The Falsification of History: Our Distorted Reality

by John Hamer

  ‘...it took a fortnight [two weeks] of emergency patching to Olympic’s hull before she was in any fit state to attempt the journey from Southampton to Belfast for more complete repairs. Able to use only one main engine, the crippled liner made the voyage at an average speed of 10 knots, wasting the exhaust steam from the one usable engine. This steam would normally have driven the central turbine engine, which shows that this engine, its mountings or shafting had been damaged in the collision. As this engine sat on the centreline of the vessel, immediately above the keel, which the propeller shaft ran through, we can reasonably assume that the keel was damaged’. Robin Gardiner, ‘Titanic, the Ship that Never Sank?’

  If Gardiner’s hypothesis is correct, then the seeds had been sown for a truly remarkable event – the surreptitious switching of the identities of the two ships, Olympic and Titanic.

  In his well-researched work, Gardiner presents a long series of credible testimonies, indisputable facts and evidence, both written and photographic, that would seem to point to the fact that the two ships were indeed switched with a view to staging an iceberg collision or other unknown fatal event, with the Titanic (originally the Olympic) and many of its passengers and crew being sacrificed in an audacious insurance scam which would save the White Star Line from financial ruin.

  According to Gardner, “Almost two months after the Hawke/Olympic collision, the reconverted Titanic, now superficially identical to her sister except for the C deck portholes, quietly left Belfast for Southampton to begin a very successful 25 year career as the Olympic. Back in the builders’ yard, work progressed steadily on the battered hulk of Olympic. The decision to dispose of the damaged vessel would already have been taken. It must have been obvious from quite early on that the vessel was beyond economic repair, so these repairs need not have been quite as thorough as they otherwise might have been. Instead of replacing the damaged section of keel, longitudinal bulkheads were installed to brace it”. [my emphasis – JH]

  How significant then in the light of this statement, that when the wreck of the Titanic was first investigated by Robert Ballard and his crew after its discovery in 1986 that the first explorations of the wreckage revealed (completely undocumented in the ships original blueprints) iron support structures in place which appeared to be supporting and bracing the keel. This was never satisfactorily explained either at the time or subsequently but would certainly be significant if correct and there is absolutely no reason to believe that it is not correct, as it was reported by the puzzled Ballard himself who of course at that time knew nothing (and probably still does not even now) about the alleged switching of the two ships’ identities.

  Meanwhile, in the USA there were a number of powerful men who were not in favour of the proposed Federal Reserve Banking System. Benjamin Guggenheim, Isador Strauss and John Jacob Astor were most prominent among those who opposed the formation of this abomination. These men were some of the richest men in the world, but their money was accrued through industrial, retail and leisure interests, rather than through the financial sector and they stood firmly in the way of the banksters’ plan. It is my view that either Morgan and the other co-conspirators hit upon a really neat ‘kill two birds with one stone’ solution, then not only would White Star have successfully solved the Olympic problem and thus its own financial worries, but J.P. Morgan would also have fulfilled his wishes to implement his plan to establish the Federal Reserve with little or no powerful opposition to thwart him. Perfect.

  All three (along with many other prominent people of the day) were subtly enticed to board the by-now hyped-up to be, highly prestigious maiden voyage of the Titanic with a view to ending their opposition to the Federal Reserve plans and thus an additional reason for the ship's destruction was a stand-off between the mega-rich whereby Guggenheim, Strauss and Astor could be eliminated. They had to be destroyed by a means so outrageous and fantastic that no one would suspect they were murdered and also using a method that would completely obscure the real reason for their demise. Simply arranging for all three men to undergo separate ‘accidents’ would have appeared far too suspicious, so they had to be lured to the same place at the same time and Titanic’s pre-determined, ill-fated maiden voyage was the solution to the problem. Could this have been the real reason for all the hullabaloo and hype surrounding Titanic’s maiden voyage despite the fact that the Olympic was accorded a much less publicised or flamboyant ‘send-off’ on the 14th June 1911, even though she was after-all, the first one off the production line?

  Morgan himself was supposed to be travelling on the ship, but as was always intended, he had a ‘last minute change of plan’ due to a ‘bout of ill health’ and significantly failed to show at Southampton at the appointed time and so his personal stateroom remained empty as the giant vessel pulled away from Southampton docks on the afternoon of the 10th April 1912, to the delight of the cheering multitudes on the quayside.

  Is it possibly also significant that Morgan ordered that an expensive collection of bronzes that he had purchased in Paris, should be unloaded from the ship at the last minute, too?

  The Captain of Titanic, Edward Smith had experience of the North Atlantic waters in abundance, indeed he had been crossing the North Atlantic for more than a quarter of a century. He was generally regarded as the 'world's most experienced captain' in the North Atlantic seaways and it is my belief that Smith knew all along that Titanic/Olympic was destined to become the grave of the enemies of J.P. Morgan, his boss and its purpose, once the damage to Olympic was fully realised, was always that it would undergo a contrived accident on its ‘first’ voyage. He also had full and complete knowledge of exactly where the icebergs were. He guided Titanic full speed at around 22 knots on a moonless night into a huge ice field 80 square miles in area. Why would such an experienced captain undertake such a foolhardy course of action? The fact is that he had received his orders directly from his ultimate boss (JP Morgan) and therefore he was totally committed to leading his ship to disaster.

