Monday 29 October 2018

The Titanic-Olympic Switch

The story we were all told about the sinking of the RMS Titanic was a lie all along. Yes a ship did sink and plenty of people died, but it was in fact the RMS Olympic disguised as the Titanic sunk intentionally as an insurance scam by J.P. Morgan because earlier damage to the Olympic rendered her a liability. This is a conspiracy theory that pops up in many a Titanic discussion on the Internet (in part because of a popular Shane Dawson video where he parrots a conspiracy book without looking into anything critically). So is there any truth to the Switch conspiracy? (Hint: No)

This article is essentially an extended version of a Twitter thread that can be found here: https://twitter.com/Sarochi1/status/1055128499185467392. With some added screenshots from the video game Titanic: Adventure Out of Time (1996) so I can at least pretend I made some video game-related posts this year. 


Were Titanic and Olympic Switched?
No, They Were Not
Titanic: Adventure Out of Time
Titanic: Adventure Out of Time (1996)


For a comprehensive analysis on why the switch didn't take place, there's the dedicated website The Titanic 'Switch' Theory Exposed. As a more easily digestible version in video format there's also Myles Power's 'Did the Titanic Really Sink? The Olympic Switch Theory Debunked'. My own research into the Switch Theory is much less extensive as I was only really interested in the Titanic disaster itself ("The Night" as I now mentally refer to it thanks to the books by Walter Lord and the 1958 film) when I accidented upon the conspiracy theory and immediately recognized several gaping holes in what was claimed. As such this is much less supposed to be the definitive evidence that a switch did not happen, but more like my homework in how I arrived to said conclusion based on the posited evidence not making a shred of sense. Throwing around more weight to debunk this conspiracy theory is a nice bonus.


1. The Difference in Windows Between Titanic and Olympic

Infographic 1
The first infographic (left) that proponents of the Switch Theory tend to show as evidence is one that supposedly reveals the difference in windows between the ship resting at the bottom of the North Atlantic, and the windows on the actual RMS Titanic ("Just count the windows", as they say). The sunken ship shows thin windows with uneven spaces between them, while the actual Titanic (again, supposedly) had larger square windows that were evenly spaced. The second infographic, usually posted alongside the first one (and shown below), also shows the same difference in windows between the RMS Olympic and the RMS Titanic. This one also reveals that the picture of the 'real' Titanic was taken during her construction rather than during her fatal maiden voyage, plainly obvious by the lack of her four iconic smokestacks and the clearly unfinished upper deck. It also shows that "Olympic" had her A-deck partially enclosed while "Titanic" had not. However it of course makes sense to use this earlier construction picture of Titanic when you believe that the ship that left Southampton on the 10th of April 1912 was in fact the Olympic. 

Infographic 2
Unfortunately it only makes sense when you believe the ship that left Southampton was the Olympic. In truth this supposed evidence for the switch is nothing more than the conspiracy theorists working backwards from their conclusion (or simply outright lying). The picture of the RMS Olympic that is being shown is in fact the Titanic departing from Southampton as photographed by F.G.O Stuart. It is no big surprise that a picture of the ship, already allegedly switched, days prior to her sinking would resemble the ship that actually sank on voyage. Since the full picture also clearly shows the name "TITANIC" on her bow (shown below), Infographic 2 can be easily discarded for telling us absolutely nothing.

To show just how silly this sounds, what Infographic 2 essentially claims is: "The ship named Titanic that left Southampton is the same ship at the bottom of the ocean. Therefore it is actually the Olympic."

Infographic 2 overlaid at 50% opacity with F.G.O Stuart's
photograph of Titanic departing Southampton.

Of course this only shows that the evidence is inconclusive. To completely sink (pun convenient) this evidence however requires us to go back in time before Titanic's maiden voyage. If the ships were indeed switched, it would stand to reason that post-disaster Olympic had the large windows that were evenly spaced. Therefore what we need to look for is pictures of Olympic prior to Titanic's maiden voyage.
Several such pictures of Olympic exist (during her sea trials in 1911 for example) but conveniently one exists that is explicitly dated 6/21/1911, almost a full year before Titanic's maiden voyage. As we can clearly see, she does have big windows evenly spaced apart. We can also clearly see that her promenade on A-deck wasn't enclosed while the Titanic that left Southampton had the enclosure (and also that her enclosure on B-deck stretched further backwards).

Arrival "Olympic" 6/21/11

Why then do these pictures of Titanic during construction exist where she also has the large, evenly spaced windows and the open A-deck? The answer is that both ships were built from the same basic plans since they both belonged to White Star's Olympic-class, but during Titanic's fitting she had several improvements done to her as suggested by J. Bruce Ismay from their experience with the Olympic after almost a year of usage. The most visible of those were the partially closed-off A-Deck promenade, and changes to B-Deck where the open promenade was sacrificed for more luxurious state rooms, private promenades for wealthy passengers and the Cafe Parisian (these resulted in the smaller windows being installed in some parts). Later several of Titanic's improvements were also added to Olympic, but Olympic's A-Deck remained open for her entire life in service.

