The Titanic Didn't Sink?

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Warbler

At the Start
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Now it never fails to amaze me what whacky theories one stumbles across when partaking in too much of the good stuff, but some apparent nut case did try and convince me last night, that the Titanic didn't sink!

For my sins I couldn't resist indulging them, and have a recollection of their theory. Has anyone ever heard of this one? as although it strikes me as bizzare, and I'm not convinced the explanation did appear to have more merit to it, than you might imagine. Also does anyone live in Belfast, as I'm assured its common knowledge there that the ship lying on the bed of the Atlantic is the Olympic?
 
Well I've lived in Belfast all my life and I must admit it's a new one on me....

Where exactly is it meant to be then, I wouldn't imagine it would be the easiest thing in the world to hide...
 
Pure myth about the Olympic - after passenger service and war service she was finally broken up on Tyneside in 1937. The Titanic's other sister ship, the Brittanic, was sunk in the Aegean in 1916 while being used as a hospital ship. She struck a mine with 1,100 people on board but only 30 were lost.

In 1976 Jacques Cousteau discovered the wreck lying on her side at a depth of 110 meters and recovered a few small objects.

Considering the shallow water that the Britannic rests in and the length of time her position has been know it's perhaps ironic that the wreck of the Britannic is safer from would-be salvagers than the Titanic. As a requisitioned ship in the service of Crown, the wreck to this day belongs to the British Government.

In 1995 a team of Greek divers planned to raise the wreck. The government intervened and representations were made to the Greek Governmentt to stop the scheme. They did. I would have said "Give us back the Elgin marbles first".
 
I've just fired it through Google, and there are indeed some references to this theory. From what I can remember it runs something along these lines. (I apologise in advance for getting some of the chronology wrong and confusing myself)

The Olympic was involved in a collision with a warship a year earlier (this bit is not disputed). The MoD investigated it and found their skipper to be blameless which meant White Star couldn't claim on the insurance. The Olympic was so badly damaged that its certificate of sea worthiness would become questionable, (not sure how he knows that?). Given that White Star had mortgaged themselves up to the hilt on these 3 'super steamers' the loss of one would have been crippling. Whilst being repaired in Belfast, the Olympic had a series of subtle changes made to it that meant that it was an excat copy of the Titanic.

Its at about this point that the memory goes a bit

The upshot of it is that the when undergoing trials the two ships were switched. Now its not unheard of in maritime fraud for a crew member to be slung on a rope and dropped down to alter a name, and certainly many of the pictures in existance of the Titanic are actually of the Olympic (including one of it it New York!!!). But quite how you'd do this on a ship the size of Titanic with those embossed steel name plates is beyond me?

Anyway, the idea was to steam the Olympic masquerading as the Titanic half way across the Atlantic and stage manage its sinking in order to claim the insurance. There is some circumstantial intrigue which always makes these interesting to do with a ship that was also owned by White Star, leaving London during a time when their was no coal due to a strike and carrying a seeimgnly innocuus cargo of 3,000 blankets. A strange cargo indeed given that the strike would have ensured anyone able to leave port would have been wise to sell to the highest bidder. Apparently this ship was captained by someone who'd previously effected some very difficult ship to ship rescue of the the Cape of Good Hope a few years earlier, and so the theory runs, was hand picked to do this. Apparently a load of Irish stokers who sailed her over to Southampton, disembarked and refused to sail sensing that something was wrong, as the boilers were not those of ship that was on a maiden voyage. At a time of recession forgoing this would have been economically unwise, but again the evidence is a bit to heresay for my linking. Hence me asking if their was any local Belfast knowledge on this

None of this however, adequately explained for me the presence of an ice berg though. The best they could offer was a cock up theory based on coincidence, the stricken ships swerving to avoid it, took it beyond the horizon of the rescue ship. As I alluded, I'm far from convinced though will conceed that I found it interesting
 
Originally posted by BrianH@Aug 15 2006, 07:42 PM

In 1995 a team of Greek divers planned to raise the wreck. The government intervened and representations were made to the Greek Governmentt to stop the scheme. They did.
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There is of course a theory that the Hospital ship, wasn't strictly speaking a Hospital ship, and an examination of her cargo could prove a tad embarrasing. Certainly thr Admiralty had been pretty evasive at giving her co-ordinates for decades, leading successive searches up blind alleys
 