  Captain Smith's actions immediately before the event and in its immediate aftermath were totally out of character for this experienced master mariner. Could he have been wrestling with his conscience perhaps? Should he become the heroic Captain, saving the day or against all his instincts, obey his master, sink the ship and in the process cold-bloodedly murder up to 3000 people? Significantly and conveniently (for the perpetrators) Smith in the age-old tradition, as Captain, went down with the ship we are told. Indeed, could Smith have even been ‘allowed’ to survive, knowing as he probably did, the real truth about the incident? One suspects not.

  As is well known, there were not enough lifeboats for the full complement of passengers and crew and some of them left the ship as little as only one quarter full in any case and this fact could well have been used to its full advantage in the execution of the master plan. The Captain strangely ordered white flares to be launched, knowing full well that the international standard colour of distress flares was red. Titanic possessed a full complement of white, blue AND red flares. Other ships passing within sight of these flares were intentionally confused and thought that maybe those aboard Titanic were having a fireworks party. This of course was also all part of the master plan.

  Even if my hypothesis could be criticised by some as mere conjecture, the true Titanic story is still very, very different to the official, ubiquitous one that we see depicted in books and numerous films and documentaries that have been spawned by this tragic incident. The book, published in the 1950s and the feature film of the same name, ‘A Night to Remember’ (Longmans, Green & Co, 1956) by Walter Lord is the source most responsible for the Titanic myths and legends still prevailing today. Lord was a ‘former’ member of the US intelligence services (OSS and CIA) but given the fact that it is well known that anyone who has been a member of these organisations always in effect remains a member, can we really rely on his accounts or are they just more subterfuge amongst a morass of contradictory stories surrounding the event?
What would motivate a former member of one of the world’s elite security services to write a book about an accident involving an ocean liner? As always seems to be the modus operandus in any suspected conspiracy, we are bombarded with these so-called ‘facts’ by the controlled media, to such an extent that we believe that they cannot possibly be untrue or deliberately misleading. However, many of the major Titanic ‘facts’ have subsequently been proven to be false but somehow the same version of the story still persists as the absolute de facto truth. Such is the power of propaganda on the human mind and symptomatic of the methodology by which most history is perverted.

  Robin Gardiner further stated, “As I delved deeper into the story, more and more inconsistencies became apparent. Inconsistencies that individually meant little but collectively pointed to a grimmer reality than that usually depicted in the heroic legend”.

  He continues, “Officers who were later acclaimed as heroes were exposed as anything but. One in particular removed a little boy from a lifeboat at gunpoint, before escaping in that same boat himself”.

  “Descriptions of the collision and damage supposedly sustained by Titanic do not agree. The ‘slight scrape’ with the ice that was hardly noticed by most aboard contradicts solid evidence of structural damage at least 5½ feet (1.6 metres) within the outer hull of the vessel”.

  “Then came evidence to show that the ice the ship encountered was seen first not 500 yards (480 metres) ahead but more like 11 miles (17km). I began to wonder if perhaps the sinking of the Titanic might not have been an accident after all”. [my emphasis – JH]

  Indeed, did Titanic actually strike an iceberg at all? We only have the eye-witness testimony of four people believe it or not, with which to confirm or deny this fact. First Officer Murdoch would have been the fifth witness but he did not live to tell his story. Gardiner himself offers no opinion on this theory, but the copious amounts of ice on the deck of Titanic reported by many survivors could easily have been the result of any collision dislodging the icy build-up on masts, funnels etc. or it could even have been easily shaken loose from the hundreds of yards of overhead rigging and wiring by the thrusting of the ships engines abruptly into reverse. It was after all, an extremely cold, still night with temperatures below freezing.

  There have been many legends surrounding the incident but there is plenty of concrete evidence that Titanic was not the only ship at that precise location that night. For example, there is a photograph in existence of a drifting lifeboat that can be discounted totally as being from Titanic herself due to being of different colours and design to Titanic’s lifeboats.

  Then there is the gouge in the side of the ship itself – 1.6 metres deep through the outer steel plates and into the inner skin! Compacted ice is known to be very strong, indeed stronger than steel under certain conditions, but there is no evidence that I am aware of that it is capable of doing such catastrophic damage to steel. In addition the relatively narrow, 15cm puncture line in the ship’s hull in conjunction with a penetration of around 1.6m would indicate an almost impossibly-shaped ice outcrop colliding with the ship at exactly the most critical point.

