Titanic Conspiracy Theories Debunked | Watch
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4 days ago — Theories have encircled the TITANIC tragedy for over a century, and we’re about to set the record straight. Since the day of the disaster, …
The Titanic’s Top 10 Weirdest Conspiracy Theories
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It was an inside job to collect the insurance money. Conspiracy theorist Robin Gardiner has an unusual idea – The Titanic didn’t sink. Instead, its sister ship …
Revived Titanic-Olympic ‘switch’ conspiracy sunk by ships’ differences
By Reuters Fact Check
July 14, 20234:28 PM GMT+1Updated 7 months ago
Social media posts reviving a long-running conspiracy theory – that the Titanic ocean liner wreck on the floor of the North Atlantic is really its sister ship Olympic – are missing the context that documented differences between the two ships, such as part numbers etched into surviving artifacts, offer powerful evidence that the switch never occurred.
The theory that Olympic was switched with Titanic before the latter’s maiden voyage on April 10, 1912, then deliberately sunk five days later to collect an insurance payout, resurfaced online amid news coverage of the search for Titan, a private submersible with five passengers that imploded on a dive to view the Titanic on June 18, 2023 (here).
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Examples of posts claiming Titanic and Olympic were swapped to commit insurance fraud can be seen on Facebook (here) and (here).
The posts share a photo said to be Titanic, described in a caption as depicting the ship at a scrap yard in 1935. However, the colorized image shared online shows Titanic during its outfitting process and was taken in September 1911, in Belfast, Northern Ireland, by photographer Robert John Welch, according to National Museums Northern Ireland, which owns the copyright to the original black-and-white photo (here).
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Beyond the miscaptioned image shared online, historians say that many details of the conspiracy theory don’t hold water. In particular, design differences between the Titanic and Olympic, visible in photographs of the two ships, are consistent with the wreckage of Titanic being, in fact, Titanic, and making the switch theory implausible.
Ship-specific identifying numbers etched into surviving pieces of the two ships also attest that the switch never happened, according to J. Kent Layton, a maritime researcher and author of multiple books on Titanic (here).00:0001:39
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“This conspiracy theory is one of the most thoroughly disproven conspiracies about Titanic, and yet it remains one of the most popular and most quickly spread,” Layton said in an email.
SWITCH THEORY
The ill-fated Titanic, one of three sister ships constructed by White Star Lines in 1909-1912 (here), set out on its maiden voyage on April 10, 1912, and sank on April 15, 1912, after hitting an iceberg while traveling from Southampton, England, to New York, taking more than 1,500 lives (here), (here).
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Another of the ships, Olympic, was put into service the year before, on June 14, 1911, and retired in 1935, with many of its fixtures and fittings auctioned off before it was scrapped. Even before Titanic first set sail, though, Olympic had already experienced its own serious accident in a collision with another ship in September 1911, and was sent for costly repairs to the Belfast shipyard where Titanic was still under construction (here), (here), (here).
Photos of a hole in the hull of Olympic following the 1911 collision can be seen on Getty Images (here), (here).
That is when the switch could have occurred, according to the conspiracy theory, which rests on the idea that Olympic’s repairs were so expensive, the ships’ owners decided to switch it with Titanic, then to deliberately sink the damaged ship and collect on the insurance claim. More on the theory can be read (here), (here) and (here).
The problem with the theory, historians have shown, is that the two ships were not identical and their distinguishing differences are consistent with each ship having remained under its original name.
Olympic, for example, was photographed docked in New York on the day Titanic set sail from Southampton, as seen in a photo held by the Library of Congress, dated April 10, 1912, and credited to the Bain News Service (here). The photo shows part of the open A deck promenade, which is consistent with prior pictures of Olympic, and an area whose design was different on Titanic.
LAYOUT DIFFERENCES
In another photo credited to the Bain News Service and dated June 21, 1911, Olympic’s open A deck is also clearly visible (here), Layton noted in an email. In contrast, the forward half of the A deck on Titanic was enclosed by windows, visible in a 1912 stock photo on Getty Images (here).
“This was a feature never seen on Olympic at any point in her career,” Layton said.
The enclosed Titanic A deck is also visible in a 3D digital scan of the wreck produced by deep-sea mapping company Magellan Ltd as part of a documentary project (www.magellan.gg/titanic-in-3d/), (here). Magellan and its collaborator Atlantic Productions released sample images and animations of the Titanic wreck site scans to media outlets in May 2023, which can be viewed (here), (here).
