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In the early hours of April 15, 1912, distress calls went out from the RMS Titanic in the North Atlantic Ocean. The Titanic was just four days into its maiden voyage from England to New York City when the ship suddenly hit an iceberg about 400 miles off the coast of Newfoundland.
The largest passenger liner of its time, the Titanic was once thought to be “unsinkable.” But just under three hours after the ship struck the iceberg, the ship had completely sunk, taking about 1,500 people down with it.
Afterward, conspiracies about why and how the Titanic sank abounded, ranging from the simple and plausible to the extreme and outlandish.
Here are seven of the most popular conspiracy theories about the Titanic.
The Conspiracy Theory That The Titanic Never Actually Sank At All
One of the most elaborate Titanic theories is that it wasn’t actually the Titanic that sank — it was the Titanic’s sister ship, the RMS Olympic. This theory has been around for decades, but it was popularized by Robin Gardiner’s 1998 book Titanic: The Ship that Never Sank?
The Titanic and the Olympic were both part of a trio of ships that had been commissioned for the White Star Line shipping company in the early 1910s. (The third ship in the trio was the RMS Britannic.)
In September 1911, the Olympic collided with another ship off the southern coast of the U.K., just months after it was completed. It had two large holes in the hull and damage to the propellor, requiring months of repairs — time and money that was supposed to go into preparing the Titanic.
So the conspiracy theory claims that to recover the money lost from the Olympic, the company simply sent the Olympic out instead of the Titanic. When the “Titanic” sank just days into its maiden voyage, the company would collect a large sum of insurance money on the “brand-new” ship.
Believers in this Titanic conspiracy theory point to physical and circumstantial evidence to make their case.
First, they say that while the Titanic and Olympic were very similar, there were small differences between them, such as their number of portholes. The Olympic had 16 portholes and the Titanic had 14. But photos of the Titanic’s maiden voyage appear to show a ship with 16 portholes.
Additionally, a number of high-profile passengers, including millionaire banker J.P. Morgan (who owned the ship), backed out of the voyage at the last minute. Believers claim this is because they knew the ship was doomed.
And one of the oddest unexplained occurrences at the time of the Titanic’s sinking was the behavior of the SS Californian. The Californian, which was also owned by J.P. Morgan, came under intense scrutiny after the Titanic sank, as it was the closest ship at the time of the crash and saw the doomed liner’s distress signals — but did not take any action to help.
The conspiracy theory claims that the Californian was intended to be the rescue ship for the Titanic’s planned crash, since it was carrying 3,000 wool blankets and sweaters, but no passengers. The ship’s inaction is believed by some to be the result of a miscalculation of the Titanic’s location.
However, the Olympic exchange theory has been debunked by experts, according to Reuters. Much of the “evidence” the theory points to is either incorrect or has an alternate explanation, especially the physical evidence.
For example, records show the Titanic did have 14 portholes at first, but two more were added before it left on its maiden voyage (the Olympic also originally had 14 portholes before two were added). And the Titanic was only insured at two-thirds of its cost, meaning if it sank, the White Star Line would still lose money, making the whole “insurance scam” a moot point.
J.P. Morgan Sank The Titanic To Kill His Rivals
While the Olympic exchange theory claims that J.P. Morgan was involved in the planned sinking of the Titanic, one other Titanic conspiracy theory claims that Morgan was the mastermind behind the entire plot.
Prior to the ship’s voyage, J.P. Morgan had been pushing for the creation of a centralized banking system in the United States, which would become the U.S. Federal Reserve. While Morgan decided not to board the Titanic, three other key players in the financial world did — and they died because of it.
Indeed, John Jacob Astor IV, Isidor Straus, and Benjamin Guggenheim all perished when the Titanic sank. And this conspiracy theory claims that J.P. Morgan sank the ship on purpose because Astor, Straus, and Guggenheim all opposed Morgan’s plan for the creation of the Federal Reserve.
This theory, like the Olympic exchange theory, points to the fact that J.P. Morgan cancelled his trip on the Titanic last minute. And an influential millionaire killing his rivals for money and power is certainly not unheard of.
However, there is no evidence that Astor, Straus, and Guggenheim opposed the creation of the Federal Reserve. In fact, Straus actually spoke out in favor of Morgan’s plan in 1911, according to The New York Times, and Astor and Guggenheim did not take a public stance on a centralized banking system.
That said, experts still debate why J.P. Morgan backed out of his trip, as there have been multiple explanations for his cancellation. It was initially reported that he fell ill, and he wanted to spend time with his mistress.
According to Reuters, Don Lynch, a historian at the Titanic Historical Society, suggested another potential reason: “One of J.P. Morgan’s biographers said that France was changing its laws to prevent Americans from exporting art treasures from that country, so Morgan went to Paris to oversee getting his purchases out of the country before the new laws went into effect.”
But regardless of what the real reason was, even if J.P. Morgan had planned for the ship to crash and kill his rivals, a lot of things would have had to go exactly right. There was no guarantee that all three of the wealthy men would perish in the crash, and a lot of other innocent people would also die.