I vaguely recall watching a programme about this a while ago :unsure: Everything that was said seemed to make sense to my feeble little mind. Mr GG says I'm gullible, I prefer to think I'm very trusting :lol:
 
Whoa! Hold up - if the ship that sunk in the North Atlantic was the Olympic, masquerading as the Titanic, then the ship broken up on Tyneside was the Titanic pretending to be the Olympic. So what's all that about the Olympic being sunk off Belfast?

Or are there two conspiracy theories here?

Either way the theories all conveniently ignore the fact that there were differences in the dimensions of the two liners.
 
That was my decision, going down on her was a bit like being on the Titanic..

glug glug glug.........glug.....
 
I'm afraid you walked into that one Geroid :lol:

As I said Brian, Im not convinced. Conspiracy theories are always interesting and tend to fall into 3 categories for me. Yes, No or Possibly; or Kenendy, Diana, and the moon landings. This one on balance is a Diana imo

I don't think theres any suggestion that the Olympic was sunk off Belfast. The Belfast connection is purely to do with Harland and Wolf, as any refit and repair would have to have been done by their workforce. Where as they might be able to do this, I'd have thought it pretty well impossible to conceal from the workforce what was happening, even if you did sail the ship out for a spin around the Isle of Man, I'm sure they'd have worked out that they were working on a different ship, which is why I was curious if anything had slipped into local folklore. I'll have a go at trying to dig something out of Internet land, as I'm sure my explanation hasn't necessarily done the theory justice.

The only thing I can accept is motive but even that hinges on the Olympic not being issued with a new certificate. Corporate fraud is hardly unknown afterall, and control of the Transatlantic routes would have been high stakes stuff back then
 
Apparently NASA has lost the original film of the first moon walk. The conspiracy theorists must be walking on it themselves after hearing that piece of news.


NASA says the original film depicting Neil Armstrong taking his "giant leap for mankind" on the moon has been lost.

NASA says the TV version of the July 1969 event has been saved. But the sharper, far better quality original image has been lost, The London Telegraph reported Monday.

The man NASA had placed in charge of the images from Apollo 11, Stan Lebar, says the tapes were apparently filed and, as personnel retired or died, the location of the recordings was forgotten, the newspaper reported.

"I just think this is what happens when you have a large government bureaucracy that functions for decade after decade," Keith Cowing, editor of the Web site NASA Watch, told The Telegraph. "It's not malicious or intentional ..."

Now some scientists are urging NASA to intensify its search for the film.

"For all we know, it's sitting somewhere in a nice, cool dry place, exactly where it should be, but someone's mislabeled a routing slip," Cowling told the newspaper. "I can't imagine they'd throw this stuff out."

Copyright 2006 by United Press International
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Griffin, I saw that program too. It was part of the Sky one series of conspiracy theories. I think they get repeated from time to time.
 
Originally posted by Dave G@Aug 16 2006, 09:19 AM
Griffin, I saw that program too. It was part of the Sky one series of conspiracy theories. I think they get repeated from time to time.
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Yes, that was probably it.
 
Presumably the Titanic conversation came up as a natural conclusion to a conversation about your betting strategy Warbler! ;)
 
Come to think of it there are distinct similarities between your life and the Titanic Warbler now you mention it. The only difference that I can see is that the Titanic didn't sink in the Oxford Canal after a few shandies too many on it's way home from work!!!!! :P
 
Originally posted by Dave G@Aug 16 2006, 09:19 AM
Griffin, I saw that program too. It was part of the Sky one series of conspiracy theories. I think they get repeated from time to time.
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A bit late as it started at 9pm, but it's on Sky Three now.
 
Originally posted by Maruco@Aug 17 2006, 01:20 PM
Come to think of it there are distinct similarities between your life and the Titanic Warbler now you mention it. The only difference that I can see is that the Titanic didn't sink in the Oxford Canal after a few shandies too many on it's way home from work!!!!! :P
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:lol: :lol: :lol:
 
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