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| New Titanic theory: |
| New Titanic theory: A mirage in the water?
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| UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
, 12-April-2012
5:36:2 AM |
| After an entire century that included two high-profile government investigations and countless books and movies, we're still debating what really caused the Titanic to hit an iceberg and sink on that crystal-clear chilly night.
Maybe there's more to blame than human folly and hubris. Maybe we can fault freak atmospheric conditions that caused a mirage or an even rarer astronomical event that sent icebergs into shipping lanes. Those are two of the newer theories being proposed by a Titanic author and a team of astronomers.
But the effort to find natural causes that could have contributed to the sinking may also be a quest for an excuse - anything to avoid gazing critically into a mirror, say disaster experts and Titanic historians.
New theories and research are important "but at its most basic what happened is they failed to heed warnings and they hit the iceberg because they were going too fast," said James Delgado, director of maritime heritage at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
With this week's 100th anniversary of Titanic's sinking, the interest in all things Titanic is steaming faster than the doomed cruise ship on its maiden voyage.
One of the novel new theories says Titanic could have been the victim of a mirage that is similar to what people see in the desert.
It's the brainchild of Tim Maltin, a historian who has written three books about Titanic. The latest, an e-book titled "A Very Deceiving Night" emphasizes how the atmosphere may have tricked the Titanic crew on a cloudless night.
"This was not avoidable human error," Maltin said in a telephone interview from London. "It's just about air density difference."
It was a beautiful clear night and for a couple of days, there had been something strange going on in the air over the North Atlantic, reported by all sorts of ships, including the crew on Titanic, Maltin said.
The unusually cold sea air caused light to bend abnormally downward, Maltin said.
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