As the Titanic was swallowed by a freezing sea, over 800 miles from the nearest land, her 2,200 passengers and crew attempted desperately to advert tragedy. Lifeboats were lowered, and constant SOS signals sent, but most realised they would require a miracle to avoid their doom. And then it came. Approaching over the horizon was a ship, coming ever closer and then stopping within five or six miles of the Titanic. The joy on board the sinking ship was unimaginable; the crew even reassured passengers that rescue was imminent. Agonisingly, however, the vessel did not come to the rescue - despite rockers of appeal - but gradually turned and moved away, abandoning over 1,500 people to their fate. The search for the ' Mystery Ship' began immediately, and both Britain and the USA accused a ship called the Californian of deserting the Titanic in her hour of need. But was the ' Mystery Ship' the Californian? For the first time, this book explores the totality of evidence, with the discovery of the Titanic's actual wreck site in 1985 allowing crucial insights not available during official investigations seventy-three years earlier. Combining a penetrating argument with an extensive collection of archive photographs and materials, this book aims to find clear answers to the many riddles of the Titanic's 'Mystery Ship'.

The sinking of the RMS Titanic on 15 April 1912 is one of the best-remembered, and most-scrutinised, moments of the twentieth century. Yet ever since the disaster, there have been lingering mysteries, questions that seemed utterly impossible to answer. In recent years, a string of allegations have also been made to the effect that the Titanic was suffering from a fire in one of her coal bunkers during the maiden voyage. Televised programmes, media broadcasts, and even a new book would have the public believe that Titanic was all but a blazing inferno before she even struck the iceberg, and that it was the fire that actually doomed the ship. Then there is the question of the time difference between ship's time and time on shore on the night of the disaster - a complex navigational mystery that has a direct bearing on understanding key aspects of how events played out on that fateful night.Now follow an international and world-renowned team of Titanic and maritime historians and researchers as we attempt to solve two of the most important, and most publicized, mysteries of the Titanic disaster.

Did the Titanic really sink? Or was it sister ship Olympic? Was it a massive cover-up or an insurance scam? These and many other questions are raised in Robin Gardiner's brilliantly entertaining read which reveals a fascinating version of what really happened on that terrible night in April 1912.

As Titanic sank, a ‘mystery’ ship was spotted some distance away. Rockets were fired but the ship ignored them. The Californian was blamed but was the mystery ship really the Mount Temple?

The first modern work to give a comprehensive picture of the RMS Titanic and the people intertwined with her fate, from disaster to recovery. Drawn from primary sources and contemporary accounts and updated to coincide with the April 2012 anniversary, this new heart-rending narrative allows readers to come to their own conclusions about this legendary vessel. Daniel Allen Butler spend more than 30 years researching the work, delving into the lives of every principal participant. In addition to examining the roles played by individual, he also looks into the problems of equipment and errors in technical data that resulted in the deaths of 1502 people. Rather than focussing on the night of the tragedy alone, he also investigates the events leading up to and following the fateful night.

The Titanic is one of the most famous maritime disasters of all time, but did the Titanic really sink on the morning of 15 April 1912? Titanic's older sister, the nearly identical Olympic, was involved in a serious accident in September 1911 – an accident that may have made her a liability to her owners the White Star Line. Since 1912 rumours of a conspiracy to switch the two sisters in an elaborate insurance scam has always loomed behind the tragic story of the Titanic. Could the White Star Line have really switched the Olympic with her near identical sister in a ruse to intentionally sink their mortally damaged flagship in April 1912, in order to cash in on the insurance policy? Laying bare the famous conspiracy theory, world-respected Titanic researchers investigate claims that the sister ships were switched in an insurance scam and provide definitive proof for whether it could - or could not - have happened.

As the Titanic and her passengers sank slowly into the Atlantic Ocean after striking an iceberg late in the evening of April 14, 1912, a nearby ship looked on. Second Officer Herbert Stone, in charge of the midnight watch on the SS Californian sitting idly a few miles north, saw the distress rockets that the Titanic fired. He alerted the captain, Stanley Lord, who was sleeping in the chartroom below, but Lord did not come to the bridge. Eight rockets were fired during the dark hours of the midnight watch, and eight rockets were ignored. The next morning, the Titanic was at the bottom of the sea and more than 1,500 people were dead. When they learned of the extent of the tragedy, Lord and Stone did everything they could to hide their role in the disaster, but pursued by newspapermen, lawyers, and political leaders in America and England, their terrible secret was eventually revealed. The Midnight Watch is a fictional telling of what may have occurred that night on the SS Californian, and the resulting desperation of Officer Stone and Captain Lord in the aftermath of their inaction. Told not only from the perspective of the SS Californian crew, but also through the eyes of a family of third-class passengers who perished in the disaster, the narrative is drawn together by Steadman, a tenacious Boston journalist who does not rest until the truth is found. David Dyer's The Midnight Watch is a powerful and dramatic debut novel--the result of many years of research in Liverpool, London, New York, and Boston, and informed by the author's own experiences as a ship's officer and a lawyer.

Even the staunchest of landlubbers knows what rockets at sea mean... or do they? A short space of time after the fatal collision with an iceberg, the Titanic's crew sent rockets aloft to attract the attention of a ship seen just a few miles. But that ship never responded ... and 1500 people died in the frigid waters. This book details the scandal of the Californian, blamed by many for being that very unresponsive stranger. Rockets were seen and ignored...but was the Captain guilty of mass murder? Did more than 1000 people needlessly die? Why was the wireless operator not awakened? Could the Californian have saved anyone? And why is this story, neglecting the ethical controversy surrounding salvage, the single most divisive issue in the Titanic research community?

Was the ship doomed by a faulty design? Was the hull's steel too brittle? Was the captain negligent in the face of repeated warnings? On the night of April 14, 1912, the "unsinkable" RMS Titanic, with over 2,200 passengers onboard, struck an iceberg in the North Atlantic and plunged to a watery grave. For nearly a century, the shocking loss has haunted the world. Now the same CSI techniques that are used to solve modern murder cases have been applied to the sinking of history's most famous ship. Researchers Jennifer Hooper McCarty and Tim Foecke draw on their participation in expeditions to the ship's wreckage and experiments on recovered Titanic materials to build a compelling new scenario. The answers will astound you.. . . Grippingly written, What Really Sank the Titanic is illustrated with fascinating period photographs and modern scientific evidence reflecting the authors' intensive study of Titanic artifacts for more than ten years. In an age when forensics can catch killers, this book does what no other book has before: fingers the culprit in one of the greatest tragedies ever. "A fascinating trail of historical forensics." --James R. Chiles, author of Inviting Disaster>/I> "An essential facet of Titanic history. Five stars!" --Charles Pellegrino, author of Her Name Titanic With 16 pages of photos