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• Titanic: The Ship of Dreams
• Scary Facts About Huge Tourist Attractions
• The Old Haunted Amusement Park
• The Ghosts That Haunt Chicago
• Forests That Are Really Haunted
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• In the Dark Corners of the City of Light
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• Creepiest Ghost Stories of WWII
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• Of Course Texas Is Haunted
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12 Spine-Tingling Ghost Stories About The Titanic

The RMS Titanic set out on its maiden voyage with more than 2,200 people aboard in April 1912. Tragically, only 706 of those passengers would survive. The ship was moving too fast one freezing night and struck an iceberg and went down. Those who perished in the event suffered a terrifying and agonizing demise. Any paranormal enthusiast will tell you that strong emotions paired with an untimely end are key ingredients in most hauntings.

For eight decades, the RMS Titanic and all its contents sat at the bottom of the Atlantic until underwater excavation teams brought artifacts back up to the surface. Now, these pieces of history are offering a rare glimpse at what it was like to be on the massive ship and hints at the ghostly spirits that still linger around the doomed vessel. The pieces displayed apparently still have a connection to the former passengers who possessed them. Read on to discover some of their spooky tales.

A Lady In Black Appears On The Grand Staircase

The Titanic Artifact Exhibition at The Luxor Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas apparently has a ghost wandering its grand staircase. Employees and guests alike have seen this mysterious woman, who wears a black period dress with a white collar and her hair in a bun.

As a photographer prepped for the opening of the exhibition, he spotted the woman casually walking down the Grand Staircase. He was startled, as he hadn’t seen anyone enter and the staircase was roped off. He assumed she was part of the exhibit and asked if she’d like him to photograph her. She ignored him. He went back to setting up, but suddenly she was directly behind him. Again, he offered a photograph and this time she didn’t just ignore him - she vanished.

The Ghosts Take Portraits Off The Walls

The exhibit at The Luxor includes a portrait of J. Bruce Ismay , one of the Titanic ’s builders. He apparently fled the sinking ship, leaving women and children behind. Witnesses on the lifeboats claim he kept his back to the ship as it descended, and allegedly, he was the one insisting the ship speed up after receiving ice warnings. Perhaps it's not surprising that the ghosts of the Titanic seem to dislike him.

One early morning as the crew came in to open the exhibit, they found the portrait of Ismay on the floor. The manager watched the surveillance video from the night before and was stunned to see the picture begin shaking before coming off of the wall, apparently of its own accord.

A Ghostly Tour Took Place On The SS Winterhaven

What if you saw a ghost without even realizing it?  In the case of  Second Officer Leonard Bishop of the SS Winterhaven , that was exactly what happened. In 1977, he gave a tour of the ship to a man who he assumed was a passenger. The British man was very soft spoken and extremely interested in every detail of the vessel, almost unusually so. Bishop found the man to be a bit strange - not unpleasant, just odd.

It wasn’t until a few years later, after seeing a photo of Titanic Captain Edward John Smith that Bishop realized why the situation felt so off. Bishop exclaimed to a friend, "I know him, I gave him a tour of my boat!" The friend laughed and informed Bishop that the man had been long deceased: "That man was the captain of the Titanic !"

The Ghost Of The Titanic’s Lookout Watches The Promenade Deck

Frederick Fleet , a British sailor, served as the lookout aboard the RMS Titanic . He spotted the deadly iceberg and warned the bridge. Tragically, his warning came too late; the ship was going too fast to avoid a collision. Fleet survived the sinking of the Titanic , but not his own depression. After his wife’s passing just after Christmas in 1964, he was evicted by his brother-in-law and hung himself in the garden.

His grave went unmarked until the Titanic Historical Society erected a headstone for him in 1993. It appears his spirit is not quite at rest, however. Witnesses have claimed to see him keeping watch over the Las Vegas exhibition’s Promenade Deck, perhaps driven by his guilt to keep watch, even in the afterlife.

Museum Staffers Are Poked And Prodded By Unseen Hands

According to staff and visitors, the Titanic artifact exhibition at The Luxor is extremely haunted. Eerie sounds, uneasy feelings, and actual sightings of ghostly specters have all been reported. Artifacts expert Joe Zimmer  seems to attract quite a bit of attention from these supposed spirits. He says he's had his name called and his hair and clothing tugged on, all followed by the sounds of laughter.

