Five Spooky Titanic Stories (From SpookyLady InSanDiego's Blog)

Found this on SpookyLady's blog and decided to share with you. Haven't posted a Titanic Facts blog in quite a while and felt we were due for one. Enjoy!

From Yahoo! News:

[While] the story of the doomed luxury ship RMS Titanic has been in the headlines for the past century, there are also stories of another kind: Ghost stories. Check out these spooky stories about the Titanic.

In the aftermath of the Titanic tragedy, search and rescue teams recovered 328 Titanic victims and temporarily brought their bodies to the Snow & Co. Funeral Parlour in Halifax, Nova Scotia. According to Encompass Magazine, the funeral home is now the Five Fisherman Restaurant, and the original pulley used to hoist the Titanic cadavers to the building’s upper level still hangs in the wine room ceiling. Today, bizarre occurrences such as glass flying off a shelf and cutlery falling to the floor when no one is near are common occurrences at the restaurant. Manager Gary MacDonald has said of the building’s ghosts: “You must acknowledge them or they will pull stunts.”

In 2008, the Atlanta Constitution Journal published a story about the Georgia Aquarium after the Titanic Aquatic exhibit was featured there. Several aquarium volunteers reported strange encounters as they worked on the exhibit, which featured hundreds of Titanic-related artifacts. The aquarium staff brought in paranormal investigators, who determined that the Titanic exhibit was indeed a spirit dwelling.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, in the 1990s a San Francisco man named Jaime Rodriguez claimed that he was being haunted by a ghost, before finding that a Titanic survivor once inhabited his apartment. But former tenant Dr. Henry Washington Dodge was not considered a Titanic hero. While Dr. Dodge claimed that he called out for women and children to take a spot in the lifeboat that housed his wife and son on that fateful night, he inevitably climbed into the boat and endured public scrutiny for the rest of his life. After undergoing a lawsuit and a financial beating, Dodge sunk into a depression and committed suicide in his San Francisco apartment in 1919. His ghost appeared in the apartment every summer for years, and always in the same spot.

Legendary socialite Margaret “Molly” Brown survived the Titanic sinking, but her former Denver home is said to be the site of some unusual happenings. According to a blog on Mysterious Colorado, paranormal oddities occur regularly at Molly Brown House Museum in Denver, including furniture disturbances and alleged sightings of the ghosts of Molly and her husband James Joseph Brown. Sightings of Molly’s mother in an upstairs window have also been reported, as well as mysterious smells such as Mr. Brown’s tobacco and his wife’s favorite rose-scented perfume.

According to the Daily Mail, the house in England where the Titanic’s captain was born also has a haunting history. It may come as no surprise that the childhood home of Captain Edward John Smith has been riddled with mysterious floods and unexplained icy chills, as well as ghostly sightings.

Titanic Facts 6

- The only Japanese passenger on the Titanic, Masbumi Hosono, (pictured above) survived the tragedy. Once upon returning home he was condemned a coward not only by the Japanese public, but also the government, for saving himself rather than going down with the ship. Until his death in 1939, he never spoke of the tragedy in public. It was until 1980 when a proposal was made to find the wreck of the Titanic, that his family showed a letter he wrote to his wife that went into great detail of the events that unfolded on April 14/15th, 1912. Still though, it really wasn't until James Cameron's blockbuster film, Titanic, that his family felt relieved and that honor had been restored to the Hosono family.

Couldn't find a picture from the 1911 version, so I chose my personal favorite adaption as a placeholder. 

-This has been proven as True by Snopes.com, so I'm going by the bases that it is true. The very moment the Titanic struck an iceberg, The Poseidon Adventure was playing. For those who are unaware, The Poseidon Adventure is a movie that tells the tale of passengers struggling to escape a sinking ship. These films were shown on Kinetoscope. A bonus fact is that another film was being shown on board the Titanic and that was the 1911 film, The Lighthouse Keeper, another nautical tale.

-Back on the 100th anniversary of the Titanic disaster, Robert Ballard, the man who discovered the Titanic wreck, revealed his plans to keep the ship from deteriorating any more. His plans are to paint the whole Titanic bow section with this anti-corrosion paint that they use on all hulls ocean liners. This paint is suppose to protect the hull of any ship for approximately 100 years. Ballard has gone on record to say that when he discovered the Titanic, he was astounded to find the paint on Titanic's hull in near perfect condition. How's he going to paint a ship that is two miles below the surface? Robots. A lot of people are baffled by this idea, but when Ballard tells kids about it, their first question is, "What color paint?"

-The iceberg didn't sink the Titanic. The moon did - says astronomers. According to late oceanographer, Fergus Wood, the moon was unusually closer to the Earth in January of 1912. Due to that the moon determines the tide, this caused far more icebergs to break off from Greenland and floated into common shipping lanes.

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-When White Star Line chartered ships to find the bodies of the lost from the disaster, they went to the coordinates where the Titanic sank. When the approached this particular iceberg, they found red paint on it. The Titanic's hull was painted red. This is commonly believed to be the iceberg that sank the Titanic. 

