Although not the most deadly disaster in maritime history, the sinking of the Titanic in 1912 is, without question, the most famous. The RMS Titanic was an Olympic-class passenger liner that was owned by the White Star Line and at the time of her construction, she was the largest passenger steamship in the world.
Shortly before midnight on April 14, 1912, four days into the ship's maiden voyage, Titanic struck an iceberg and sank in just two hours and forty minutes – carrying 1,517 people to the depths of the Atlantic Ocean. A shocked world learned the news on April 15, particularly stunned by the fact that the ship had been deemed “unsinkable.” The frenzy on the part of the media about Titanic's famous victims, the legends about the sinking, the resulting changes to maritime law, the discovery of the wreck and one of history’s highest grossing films based on her story have continued the notoriety of Titanic over the years.
And so have the ghost stories. For not only are strange tales told of sea where the ship sank, there are many who believe that many of the artifacts that were salvaged from the ship are haunted, as well. Truth? Legend? Perhaps more than a little of both, the story of Titanic may be one of the most puzzling tales in America’s haunted history.
Strange tales about the area of the North Atlantic where Titanic went down began to be steadily reported in the early 1970s, although it’s possible that a haunting in the area began much earlier than that. In 1990, an American historian in Strasburg, Germany, found the 1943 diary of a Nazi U-Boat commander who fired on a suspicious ship in the North Atlantic that subsequently vanished – almost exactly where Titanic had sank years before.
Many believers in ghosts and hauntings accept the idea that ghosts are often linked to events of extreme emotion and turmoil, which explains why so many can be found on battlefields and at locations of historical significance. Is it possible that the sinking of Titanic caused such a traumatic disturbance that the energy of the event imprinted itself on the atmosphere of the place where she sank beneath the waves?
In 1972, a crew member aboard a Canadian trawler on the North Atlantic made a notation in the ship’s log about hearing screaming voices one night. It was a quiet, still night and while the sounds could have possibly have carried from some distance, the ship was then almost directly above at the location where the Titanic sank.
On another night in 1972, the SS Hitchcock was traveling past the location where Carpathia rescued survivors from the disaster and a young woman claimed to encounter the ghost of a young boy in old-fashioned clothing, clinging to the ship’s rail. That same night, a man and a woman encountered an elderly couple in period clothing as they walked on the ship’s deck. The old couple greeted them warmly and walked on. When the man and woman looked back at them, the couple had vanished.
Fourteen years later, in 1986, a ship from Nova Scotia reported seeing “vague balls of bright light” dancing on the horizon behind them “as if from a ship in trouble." In April of 1989, 57 witnesses on a British passenger ship described nearly the same thing: "the ghostly spectacle of a vast ship concealed in an unearthly fog just a mile off starboard."
In 1977, Second Officer Leonard Bishop of the SS Winterhaven was asked by a cordial, white-haired man with a neatly trimmed beard, whom he thought to be a visiting British sea captain for a tour of his ship. The ship was crossing the North Atlantic at the time, just where Titanic had gone down in 1912, but this thought was the furthest thing from Bishop’s mind. He was happy to oblige the man with a tour, leading him through the bridge and down to the engine room. A bit later, he was asked to resume his duties and turned to his guest to apologize. When he did, he discovered that the man had vanished. Crew members searched the engine room, thinking he had wandered off, but he was ever found. Years later, Bishop recognized a picture of Captain Edward J. Smith from Titanic as his guest on the tour that day.
There have been many other reports from ships that cross this region. Crews and passengers have often experienced hearing strange sounds, including old-time band music and calls of distress that come out of the night and are heard crackling over radios and transmission devices. In 1982, the radio system of the Queen Elizabeth reportedly shorted out in the area and as the radio officer tried to fix it, he heard the sounds of people screaming and shrieks of desperation cutting through the static. Moments later, the radio went dead. Strangely, as the ship neared New York, the radio crackled to life and was in perfect working order once again.
Since the discovery of Titanic’s wreckage in 1986, there have been at least 25 explorations of the ship’s remains and debris field and almost all of them have had private experiences that are usually undocumented. In most cases, researchers and historians are not interested in connecting ghost stories to the seriousness of the tragedy and are willing to either shrug off their personal encounters as an imagination working overtime or are simply not willing to talk about it for fear of looking foolish.