And late at night, Zimmer reports hearing a phantom orchestra play.

Ghost Hunters Captured A Voice On Tape

The Georgia Aquarium also houses potentially haunted artifacts from the Titanic . The employees have claimed to see shadows, hear voices, and even be touched by the spirits. The paranormal activity is so intense that Syfy Channel’s Ghost Hunters  came in to investigate.

They reportedly captured a recording of a voice saying, "No, please wait" in the iceberg room. The team also said they got readings of several anomalous cold spots and witnessed a shadowy figure. After reviewing their findings, they concluded that the Titanic exhibit at the Georgia Aquarium is, in fact, haunted.

A Comforting Spirit Haunts The Titanic Belfast Museum

As they like to say in Ireland, the Titanic was “built by the Irish, sunk by the English.” The Titanic Belfast museum commemorates the ship in Belfast, Ireland, and it seems to have a ghostly presence of its own. In 2009, a woman touring the museum listened to the final distress call of the RMS Titanic . She described the events that followed  in a letter to the hosts of the podcast  Real Ghost Stories Online .

She claimed that while hearing the original Morse Code and seeing the words of the RMS Titanic ’s distress call, she became overwhelmingly emotional. Her heart was pounding, and she felt as anxious and heartbroken as if she were the radio controller herself. Shaking and sick to her stomach, she began crying. Walking away to get some air, she felt a hand on her shoulder, and a male voice said softly, “It’s okay.”

She assumed it was her friend and reached up to brush his hand, but realized no one was there. Was it the spirit of the radio controller, Jack Phillips, she wonders? Was he reassuring her that he was at peace with what happened? 

Captain Smith Haunts His Former Home in England

According to Louise and Neil Bonner, owners of the former home of Titanic Captain Edward John Smith, the shipmaster lingers in his house. The couple have spent the last decade renting the 19th century Victorian, and their tenants have reported feeling icy chills passing through them, hearing strange noises, and even seeing full-bodied apparitions of the Captain. The property has also suffered a flood in the kitchen and unusually cold gusts in the dining room.

According to Mr. Bonner, “some years ago we had a single chap living in there and he rang up one day convinced he had seen the ghost of the Captain... he was in bed when he saw him drift across the room.”

Spirit Orbs Hover Over The Titanic's Resting Place

People aboard ships passing the site where the RMS Titanic went down have reported mysterious balls of light, believed to be spirit orbs, hovering in the area. On more than one occasion, submarines traveling those depths have received unusual radio interference.

Odd noises and S.O.S. calls with no origins crackle through their communication equipment.

An Exhibit Visitor Is Touched From Beyond The Grave 

While visiting family in Missouri, a teenager went to the traveling Titanic exhibit and had a brush with the paranormal.

Posting on YourGhostStories.com , she recounts the experience:

We were walking through a hallway to get to the artifacts, and I was behind everyone. I suddenly felt a soft tug at the back of my t-shirt. I turned around to see who the culprit was, but the hallway was absolutely empty. I quickly faced forward to catch a potential trickster, but no one was sneaking away and everyone in front of me was far ahead.

<p>A Deathbed Premonition Was Made The Night The Titanic Went Down</p>

A creepy legend surrounding the Titanic comes from the deathbed of a young Scottish girl named Jessie. On the same night the ship went down, Jessie was on the verge of dying. In her delirious state, she supposedly spoke of a massive sinking ship and a man named Wally playing a fiddle.

She had no way of knowing the Titanic would sink that night, or that Wallace "Wally" Hartley played his violin one last time as he and his band went down with the ship.

An Author Predicted The Sinking Of The Titanic 14 Years Before It Happened

Morgan Robertson published The Wreck of the Titan in 1898. Fourteen years later, the real-life Titanic disaster happened, and many took that as a sign that the author  had precognitive abilities . Robertson rejected those claims, saying he was just drawing on his real-life experience as a seaman.

However, there are plenty of chillingly specific parallels between the book and reality. Besides the similar names, the fictitious Titan , like the Titanic , was supposed to be the largest of its kind and an unsinkable ship. It also lacked enough lifeboats to accommodate its passenger load and struck an iceberg while going too fast in the North Atlantic. Both disasters also took place in April and cost thousands of people their lives.

