Was the Titanic cursed? Strange things were going on from day one, and 50 people refused to come aboard out of fear

"The Titanic", which in April 1912 suffered one of the greatest peacetime maritime disasters, was haunted from its very first day. And the very collision of the ship with the iceberg was surprisingly described in a macabre story published 14 years before the real tragedy.

The various strange circumstances that made it possible to speak of the curse of the Titanic were described by James W. Bancroft in his book. Excerpts from it are retold by the New York Post. At its time, the Titanic was the largest and most luxurious ship in the world, a veritable floating palace, worth $7.5 million in 1912 (more than $233 million at the 2023 exchange rate).

The doomed ship

Bancroft tells us that the troubles began before the Titanic left Southampton for its fateful maiden voyage on April 14, 1912.

Thus, during the construction of the ship, a fire broke out in Belfast, almost stopping the construction of the ship.

The liner itself, already leaving the harbor, had also nearly made trouble when it miraculously avoided a collision with the liner New York.

"There are more strange events associated with the Titanic than with any other ship in history, and the forebodings and bad omens associated with it suggest that fate has doomed it to a watery grave," the author wrote, adding that the iceberg simply became the weapon that sent it there.

According to Bancroft, there was a sense of gloom hanging over the ship. There were rumors that there was a cursed lid from an Egyptian mummy's coffin on board. True, there was no evidence to support these rumors.

The ship itself also inspired such fear that 50 people refused to board at the last minute, voluntarily agreeing to lose the large sums paid for the voyage.

The sunken Titan

There were other rather strange omens that hinted that the voyage would not end well. So, in 1898, a story by the American writer Morgan Andrew Robertson called "Futility" was published, detailing the tragedy of the fictional ocean liner Titan.

Ironically, the fictional ship sank after colliding with an iceberg near Newfoundland, roughly the same place where the real Titanic subsequently went down.

As with the Titanic, the fictional Titanic also suffered significant loss of life, also because many people simply did not have enough lifeboats.

In the year of the Titanic wreck, the story was republished under the title "The Titanic Crash" with the subtitle "The Story That Predicted the Titanic's Doom.

Cursed Captain

Edward Smith, who was the captain of the Titanic, probably did not have an easy hand either. Even before the Titanic, he had been involved in five serious ship accidents. He grounded several ships, collided with a tugboat in New York Harbor, and was rammed by the warship HMS Hawke.

Smith, according to Bancroft, often suggested in personal conversations himself that he had a jinx on him.

The captain's reputation was so bad that some of the sailors who had sailed under his command had simply refused to sail on the Titanic.

Psychics saw death

Of course, one can have different attitudes toward psychics and their predictions, but according to Bancroft, many have turned to them when contemplating their sea voyage.

For example, the Irish astrologer Earl Louis Hamon(known as Cheiro) warned British newspaper editor W.T. Stead against traveling on the Titanic.

"I see over a thousand people and you among them desperately struggling in the water. They are screaming for help and fighting for their lives. But it doesn't do any of them any good... including you," Cheiro cautioned.

Stead, however, did not heed the Earl and died on his way to speak at the World Peace Congress at Carnegie Hall.

The author writes that the survivors of the Titanic last saw Stead reading a book in the first-class smoking room as chaos unfolded around him.

Earlier OBOZREVATEL also told that scientists managed to shoot a unique video of the sinking of the Titanic and show previously unknown details.

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