-The final moments of a sea captain - Nobody is certain what happened to Titanic's captain, Edward J. Smith. Eyewitnesses have stated that they saw him swim to a lifeboat, with child in hand, in the last moments of the sinking. Others have said they saw him go into the wheelhouse and presumed he died there when it was engulfed by the water. Due to more eyewitnesses claiming they saw Smith going to the wheelhouse, this is the more common theory of what happened to him. Friends of Smith claim that he always told them that if one of his ships go down, he's going down with it. No matter where he was in his final moments, he kept his word. 

That's it for now. For more Titanic Facts and related articles, click on the links below. 

Titanic Facts 1

Facts 2

Facts 3

Facts 4

Facts 5

Letter to RMS Titanic, Inc.: Leave It Alone 

Titanic: 100 Years Later 

An Investigation 100 Years in the Making 

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.

Titanic Facts 1

(Authors Note: I just noticed there are a lot of 'due's' on this piece. I'll have to edit this in the future to take that annoyance of repentance out. My apologies!) 

-There are a lot of people who believe that the Titanic and Olympic were secretly switched due to insurance purposes.

-The Titanic's original maiden voyage date was suppose to be in March, not April. But plans change due to Titanic's sister ship, Olympic's, collision with the HMS Hawke.

-There was a conspiracy theory going around that the Titanic sunk due to an Egyptian curse. The theory goes that the Titanic had some interesting cargo on board, aside from domestic animals and a few cars ... the mummified remains of Amen-Ra. This is false though.

-The Titanic's maiden voyage almost didn't happen again due to huge coal mining strike in 1912. The White Star Line put a halt to all ships and used the ships coal storage to stock the Titanic.

-Speaking of coal from the Titanic, you can actually buy a piece of it online.

-The Titanic is no longer owned by the White Star Line, but rather a company called RMS Titanic, Inc. They have auctions and sell items that they got from the ship. (In other words, grave robbing...I don't agree with it, but that's another discussion for another day.)

-There is a rumor, though it has yet to be proven false, that the 1911 version of the Poseidon Adventure was playing the night that the Titanic struck the iceberg. For those who do not know, that movie is based on another ship disaster.

-Raise The Titanic! just a movie? Oh no. Several people have explained theories about raising the world's most famous ocean liner out from the depths. One theory even included filling the ship with ping-pong balls.

-Rusticles is a term that was coined when the Titanic was discovered. As you can see in the picture below, you will see rust dripping down from the ship that look like? Yes, icicles.

-Until it was discovered in 1985, by Dr. Robert Ballard, it was popular theory that the ship never split it two.

Check out more Titanic facts: 

2
3
4
5
6

Even more Titanic stuff!:

An Investigation 100 Years in the Making (old article. Great idea. They never followed through though, unfortunately.)

Titanic: 100 Years Later

A Letter to R.M.S. Titanic, Inc: Leave It Alone

Mystery of the Mary Celeste

Mystery of The Mary Celeste
This is not a person, this is not even a ghost, this is a sailing vessel that left with ten people and came back with none back in 1872. Over one hundred years later the vanishings it is still a mystery, but the story is still one to be revisited again and again as if it's a dark fairy tale.

I love a good story about shipwrecks, I have no idea how many documentaries I've seen on the Titanic. Perhaps I've read hundreds of articles and seen hundreds of documentaries, but I don't get bored of it. There's just something about a shipwreck that grabs my attention and I have no idea since I'm not fond of swimming or even being in the ocean, but it interests me like a good ghost story. Only thing is the Mary Celeste didn't struck an iceberg or was hit by a torpedo. The mystery within this vessel lies within the story.

The story goes that the Mary Celeste was a New York registered ship built by a Canadian. The vessel was relatively small, only 100 feet from bow to stern and 282 tons. James Winchester, one of the registered owners of the ship, appointed Benjamin Spooner Briggs as the captain. Spooner was well known to be tough and would not leave the ship unless to save his own life. But on December 5th 1872, in the early morning, a Captain Morehouse saw the vessel from a distance between Azores and the Portuguese coast. He knew something was wrong and after two hours of watching the vessel going out of control, he boarded a small ship and went to see what was wrong. There was nothing wrong, the ship was in perfect condition, but everyone was gone. The seven man crew, the honorable Captain Briggs, his loving wife, their two year old daughter...perished and never seen again.

To this day, well over one hundred years later, the demise of the Mary Celeste crew still remains a haunting mystery. What happen all those years ago?

Until next time this has been another Scared Sheetless. If I don't see you before then, have a Happy and filling Thanksgiving.

Resources:

maryceleste.net - great website full of info.

Also, if you think you got spirits in your house and would like the professionals to come in and investigate, look no further than NEPI. We have the state of the art equipment, the crew with the knowledge, and we've been seen on such newspapers as this, the Littleton Record, and the Caledonian Record. Give us a call and see why when people have ghosts, they put their trust in NEPI.

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)

E-Mail: scaredsheetlessncn@hotmail.com
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Website: http://scaredsheetlessncn.blogspot.com/

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.