As Reuters put it: “While it is true that J.P. Morgan owned the Titanic and did not sail on its doomed maiden voyage, there is no evidence to suggest he deliberately missed the trip because he knew the ship would sink. Historians have debated several reasons for Morgan to cancel his trip, but none is related to the Federal Reserve.”
The Titanic Conspiracy Theory That A Mummy Cursed The Ship
One Titanic conspiracy theory alleges that the ship sank due to a mummy’s curse — and this idea emerged shortly after the liner sank. On May 12, 1912, The Washington Post ran a story with this headline: “Ghost of the Titanic: Vengeance of Hoodoo Mummy Followed Man Who Wrote Its History.”
William T. Stead, a British editor who was a passenger on the Titanic, shared with his fellow passengers the tale of a cursed mummy, an ancient “Egyptian priestess” who brought misfortune, destruction, and even death to those who disturbed her — or even dared to share her story with the world.
“[Stead] told of one person after another who had come to disaster after writing its sinister history,” the Post article stated, as noted by Slate. “‘I know the story, but I shall never write it,’ added the veteran publicist.”
Within hours of Stead sharing this information with his fellow passengers, the Titanic crashed into an iceberg, and Stead sank to the bottom of the ocean along with it. This led some to believe that Stead talking about the mummy on the voyage doomed not only Stead, but hundreds of others.
This theory has expanded over the years to claim that the unlucky mummy was actually on board the Titanic, as some alleged the British Museum sold the mummy to an American who was traveling home on the Titanic.
But in reality, the so-called “cursed mummy” in question never left the British Museum — and it was actually just the coffin lid of the Priestess of Amun in the museum, not a full mummy. And cargo records for the Titanic don’t show any mummy ever being loaded on the ship.
As a Snopes article put it:
“A few days after the Titanic’s sinking, one of the survivors recounted Stead’s ‘cursed mummy’ tale in an interview with the New York World, and eventually the ghost story Stead and Murray invented, Stead’s presence aboard the Titanic, and reports of Stead’s having related the mummy tale to Titanic passengers became jumbled together, producing a new legend about an actual mummy aboard the Titanic.”
The Coal Fire Theory
Another theory claims that a raging fire in the Titanic’s coal bunkers weakened the ship’s hull in the exact place where the iceberg struck, allowing it to do much more damage than it would have otherwise.
“Just after survivors made landfall, several people who worked on the ship’s engines cited a coal fire as the cause of the shipwreck,” the Smithsonian Magazine explained. Irish journalist Senan Molony believes that the coal fire started as early as three weeks before the Titanic set sail, but it was covered up or downplayed to prevent any delays of the voyage.
The Titanic’s coal bunkers were right inside the hull of the ship, so excessive heat from a spontaneous fire would have directly damaged the hull itself. In recently discovered photos of the ship before it set sail, Molony found his “smoking gun” — a 30-foot-long black streak on the outside of the Titanic’s hull, in the same area where it would fatefully hit the iceberg.
“We asked some naval architects what this could be, and nobody knew and everybody was intrigued,” Molony said. “The best suggestion at the time was that this was a reflection.” But engineers from Imperial College London believe that the streak came from the coal fire right inside the hull.
An article from the New York Tribune published shortly after survivors made it back to land details an early version of this theory, as reported by Snopes.
“The fire must have been raging long before she pulled out of her pier in Southampton, for the bunker was a raging hell when, one hour out past the Needles, the fire was discovered,” said an officer of the ship who requested to remain anonymous due to warnings to not talk about the fire. He added, “In my opinion, this fire played no small part in the disaster.”
The structural damage caused by the coal fire is not the only way the fire could have played a role in the Titanic’s sinking. Proponents of the coal fire theory believe that the ship’s crew members attempted to contain and control the fire by burning coal at a faster rate, increasing the ship’s speed.
The Titanic was traveling at 22 knots the night of the collision, which was close to its maximum speed, despite receiving multiple warnings of icebergs in the area. At first, it was believed the captain wanted the ship at top speed, either to break a speed record or to make sure the ship wouldn’t arrive late to New York. But the coal fire theory asserts that the reason the ship was traveling so fast was because it was burning up the smoldering coal.
Whether or not the fire happened is not in question; the coal fire theory asserts that the deadly crash was a direct result of the damage from the fire. And not everyone agrees with that idea.
“A fire may have accelerated this. But in my view, the Titanic would have sunk anyways,” said David Hill, a former honorary secretary of the British Titanic Society, in an interview with The New York Times.
The Titanic Conspiracy Theory That The Ship Was Attacked By A German U-Boat
German U-boats are most closely associated with World War I and World War II, but the first one produced for the German Empire was actually commissioned in 1906. And a number of other U-boats were ordered after SM U-1 — years before the first world war broke out.
This brings us to the next Titanic conspiracy theory — that the doomed ship was covertly attacked by an early German U-boat. This bizarre theory emerged out of the fact that a German U-boat sank the British liner RMS Lusitania near Ireland three years after the tragedy of the Titanic, killing nearly 1,200 passengers and crew members in May 1915.
