Talk:Titanic conspiracy theories

message: Some conspiracy theorists believe that the Titanic was sunk on purpose to eliminate opposition to the creation of the Federal Reserve Bank. Some of the wealthiest men in the world were aboard the Titanic for its maiden voyage. Several of whom includingJohn Jacob Astor IV, Benjamin Guggenheim, andIsidor Straus were allegedly opposed to the creation of a U.S. central bank. All three men died during the sinking. Conspiracy theorists suggest that J.P. Morgan, the legendary 74-year-old financier who set up the investment banking firm that still bears his name, arranged to have the men board the ship and then sink it to eliminate them. Morgan, nicknamed the “Napoleon of Wall Street,” had helped createGeneral Electric, U.S. Steel and International Harvester, and was credited with almost single-handedly saving the U.S. banking system during thePanic of 1907. Morgan did have a hand in the creation of the Federal Reserve, and owned theInternational Mercantile Marine, which owned the White Star Line, and thus the Titanic, but that is about where the evidence for the conspiracy theory ends.[5][6]
Morgan, who had attended the Titanic's launching in 1911, had a personal suite aboard the ship with his own private promenade deck and a bath equipped with specially designed cigar holders. He was reportedly booked on the ship's maiden voyage but instead canceled the trip and remained at the French resort of Aix-les-Bains to enjoy his morning massages and sulfur baths.[6] His last-minute cancellation has fueled speculation among conspiracy theorists that he knew her fate.
Edit: This is all wrong, Titanic sank by a iceberg because at night, the could not see well and they did not have their binoculars, therefore, they hit the iceberg, sank slowly bow first, (did not sink sideways) and snapped in half in center, and then sank completely.    Whoever made that area, please fix it, it drives me crazy about people who get titanic sinking wrong, and yes, i am correct, I'M A EXPERT AT TITANIC! I STUDY IT EVERY DAY!  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1017:B111:F17A:DCF6:70E0:CF19:C131 (talk) 22:50, 16 September 2017 (UTC)
thread_title: Purposely sunk

message: Not sure if it belongs here, but, the latest I've heard is, the 'berg didn't "push in" her plate, it popped her rivets because the iron in them was brittle (or the plate was).  Trekphiler 09:07, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: 'berg and debunking

message: So, where is the mummy? First time i read the article. Did the mummy exist before the trip? Where is it now? --Striver 13:55, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Not quite, Desperadonige.  A gentleman named W.T. Stead wrote a fictious horror story regarding a particular mummy in the British Museum.  After Stead went down with the Titanic, the story arose that the mummy itself had been on the ship.  Not true--the mummy remains in the British Museum to this day.  Snopes has a pretty decent article on it.  Mgy401 1912 (talk) 16:16, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Mummy

message: Now reads: 'Titanic spent many hours at high speed (for the day, 20+ knots qualified as high speed) on all three days of her voyage (confirmed by both ship's logs and passenger reports), invalidating the assertion that she was somehow speed-restricted during her voyage.'
The statement that reciprocating engines vibrated badly at speeds above 15-18 knots is not accurate, and demonstrably wrong by referring to Olympic's performance in service (and passenger accounts from Titanic).--81.129.214.253 18:56, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reciprocating Engine Vibration 

message: "The Titanic was sunk on purpose due to insurance claims. The ship captain directed the ship towards the iceberg and then into it, he planned to survive and inherit the insurance, however he also died along with most of the other passengers".
Text moved by Jbhood 18:47, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Isolated text moved from article

message: Now that the section describing Gardiner's theory is closer to WP:  NPOV, my above draft may be overkill.  How about simply adding the following:
:Researchers Bruce Beveridge and Steve Hall took issue with many of Gardiner's claims in their book, Olympic and Titanic:  The Truth Behind the Conspiracy.  [Footnote to the full cite of the book].  Author Mark Chirnside has also raised serious questions about the switch theory. [Footnote to link to his paper] Mgy401 1912 (talk) 15:40, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: In full agreement with the above. The limitations and flaws in Gardiner's conjecture need to be noted, somewhere, or the NPOV policy becomes meaningless. It doesn't require any great expertise, or research, to detect the most obvious flaw in Gardiner's ideas. If there ever had been a conspiracy to dispose of the ship, it would have been obvious to even the most dimwitted conspirators that the logical time to arrange the deed would have been during the sea passage from Belfast to Southampton. In other words, before the ship was boarded by the rich, the influential and the litigious!   signed J.Fowler.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.22.25.105 (talk) 14:23, 4 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: doesn't hurt to re-read one's own comments before posting some authoritatively asserted nonsense.24.11.214.147 (talk) 17:58, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

