I watched Conspiracies last night on Sky Three and was fascinated, people claim that the Titanic never even sank!

-Common belief is that it was switched by it's sister ship, Olympic, making it one of the biggest insurance claims ever - as the Titanic was not insured.

- The Olympic was identical to the Titanic, eye witnesses say you couldn't tell them apart.

- Another theory is that a bomb was planted inside the Titanic.

- The material (metal) at the side of the ship is pushed outwards, if it was an iceberg it would be pushed inwards.


That's about all i can remember on the subject.

More on this topic

I don't know man, that sounds a bit far fetched..... you know. Why would the titanic sinking be a conspiracy? I don't see how it would get bombed, but hey who knows. The governmental, politrick world we live in is, well f***ed up. Pardon me.

The Titanic and it's sister ship the Olympic were built side by side in Belfast. The story that it was the Olympic sank and not the Titanic is an old one. The story goes that there were problems during the construction of Titanic and so to avoid delays the ships were swapped, Olympic became Titanic and vice versa. The problem with this theory is that photographs exist of the the Launch of the Titanic which clearly show the Olympic still under construction.

I don't understand what this has to do with insurance though. I have heard stories that they negotiations for the Titanics insurance were not completed until after she sailed (I have no idea if there is any truth in them) but what would that have to do with the Olympic. She wasn't completed and so certainly wouldn't have been insured.

Ahh, thanks for the enlightenment Waspie, wasn't too sure on the actual details. Definitely is an interesting subject, i'm gonna look into it some more.

I've seen the actual insurance slip for the Titantic (the document stamped by various Lloyds syndicates to show their proportion of the risk) and I can also tell you for a fact that the insurance was paid out within days of the ship sinking. I couldn't tell you when the risk placement was completed, but I would guess before it sailed. btw it's not uncommon in Marine Insurance these days for a loss to occur before a risk has been fully placed.

As for the programme - caught the end of it and it looked pretty empathic that the ship that went down was indeed the Titantic.

Whilst I have no doubt that the Titanic sank, if it was the Olympic that set sail instead you would not be able to tell by looking at the wreck, they were origianally identical apart from the name plaques (had the ships been swapped these would have been swapped too).

The Olympic was modified only after the sinking of the Titanic so that she could carry enough life boats for every one on board.

Sadly the original design for these ships had sufficient life boats. Senior management at the White Star line had the number of lifeboats reduced because they believed that it would frighten passengers seeing that many.

In a lil while there will be a conspirasy on everything.

About half-way through the programme an old man spoke to the presenter. I won't quote him but he was 6 years old at the time, and swears that you couldn't tell them apart.;

What a silly and stupid idea. Of course the titanic sank! They found the wreck and even saw the name "TITANIC" on the side of the ship. Proposterous idea. Close the thread now.

This is a discussion about the Titanic and whether it sunk or not, the discussion will continue regardless whether you think it sank or not. If you're going to post, post something with thought and contribution to the thread title, not useless garbage.

Please provide evidence for your claims, this will benefit the overall thread and we'll get a more detailed discussion. Thanks

[sarcasm]You know I saw this article that said there were mysterious disks of light a few miles back from the ship, and about a mile on the starboard side. Perhaps this was an intentional sinking by the Reptilian World Order?[/sarcasm] *chortle*

Here are some photographs of the Titanic and the Olympic together:

[attachmentid=24659]

[attachmentid=24660]

In both pictures the Titanic is on the left.

On doing some more research I find that my 1st post was wrong. The Olympic had actually sailed before the Titanic and was at sea when the Titanic sank. She too seemed accident prone, seriously damaging a tug during her launch and colliding with HMS Hawke on her 5th voyage. During the First World War the Olympic served as a troop carrier, becoming the only merchant vessel to sink a war ship in that war. She rammed and sank the German submarine U-103. She returned to being a cruise ship in 1920.

In 1924, as the Olympic backed out of Pier 59 in New York City, she collided with the smaller ship, Fort St. George.

In 1934 the Olympic rammed the Nantucket lightship in heavy fog killing 7 of the lightships 11 crew.

The 1935 the Olympic made her final voyage before being scrapped in 1937.

Incidently a third ship was built to this design, the Britannic. She served as a hospital ship durin World War One. She hit a mine in the Aegan Sea and was sunk. There were 1066 people on board but fortuately only 30 people died.

One woman, Violet Jessop was a stewardess on the Olympic when she collided with the Hawke. She was a stewardess on the Titanic and survived the sinking. She then became a nurse and survived the sinking of the Britannic. Now does that make her lucky or unlucky?