Want More 'Titanic?'

Even though the RMS Titanic slipped beneath the icy surface of the Atlantic more than 100 years ago, people continue to be fascinated by it. Whether it be first-person accounts of what happened on board or historical analyses of the captain’s decisions that fateful night , there is plenty to dig into if you’re someone who is interested in all things Titanic. If you – or someone you know – just can’t get enough of the "Unsinkable Ship," here are our staff’s picks of what to read, watch, and buy next.

A Night to Remember: The Sinking of the Titanic ,  the #1 New York Times bestselling book by Walter Lord. Based on interviews with sixty-three survivors, Lord’s moment-by-moment account is among the finest books written about one of the twentieth century’s bleakest nights.

A popular gift volume featuring dozens of meticulously accurate, full-color paintings – including a fold-out illustration of the whole Titanic – Titanic: An Illustrated History offers a wealth of information about the "unsinkable" cruise ship and its fatal voyage.

The History Channel’s documentary Titanic: The Complete Story is ideal for anyone who really wants all of the details from that fateful night in a format they can watch and re-watch anytime.

For younger readers, Voyage on the Great Titanic: The Diary of Margaret Ann Brady, R.M.S. Titanic, 1912 in the popular Dear America series offers a unique view of life onboard the ship from the perspective of a young girl. 

For the collector, miniature lover, and design enthusiast, there are rare photographic prints , scale models , and even Titanic trivia available. 

Our staff has written lots on the subject, too, so stick around!

• Fascinating And Rare Photos That Document The Titanic’s Journey
• Facts We Just Learned About The Titanic That Made Us Say ‘Really?’
• Small But Poignant Details From The Movie ‘Titanic’ That Make Us Never Want To Let Go
• RMS Titanic
• Graveyard Shift
• Strange True Stories
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GHOSTS OF THE TITANIC

The musical that willl haunt you.

Titanic Hauntings: Ghosts of the Sea

On the clear, frigid morning of April 15 th , 1912, the R.M.S. Titanic sank into the waters of the North Atlantic after striking an iceberg several hours earlier. Of the 2,208 souls aboard, only 709 would survive the sinking. Today, Titanic’s legacy lives on in both fact and myth, but some of the most chilling stories lie in tales of its hauntings, where the restless spirits of those who died are rumored to occupy graveyards, artifacts, and even the site of the sinking itself. Do those who perished so tragically continue to haunt these connections to the famed ocean liner? Whispers and wild tales continue to circulate, and it seems as if these ghosts of the sea are not content to rest. 

1. The Fairview Lawn Cemetery

2. The Five Fisherman Restaurant and Grill

Some say the ghosts of Titanic victims abound at the Five Fisherman Restaurant and Grill. This four-story building opened in 1816, first as a schoolhouse; however, later on, it was purchased by a family who turned it into a mortuary. When the bodies of some of the Titanic victims were recovered, they were brought to this building and held there until the burials could take place. Today, the building is a popular eatery, but employees and diners alike have experienced odd happenings there.

These eerie incidents must surely be the acts of the unquiet spirits that remain where their earthly remains were brought after the sinking.

3. The Luxor Exhibit in Las Vegas, Nevada

The Titanic Exhibit in Las Vegas’ Luxor Hotel and Casino has its fair share of ghost stories. The most popular is the Lady of the Grand Staircase, who has been spotted at the replica staircase by more than one person. Photographers and guests alike have seen this apparition, clothed in a black period dress. It is said that she appears and vanishes without warning and never speaks.

4.  Titanic’s Final Resting Place

If any Titanic -related locale is haunted, it must be the place where so many people lost their lives on that fateful night in the middle of the North Atlantic. Those who have visited the site since have confirmed ghostly activities, including odd, glowing lights visible at night that are said to be the spirits of those who died in the water. Deep-sea vessels that have explored the area near the sinking have reported receiving eerie, faint S.O.S. calls that fade in and out and seem to have no traceable source. Are these the ghosts of the sea, calling out from the past, or just the result of some sailor’s overactive imagination? Perhaps the mystery will never be solved, but one thing is for sure: there is an ocean of unrest surrounding the spot where Titanic sank forever from sight.