text:  When an advocate resorts to slurs, it's a sure sign he doesn't have any confidence in the merits of his case ! signed J. Fowler  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.1.47.231 (talk) 18:45, 4 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: New proposed draft

message: I believe the primary source for this has been a documentary that aired on the History Channel some time back.  However, Long's theories have now apparently been included in a companion book called Titanic's Last Secrets: The Further Adventures of Shadow Divers John Chatterton and Richie Kohler by Brad Matsen (Twelve:  2008) ().  I haven't read the book, but I'm told it contains some discussion of Long's theories and is probably as good a source as we'll find for this section.  Mgy401 1912 (talk) 18:21, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Expansion Joint Theory

message: I have heard for many years that one of the courses that the Titanic had, was because that statement that "it is a Ship that even God Can't Sink". I don’t know if any of you have heard about it before, but there is a kind of belief that nobody must challenge the Lord. There are persons who believe that this is the same reason why John Lennon was shot (remember, the Beatles and Christ analogy)
Probably for many people it would sound ridiculous, but is part of pop culture and an urban myth.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.134.69.125 (talk) 19:24, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  What about the power of God? 

message: Would anyone object if I redirected to Sinking of the RMS Titanic and merged a note on these into that article? Biruitorul Talk 04:46, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd hope not. It seems this was initially split out from the article on the Titanic because it cluttered the article with silly conspiracy theories. Seems like much of the more credulous stuff could be removed using Snopes as a resource. John Nevard (talk) 10:29, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: OK, I'm going ahead with the merge. Biruitorul Talk 21:40, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I have restored the text. i am not trying to circumvent past discussions, but it appears there is some consensus in favor of the article. thanks. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 20:22, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I think we should give the article a chance, too. Cenarium Talk 09:37, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Merging

message: NJGW, as I understand it, you're wanting to eliminate the "References" section and move the full publication details of the cited books into the footnotes themselves.  I have no problem with that--the prior regimen was implemented by Cenarium on October 4th, and I am willing to defer to the judgment of others--but I'm concerned that your most recent edit may have inadvertently lost some of the details for Lynch & Marschall, Lord, and Ballard.  I've restored them for the present, but will leave the final clean-up for someone more knowledgeable about citing formats than I. Mgy401 1912 (talk) 20:15, 11 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I think everything's mostly OK now.  Let me know if not.  Mgy401 1912 (talk) 20:48, 11 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: It's good enough for government work ;-)  Much better now that there are no duplications of inline and endnote citations.  In general, the in-line style (what you're referring to as footnotes) is the more accepted form of creating references on Wikipedia.  They can also be used with the 'group' argument to create a separate Notes section when needed.  Good job fixing this, and sorry about the confusion.  NJGW (talk) 20:58, 11 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Source Clean-Up, November 2008

message: Ever since this section was added I've been disinclined to have it remain in the article, since 1) Snopes debunks the story pretty well at http://www.snopes.com/history/titanic/trapped.asp, and 2) I'm not sure the article should really diverge into "ghost stories" (for the same reason, I'm going to de-emphasize the supernatural by moving the "Mummy" section to the end of the article).  When the "Entombed Hull Worker" section was added I figured I'd wait and see if anyone could provide a source; as that hasn't happened in nearly a month I've now removed it.  Please feel free to revert if you can provide a reliable source.  Mgy401 1912 (talk) 17:09, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Entombed Hull Worker

message: I added this to the article but removed it when I was asked for a ref. it's a video. I've been asked to place the link on this talk page because it may actually be of use. i'm trying to find a better ref. but here's the link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4JY5RSTZcQ --VampireKen (talk) 21:24, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: After watch that video and a few others, here's what I found:  this isn't an alternative hypothesis about why the Titanic sank, it's an alternative hypothesis about what happened once the ship was already sunk.  Check out this video.  I don't think it's about the same topic as the rest of the article.  NJGW (talk) 05:52, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: At the risk of sounding like a pompous jackass, I have a fairly extensive Titanic library and keep a pretty close ear to the ground on the major Titanic discussion forums.  This is the first I've heard of any capsize theory (which is not the same as the scenario presented in the video NJGW linked to--that is the "expansion joints theory" already discussed within the article).  I'm not sure that theories posited for the first time in a YouTube video rise to Wikipedia's notability requirements--at least, not until they've generated some real discussion/controversy.  Feel free to prove me wrong, though.  :-)  Mgy401 1912 (talk) 19:39, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: capsizing