If you closed all the threads that someone considered "silly and stupid" then this whole site would rapidly vanish.

Very interesting Waspie, the photos are great, they really do look similar. The Olympic looks to have a slightly bigger bow, the Titanic is more of a curved shape.

I think that could due to the different angles they are at.

The Titanic was very slightly larger than the Olympic.

Perhaps, i've found a few more pictures of the Olympic.

I was going to mention this, but I see someone beat me to the punch, as it were. Thus, I'll only mention this small bit of trivia. The Britannic was originally to be christened "Gigantic." After the whole Titanic-sank-and-killed-thousands fiasco, it was renamed Britannic, as it was felt that the original name would remind passengers of the incident. Needless to say, at this point, being the same class of ship as the Titanic was not something you wanted to advertise much.

-Pilgrim

It is rumoured that the 'Unsinkable' tag was only added after the event. The titanic took 3 years to build and was the biggest ship of it's time. Why would White Star want to destroy one of the engineering master pieces of it's time.

How is it, then, that another ship built roughly around the same time survived for 39 hours after having a whole punched in her - giving enough time for hundreds if not thousands of people to be rescued. No rescue attempt was even made for the Titanic

Here are a couple of photos of the Britannic:

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[attachmentid=24665]

The problem with Titanic is that she didn't have a hole punhed in her. The quality of steel available at the start of the 20th century was not as good as is available today, it was softer. As Titanic ran along the side of the iceberg the steel plates bent causing the rivets to pop. This opened up a gash along the side of the ship rather than punching a hole. As a result Titanic would have filled with water much more quickly. The Titanic took 2 hours and 40 minutes to sink. As for the fact that there was no rescue attempt that's not true. Here is a quote from the FAQs on the www.titanic-online website.

ya i heared about her, i think shes a very bad luck charm towards white star ships lol

If you watched the programme you'd have seen that a section of hull was recovered from the wreck. The configuration of potholes on the section matched only with the Titantic - due to the addition of an extra toilet or something.


Incidently, it's been suggested that had the Titanic rammed the iceberg, instead of trying to avoid it and been holed along the side below the waterline, it would have survived and have sailed safely on to New York. Albeit with a rather crumpled bow.

Looking at it another way, Violet Jessop never learned to swim yet survived 3 accidents at sea including 2 sinkings. That sounds lucky to me.

There were three ships in this series.
Titanic, Olympic and the third, which was to be called Gigantic, but ended up being named the Brittanic.
All three of these unsinkable ships sank-Brittanic was torpedoed in WWII, in the Med, Titanic we know about, and I can't recall how the Olympic came to her end(my memory isn't what it was, for all I know, I'm wrong, and she ended up in the breakers yard).
Ship, and their lives, are endlessly fascinating subjects-look into the Argentine battle cruiser General Belgrano, and see irony at work.

Anyone ever check the guest list and who decided not to go at last minute and who still did go??... it's interesting if you know who some of the people were.....

Actually there's a debate over that. If I recall correctly, a former employee of White Star repeatedly denied that it was ever meant to be named the Gigantic. However, the story of the Britannic name is that during WWI, Britain was naturally feeling patriotic; what better name for a hospital ship than Britannic?



There's also a debate over this too. A mine is the most widely accepted cause of sinking, but it has been suggested that it was a torpedo or even coal dust explosion. I believe the metal in some parts around the blast hole is pointed outwards, whereas it would be inwards if hit by a torpedo or mine.

Yes

Neither, more like a Jonah. If She is sailing you Don't

there were differences between the Olympic and Titanic and although the differences were minor we have since recognised them from photographs of both vessels in Belfast and from photographs taken of the Titanic on the ocean floor. So yes, it was the Titanic that sank.
However, this legend concerning the vessels being exchanged has been running since the ships were completed in belfast and is very strange. It also a fact that the majority of the Titanic's crew actually treid to leave the vessel in Southampton for reasons never really made clear. Now this is very odd considering the unemployment rate amongst ship's crews at the time which was high. I believe that the bulk of the crew elected to remain on board but some 40% of the stoking crew did leave the ship.
There was a report that fire had broken out within the ship's coal bunkers and of course the only really effective way to extinguish it would have been to remove all the coal from the ship - which would have required considerable time and cost. Another report concerns the vessel's sea-worthiness. The Titanic may have looked magnificent but its design was obsolete. Its engines and steering gear had been poorly designed and as a result were very inefficient. She suffered a lot of mechanical problems and boilers frequently had to be shut-down.
So maybe the engineering crew wanted to leave the ship because they didnt trust her - who knows?