  Whatever the real truth, the point here is surely that there exist so many different possibilities that the official story is probably just an elaborate fabrication. Both the American and British official inquiries were even thought at the time to be pretty much a ‘whitewash’, with much evidence either ignored and eye-witness testimonies being twisted or indeed fabricated to fit the ‘official’ story. It is staggering also to report that of the 102 witnesses called to the British enquiry, only two were passengers (the influential Gordons of the famous London gin company) and it is even more surprising to learn that none of the witnesses (crew or passengers) were allowed to offer their own first-hand evidence of any kind and were strictly restricted to the simple answering of questions without elaboration. By any standards at all, this sounds very much like a ‘whitewash’ to me. The passage of time has also served to cloud the mystery still further.

  We should also note that amongst all the myriad of (probably) deliberately conflicting information unearthed by the two inquiries, the most puzzling of all is the situation regarding the ‘yellow-funnelled steamer’ observed in the proximity of Titanic by the officers and crew of Californian at around the time of the incident and which has never been either identified or explained away at all. Significantly, this odd occurrence does not even warrant a mention in any surviving Titanic legends – very strange to say the least, despite its appearance in several contemporary newspapers. The crew of this ship (who or whatever she was) must have been aware that they were in the approximate area of the Titanic’s demise at the same time, so why did no-one from the ship come forward to volunteer any evidence or information or simply to state that they had seen nothing significant, instead of disappearing into the mists of history forever? It also begs the question as to why no attempts were made to discover the identity of this ship either by the inquiries or subsequently by independent investigators. Even if attempts were made at the time, as far as I am able to tell, they have been very successfully covered-up and no evidence remains today. Could this mysterious yellow-funnelled vessel have been responsible for the devastating damage to Titanic in any way? I personally believe it is a very strong possibility and that the ‘iceberg collision’ is just a cover story concocted to protect the guilty.

  “...I saw another steamer approaching, and asked [the wireless operator] what vessels he had within reach; he replied: ‘The Titanic’, whereupon I replied, ‘That is not the Titanic; she is too small and hasn’t enough lights.’ Shortly afterwards this steamer stopped and was bearing S.S.E. about five or six miles from our position. ...the chief officer was sweeping the southern horizon with his glasses, and finally reported he saw a four-mast steamer with a yellow funnel to the southward of us, and asked if we should try to get down to have a look at her.” Captain Lord of Californian in an interview with an American newspaper, 1914

  Lord became the official scapegoat for the disaster for his so-called ‘negligence’ in not rushing sooner to Titanic’s aid as the Californian was probably only about 11 miles from her when she went down.

  Furthermore, upon arriving back in England at Plymouth docks, from New York aboard the steamer Lapland, two weeks after the disaster, 173 of the surviving crew members both male and female were firstly, illegally denied their rights to speak with their trade union representatives. Then in addition they were also illegally detained overnight against their wishes (I believe the common terminology for this act is unlawful imprisonment or even kidnapping) in a containing area within the dockyard itself where they were forced to sign a document that they believed was the ‘Official Secrets Act’, promising to keep secret forever, the actual events of the night of 14th / 15th April. Otherwise, they were told, they would be prosecuted and ‘never work again’, not just for White Star but for any other employer. In those now long-gone days, the inability to procure gainful employment could be almost a death sentence to the crews and their families. So, make of that what you will, but I can personally think of no reason why this should happen if the official story was the truth. It is also worth noting that also in those now distant days it was far easier without mass and instantaneous communication devices, to invent or twist facts and bury individuals’ own stories. Today of course, any of the survivors’ personal experiences would be viral on the Internet within hours of the event.

  The Red Star liner Lapland, which carried Titanic crew survivors home.

  So did Captain Smith deliberately steer Titanic into a huge ice-field without reducing speed in order to create the cover-story of the iceberg collision knowing that he was setting-up Titanic to be rammed by the yellow-funnelled mystery ship, in fulfilment of the Elite’s dastardly scheme? There were hardly any eye-witnesses to what actually happened after all, so the proposition would seem very plausible to me given all the circumstantial evidence. Along with the officer on duty on the Bridge at that ti
me, First Officer William Murdoch and Quartermaster Hitchens plus Quartermaster George Rowe on the after-bridge, lookouts Frederick Fleet and Reginald Lee were the only other ones known to have personally witnessed the appalling events.

  Of these five witnesses, only four survived, significantly all of them ‘lower-class’ people and placing undue pressure on four working-class people to keep quiet over a century ago, would have been a relatively simple task. First Officer Murdoch is perhaps significantly, said to have ‘committed suicide’ in the aftermath of the collision whilst the ship was being abandoned, however there is no solid evidence available with which to corroborate this fact. Why would he do this? He has also been accused of shooting passengers before turning a gun on himself, something that his family and descendants have disputed vehemently ever since and so could there be a more sinister explanation for his demise along with that of Captain Smith? Down the years, suicide has always been a very convenient cover-story for many a silencing murder and in addition it is perhaps significant that none of the ‘three stooges’, Guggenheim, Strauss and Astor survived to tell their stories either. How easy would it have been under the circumstances and in the post-collision mayhem and confusion, for a paid assassin to dispose of Messrs Smith, Murdoch, Guggenheim, Strauss and Astor to make absolutely certain that none of them escaped their planned fates against all the odds?