![]() ![]() As a result, the White Star Line - an IMM subsidiary - was unable to receive an insurance payout. The Olympic and the Titanic were both White Star Line vessels.Īccording to Gardiner's theory, the trouble started when the Olympic crashed into a warship in 1911, and was blamed for the accident in an ensuing inquiry. In the book " Titanic: The Ship That Never Sank?" researcher Robin Gardiner wrote that the whole disaster was the result of an insurance scam by the International Mercantile Marine Co., which owned the White Star Line. According to this idea, the Olympic - the Titanic's older, nearly identical sister ship - was actually the one that went down near Newfoundland.īut what would've been the point of switching the ships in secret? That's the thinking behind one particular conspiracy theory. Topical Press Agency / Stringer / Getty Images "The sub may have deliberately targeted the luxury liner or possibly accidentally collided with it," Ruehl wrote. Ruehl speculated that the craft was possibly "a submarine that had surfaced to assess the damage it had caused, after which time it skulked off," and also cited survivor testimony about a number of explosions that seemed to go off deep with the ship. Franklin Ruehl's piece in The Huffington Post. While the theory lacks an abundance of evidence, it's certainly not outside the realm of possibility.Ī number of Titanic survivors reported to have noticed "an unidentified vessel approximately five to six miles away" from the sinking ship, which reportedly lingered until 2 a.m., according to Dr. In 1915, a German U-boat torpedoed the British ocean liner off the coast of Ireland, killing 1,198 people. If such a theory panned out, that'd make the Titanic's sinking a precursor to that of the Lusitania. The tragedy missed the onset of the First World War by two years.īut some still speculate that a German U-boat was really behind the ship's sinking. The Titanic is known as one of the biggest peacetime maritime disasters in history. That hasn't stopped the British Museum's so-called " unlucky mummy" from getting blamed for the ship's sinking, though.Īn artist's depiction of a 1915 U-boat attack. Snopes debunked the story, noting that, even disregarding the tale's fantastical elements, there was no mummy onboard the ship. The tale is popular, but also completely fictional. Because, lo and behold, the name of the ship that they sailed off on was the HMS Titanic! Ignoring his colleagues' warnings, he headed back to New York with his new acquisition.īut the unfortunate scholar and the mummy never made to the States. Once the beleaguered community of British art collectors and museum professionals had enough of the haunted mummy, an American archaeologist swooped in to purchase it. Still, the idea that an ancient curse sunk the ship is one of the more fanciful conspiracy theories that cropped up in the wake of the disaster.Īccording to the legend, an ancient, mummified princess left a trail of death and devastation across England in the early 1900s after being excavated and removed from Egypt. ![]() Human error and a lifeboat shortage brought about the maritime catastrophe. There was no cursed mummy on the Titanic.ĭid an ancient mummy seal the Titanic's fate? In " Irish Blood, English Heart, Ulster Fry: Return Journeys to Ireland," Annie Caulfield writes that, "by the twentieth century, Harland and Wolff had a reputation for only employing Protestants." In 1886, Protestant Harland and Wolff employees launched a large-scale attack on their Catholic coworkers, according to the book " The Invention of the White Race." The result was an exodus of Catholic workers from the shipbuilder, which was Belfast's largest employer at the time. What's more, there would have been no Catholic workers on hand to warn their Protestant colleagues of the problematic hull number. The 3909 04 number is completely made up. To start, Harland and Wollff assigned the Titanic a yard number of 401. The reason? If you flip 3909 04 upside down, it kind of looks like "NO POPE." As far as the theory goes, the Catholic workers saw this as blasphemy, and worried that harm would come to the ship.īut there are a number of big problems with this conspiracy theory, which Snopes has also debunked. The conspiracy theory is that Catholic workers reacted in horror when the new ship's hull number - 3909 04 - was unveiled. One conspiracy theory about the Titanic has been floating around for years.įirst, it's important to note that the Titanic was constructed in the city of Belfast by the shipbuilding firm Harland and Wolff. ![]()
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