Well then, i'm of the opinion that the titanic did in fact sink, and frankly i've not heard much in the context of conspiracies regarding her demise...nifty to read though...

the titanic did sink, i know there were several programs saying that there was a conspiracy, but, back then they would not have been able to pull it off. and even though she did hav a sistership the sistership didnt sail until a few week after the titanic sank, and the sistership sank aswel. but not for a while after. so unless they found a way to sink the same ship twice then fair enough, i take my hat of to them! but unless u can prove otherwise i stand by what i say. which is usualy liable.

The people of the earlier 20th century weren't stupider than us. They could have easily pulled a conspiracy off. Not that I believe they did.

i never said that they were stupider, all i said was that they wouldnt be able to pull it of. in the means of they never had the technology, and if they did manage to set sail the olympic without people knowing and sink it and gt the titanic out of view without anyone seeing, how did they manage to get the inside and outside of the wreckage to look exactly like the titanic, even the engravings on the side. and there was deal about the passanger al buyng a ticket aboard the titanic and getting off and survivng it saying that it sank. unless all of them were wrong or lyeing? which i highly doubt.

I agree that the Titanic sank, however it would be exceedingly easy for the shipbulders to just change the names, engraving, etc. Combined with the fact that the Olympic was essentially identical, it wouldn't be too hard to fake.

I think this one should be in the conspiricy section...

curtacian you are totally missing the point, they couldnt have done it, they wouldnt have had the time, they would have had the technology to change the interiour and exteriour of the reckage before sumeone noticed.

No, you are missing the point. The Olympic/Titanic swap we are discussing was a theory proposed in a book by Robert Gardiner, which goes as follows.



There would be no need for altering the wreckage.

Of course if they were going to con the insurance company and the world they needed to change the names on the side.

The only different was the porthole arrangement on the side, and the boat sitting at the bottom of the ocean has the same porthole configuration as the sister ship, not the Titanic!

but what about the name on the side of the ship, and then there is that small detail about all the passengers who bought a ticket for the titanic, so either all of them were conned and lots of people died for nothing. or they were all lyeing and they knew they wer gettin on a totally different ship that they paid for.

Of course they'd just change the name on the ship. It's just paint. But yes, you're right, for this theory to be correct the passengers would have been conned into boarding the (poorly repaired) Olympic. The ships were (basically)identical so they would never have known.

Look, to the common observer the ships were exactly the same. Since most if not all of them would never have been on both the Titanic and Olympic, they couldn't even compare the two. They saw a big ship with four smokestacks and couldn't have told the difference without looking at the name on the ship.

This argument is going nowhere fast.

i know this is an old topic but i wanted to bump it as i mentioned it when joining the forum and a few people took interest.

lets not forget that the alleged main reason for swapping the ships was to get rid of a very badly damaged "Olympic" that was not going to get an insurance payout.

the very fact that it is so unlikely makes it possible to pull off as no one seems to believe it, although i doubt they switch them.

The only reason that they would do this would be for insurance purposes. As Waspie has already pointed out, the titanic was insured. For them to purposely swap the ships they would have had to have known that the ship was going to sink.

As for the metal gashes appearing the wrong way, I can see why they would have been extruding from the hull. Think about getting a sheet of metal and dragging something along it. It's easy enough to get the metal extruding outwards if you think about it. The iceberg apparently ran along side, for it to be all inwards it would have to have hit dead on and stopped.

As for the sinking itself and comparing it to other ships, from the top of my head this ship design would definitely sink if water filled 5 of the 'watertight' compartments, it could survive on 4 but not 5. As the extra weight pulled the front of the ship down the water would spill over the top of the bulkheads from one deck to another until the entire back of the ship was in the air. At this point the forces would be enough to snap the ship in two, so the back end would fall level, and the front end would rapidly fill with water and sink. The back end would be pulled vertical again and then would rapidly sink. Thats as I remember it anyway. I believe there was some rumours that the back end did sink, and floated to the surface again for a couple of minutes and people thought they were saved, but is sunk again. Not sure of the validity of that though.

the Titanic insurance was not the issue, it was the Olympic that was the problem ship, but sinking the Olympic would have been obvious and suspicious. sinking the titanic would have been the perfect cover story as it really is to far fetched to believe.

the brand new ship that was destined to be the genuine titanic would have carried on as the Olympic, it reminds me of swapping a cars identity to get it past the MOT inspectors (i have known this to be done).

there are many good reasons for and against this one and it's all in the book "titanic, the ship that never sank" but to be honest i am swaying to the side of them not switching at the moment.
it is however a fascinating subject due to the implications that a switch would have and i'm always looking for more info.