message: Removed strange addition about sea monster. No citations and poor capitalization made it sound like a joke. ReelExterminator (talk) 01:34, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Sea Monster

message: See Titanic#Alternative_theories from the main article. hydnjo (talk) 01:17, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Most recent

message: Deitz, D. (1998). How did the Titanic sink?. Mechanical Engineering, 120(8), 54. 
In this article it explains a few of the different theories that were formed about how and why the Titanic Sunk. I find that when it discusses the rivets most interesting. This article is also very broad in the sense that it goes through more than one theory as to why the Titanic sank.I also like when the article discusses modern computer models that where run to see exactly how it sank.  
New data support Titanic rivet theory. (1999). Quality Progress, 32(3), 20. 
This particular article provides the actual theory behind the Rivet failures and how they failed if that was what happened.
Chrispy824 (talk) 19:04, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rivet Failure Theory 

message: The line: ...there were no watertight doors between any of the first four compartments -- contradicts the evidence, e.g.: Comprehensive Floor Plans, F-Deck shows: 'W.T.D.' (water-tight door) in W.T.B. 'C' (water-tight barrier 'C', separating 3rd and 4th compartments). ~Eric F 98.26.28.41 (talk) 17:37, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Closed watertight doors 

message: I have moved and reworked the line New pictures have emerged from the wreck site that clearly where two riveted plates spelling Titanic fell of the wreck with the letters MP stamped into the hull thereby give a high level of certainty that the switch had occurred as all other White Star Line Ships had the name engraved into the hull plating and not riveted to the hull. as it was out of place where it existed and disrupted the flow of its surrounding paragraphs. It also used charged words such as "high level of certainty", so I have toned it down to be more neutral.
I also merged it with the line Gardiner states that few parts of either ship bore the name, other than the easily removed lifeboats, bell, compass binnacle, and name plates., which was out of place in the context of its paragraph.
DiscantX (talk) 10:57, 24 November 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Riveted Plates 

message: A discussion concerning this article is now taking place at the Fringe Theories Noticeboard. Interested editors are invited to join the discussion and/or to help improve the article. -13:43, 15 April 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: I suggest posting tis at the FTN discussion. -Ad Orientem (talk) 19:05, 21 April 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Promotion of Fringe Theories w/o Providing Mainstream Response 

message: Are this article's authors only interested in the fringiest theories?   The known existence of coal fire in a bunker in the Titanic -- a fire which started days before she arrived at Southhampton and was -not ever- put out -- and which Ismay ordered the crew to keep silent about -- needs to be addressed if this article is to carry any weight. Twang (talk) 03:42, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Coal fire 

message: "....the legendary 74-year-old financier...." wasn't "legendary"  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.72.100.111 (talk) 04:10, 16 April 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  a comment 

message: maybe the breakup of the ship was done at the sea floor  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.72.100.111 (talk) 04:20, 16 April 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  a notice 

message: It's not sufficient to have two sentences only paying lip service to the rebuttals after 10 long paragraphs going over the switch theory in detail. It's effectively an endorsement of the theory and doesn't come close to acknowledging the very thorough debunking that was given. In my experience, people won't click on those links and do the legwork themselves, they'll see that page and come to the conclusion the theory is true due to a lack of a substantial response.
Is it possible to give the rebuttal at least equal length to the theory itself?SOSCQDDEMGY (talk) 01:00, 2 May 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Expanding on the rebuttals to Gardiner's swap theory 

message: Is it worth reporting the "German submarine" theory, or is that just such utter nonsense that it doesn't belong? It is something I've seen before.  Herostratus (talk) 16:47, 1 May 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  German submarine? 

message: In what way is this a list of conspiracy theories?
From the Wikipedia article on conspiracy:
"A conspiracy, also known as a plot, is a secret plan or agreement between persons (called conspirers or conspirators) for an unlawful or harmful purpose, such as murder or treason, especially with political motivation, while keeping their agreement secret from the public or from other people affected by it."
A fire in a coal bunker is not a conspiracy. The ship hitting pack ice rather than an iceberg is not a conspiracy.
Only two of the six (one third) on the list actually meet the definition of a conspiracy. 82.34.149.140 (talk) 20:02, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks, your point is entirely valid (at least in my opinion). But for various reasons (such as better visibility at the bottom, and the next section's name which may well give the misleading impression that the problem is already being addressed elsewhere, etc), I have now shifted the rest of my response to the next-but-one new section below. Tlhslobus (talk) 12:05, 20 September 2020 (UTC)
thread_title: {{anchor|Rename0}} Conspiracy theories? 

