Titanic Facts 4

Still Swimming: The SS Nomadic is one of the small ships that brought the passengers to Titanic, also known as a tender. Leaving her to board the Titanic, was none other than Margaret Brown, who would later be known as the iconic "Unsinkable Molly Brown." The Nomadic is the last surviving White Star Line vessel and is still used today. She went through an extensive restoration in 2012, meaning this 100 year old vessel is here to stay.

Circa March 2012. Photo courtesy of Wikipedia.org 

The Curse of the Maiden Voyage: Titanic is not the only White Star Line ship to sink on its maiden voyage. 

The 1^st ship - also dubbed "the first Titanic", was the RMS Tayleur. She sank on her maiden voyage on 1854 when this iron clipper ran aground and sank. Of the 650 on board, 290 survived. Faulty engineering and an inexperienced crew were to blame.

2^nd ship - The Titanic wasn't the only White Star Line vessel to hit an iceberg. The SS Naronic, which was built in 1892 and was lost at sea in 1893. They can't really prove that the Naronic hit an iceberg, mainly because the ship's never been found. Also, no eye-witnesses, because all of the 74 on board perished. The only bit of evidence that they can go by is four bottles that washed up on shore that were written by people claiming to be passengers. This one in particular is the only letter that mentions an iceberg as the culprit of the sinking.

"3:10 AM Feb.19. SS Naronic at sea. To who picks this up: report when you find this to our agents if not heard of before, that our ship is sinking fast beneath the waves. It's such a storm that we can never live in the small boats. One boat has already gone with her human cargo below. God let all of us live through this. We were struck by an iceberg in a blinding snowstorm and floated two hours. Now it 3:20 AM by my watch and the great ship is dead level with the sea. Report to the agents at Broadway, New New York, M. Kersey & Company. Goodby all."

The letter was signed by John Olsen, who claimed to be a cattleman. Here's another mystery … no such name existed on the ship's manifest. One of the life boats from the ship was found 90 miles where the Titanic would sink

The 3^rd – Titanic.

Competition Has a Heart: When Titanic struck the iceberg and launched the lifeboats, hoped seemed dismal for the majority of passengers. Some claimed they saw the light from a ship miles away. This would later be confirmed as the SS Californian, who also saw Titanic's stress flares, but did not act on it. They were only 10 miles away. Much further, but the closest to respond to Titanic radio operator, Jack Phillips, distress signal was the RMS Carpathia. Unfortunately, the Carpathia was forty miles away when they received the signal and much smaller ship was slower than the Titanic and would take four hours to reach the sinking ship. 

At around 3:30 am, passengers in lifeboats saw the Carpathia's lights and their hope for survival arrived at 4:00 am. Why the title of this fact? The RMS Carpathia was owned by Cunard Line, White Star Line's biggest competitor.

Whatever Happened to the RMS Carpathia?: Sadly the ship that saved the only survivors of the Titanic tragedy met a sinking fate. During the first World War, the Carpathia was used to transport American and Canadian troops to Europe. Only July 15, 1918, a German Navy submarine, U-55, torpedoed the Carpathia and she sunk 120 miles west of Ireland. The ship was discovered in 2000 by diver Clive Cussler. Guess who owns the RMS Carpathia? Why our grave robbing friends at Premier Exhibitions Inc. formerly known as Titanic Inc. They plan on doing the same thing as they did to the Titanic and that is bringing artifacts from the ship back to the surface and put it on display in worldwide exhibits.

Picture of the Carpathia sinking. 

Blood and Iron: White Star Line may have commissioned Titanic and her sister ships, but they were all built by Harland and Wolff. This ship  hired more than 15,000 workers, working from 7:50 am to 5:30 pm. They had one ten minute break, as well as a 30-minute lunch break. Skilled shipyarder workers earned 2 pounds a week. That is $3.32 in US currency today. Unskilled shipyard workers earned 1 pound a week. The hard work and incredible work load of all who made the Titanic from a vision to a reality was not without forms hurt or tragedy. Many of the riveters ended up losing their hearing due to the very loud noises around them.

Titanic Put the "Mail" in "RMS": RMS stands for Royal Mail Ship and Titanic was under contract to deliver speedy mail. It had over 3,000 mailbags with more than seven million pieces of mail.

An Investigation 100 Years in the Making

An Investigation 100 Years in the Making

It was the size of three football fields, 48,000 tons of steel, and one night in April 14th of 1912 it would carry 2,240 people from Southampton, England to New York City. Needless did those poor souls know that well over 1,517 people would not make it to their destination; some found their final destination in the freezing, stabbing cold of the Atlantic Ocean. This is, of course, about the RMS Titanic and how it's about to make history again.