No one can be certain what lies beyond this life, but if these stories of Titanic hauntings are to be believed, then those who lost their lives on the morning of April 15 th , 1912, have never found their way to eternal peace. It could be that they will vanish when the ship itself is finally consumed by the ocean, but until then, these ghosts of the sea will continue to fascinate and frighten those who see them.

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Ghostwalking in Titanic

Wandering room to room through the sunken wreck, the explorer and filmmaker finds himself at home among the spirits.

It had been five hours since my intrepid robot Gilligan left its garage on the front of the submersible Mir 1 and disappeared inside the cavernous shipwreck. Our sub was parked on the upper deck of the most famous wreck in history, surrounded by eternal blackness and over 5,000 pounds per square inch of pressure, both thanks to a two-and-a-half-mile column of water over our heads.

Safe inside the Mir , I flew the remotely operated vehicle (ROV) with gentle nudges of the joystick, its thrusters maneuvering it into the ship’s treacherous interior. The “bot” had penetrated to F Deck, paying out a thin fiber-optic cable like Theseus in the labyrinth, with only Ariadne’s twine to guide him back. Though the tiny vehicle was now seven decks below me, I felt as if my consciousness were inside the bot, its cameras my eyes, staring down the corridors of the ship. Its jeopardy was also mine, and my pulse raced with each new hazard. Turning a corner, I barely escaped being pinned by a falling “rusticle,” one of the stalactite-like formations created by the bacteria that are slowly devouring the steel of the ship.

As I passed through an entrance, suddenly revealed in my lights were sparkling reflections off a wall of gleaming blue and green tiles. Teak chaise lounges lay upturned on the floor, incredibly well preserved, and above them was an arabesque dome covered in gold leaf. I had entered the elegant spa on the most luxurious ship of its time. “Tell them we’re in the Turkish baths,” I said to Mike Arbuthnot, the marine archaeologist sitting next to me. He keyed the microphone and relayed the message up to the surface.

Our interior archaeological survey of the ship had begun in 1995, as I was wrapping up shooting the wreck for the movie Titanic. Back then we had an unwieldy ROV called Snoop Dog , which was little more than a movie prop, but we flew it down inside the ship’s grand staircase nevertheless, all the way down to D Deck. Its lights revealed that much of the ornate wood paneling remained intact. Snoop reached the end of its tether and could go no farther, but I could not help wondering what lay in the shadows just beyond its lights. After the movie was released, I commissioned the building of two revolutionary new robotic vehicles so we could return and truly explore the interior. In 2001 and again in 2005 I made multiple dives to the Titanic wreck and flew our bots deep inside, exhaustively surveying her interior. Ultimately we imaged and documented 65 percent of Titanic ’s surviving internal spaces, including the first-class cabins, first-class reception and dining rooms, steerage cabins and open space, cargo holds, and Marconi room.

One incredible discovery followed another, in dizzying succession. In the first-class dining saloon and reception rooms, we found the tall leaded windows still intact. The hand-carved mahogany paneling on the walls and columns remains, some of it with the original white paint still visible. There are cut crystal chandeliers and, in the first-class staterooms, immaculately preserved brass beds. Filigreed iron grilles cover the yawning elevator shafts. When I first laid eyes on the intact brass call button, I felt as if I could reach out and touch it, and a ghostly elevator might still arrive. Titanic sank on her maiden voyage before her interiors could be photographed, so most of the archival images used as references for the movie’s sets were photos of her sister ship, Olympic. For the first time we were learning how Titanic herself was actually built, and the details of her decoration have now been painstakingly reconstructed from the bot videos. I now know where the movie is accurate, and where it’s not.

Of all our discoveries, the most evocative are the relics that suggest the human hands that touched them. In Henry Harper’s D Deck cabin, his bowler hat remains in the ruins of his closet, right where he left it. In Edith Russell’s cabin on A Deck, the mirror still gleams in her washstand, reflecting back the bot’s LED lights instead of Edith’s terrified face as she rushed back into the room to get her lucky toy pig before running to board a lifeboat. In another stateroom, a glass decanter and water glass sit, impossibly, still on the washstand. Had the glass been empty, it would have floated out of its holder when the room flooded, and been lost. But someone took a drink and left it half full, and there it sits today.

