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Titanic: Awash in a Sea of Tall Tales

© Anita Stratos

Did you know that there are dozens of myths surrounding the sinking of the Titanic? From overzealous newspaper reporters who wanted a hot new angle to exaggerated survivors' tales, there are more stories floating around about the events surrounding this tragedy than there are icebergs in the Arctic Ocean.

At the time, public excitement only served to fan the flames. Today, if we were to read a serious news story about a dog who jumped from the Titanic into the frigid waters and swam alongside a lifeboat for hours, his constant barking alerting the Carpathia's captain of their approach, we would toss that tabloid rag into the trash. But at the time, this story and others just as ridiculous were making front page news in respectable newspapers.

Would you have believed the story that two stowaways hiding beneath lifeboat seats were crushed to death because of the intolerable weight of some large women sitting above them? Or how about the news report that one surviving man was dressed in women's clothes when he disembarked from the Carpathia? (The man spent the rest of his life debunking the story, written by angry reporters to whom he would not grant an interview immediately after disembarking from the Carpathia.) And what do you think about the famous "NO POPE" tale, wherein rumor stated that the hull number on the Titanic was 390904 which, when seen in a mirror, spelled "NO POPE"? Well, maybe you could squint really hard and believe that, except for the fact that the number on the Titanic's hull was 131428, which doesn't spell anything upside-down, backwards, or even if you're very drunk.

But perhaps the most widely debated myth, which many people still want to believe, is that of the infamous cursed mummy that was supposedly being transported in the ship's hull. Here's how the story (the details vary from telling to telling) goes.

The mummy of the princess of Amen-Ra was purchased in the late 1890s by a wealthy Englishman who arranged to have it shipped back to his home. In those days, it was a common practice in high society to hold "unwrapping" parties, wherein an Egyptian mummy's bandages were unwrapped before friends and family.

But the princess never made it to the young man's estate because he mysteriously vanished; in addition, the "curse"; caught up with two of his companions: one lost an arm and the other went bankrupt. So when the sarcophagus reached England, it was bought by another businessman, who ended up donating it to the British Museum because the supposed curse caused his house to catch fire and three of his acquaintances were injured in a car accident.

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