark of this new theory was the claim that Titanic’s angle at the time of the breakup was far less than had been commonly assumed—according to Long, no greater than eleven degrees.

Long also suspected that Titanic’s breakup may have begun with the premature failure of the ship’s after expansion joint, and ultimately exacerbated the loss of life by causing Titanic to sink faster than anticipated. In 2006 the History Channel sponsored dives on Titanic’s sister ship, Britannic, which verified that the design of Britannic’s expansion joints was superior to that incorporated in the Titanic. To further explore Long’s theory, the History Channel commissioned a new computer simulation by JMS Engineering. The simulation, whose results were featured in the 2007 documentary Titanic’s Achilles Heel, partially refuted Long’s suspicions by demonstrating that Titanic’s expansion joints were strong enough to deal with any and all stresses the ship could reasonably be expected to encounter in service and, during the sinking, actually outperformed their design specifications..

Debate over the mechanics of Titanic’s break-up was continued in a 2008 book by Brad Matsen.

References

• Robin Gardiner (1998). TITANIC: The Ship That Never Sank?. Ian Allan Publishing. ISBN 978-0711026339.
• L.M. Collins (2003). The Sinking of the Titanic: The Mystery Solved". Souvenir Press. ISBN 0-285-63711-8.
• Bruce Beveridge and Steve Hall (2004). Olympic & Titanic: The Truth Behind the Conspiracy. Infinity Publishing. ISBN 978-0741419491.
• RMS Titanic: Complete Hull Failure Following Collision with Iceberg (Summary of the results of the JMS Engineering study)