It was in 1912 that the world saw one of the biggest commercial disasters that had ever come before. The sinking of the RMS Titanic ocean-liner. Officially, it was on a foggy night in the northern Atlantic when the massive ship struck an iceberg that damaged the starboard side hall causing the front of the ship to flood below the waterline. At approximately 2:20 a.m the ship sank taking with her the luxurious amenities and it’s 1500 passengers. The ship was dubbed as unsinkable and this happening came to the surprise of many that had ever heard of her. Numerous reasons have been suggested to why the ship sank, from a cursed Egyptian mummy to an incompetent captain. These theories although interesting, pale in comparison to that of the one that ‘conspiracy theorists’ love to cite the most. That is that the Titanic sank because of an insurance scheme that was devised by J.P Morgan and his crony friends.

    The theory was first put forward by a man named Robin Gardiner in his book, ‘Titanic: The Ship That Never Sank” where the author considered several strange and anomalous events that occurred in the time that lead up to the sinking of the unsinkable vessel. The general idea as it is presented is that it was not the Titanic that sank on that fateful night, but actually it’s sister ship Olympic that was disguised as the Titanic for an insurance scheme plotted by the owners of the International Mercantile Group that was controlled by J.P. Morgan, an American financier, that had purchased the White Star Line in 1902.

    There were actually two other ships that looked almost exactly identical to the Titanic that were the Britannica and the Olympic, and to the untrained eye, one would not be able to tell them apart. The Titanic’s sister ship Olympic was built along side the Titanic but was a year or so before the Titanic in October of 1910. 

    It was smooth sailing for about a year before September of 1911 when the Olympic collided with the Royal Navy Warship HMS Hawke. The two ships sailed so close to each other that the Olympic’s motion drew the Hawke into her causing extensive damage to the ship. The war ship was outfitted to do the maximum amount of damage to any ship that it hit, and although there was many witnesses to contrary, the blame of the incident was ultimately pinned on the caption and crew of the Olympic. Because of this the White Star Line’s insurance company Lloyd’s of London refused to pay out the claim on the ship citing it’s own crew for the disaster in the investigation. 

    This would have been a major hit to the company causing them to take on the full responsibility for the repairs delaying the completion date of the Titanic even later as it already was costing the company a considerable amount of money. According to the theory, to make sure that they would be able to continue operation, a conspiracy was plotted that would result in the Olympic being patched up to the point she would be able to sail under the guise of being the Titanic until they could purposely sink the ship hitting an iceberg in the middle the of night. This would then allow them to properly cash in an insurance claim this time without being able to pin the fault of the incident on the crew of the ship.

    It’s said that there was a high ranking person on the ship that night that was aware of the conspiracy named Captain Smith. Smith’s role in the plan was to keep look out for other ships that would lately function as rescue for the passengers and crew when they decided to sink the ship. The SS Californian was planned to be the ship that was able to rescue the people on board, but it did not respond nor did it see the rescue signal that was launched from aboard the ship. Regardless there was 1,500 people aboard that was said to have died that night. 

   One of the most famous and influential people aboard that night was John Jacob Astor. Astor is interesting for reasons we will get into later. It could be that he was never actually on the boat, but was actually one of the conspirators that would take advantage of this tragedy. After the sinking of the Olympic in the name of the titanic, the Titanic spent another 25 years in service under the name Olympic before it before it was scrapped in 1935.

This is just a theory.