In the soundproof Marconi room, the wireless apparatus survives, the knife switches still in the positions left by the young operators, Harold Bride and Jonathan Phillips, revealing that they cut the power when they abandoned their post as the water rushed up the deck outside. We even imaged the transformer they had repaired just the night before the sinking. Acting against guidelines, the two young wireless geeks managed to restore the set to full power—an act that may have saved 712 lives, since without this power they might not have reached the rescue ship Carpathia with their historic SOS. Capturing these precious bot images was like touching history itself.

In 2001 I had wanted to get into the C Deck suite of Ida and Isidor Straus, the elderly couple famous for choosing to die together rather than be separated by the evacuation rule of “women and children only.” Their suite was the most ornately decorated on the ship, and in fact had been the basis for Rose’s suite, the room in which Jack Dawson draws the heroine’s portrait in my fictional narrative. I got our stalwart bot Jake as far as the purser’s office, discovering the tall purser’s safe in the process, but I couldn’t penetrate to the Straus suite next door. In 2005, determined to find a way, I wriggled the slightly smaller Gilligan through a constriction, knocking rusticles out of the way, and emerged into an open space. The bot’s lights revealed gleaming gold sparkles. Not only was the ornate mahogany fireplace still intact, but sitting on it was the gold-plated clock, just as it appeared in the archival photo, and just as we had re-created it for the movie. It was a surreal moment, fiction and reality merging in the stygian depths.

After 33 dives to the wreck, averaging 14 hours each, I have spent more time on the ship than Captain Smith himself did. In all that exploration, the strongest memories are these out-of-body experiences of ghostwalking through the corridors and stairwells of Titanic via my ROV avatar. Its gothic ruin exists now in a ghostly limbo, neither in our world nor completely gone from it. The rusticles have transformed Edwardian elegance into a phantasmagorical cavern, a surreal underworld ruled only by dream logic. But despite the sheer alienness of the place, I felt a tingling déjà vu exploring there. Having walked the faithfully built movie set for many weeks, I would turn a corner in the wreck and already know, before the bot’s video camera revealed it, what would be there. It was an eerie feeling but also strangely comforting, as if I were somehow home.

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I Went on a Titanic Ghost Tour and It Was a Million Times Better Than the Movie

Eat your heart out, James Cameron.

This article was originally published on April 20, 2017. We are re-promoting it for the 20th anniversary of Titanic .

Having been on a number of ghost tours in my life, I can tell you that there are two kinds of ghost tour guides. The first kind is the tour guide who may or not believe in ghosts, but knows that you came to hear some spooky shit and tries to deliver an experience that will keep you up at night. The second kind is the tour guide who’s more interested in history and adds the ghostly tales as an afterthought. If you’re interested in learning about say, carriage doors, you might like this kind of guide, but if you want stories about ectoplasmic girls peeking out of windows, you’ll be disappointed.

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Going into the tour, I expected the second variety, just because I couldn’t imagine how a tour about a shipwreck that didn’t even happen here could possibly include compelling ghost stories. The people on the Titanic died more than a thousand miles from New York, so how could they be haunting random houses on W. 11th Street?

The short answer is they can’t, but I learned I was wrong about my tour guide, Andrea, almost immediately upon arrival at the starting point. Of the 11 people who took the tour, only two were men, and one of them worked for the tour company and was giving his own Titanic cemetery tour the next day. Andrea reacted to this demographically skewed group by saying we looked like a first-class lifeboat. Then she told us that we happened to be taking this tour on the very day that Titanic hit the iceberg 115 years ago (it didn’t sink till the early hours of the next day, April 15). You can see how this really set a tone for the evening.

Before we started our journey, Andrea asked all of us to say what interested us in this tour, and only one other person besides me admitted to coming because they liked the movie. Several of the other attendees were self-described Titanophiles, a word I did not even know existed until a week ago, and one woman had actually worked at a Titanic exhibition. This did not seem like the kind of crowd who would appreciate a question about the size of Rose’s raft.

