Dark 'curse' of the Titanic explained - Egyptian mummies, ghosts and bad luck
Many Titanic experts and survivors believe in the ship's 'curse' and 'doomed' fate of its passengers onboard.
Tonight, a new two-part series titled The Titan Sub Disaster: Minute by Minute airs on Channel 5 and follows the race to find the Titan submersible, operated by OceanGate, and its crew in June last year. The mysterious disappearance of the Titanic sub sadly took the lives of five people onboard after it catastrophically imploded in the North Atlantic Ocean.
The catastrophe left many to question whether the ship was actually 'ill-fated' and Titanic movie director James Cameron said he was 'astonished' by the similarities between the two tragedies. More than 1,500 people died in the maritime disaster in 1912 and it remains the worst and deadliest peacetime sinking of a cruise ship of all time.
Similarities have been highlighted between the tourist submarine and Titanic sinking (OceanGate)Hollywood director and submersible expert, James Cameron, said last June that he was taken aback by how much the doomed ship and submersible had in common days before the debris was found. Mr Cameron, who was the director of the iconic 1997 movie, spoke out about the tragic sub disaster, saying the ordeal eerily reminded him of the Titanic sinking in 1912.
He told ABC News: "I'm struck by the similarity of the Titanic disaster itself, where the captain was repeatedly warned about ice ahead of his ship and yet he steamed at full speed into an ice field on a moonless night, and many people died as a result." He added that he found the parallels between the two tragedies "really quite surreal", as divers were warned of the same dangers "at the exact same site".
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It was also discovered that the wife of the sub pilot, Stockton Rush, the CEO of OceanGate Expeditions, is a descendant of passengers who died on the Titanic. Wendy Rush has great-great-grandparents who were on the ocean liner when it perished in the North Atlantic Ocean after hitting an iceberg.
OceanGate CEO's wife Wendy Rush is the great-great-granddaughter of Isidor and Ida Straus, who died on the Titanic in 1912Isidor and Ida Straus were two of the wealthiest people on the ship that went down as it headed to the United States. Isidor is famous for his gallantry in refusing a seat on a lifeboat while there were still women and children attempting to leave the Titanic. His wife is also said to have refused to leave her husband, and they went down with the ship standing arm in arm on deck.
William Stead, a British editor, was a first-class passenger on the Titanic, and while on board, he entertained other guests by sharing stories about his work. For years, he had been documenting "Egyptian curses" and writing about "Native American burial grounds", and claimed that a "mummy" was causing destruction in London.
Some believed that in documenting the mummy, he had caused the curse to follow him, while and others were convinced that the actual mummy itself was on the ship. Several survivors later said they heard Mr Stead share stories about a "mummy's curse", and word of the story made it back to The Washington Post which ran the headline: "Ghost of the Titanic: Vengeance of Hoodoo Mummy Followed Man Who Wrote Its History."
There were rumours of a 'mummy' onboard the cruise ship that had caused the ill-fate of passengers (PA)Egyptian artefacts were found on the ship, but Paul Burns, vice president and curator for the Titanic Museum Attractions in Missouri and Tennessee, said survivor Margaret Brown had the historic items with her as she was due to deliver them to a museum in Denver.
Another version of the story states that the mummy was aboard the ship, as the British Museum had sold it to an American who was shipping it home, as Snopes reports. But, as the History Channel reports, in reality, the so-called "Unlucky Mummy" is still with the British Museum to this day.
The Unlucky Mummy dates back to the 22nd Dynasty, and in the 1900s, journalist Bertram Fletcher Robinson spent months investigating claims that the monument was cursed. But sadly before he could publish his work, he mysteriously died.
Sherlock Holmes author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle thought Mr Robinson's death was an unlikely coincidence, and later wrote: "It was caused by Egyptian 'elementals' guarding a female mummy, because Mr Robinson had begun an investigation of the stories of the mummy's malevolence.
Multiple survivors have spoken out about their experiences of the 'doomed' curse (artist impression image) (AFP/Getty Images)"The immediate cause of death was typhoid fever, but that is the way in which the elementals guarding the mummy might act." It is believed that Mr Robinson's work inspired Mr Stead, who had been invited personally on the Titanic by William Howard Taft, the 27th President of the US.
After the disaster, one survivor, Marjorie Dutton claimed her life was cursed. She was just eight years old at the time and travelled as a second-class passenger with her father. She said: "My father was drowned taking our worldly wealth with him, as in those days people were not as bank-minded as they are now.
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"Since that time I have been blessed with bad luck and often wonder if it will ever give me a break, but it just seems to be my lot... I think my name was published at the time as having been drowned." Many people suffered survivor's guilt after making it to safety when the Titanic sank, as so many people lost their lives.
Another survivor, The Countess of Rothes, shared the after-effects of the terrible incident. Years later, she said she "suddenly felt the awful feeling of intense cold and horror" while at a public event, and later realised the orchestra was playing The Tales of Hoffman - the last music she had heard on the Titanic.
- The Titan Sub Disaster: Minute by Minute airs on Channel 5 at 9pm tonight.
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