However, some stories do manage to make the rounds. In addition to several encounters on the sea with eerie sounds and sightings, there have been rumors of undersea incidents that have been quickly hushed up by scholars trying to preserve the sanctity of the disaster. Sailors and engineers have spoken about whispers and voices in submersibles that didn't belong to any of the crew members or scientists present. An oceanographer sitting in a sub on the deck of Titanic briefly commented on a shadow racing between the on-deck structures, later denying it and calling it a figment of his imagination. In one ascent from the depths, music similar to the hymn "Nearer My God To Thee" was heard reverberating in a submersible as it rose to the surface; the music stopped only when it emerged from the sea. According to accounts from survivors, the song was played on deck by Titanic’s orchestra in an attempt to keep passengers calm as they loaded the lifeboats.
But there are no ghostly tales as prevalent as those connected to the artifacts that have traveled all over the country since the late 1990s. Many don’t realize that the Titanic Exhibit, which journeys from one major city to next, giving people the opportunity to view many of the artifacts from the wreckage, seems to be perpetually haunted. It seems that at least some of the ghosts of the more than fifteen hundred people who died in April 1912 have chosen to attach themselves to the only remaining tangible objects from that fateful voyage. Or perhaps the haunting is merely residual energy from the tragedy of the shipwreck. Regardless, the exhibit is one of the only haunted traveling exhibits in the world.
The exhibit began touring the United States in the late 1990s, taking advantage of the new interest that had been generated in Titanic after the release of James Cameron’s film. Almost as soon as the exhibit opened in various museums, newspaper stories began appearing that described the haunting effects that were being experienced by exhibit visitors. An overwhelming number of them claimed to get an eerie feeling while viewing the artifacts, as if being watched, or feeling an immense sadness around specific objects or areas of the exhibit. Most assumed it was the general somber mood brought about by the disaster, but as more and more reports came in with similar claims, it began to be realized that something very unusual was taking place. Visitors told of intense cold spots, sensations of being touched, pushed, and brushed past by invisible people.
Some even told of seeing actual apparitions of the doomed Titanic passengers. One visitor to the exhibit, who came with her daughter and four-year-old grandson, stated that she firmly believed the artifacts to be haunted. According to her story, they were viewing the first-class quarters and she and her daughter thought little of the young boy’s repeated questions of, “Who is that lady?” and “What is she doing?” They assured the boy that what he saw was only a dress on display but later, after learning of other people’s experiences with the exhibit – and recalling the detailed description that the little boy gave of the “woman” he saw – they realized that he might have seen one of Titanic’s ghosts.
While no one can say for sure who the ghosts are that haunt the Titanic exhibit, there are some who believe that at least one of them may be Frederick Fleet. The young man was on duty on the night of April 14 as a lookout and it was Fleet who had telephoned the bridge with the dire warning of “Iceberg, right ahead!” Fleet remained in the crow’s nest for twenty minutes after the ship struck the iceberg, waiting to be relieved.
When he came down, he made his way to the Boat Deck, where Second Officer Charles Lightoller ordered him to help Quarter-Master Robert Hitchins load and launch the first lifeboat from the port side. After loading some 28 women and children, the boat was lowered to the water. As it was being lowered, Lightoller realized that it was undermanned and called for an experienced seaman. Fleet ended up on the boat and he survived the disaster.
From June 1912, Fleet served briefly as a seaman on the White Star liner Olympic. He found that White Star looked at Titanic’s surviving officers and crew as embarrassing reminders of the disaster and he left the company in August 1912. For the next 24 years, Fleet sailed with Union-Castle and various other companies, finally leaving the sea in 1936. Ashore, he worked for Harland and Wolff as a shipbuilder, and later was the shore master-at-arms for Union-Castle Mail Steamship Co. As an old man, he sold newspapers on a street corner in Southampton.
On December 28, 1964, Fleet's wife died. Her brother, with whom the couple lived, then evicted Fleet, and in a state of despondency, he committed suicide two weeks later, his body being discovered on January 10, 1965. He was buried in an unmarked pauper’s grave at Hollybrook Cemetry, Southampton. In 1993, a headstone was erected through donations by The Titanic Historical Society.
According to those who knew him, Fleet spent his entire life consumed by guilt over what happened on the night of April 14, 1912. He always believed that he had not been alert enough during his watch and that if he had only seen the iceberg sooner, perhaps the tragedy could have been avoided. Some believe that his suicide was not only caused by his wife’s death, but by his guilt over the wreck of Titanic, as well.
Since the 1990s, some have come to believe that Fleet is one of the ghosts who haunt the Titanic exhibit. Psychics believe that it is his spirit who touches people who come through the displays, making sure that everyone is safe.
Is this really the case? No one can say, but there does seem to be some sort of lingering energy around the remains of Titanic and weird encounters still continue to occur around the exhibit today.
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