message: There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Titanic which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you.  —RMCD bot 18:33, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: The above move was carried out, and it changed "RMS Titanic" to "Titanic" in many article names. But it did not address the unsatisfactory name of this article, as discussed in the preceding section, and in the new section that I am about to add.Tlhslobus (talk) 12:24, 20 September 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Move discussion in progress 

message: (To the author of the previous-but-one section above, thanks, your point is entirely valid (at least in my opinion)). There are only two conspiracy theories in the lead, and seemingly only one of them appears in the text (which, at least as far as I can see, has no mention of, let alone citations for, the current lead's "Morgan wanted to murder some other bankers" nonsense). The current title and lead thus damn all the other theories as "conspiracy theories" when most are nothing of the kind. Unfortunately, per WP:BNO and WP:NOTCOMPULSORY, I'm probably not sufficiently interested to try to fix it myself, which might involve lots of hard work, etc, but other more interested editors might want to try, and I would probably briefly vote in support of most reasonable article renaming proposals in some relevant RFC (if I am made aware of them, as I probably won't be keeping this page on my watchlist). I don't know whether or not it's OK for somebody to try, per WP:BOLD and WP:IAR and WP:5P5, to rename it without the hassle of calling an RFC, although the problem with that might be that it's not clear what the proper new name should be.
However, the article already has at least one other name (Titanic alternate theories) which redirects to here. This/these name(s) might not necessarily be ideal, but it/they are almost certainly better than the current one. So it might be simplest to just move all the text to (one of) the alternative(s), and change the current article into a redirect to there, per WP:BOLD and WP:IAR and WP:5P5, with or without a subsequent RFC to discuss an optimal name (but this would also require amending the other article(s) that redirect to here, such as RMS Titanic alternative theories, and I don't know how to find all of these). Either way the lead needs to be amended to make it clear that many of these theories are not conspiracy theories, and something needs to be done about the 'Morgan murders bankers' nonsense. Tlhslobus (talk) 12:29, 20 September 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: "However, many of the other theories here are not conspiracy theories."
This arguably fixes the worst problem, at least temporarily. However an article rename, and a better lead re-write, are probably still needed. And the 'Morgan murders bankers' stuff still needs to be addressed. And there may or may not currently be some need to indicate which theories are conspiracy theories, which aren't, and which are arguably somewhere in between. But that may not be easy. For example, the coal fire, and its supposed weakening of the structure, is not a conspiracy theory, while claims that it helped bring about the decision to travel at higher speed arguably is a conspiracy theory. But even that is debatable, as, for instance, a conspiracy has to be for an immoral purpose, and increasing speed to try to make passengers safer is not immoral (and arguably neither is staying quiet to avoid causing unnecessary alarm and distress, etc), tho it presumably becomes a conspiracy theory if the theorist claims that some of this is immoral. And finding reliable sources to support any such categorizations is also presumably often not easy. Such complications help explain the rather unfortunate presence of the weasel word 'many' in the above-mentioned sentence which I have added to the lead (as a temporary fix, justified by WP:BOLD and WP:IAR and WP:5P5 and WP:WORKINPROGRESS). But such tricky categorization may well come to seem unnecessary after an article name change and a suitable suitable re-write of the lead. Tlhslobus (talk) 13:17, 20 September 2020 (UTC)

text: Oppose move Reliable sources overwhelmingly refer to "conspiracy theories." Until that changes, that's what we go with. -Ad Orientem (talk) 21:13, 22 September 2020 (UTC)

text: I do not understand why "However, many of the other theories here are not conspiracy theories." was deleted with a summary "WP:OR".  None of the refs that I have been able to access quickly for Expansion joints and Fire describe them as conspiratorial (caveat: I have not been able to access all the references); and Watertight doors claim is without any reference at all for the hypothesis itself.  If there are not sufficient RS describing these three as conspiratorial then the OR is in claiming that they are, by including them in this article.  I propose reinserting that helpful sentence, as the interim measure that was originally intended, until there has been proper discussion of of the article title and structure.  I do think that this material should be in WP and that merging it in the main article will cause WP:undue problems. Davidships (talk) 02:19, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
thread_title: {{anchor|Rename2}} Rename article, and amend lead, so most theories are not wrongly damned as 'conspiracy theories' 

message: I'm shocked this isn't mentioned here, at all.  This is probably one of the most notable conspiracy theories regarding the Titanic sinking.  I know most people here wont like these links, because they weren't written by a professor.  57.135.233.22 (talk) 10:11, 12 December 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  German Torpedo