The B decks of the two ships were also different, Layton said, explaining that “the original side plating of Titanic’s B Deck was removed in order to accommodate a new layout for B Deck that was never duplicated aboard Olympic.” Instead, Olympic had an enclosed promenade for first class passengers on the B deck, while the same space on Titanic featured new suites for first class accommodations.
The open B deck design seen in the 1912 Titanic photo on Getty Images (here) and in the 3D digital scan of the shipwreck (here) match, whereas the enclosed promenade on Olympic’s B deck differs from that of the shipwreck (here).
“Through the B Deck windows, Olympic’s actual First Class enclosed Promenades (are seen) where Titanic’s suites were,” Layton said.
HULL NUMBERS
A propeller on the seafloor etched with the number 401 is evidence of another important difference between the two ships. Throughout each ship, various parts carried the “hull number” of that ship, and they could not all have been swapped before Titanic sailed, historians say.
Olympic’s hull number was 400, and Titanic’s was 401.
The hull number 400 can be seen in surviving parts of Olympic, such as an oak panel auctioned in 2019 (here), as well as a wood section auctioned in 2023 (here).
“Meanwhile,” Layton said, “the Titanic’s correct hull number, 401, has been observed at the wreck site and on items recovered from the wreck. There can be no doubt that the wreck on the seafloor is RMS Titanic.”
Some photos of parts found or recovered from the Titanic wreckage and bearing the hull number 401 can be seen on a website dedicated to debunking the switch theory (here). They include a wooden cabinet found floating at the scene after Titanic sank, and a gear shaft and tools recovered from the wreckage.
To conspiracy theorists who argue that even the propellers of the two ships were switched, Tim Maltin, an author of multiple books and films on Titanic (timmaltin.com/), points out that Titanic’s hull number 401 “is stamped on her propeller on the seabed.”
Titanic’s starboard propeller on the ocean floor, marked with the number 401, is clearly visible (see second and third images in slideshow) in the 3D digital scans of the wreckage (here).
The Wild Conspiracy Theory That the Titanic Never Sank
When the Titanic sank in 1912, it shocked the world. The limits of human innovation were cruelly displayed with the
destruction of such a technically remarkable ship. Get unlimited access to the weird world of Pop Mech. We
But a conspiracy theory that has crept up online in recent years asks the question, most recently on Reddit: Was it actually the Titanic that sank?https://products.gobankingrates.com/r/8419832115a196968580e15ce19723e6
We know. It sounds bonkers. But bear with us.
Everyone seems to agree on one fact: A ship really did sink in the icy waters of the North Atlantic on April 15, 1912, and approximately 1,500 passengers aboard that ship died. The conspiracy simply suggests the Titanic wasn’t actually the technical marvel the ship’s parent company, the White Star Line, had promised.
Rather, the White Star Line swapped ships for the voyage from Southampton to New York and the ship billed as the top-of-the-line Titanic was actually an older ship: the Olympic.
What’s more, the conspiracy theory suggests, the entire crash was an insurance scam gone wrong.
J.P. Morgan and the Heyday of Big Ships
The British White Star Line had stiff competition in England and across the globe. Locally, it had a fierce rivalry with the Cunard Steamship Company, Ltd., which in 1906-07 had sent on its maiden voyage the world’s then-largest passenger ships, the Lusitania and the Mauretania.
To compete with the Lusitania and its mate, White Star Line entered into a giant ship war. The company was no stranger to such battles, but Cunard’s Lusitania and Mauretania had out-gunned White Star’s so-called “Big Four” ships in terms of top speed. This time around, the company had some extra backing.
© Library of Congress/Corbis/VCG via Getty Images – Getty Images The Olympic and Titanic being built side-by-side.
In 1902, White Star had become a property owned by the International Mercantile Marine Co. (IMM), a holding company bankrolled by famed financier J.P Morgan. With Morgan’s permission, White Star chairman J. Bruce Ismay began work on what came to be known as Olympic-class ships. If they couldn’t match the Lusitania’s speed, Olympic-class ships would outclass Cunard ships: they’d be even bigger, and more luxurious. Three ships were commissioned: the Olympic, the Titanic, and the Britannic.
