Titanic Copycat.................Arion

The story of the Titanic and its great tragedy is something we hear about again and again. From the DiCaprio movie to endless documentaries, the story is familiar to everybody. But how many of you are aware that it had actually been foretold more than ten years before it occurred?

In 1898, 14 years before the ship set sail, an American novelist named Morgan Robertson published a thriller he had titled, "The Wreck of the Titan; or, Futility.". It was a book about a cruise ship built to outdo and out-perform any other ship on the high seas, and it was so big and majestic that it was christened, Titan. In Greek Mythology, the Titans were a cross between gods and forces of nature; they were larger than humans, more powerful than anything previously living, and they had powers & abilities that set them apart. The name seemed fitting.

In Robertson's book, Titan cruises around the world on several voyages for about three years. It sets many records, and people begin to talk about it being the final proof that man is more powerful than nature. Then, as though to chastise that kind of thinking, Titan meets something that it cannot simply push aside. The great ship smashes into an iceberg head-on! The damage is something it cannot recover from, and the ship sinks to the bottom of the ocean.

Sounds eerily familiar, doesn't it? Both Titan and Titanic were larger than anything afloat; both were pronounced 'unsinkable'; both were outfitted with every possible luxury; both hit icebergs; both of the crashes occurred in the Atlantic Ocean; both were off the northeast coast of North America; and both ships sank.

Did the officials at the White Star Line, which built the Titanic ever read Robertson's book? If they did, did they name their ill-fated ship after the Titan? If so, why? If not, why the similarity in names? I have no answers to these questions.

You could almost dismiss this incident and say that it is proof that life imitates art, were it not for another piece of trivia: this kind of "thinking ahead" had happened to the author before!

In 1905 Robertson wrote a book called, "The Submarine Destroyer". In it, he described a submarine that used a device called a periscope. When the story was first published, officials of the Holland Submarine Company sent for Robertson and asked him whether he considered the idea of a periscope to be at all practical. In response, Robertson showed the company officials a model of one that he claimed to have already patented. The company men were so impressed that they purchased the invention for $50,000.00, which was a fantastic price at that time.

Twelve years later, a submarine commander would peer out of a periscope and look at another cruise ship named Lusitania, before firing a volley of torpedos and sending it to the bottom.

One wonders if Morgan Robertson ever had second thoughts about his contributions to history!

How much of historical events were foreseen by writers of popular fiction?

Show all stories by   Author:  52489 ( Click here )