As soon as Andrea started talking about premonitions and coincidences, though, I lost all interest in asking about James Cameron’s masterpiece. Jack and Rose dancing in steerage is cute and all, but it truly does not compare to finding out that this guy Morgan Robertson wrote a novella called Futility, or the Wreck of the Titan , about the Titan, an “unsinkable” ship without enough lifeboats, that sinks in the North Atlantic after hitting an iceberg. Maybe he heard about the construction of Titanic, and wanted to put his own spin on it? Wrong. He wrote Futility in 1898, 10 years before Titanic was designed and 14 years before it sailed for New York. Are you spooked yet?

Premonitions are a common theme when it comes to the Titanic, which you know if you’re a Titanophile like my tourmates, but not if your main experience of the tragedy is Rose blowing that whistle till your ears bleed. One man who died in the wreck, W.T. Stead, published a short story about a steamship without enough lifeboats 26 years before setting foot on Titanic, and in 1892, he wrote yet another short story about a ship rescuing survivors of a ship that hit an iceberg. Several of the people on the tour seemed to know about this guy, but the friend I dragged along and I agreed that this tale blew our minds.

Another bonus of taking a ghost tour on Good Friday is that you’ll get to walk by churches having services, and if you’re very lucky, go inside one. We stopped at Grace Church to see a cenotaph for Edith Corse Evans, one of only four first-class women who died in the wreck, and had our visit soundtracked by some extremely atmospheric choir music. Later, we walked by the Church of the Ascension on Fifth Avenue, and I distinctly heard the word “Satan” waft out of the window. Trust me: You haven’t lived till you’ve been on a ghost tour where you hear someone not related to the ghost tour say “Satan."

The best part of the tour, however, was the very end, when Andrea took us up on the High Line to view the remainder of Pier 54, where the Carpathia took the survivors of Titanic. I had walked by this archway plenty of times, and even gone to the attached park for concerts once or twice, but always assumed it was some remnant of an unfinished construction project. I was wrong, obviously, and a little sad to find out that the city has plans to eventually demolish the pier.

I haven’t had time to watch Titanic since taking the tour, but I’m not sure I even want to — Jack and Rose’s tepid love story seems a lot less interesting to me now that I know about W.T. Stead and his crazy premonitions. Besides, why waste three hours on something I’ve seen a hundred times when I could read something new? Specifically Transcending the Titanic: Beyond Death’s Door , which Andrea recommended for people interested in the more paranormal aspects of the shipwreck. Goodbye, Heart of the Ocean; hello, mysterious floating orbs.

Titanic turns 20 on December 19. Read more anniversary articles here .

I’m the senior entertainment editor at Cosmopolitan.com, which means my DVR is always 98 percent full. I love romance novels, bourbon, and canceling plans so I can watch Lost for the 50th time.

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Ghosts of the Titanic: Haunting Tales that Endure Time

• by Steve Paslow

Titanic – Image from James Cameron 1997 film.

The sinking of the Titanic in April 1912 is a tragedy etched into the annals of history. The loss of over 1,500 lives in the icy depths of the North Atlantic continues to captivate the imagination and stir emotions even to this day. Beyond the physical remnants of the shipwreck, numerous stories and accounts of ghostly encounters associated with the Titanic have emerged, adding an eerie and haunting dimension to the already haunting tale. In this article, we will delve into some of the reported ghostly experiences and explore the enduring legacy of the Titanic’s haunting spirits.

One of the most prominent ghostly legends of the Titanic involves the “Lady in Black.” Many witnesses have reported sightings of a mysterious woman dressed in black mourning attire at various Titanic-related events including in passenger and freighters that frequent the Atlantic ocean and locations of where the ship sank. She is often seen weeping or staring off into the distance with an air of profound sadness. Some speculate that she may be the spirit of a grieving widow who lost her husband in the tragedy. The Lady in Black has become an iconic figure in the Titanic’s ghostly lore, her presence evoking a sense of deep sorrow and longing.

Another ghostly figure associated with the Titanic is that of Captain Edward J. Smith, the ship’s commander. Witnesses claim to have seen his apparition on the decks of other sailing vessels, wearing his captain’s uniform and staring out into the vast expanse of the sea. Captain Smith’s ghost is often described as a solemn and authoritative presence, forever tied to the vessel he commanded on its ill-fated maiden voyage.