The Olympic was the first to be built, and as the line’s namesake, it was considered the lead ship. Its maiden trip was widely heralded, and its first few voyages were unqualified successes. But on just its fifth voyage, the vessel ran into serious trouble.
On September 20, 1911, while passing a military vessel, the Hawke, the Olympic made an unexpected turn. Caught off guard, the two ships crashed. The Olympic was able to limp back to port, badly wounded. A trial would later hold the White Star Line responsible for the incident.© Kirk and Sons of Cowes/Heritage Images/Getty Images – Getty Images The tear in the hull of the Olympic after the Hawke incident.
The Conspiracy Begins
Everything above is generally agreed to be fact. The Olympic crash is where paths diverge.
After the crash, conspiracy theorists claim, the Olympic was an economic disaster. The lawsuit meant repairs would not be covered by insurance, and it was drawing no money while sitting around the docks. So the company made a switch: Its newly built second ship would take on the name Olympic, while its damaged older ship would be re-purposed to be the Titanic.
Eventually, the true Olympic (now secretly operating as the Titanic) would be scuttled in an accident from which the White Star Line could collect an insurance payment befitting a brand new ship—all while the ship originally built as the Titanic would have lived on. The only thing that ruined the plan was an iceberg.
Other conspiracy theorists claim a more nefarious reasoning for the sinking: J.P Morgan was behind the switch, eager to use an inferior ship to drown his enemies onboard.© Historica Graphica Collection/Heritage Images/Getty Images – Getty Images The Titanic’s powerful owner, banking magnate J.P Morgan (far right), is at the heart of many conspiracy theories.
Proponents of either theory point toward a number of clues: the Titanic didn’t allow for a public examination before its voyage, out of fear it would be found out by experts as Olympic in disguise, theorists claim. And then there are portholes. A recent popular Reddit post examines pictures of Titanic under construction and Titanic on its first voyage, and finds the second picture suspiciously changed and close to the Olympic.
There are a plethora of other details. For example, separate claims point toward the argument the Olympic lies at the bottom of the sea instead of the original Titanic.
The Conspiracy Doesn’t Add Up
Titanic researchers Steve Hall and Bruce Beveridge have published a book on the subject, Titanic or Olympic: Which Ship Sank? They’ve also helped to write other books of Titanic history, including Titanic: The Ship Magnificent. The two take the porthole argument straight on.
“The Olympic,” they write, “like the Titanic, was fitted originally with the same 14-porthole arrangement on the port side of her forecastle, but 2 additional portholes were later fitted; they were there in March 1912.”
Historian Mark Chirnside has also devoted serious time to the question of why, exactly, the switch would be made. In 2005, he examined the insurance argument—that the ship would be intentionally sunk to claim the insurance benefits. Quoting Ismay, “the Titanic ‘cost $7,500,000’ – and was insured ‘for $5,000,000, I understand.’” This is backed up by the IMM’s American Vice-President, Philip A. S. Franklin, who confirmed that the insurance policy was $5 million.
“Were there a conspiracy, one would expect that the insurance policy would have been changed to cover the entire value of the ship,” Chirnside writes. “As it was, White Star could only expect to recoup two-thirds of the ship’s value.”
Closely examined, none of the Olympic/Titanic claims can hold up to the phenomenal effort that was needed for the switch: the two ships were not exactly identical. The Titanic had a “unique café and enlarged á la carte restaurant,” Chirnside writes, and was modified based on the company’s earlier experience with the Olympic.
That’s not all. It “is simply impossible to pass off a one-year-old ship for a new one,” he says, pointing to a number of small differences between the two, including “additional steel plates that were fitted to the bedplates of Olympic’s engines” added in 1911 and still there in further inspections in the 20s and 30s. When the Titanic was investigated by the British board of trade, no such plates were found.
It’s not that the Titanic or owner J.P Morgan were above suspicion—Morgan demonstrated phenomenal power over the U.S. during his lifetime, resolving the Banking Crisis of 1907 almost singlehandedly. (As it happened, the Titanic’s sinking would prove to make IMM the rare Morgan financial failure, going bankrupt 2 years later.)
But in that incident, there was physical evidence that Morgan was altering the monetary system. No concrete evidence of the Titanic conspiracy stands up to the evidence presented by the historians.
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