A few months prior to the sinking, Germany had declared a war zone around the British Isles, meaning that any Allied ships traveling in the area were at risk of being attacked. Just before the Lusitania made its return voyage from New York back to Liverpool, the Imperial German Embassy issued an ominous warning to travelers, including those on the Lusitania.
“NOTICE! TRAVELLERS intending to embark on the Atlantic voyage are reminded that a state of war exists between Germany and her allies and Great Britain and her allies; that the zone of war includes the waters adjacent to the British Isles; that, in accordance with formal notice given by the Imperial German Government, vessels flying the flag of Great Britain, or of any of her allies, are liable to destruction in those waters and that travellers sailing in the war zone on ships of Great Britain or her allies do so at their own risk,” the Imperial German Embassy advised on April 22, 1915, according to The Washington Times (an older newspaper that ceased production in 1939, not the current newspaper by the same name).
While the Titanic sank three years prior to the attack on the Lusitania and before the onset of World War I, some wondered whether the Titanic could have been an early attack on the British by Germany.
A number of Titanic survivors did testify that they never felt or heard the collision with the iceberg, explained actor and ufologist Dr. Franklin Ruehl in a HuffPost article. However, these survivors did say they heard four “reports” (explosions) coming from the bottom of the Titanic — after it had already scraped the iceberg. Ruehl claims these explosions could have hypothetically been torpedoes from a U-boat.
Additionally, some survivors on the Titanic and some crew members of the Californian, the nearest ship to the Titanic at the time it sank, attested that there was another, smaller ship between the Titanic and the Californian.
“Several sailors on watch asserted that they witnessed an unidentified vessel approximately 5 to 6 miles away until about 2 a.m., possibly a submarine that had surfaced to assess the damage it had caused, after which time it skulked off,” Ruehl wrote.
That said, there is no hard evidence to prove that a German U-boat caused the Titanic to sink, either intentionally or unintentionally, and this theory remains one of the most obscure ones on this list.
The Titanic Conspiracy Theory About The Ship’s Alleged “Secret Message”
One Titanic conspiracy theory out there goes so far as to suggest the ship was cursed because it carried a secret anti-Catholic message.
The theory claims that the Titanic’s hull number was 3909 04 — which, if read as a mirror image, appears to spell the phrase “NO POPE.”
Believers allege that Catholic workers on the Titanic realized this and were horrified by the message that had been sent by their shipbuilding company, Harland and Wolff. They also believed the ship was doomed to sink.
At the time of the construction of the Titanic, Harland and Wolff was located in Belfast, Ireland, where conflict between Catholics and Protestants was ever-growing. Reports from the time state that many Catholics who worked at shipyards were subjected to harassment and attacks from Protestants.
But did Catholic workers at Harland and Wolff really spot an anti-pope message on the Titanic — and predict its fate ahead of time?
All in all, this theory appears to be nothing more than urban legend.
There is no documentation of the number 3909 04 appearing anywhere on the Titanic, or in anything related to the ship. According to Snopes, “[the Titanic’s] official Board of Trade designation was 131,428, and the yard number assigned to her by Harland & Wolff was 401.”
And it’s highly unlikely that there would be any Catholic employees at Harland and Wolff at the time to warn people of the “cursed” number. Author Annie Caulfield writes that “by the twentieth century, Harland and Wolff had a reputation for only employing Protestants.”
Cutting Corners To Save Money
Probably the most plausible Titanic conspiracy theory out there is that the builders of the doomed vessel used substandard materials while constructing the ship that paved the way for such a deadly disaster.
Harland and Wolff, the company that built the Titanic, opted to use low-quality iron rivets, as opposed to higher-quality steel rivets, on the stern and bow of the ship. The substandard rivets may have been less expensive, but the steel rivets were much stronger, and competing companies had fully switched to using steel rivets years before the Titanic was built.
“Scientists have argued that the storied liner went down fast after hitting an iceberg because the ship’s builder used substandard rivets that popped their heads and let tons of icy seawater rush in,” The New York Times said in 2008.
Analysis of the Titanic’s wreckage showed that Harland and Wolff did, in fact, use some steel rivets — but only in the central hull. Wrought iron rivets were used on the bow, where the Titanic struck the iceberg. And Timothy Foecke of the National Institute of Standards and Technology and co-author of What Really Sank the Titanic, said that the damage to the Titanic “ends close to where the rivets transition from iron to steel.”
This isn’t to say that the ship wouldn’t have sank after hitting the iceberg if steel rivets had been used throughout — but it could have potentially made the disaster less deadly. As The New York Times put it: “The scientists argue that better rivets would have probably kept the Titanic afloat long enough for rescuers to arrive before the icy plunge, saving hundreds of lives.”
Instead, the sinking of the Titanic was a historic tragedy caused by a perfect storm of unlucky circumstances and a fateful collision with an iceberg. And ultimately, the “unsinkable” ship was anything but.
After reading about the wildest Titanic conspiracy theories, check out these photos of the Titanic before and after it sank. Or, read about these 9/11 conspiracy theories that many people actually believe to be true.