While I have no doubt that the executives of companies do make decisions which may not be conducive to customers of the company, would any executive - wanting to 'dispose' of a ship - send it on a voyage knowing it was to be sunk (for insurance purposes) and yet sail this ship full of crew and passengers!

Ok, they might think the plan is quite a good one but let's be honest, even the hardest-nosed exec today would not possibly condone such a plan - would they?

The thought of such a conspiracy suggests that the White Star Line execs not only wanted to pull an insurance scam, they committed premeditated murder. No one who is familiar with large ship sinkings would consider any such plan guaranteed to mean all crew and passengers survive.

While it may be naive I cannot imagine any board would commit to such a plan. If it was a singular person (was the White Star Line public or private?) then possibly - just possibly. But how many others would have to be complicit to this plan?

THe best theory I have heard is that the Titanic was built to be sunk, in a plan to assassinate the three
people in the world who stood in the way of the creation of the Federal Reserve Bank.

Google: Titanic, Creature from Jekyll Island, assassination, federal reserve

yeah that's a good point, most people counter this by saying that they did send a ship out to intercept and help (but it got lost) and that they expected the titanic to take a long time to sink so the people should have been save.

however i agree with your views and think this should be the point that finally puts this one to rest, but it won't

a day before titanik set sail about 50 vip passengers caceled their trip, few crew members deserted titanic right before it left.
a few days before titanic left it was repainted partialy on the outside(why would you paint brand new ship), the guy who navigated the ship at the moment of crash heeled it hard to the left, and hit reverse, this is not what you do to avoid ice, the same guy a year before did compleatly opposite thing with other ship, and saved it from sinking. capitan smith had a sh**ty driving record, twice he ran a ground on aproche to ny, collided olimpic with military battelship, under normal circumstance he would be fired, but somehow he was given brand new ship. ship's observer did not have binoculars.

lol!

the workers didnt want to work on the ship coz the license plate said *NO POPE* in a mirror!

HOW FARFETCHED!

As a former member of the Titanic Historical Society, I can assure you that the ship sitting in 14,000 feet of water is the Titanic. The Olympic and the Titanic were sister ships. But even within sisterships there can be wide differences. On the Titanic there was a closed in area, as seen after the passengers boarded the ship in the movie Titanic. The area with palms and ferns where Rose and her fiance had thier first fight. This was the so-called Conservatory area. It did not exist on the Olympic, and would have required a shipyard to make the change. But does exist on the sunken ship. There were other differnces between the two ships, including the location of some portholes. But the main thing is that the Olympic was not as heavily decorated and embellished as the Titanic. Which was more of a "floating palace" compared to the sister ship, and all other Atlantic crossers of the day. Again it would have taken a stay of weeks at a shipyard to rebuild structures like the Central Stairway and the Conservatory into the Olympic to make it pass as the Titanic. But these features are on the sunken ship.

To counter Aztec's comment, at sea you try to miss something floating on the water in front of you. The problem was indead that the turn was made too late. The iceburg was a "black iceburg" that was darker than a normal iceburg and did not reflect the moon and star light as well. The lookout testified that he did not actually first see the iceburg itself, but noticed something that was blocking the stars that he had been seeing on the horizon. A friend use to serve on the Ice Patrol for the US Coast Guard, and said that plain eyesight was better to see these black iceburgs than the binoculors that they had then. But if you had tried to hit the iceburg straight on you could have had a lot more problems than a crumpled in bow. You could have struck the burg at a slight angle and the burg could have caved in the whole side of the ship. And it would have gone down in minutes. And now we would be talking about the mystery of the disapearence of the Titanic whithout survivors.

As a historical note. The last Titanic survivor with any memory of the sinking, when she was 5 years old, died this spring. The 2 living survivors of the sinking who are still alive were babes in arms at the time. And do not remember the sinking.

In my own opinion, this is as silly a conspiracy theory as the the conspiracy that the government setup the Holocaust scenes and tricked the world into thinking the Holocaust happened(when it didn't in the conspiracy).


It's sickening and strange. Strange that a conspiracy was ever made when one side has more hold than the other. It's not up to you to prove the evidence wrong, it's up to the conspiracy theorists to get evidence to backup their claims.

Gerrr....


The Titanic sank, insurance was collected, the iceberg still floats today, people in the crow's nest should pay more attention, and people need to stop wasting their times thinking up conspiracies like this