To switch the ships over would then in fact require quite a bit of extensive remodeling to both ships rather than just switching some names around, and it seems even more unlikely that this could have been done in secret during a single weekend as is often claimed. (As well as being very costly when the point of the switch would be to recover cost)

RMS Olympic damaged in collision with the HMS Hawke
The final nail in the coffin are pictures that exist of the RMS Olympic showing the damage she had sustained from her collision with the HMS Hawke on 20 September 1911. Full pictures of the Olympic with the damage are apparently hard to come by (larger views exist but I don't have that kind of license money) but even from partial views it is obvious B-Deck isn't nearly as closed off as on the ship that left Southampton (on Titanic that would be the location of the Cafe Parisian), and there is no hint of an enclosure at all on A-Deck. So even if one were to assume that other Olympic pictures were improperly dated, it would be hard to argue that the ship showing the Hawke damage could be anything except the actual RMS Olympic since recovering from the loss of said collision is the entire reason why the switch supposedly happened in the first place.


Cafe Parisian location in Titanic: Adventure Out Of Time (1996)

There is no conclusive evidence in video game screenshots of the event of course but thanks to the extensive research by the developers these pictures of B-Deck from Titanic: Adventure Out of Time did help me picture the dimensions of the area that we are talking about. Titanic's B-Deck promenade is cut off almost immediately by the Cafe Parisian where on Olympic above this area would have been entirely open.  

B-Deck Starboard in Titanic: Adventure Out Of Time (1996)

Titanic: Adventure Out Of Time is handily available on Steam or GOG and handily comes with a tour function if you want to check it out yourself. It is actually rather weird because it involves time travel from World War II back to Titanic to alter the course of history.


2. The Letters "MP" on the Titanic wreck

There is an image of the wreck where the letters "MP" for "OLYMPIC" are visible where the letters from Titanic supposedly fell off. However this image came from shitty CGI made for "Titanic: The Shocking Truth" that is obviously fake once you see it in motion. It even seems like they created the rusted model first and then engraved the MP over it by how clean the edges are, and then added some rusticles over it to try to hide that fact. Overall it is very clear why this picture usually only shows up in poor quality with some filters over it, otherwise this would fool nobody. I suppose by 90's standards the makers of the documentary expected people to be less attuned to spotting bad CGI.
In truth the letters for Titanic weren't riveted on the bow plates at all, they were engraved (without embossing) and are still visible in actual footage of the wreck. If there really was an "MP" on the bow, you would think Dr. Robert Ballard (who rediscovered the ship) or James Cameron (who has spent more time with the ship than its actual passengers) would have mentioned it. Instead Dr. Robert Ballard believes that it really is the Titanic. Since the only evidence for these letters comes from this fabricated footage, there is simply no weight to this claim. It does however show the desperation required to make the Switch Theory's case.

3. Conclusion

Without actually having read Robin Gardiner's book on the subject or the documentary inspired by it (because it honestly feels like a massive waste of time and money when Myles Power's video already goes a long way in debunking them and his facts on Titanic match my understanding while the snippets I've seen of the former don't), the Switch Theory seems nothing more than a cheap attempt at capitalizing on James Cameron's movie that gets spread by people eager to find villains in disasters. The effort to maintain the secret even over a 100 years after the person who supposedly orchestrated it died would be so tremendous and require so much resources that the insurance scam would be rendered irrelevant in the total loss. The shipwreck has been explored and remnants of the dismantled Olympic still exist after all, everyone who examined them would have to be silenced too. Considering the documents of the insurance also still exist, that would mean the conspiracy for the insurance scam reaches so far that it includes the people being scammed.

In short, this conspiracy theory is so ridiculously flawed that it is not worth taking seriously.


The real question is: why is this lady explaining how she
escaped the sinking of a ship we are currently on?

4. Links & References

Images from:
- TitanicSwitch.comTitanic Switch: Olympic's name on Titanic Wreck
- Titanic: Adventure Out of Time (1996): GOG, Steam
- Wikimedia Commons (Titanic (ship, 1912), Olympic (ship, 1910, Belfast))

3 comments:

  1. Author/researcher John Hamer for his switch research (which he spent 3 years investigating), believes that the changes to both ships wheree done "piecemeal" fashion, that is that each change was done overtime bit by bit, making one ship look like the other. Olympic's lifeeboats when launched and during her 5 transatlantic crossings where all painted white, but sometime during Olympic's time in Beflast for repairs the ship's lifeboats where now brown around the gunwhales like Titanic's, and also 2 additional portholes where added to the portside of the bow. Strange this was needed when they urgently needed Olympic back in service as quick as possible.

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  2. Having extensively researched the Titanic, I can say with confidence that the ship at the bottom of the sea is indeed the titanic. The window shape argument is actually a bit of a con. If you study blueprints of the titanic you would see that the windows at the aft of the ship are actually asymmetrical, as in on one side they are thin irregularly spaced windows, which coincide with internal bays in the restaurant. However on the cafe Parisian side they were larger and more evenly spaced to give a more airy feel to the cafe and give a panoramic view of the sea. most of the photo's showing the evenly spaced square windows are actually of the cafe Parisian side, but flipped to look like are on the other side! once you know that there were two different window layouts on either side the conspiracy theory looks very lame. The other detail that debunks the conspiracy is that the Olympic was numbered 400 while the Titanic was 401, every single piece of there ship from the woodwork to the cutlery and linen were stamped with the ships number. Every item recovered from the wreck is numbered 401, not 400! to have switched all of there ships contents and woodwork in one weekend is physically impossible

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  3. I don't understand why people are so hostile toward "conspiracy theorists". There were a lot of odd things that happened that night, if people want to question stuff then let them and correct them, but this attitude people have is odd. It's like you're personally offended when someone questions something...

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