In addition to the Lady in Black and Captain Smith, there have been reports of other ghostly figures representing the passengers and crew of the Titanic. Apparitions of crew members carrying out their duties, dressed in the attire of the early 20th century, have been witnessed by many. Passengers in period clothing, seemingly oblivious to their surroundings, have also been reported. These spectral figures roam the decks, peer out from portholes, or simply wander aimlessly, forever trapped in the realm between life and death. The paranormal activity associated with the Titanic is not limited to sea faring craft. The White Star Line building in Liverpool, England, which once served as the headquarters for the company that owned the Titanic, has its own share of ghostly tales. Visitors and employees have reported strange phenomena such as unexplained noises, flickering lights, and a palpable sense of unease within the building. Some believe that the spirits of the Titanic’s victims have found their way to this place, perhaps seeking solace or resolution for the tragic events they experienced.

While personal encounters and eyewitness testimonies form a significant part of the Titanic’s ghostly legacy, psychic mediums and paranormal investigators have also delved into the mysteries surrounding the disaster. Mediums claim to have made contact with the spirits of Titanic passengers and crew members through séances and other spiritual practices. These mediums often provide messages or insights attributed to the deceased, shedding light on their experiences and emotions during the ship’s final hours. While the veracity of such claims remains a subject of debate, they contribute to the ongoing fascination and exploration of the Titanic’s haunting legacy.

Beyond individual encounters and spiritual investigations, the tales of the Titanic’s ghosts have found resonance in popular culture. Books, documentaries, and films have explored the supernatural aspects of the Titanic’s story, perpetuating the fascination and intrigue surrounding its haunting spirits. From fictionalized accounts of ghostly romances aboard the ship to speculative theories about time travel and parallel dimensions, the ghostly legends of the Titanic continue to capture the imagination of storytellers and audiences alike.

However, it is essential to approach the subject of the Titanic’s ghosts with a critical and skeptical mindset. The allure of the paranormal often leads to exaggerated claims, sensationalism, and the potential for hoaxes. Many reported ghostly encounters can be attributed to psychological factors such as suggestion, sensory illusions, or the power of suggestion. The emotional weight associated with the Titanic’s tragedy can also influence perceptions and contribute to the creation of ghostly narratives. Nevertheless, the enduring fascination with the Titanic’s ghosts serves a purpose beyond mere entertainment. It keeps the memory of the Titanic alive, reminding us of the human cost of the disaster and the need for continued efforts in maritime safety. The stories and legends surrounding the Titanic’s haunting spirits offer a glimpse into the enduring power of human imagination and our desire to seek meaning and connection with the past.

One of the larger collections of Titanic artifacts located at the Titanic Museum Branson, MO.

One of the most poignant examples of a reported ghostly encounter on the Titanic comes from the account of the Strauses, a prominent couple who tragically perished on the ship. Isidor Straus, co-owner of Macy’s department store, and his wife Ida chose to stay together rather than separate during the chaos of the sinking. According to witnesses, the couple was last seen standing arm in arm on the deck, refusing to board a lifeboat. The spirits are often seen where actual Titanic artifacts have been rescuced from the sunken ship. The artifacts have been put on dispay and have traveled accross the country with recreations of the ships rooms and Grand Stair case.

Since then, there have been numerous claims of sightings of their apparitions, still united in death, walking together hand in hand on the reconstructed decks of the Titanic. These sightings serve as a reminder of the selflessness and love that characterized some of the Titanic’s passengers. Another notable example involves the ghostly presence of children on the ship. The Titanic carried many families, and tragically, a significant number of children lost their lives in the disaster. Witnesses have reported hearing the sounds of children laughing, playing, or crying in the corridors or near the Grand Staircase. Some claim to have seen shadowy figures running or playing in the hallways, only to disappear when approached. These apparitions evoke a profound sense of sadness and loss, representing the innocence that was abruptly taken away on that fateful night.

