As with most legends the story of the Titanic is not immune to some fictitious tales. Once the survivors arrived in New York City on April 18th, anyone who had a story to tell did and for the most part these stories were accurate. However, some folks just couldn't help adding a little spice to their experience. The press at the time couldn't help it either. If they didn't have a story to run, they made them up. Pure and simple. Below are all kinds of tall tales that have come out of the sinking of the Titanic. All are untrue and have been proven so time and time again. However, they still continue to be told and believed.

The headline above appeared in the tabloid, The Weekly World News in 1993. It just goes to show that these tales continue over 85 years later. By the way, the baby story is untrue. Enjoy!

Our first tale has to do with a curse placed on the Titanic.

The Famous "NO POPE" Tale:

Rumor had it that the Titanic's hull number was 390904, when flipped around, it spelled out the sacrilegious message: NO POPE. This is not true. Her number was 131,428, which, flipped around, spells 824,131. Perhaps if you drank about ten beers in a row it would say NO POPE, but that is the only way.

Tall Tales From The Press:

It was reported in numerous papers including the New York Times and Lloyds Weekly News of London that six Chinese, who had hidden beneath the seats of one of the Titanic's lifeboats, were among the survivors. They were not detected until the boats had been taken on board the Carpathia. Two of their companions who were also in hiding were crushed to death by the weight of some of the larger women sitting above them. Their comrades survived due to the fact that more petite women were sitting above them.

Note: This story is highly unlikely. I can't imagine that stowaways would not have been detected until the lifeboats were taken aboard the Carpathia. This story probably owes itself to the anti-Chinese, racist feelings that were taking place during the time of the Titanic tragedy.

In many reports of the day Anglo-Saxon blood could do no wrong. At the U.S. inquiry, wireless operator Harold Bride described the stoker's attack on his partner, first wireless operator, John Phillips. There were some newspapers that made the stoker African-American for better effect. And in a story headlined: "Desirable Immigrants Lost", the New York Sun pointed out that, along with the others, seventy-eight Finns were lost who might do the country some good.

Also during the U.S. inquiry steward Crowe declared: "There were various men passengers, probably Italians, or some foreign nationality other than English, or American, who attempted to rush the lifeboats." Steward Crowe never heard the culprits speak and had no way of knowing who they were. Things finally grew so bad that the Italian Ambassador demanded and got an apology from Fifth Officer Lowe for using "Italian" as a synonym for "coward."

Some Survivor Tall Tales:

After the survivors arrived in New York some passengers got carried away with their stories of the tragedy and regaled newspaper reports with some rather unbelievable tales.

Newspaper interviews reported that second-class passenger Emilio Portaluppi rode a cake of ice for hours...Miss Marie Young saw the iceberg an hour before the collision...seamen Jack Williams and William French watched six men shot down like dogs..Philadelphia banker Robert W. Daniel took over the Carpathia's wireless during the trip back. All the evidence went against these stories, but the public was too excited to care.

The April 19th issue of the New York Sun had first-class passenger George Brayton reporting:

"The moon was shining and a number of us who were enjoying the crisp air were promenading about the deck. Captain Smith was on the bridge when the first cry from the lookout came that there was an iceberg ahead. It may have been 300 feet high when I saw it. The accident happened at about 10:30 p.m. About midnight I think came the first boiler explosion. Then for the first time, I think, Captain Smith began to get worried..."

One of the most outrageous stories came from Carpathia seaman Jonas Briggs' interview where he told the story of Rigel, a Newfoundland dog, who jumped from the deck of the sinking ship and escorted a lifeboat to the Carpathia, his joyous barks signalling Captain Rostron that he was coming.

This is not a tall tale, but rather a curious post script to the sinking of the Titanic:

Every part of society was affected by the sinking of the Titanic. Even the holy Social Register in New York was shaken. In those days the ship that people travelled on was an important yardstick in measuring their social standing, and the Register dutifully kept track. The tragedy posed an unexpected problem. To say that listed families crossed on the Titanic gave them their social due, but it wasn't true. To say they arrived on the less than acceptable Carpathia was true, but socially misleading. How to handle this dilemma? New York society matrons were quite upset over this. Finally they came up with an answer. In the case of those lost, the Register dodged the problem-after their names it simply noted the word, "died at sea, 15 April 1912." In the case of the living, the Register carefully ran the phrase, "Arrived Titan-Carpath, 18 April 1912." The hyphen represented history's greatest sea disaster.

Let's Swap Ships. The Titanic/Olympic Ship Swapping Tale:

An entire book was written about this so-called conspiracy. The book, "The Titanic Conspiracy," written by Robin Gardiner and Dan van der Vat, (Birch Lane Press, 1996), claims that the White Star Line in order to reclaim their losses on a number of accidents that the Olympic had sustained, switched ships and that the real ship that hit the iceberg was the Olympic and not the Titanic. Therefore, White Star could make a full claim on the Olympic as the Titanic, and then the Titanic as the Olympic could serve the company to it's fullest. Which the Olympic did. She sailed for White Star for 23 years until 1935.

They go on to claim that White Star had Captain Smith purposely collide with the iceberg, but that Captain Smith drove into the iceberg too soon and that the standby rescue ships were further ahead, consequently the great loss of life. That is why, they point out, Captain Smith went full speed through the ice field and did not slow down. They continue that a number of well placed passengers canceled at the last minute including the real owner of the White Star Line, J.P. Morgan and the U.S. Ambassador to France, Robert Bacon.

Read the book and draw your own conclusions. I read the book and that is why I placed this story in my tall tales section.

More Proof That the Titanic/Olympic Switch Theory is Bogus:

On the Titanic for Olympic swap theory, the windows are the giveaway that the switch theory is bogus. The windows on each ship are somewhat different in arrangement. B-deck on the Titanic was rearranged by eliminating the promenade and moving the suites outward. This altered the window arrangement.

To swap the two ships, both ships would have to have 500 feet of B-deck shell plating ripped off and reinstalled on each side. This alone would be next to impossible without someone noticing it. It would be impossible to enclose the Olympic's promenade deck in the short amount of time that they had. Also on the forward section of B deck the windows are evenly spaced on the Olympic.