In two more years, the Titanic tragedy of 1912 will be embarking on it's 100th year anniversary. It's not strange though of how many people still talk about it; still study it; examine the photos of the last moments of (at the time) the world's largest ship as if it all happened yesterday. Again, the "world's most famous ship" is making new headlines, but this time in the world of the paranormal.

William Brower, of Florida, will be making history as the first person to ever conduct a paranormal investigation on the very spot where the famous White Star Line vessel hit an iceberg causing buckling of the hall and popping out rivets. The ocean liner was deemed "unsinkable" with it's sixteen watertight compartments, but not even that stopped the raging amounts of salt water coming in like an angry serpent. With the massive amounts of damage and water coming in it took the massive ship only two hours and forty minutes to sink. The final moments saw the ship break in half between the third and fourth funnel; the bow completely out of vision the stern rose up and sank vertically and that there was nothing, but the screams of those in the freezing water and the fear of those in the lifeboats that help will never come.

The Titanic laid isolated from everything except the fishes of the deep for more than seventy years until Robert Ballard, a marine biologist, discovered the wreckage in 1985. Up until that time no one even knew that the ship was split apart on the ocean floor. The bow and the stern section lays 1,970 feet from each other and are facing opposite directions. The bow of the ship is in a recognizable condition while the stern, on the other hand, is completely destroyed and opened up like a tin can. Between the two wrecks is a field of debris; such items as plates, furniture, and even a pair of someone shoes as if someone landed there have been found in the debris. Even though it's been discovered, nobody has ever made the effort to see if there's still some lost souls still lingering around the site...until now.

Almost twenty paranormal investigators will be joining William Brower using special microphones to see if they can still hear the voices or possibly even the ghost of the ship itself still casting it's eerie fog horn or hear the tapping of the stress calls that were sent to nearby ships such as the RMS Carpathia who picked up the 706 survivors, but are the ones who died in the freezing cold of the ocean still crying for help? Mr. Brower says, yes.

Matthew Kelley, of the Titanic Endeavor Tour and also a paranormal investigator, will be chartering a boat to the shipwreck, bringing psychics who are said to be sensitive's and can sense the deceased, as well as bringing other paranormal equipment to see if some spirits are still there. The biggest accomplishment they want to gain is to get EVP's, Electronic Voice Phenomena, of the ones who have stayed behind at the site of where the ship was last seen still afloat before plunging to the ocean floor some 2,000 feet below.

The investigation has also caused some controversy among the world of the paranormal; some have cited that it's disrespectful to go out and disturb the souls who are resting, but Bower, who has written books about the Titanic and does a one man show talking about the disaster, has said that they will go out there with respect; "The Titanic is now apart of our history," Kelley told the Florida based newspaper the Sun Sentinel, and that the expedition "is going to be a form of closure."

Kelley, who is the lead investigator of D.E.A.D. (Direct Evidence After Death) plans on dropping 1,500 white roses in the sea and a plaque near, but not on, the Titanic site in remembrance of the people who died. The crew wants to leave in April and be there in time for the anniversary, however that may not happen as the Atlantic is treacherous in that time, so if not then, they hope to be out there for the summer time.

The crew will not only try to collect EVPs, but will also try to get evidence by other methods as well, including: dropping a dummy dressed in that period of clothing with specially made microphones in it's hands and a specially made camcorder in it's head; they will also be bringing along a descendant who had relatives who perished on the ship who is now a Catholic bishop; a psychic to possibly sense the spirits who may still reside; they will also be doing a side sonar scan of the wreck to check on the condition of the vessel which is said to get worse by the day and it's estimated that in a few decades the haul of the ship will collapse.

The expedition is estimated to cost a maximum of $83,000 dollars and they will be filming a documentary of the investigation with the hopes of it being featured on the History Channel. Kelley stated that they are not looking to make any money out of this, but to conduct it for science purposes.

Some "Ghostly" facts about the Titanic:

-Some believe that the demise of the ship was due to that it was not Christened. This is true, the part about it not being Christened that is;

-Some also blame the disaster on the fact that supposedly (although proven false) that the ship carried the Egyptian mummy of Amen-Ra, who carried a curse of death and destruction.

-There was no rooms with the number 13 on them. This is true, as well among grand hotels as they are no 13th floors in all of them.

-At the time the Titanic struck the iceberg, the silent film version of the Poseidon Adventure was being played; this film, as well as it's 1972 and 2006 counterparts, is about another ship disaster.

Sources:

"Coral Springs man to join Titanic ghost-hunting trip" by Robert Nolin(Sun Sentinel, October 30th, 2010)

"Paranormal Group Seeks R.M.S. Titanic EVPs"(Phantoms and Monsters, April 8th, 2010)

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James Paradie is a paranormal columnist as well as a paranormal investigator who has been seen in such newspapers as the Northcountry News, Littleton Record, the White Mountain Shopper, and the Trendy Times. His stories can also been seen on paranormalnews.com where he is a regular contributor.