Everybody has heard a lot of unsolved stories and myths about Titanic and still, thousands of questions are reeling in the minds of people about Titanic aka “The Unsinkable.” The luxury liner set sail on April 10, 1912, and sank five days later, taking the lives of around 1,500 of the 2,223 aboard. Some people insist that the ship sank was not Titanic, but rather it was near identical R.M.S Olympic. Apart from that, people also think that the incident was pre-planned. Among all those questions and myths here are some Titanic mysteries that may never be solved.
Titanic Mysteries Never Solved
Did the fire have to do something with the sink?
A modern research gives credible proof that the Titanic (let’s just call it that, for argument’s sake) had been damaged by a coal fire, which had been burning for three weeks before the ship even set sail. The destruction would have weakened the decks of the vessel, thus speeding the ship’s sinking when it hit with an iceberg. (If it collided with an iceberg, which is another Titanic secrets)
Why was the captain speeding?
For a long time, people believed that Captain Smith was speeding through the iceberg-heavy waters of the North Atlantic because he wanted the Titanic to cross the Atlantic faster than her sister ship, the Olympic. But in 2004, the Geological Society of America published a paper by engineer Robert H. Essenhigh with a different theory: It claimed the real reason the Titanic’s captain was speeding was to burn coal as fast as possible to control the coal fire discussed above.
What made the ship to break into two pieces?
On September 1, 1985, oceanographer Robert Ballard found the wreckage 2.5 miles below the ocean surface, along with the shocking discovery that the ship had broken in two before sinking. Earlier, everyone had believed that the ship sank entirely after colliding with an iceberg while rushing dangerously through icy waters near the coast of Newfoundland. Ballard’s discovery directed to a different approach: that the ship’s splitting into two pieces, which “may have been the difference between life and death,” was the outcome of design defects and then skimping on quality materials by the owners or manufacturers. It is one of the Titanic mysteries that went unsolved.
Was there even an iceberg?
Professional mariner Captain L.M. Collins reports that if the Titanic had collided with an iceberg, it would have gone down in just minutes. Rather, Collins and his followers believe that the Titanic must have hit a hidden icefield of “pack ice” (multi-year-old sheets of ice floating near the ocean surface) that had made its way into the Atlantic from the Arctic Ocean. Collins reveals the discrepancies in eyewitness reports, which may be due to different natural optical illusions. If only the crew had binoculars, right?
Why didn’t the crew have binoculars?
One thing is for sure that if the crew had binoculars, they would have seen the threat in time to change course. But the Titanic’s complete supply of binoculars was locked away in a storage chamber. And a crew member who had been transferred off the ship just before it set sail had the key. The crew member later insisted he “forgot” to hand over the key. But did he forget? Or did he intentionally hold onto it? And if so, was it to further the insurance fraud or something else completely? Only god knows the real story of Titanic.
Did the Californian have something to do with it?
The Californian was less than 20 kilometers away from where the Titanic sank. It sent a signal to the Titanic about the precarious icy conditions, which may have been sent as a non-urgent concern. Later, the Californian crew reportedly neglected the Titanic’s distress signal, although they declared they were not informed about those signals because their radio operator had gone off duty. Did the Californian not notice what was happening within the obvious view?
The third ship
The Californian may not have been the only ship that neglected the Titanic’s distress signals. A Norwegian ship, the Samson, may have been nearby as well. In fact, some think that Samson was closer to the Titanic than the Californian but overlooked her distress signals to evade prosecution for illegal seal-hunting. This is a common theory among supporters of the Californian’s captain, but whether it is true remains a mystery.
Was it a murder plot?
Some consider the sinking had nothing to do with the insurance money, but rather that J.P. Morgan masterminded the sinking to kill off his competitors, Jacob Astor, Isidor Straus, and Benjamin Guggenheim, all of whom died aboard. But how did Morgan plan to bring about it? Neither the insurance theory nor the murder theory takes that into account. What else would Morgan have wanted to do to ensure his plan’s success? This is another theory…
Why weren’t there enough life lifeboats?
No matter what was the reason behind the sinking of Titanic, such a heavy loss of life could possibly have been evaded if the ship had carried enough lifeboats for its passengers and crew. So then why did the pretentious ship have only 20 lifeboats, the prescribed minimum? Why did the ship’s owners choose to neglect instructions to carry 50 percent more lifeboats? If the sinking were “merely” an insurance scam, how can the destructive lack of lifeboats be explained? This appears to fit more with a murder plot. But it also could be nothing more than cost-reduction on the part of the ship’s owners.