Reports of paranormal phenomena extend beyond the physical artifacts or the posessions of the ill fated ships passengers. The Titanic Historical Society, an organization dedicated to preserving the memory of the Titanic, has received accounts of ghostly encounters from individuals who have visited the society’s headquarters in the United States. Visitors have reported unexplained cold spots, objects moving on their own, or the feeling of being watched by unseen eyes. While these experiences cannot be proven scientifically, they contribute to the ongoing fascination with the Titanic’s haunting spirits.

The enduring appeal of the Titanic’s ghostly legends lies in their ability to connect us to a specific moment in history and evoke a range of emotions. They remind us of the fragility of human existence, the indomitable spirit of those who perished, and the unresolved stories that remain embedded within the fabric of the ship’s wreckage. Whether one believes in the existence of spirits or considers the ghostly encounters as products of human imagination, the Titanic’s haunting legacy is a testament to the power of collective memory and the enduring impact of historical events.

In conclusion, the ghosts of the Titanic continue to captivate the collective imagination, as stories of ghostly encounters and paranormal phenomena persist to this day. From the Lady in Black to the spirits of Captain Smith, crew members, and children, the specters associated with the Titanic evoke a sense of tragedy, longing, and unresolved stories. While skeptics may dismiss such accounts as products of suggestion or emotional attachment, they contribute to the ongoing fascination with the Titanic’s haunting legacy. Whether as a reminder of human loss or as a symbol of the unexplained mysteries that surround us, the ghosts of the Titanic keep the memory of the ship and its passengers alive, ensuring that their stories endure for generations to come.

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Haunting new footage of Titanic wreckage to be released

More than 80 minutes of rare and mostly unseen video was taken during pioneering 1986 expedition

Haunting new footage of the wreck of the RMS Titanic was set to be released on Wednesday, taken during the pioneering 1986 expedition that gave the first glimpses of the doomed ocean liner since its notorious sinking on its maiden voyage more than seven decades before.

The cache of more than 80 minutes of the rare and mostly unseen video comes from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (WHOI) of Massachusetts , which partnered with French explorers in the discovery of the ship’s remains.

The release commemorates the 25th anniversary and re-release of the blockbuster movie Titanic , whose director and writer, James Cameron, continues to support Titanic research.

The Titanic sank with the loss of more than 1,500 lives in April 1912 after striking an iceberg, in one of the deadliest and most significant maritime disasters in history.

A Woods Hole oceanographer, Robert Ballard, and the French explorer Jean-Louis Michel located large chunks of debris in 1985 almost 2.5 miles below the surface of the Atlantic, about 400 miles from Newfoundland.

Ballard led the expedition the following year, recording video inside the ship, using a deep-ocean submersible named Alvin and a smaller, more maneuverable remote camera called Jason Jr that could pass through narrow openings.

“More than a century after the loss of Titanic, the human stories embodied in the great ship continue to resonate,” Cameron said in a statement this week.

“Like many, I was transfixed when Alvin and Jason Jr ventured down to and inside the wreck. By releasing this footage, WHOI is helping tell an important part of a story that spans generations and circles the globe.”

A 96-second teaser for the footage, which was scheduled to post in full on Woods Hole’s YouTube channel at 7.30pm ET on Wednesday, showed images taken from above the bow and inside the wreck, set to an atmospheric piano soundtrack.

The trailer said the footage “chronicles some of the remarkable achievements of the dive” led by Ballard.

More recent visits to the depths have revealed signs of decay in the wreckage of the Titanic, which split into two main chunks while sinking.

A 2019 series of dives by Eyos Expeditions , guided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa), was the first in 14 years, and showed the wreck had been “heavily impacted by strong and ever-changing ocean currents, metal-eating bacteria and natural salt corrosion”.

“Diving on the Titanic is a complex and difficult undertaking. The logistics of working at 12,500ft while 370 miles offshore are challenging,” said Rob McCallum, the Eyos founder and expedition leader.

McCallum said the wreck remained “one of the most iconic and exclusive destinations on Earth”.

Cameron’s largely fictional 1997 movie based on the Titanic story, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, is one of only three films to have won 11 Oscars , including best picture and best director.

The Canadian film-maker was also behind the celebrated 2003 documentary Ghosts of the Abyss , which captured some of the most stunning images ever recorded of the Titanic during an expedition two years previously. Cameron funded and co-piloted a submersible built specifically for the adventure.

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