In April of 1912 the Titanic sunk killing around 1,500 people. Today it lies at a depth of 12,500 ft. in the North Atlantic Ocean. However, there is some factual reason to believe that it is not the Titanic at the bottom of the ocean but instead the Olympic.
Listen Here: https://linktr.ee/thegreatunsolved
There are some crazy conspiracies about the Titanic, some state that it never existed and others blame alien abduction for the sinking of the ship. Obviously, nothing lines up with those theories. However, the theory I am going to discuss with you today actually makes logical sense and could be the answer to exactly why the Titanic sunk over 100 years ago.
The RMS Olympic was a British ship and was the lead of White Star Line’s trio. This ship was in WW1 which proved to not hurt her too badly. She was an ocean liner through the 1930s supposedly. Then when the great depression hit the Olympic was no longer being used due to no profit coming from it.
The Olympic was the largest ocean liner in the world until the Titanic sprung up, however, when it sank then it was the largest once again until the RMS Queen Mary came out in 1934. In 1937, the Olympic was finally sold for scrap and no longer exists.
Now getting into the theory, on September 20th of 1911, months before the Titanic set sail and sunk, the Olympic got in an accident with the HMS Hawk when they were off the coast of the Isle of Wight. This happened on the Olympics’ fifth voyage. The Hawk’s bow was originally designed to ram ships, needless to say it did some damage to the Olympic.
There were two large torn holes in the hull of the ship. One was above the water line but one was below so it began to flood. It wasn’t enough to sink the boat though and they made it to the shore of Southampton.
Here is a crazy tad bit that doesn’t have to do with this theory but I thought everyone would find interesting. Two crew members were on the Olympic when this collision started, they also survived the Titanic and then survived the Britannic sinking as well. So, these two crew members survived two ships sinking and one being hit and all three were from the same White Star Line.
That brings me to another point that I will reference later as well. These three ships all got intensely damaged (2 sunk, 1 was hit.) So, on one hand does that mean that the White Star Line manufactured bad ships and should’ve been held to a standard? It could, these people could’ve just created bad boats. However, the Olympic surviving WW1 kind of goes against that. So, on the other hand, were these three boats all sunk/injured due to being part of an insurance scam. So, let’s just keep going but keep that in mind.
After the Olympic and the Hawk collided it was determined that it was the Olympics’ fault. They had been going parallel and then the Olympic turned thus giving the Hawk no time to stop or turn out of the way and that is why they hit them. The Hawk had to be replaced completely so obviously, the Royal Navy was looking for monetary reparations.
This was essentially a disaster for the financial aspect of the Olympic. Due to this White Star Line was drowning in legal bills as well as repairing the ship. But they did continue to fix the ship. It was fixed in about 8 weeks, so it was ‘repaired’ months before the Titanic set sail. Then because of the money that was being used to fix the Olympic the titanic had to push back their launch. This in turn also cost the company money.
So, at this point White Star Line is in a lot of debt. Which means they would probably do almost anything to gain that money back or at least some money back. Which is where the theory really comes in.
Basically, people theorize that the Titanic did not go out. The titanic stayed on land. The Olympic was the ship that went out and famously sunk. People believe that the company did this so that they could get insurance money for the Olympic which was already a damaged ship and keep a brand-new ship. If they sent it out under the name Titanic then insurance didn’t have a reason to believe that there was anything wrong with it and the payout would be given since the sinking was no fault of their own. If the ship went out as the Olympic and sunk then insurance would not pay out due to it being already damaged due to its own fault.
Let’s talk about some of the things that people have used to back up this theory because this is one of my favorites. It is not crazy to think about, people commit insurance fraud everyday so why couldn’t the Titanic be an insurance scam? It makes more sense than almost any other conspiracy that I have looked at.
So, if they had switched the ships only four people would really know about it. These were the four people in charge: J. Bruce Ismay, Lord Pirrie, Thomas Andrews, and J.P. Morgan. That is not a lot of people to keep in line. Making sure four people stay quite is easier than many other things. To the normal eye the ships looked the same and you would not be able to tell the difference unless you looked at the nameplates.
Added to that is that Thomas Andrews died in the sinking of the Titanic. He could’ve gone along to try and make sure everything went as it should’ve and then he accidently died. In addition to that JP Morgan canceled his trip very last minute as did J Bruce Ismay’s wife and children. These were both said to be due to illness but they were seen not long after on vacation and not ill at all. Before his supposed illness, JP Morgan stated that he would 100% be on that ship. He also had many expensive statues removed before the supposed Titanic set sail.
So, at first, four men changing the place of the ships seems crazy but then you learn that they only would’ve had to change the nameplates in order to achieve what this conspiracy states. That is so much more doable.
Here is something that I feel is hard to dispel when looking at this theory. When the Titanic was being built, it shown 14 evenly spaced portholes. However, when it left for its first voyage it had 16 portholes that were unevenly spaced. How do you explain that one?
There are supposedly eye witness accounts from people who have built the Titanic stating that the two ships were in fact switched but White Star Lines threatened them so they didn’t talk until almost the end of their life. It is also stated that the families of these builders knew about the scam. James A Fenton was one of these people. Here is an excerpt from a letter between James and someone else:
"When the surviving crew got to port they were all taken aside and met by two men, one in a high position in the company, the other man was in a very high position in the Government. The Government man read the crew the “Official Secrets Act’ explaining that if they told of the real reason for the sinking, or the rumors of an insurance scam, they would serve a minimum of 20 years in jail and would never get a job when they got out."
Once the Olympic was taken out of service some of the boards were used inside special buildings in the UK. When these boards were there it was shown, they had the number 401, the number of the Titanic…not the Olympic, the Olympic number was 400. This means that the ship that was taken out of service in the 1930s was the Titanic rather than the Olymptic.
When looking at advertising for the Titanic it is seen that all pictures are of the Olympic and it’s interior, not the Titanic’s so that doesn’t make any sense.
Another thing, the SS Californian, the ship that went to the Aid of the Titanic after it sunk left London with no passengers, even though there were many that wanted to be. Instead they left with tons of blankets and clothes that were later used by those who survived the Titanic. Was this ship sent off without passengers so that it could save at least some of the individuals of the Titanic?
The supposed Titanic that sank and let over a thousand people die also did not have lengthy sea trials as the Olympic and many other ships before it did. This may have been because it was not the new Titanic but instead the injured Olympic and therefore it could not withstand the sea trials. They just needed to do enough so that it looked safe to sail on so they could sink it later on.
Some people claim that since the Titanic was only insured for 5 million although it cost 7.5 million means that the company would not have sunk it. Well, this theory agrees with that, they didn’t sink the Titanic. They built the new ship, the real titanic, and kept it while sinking the already broken and old ship, aka the Olympic, and then they still received 5 million which was probably far more than the Olympic was worth at that time.