The californian's captain coped a lot of flack over the sinking, but consider these facts. The titanic reported a ship 5 miles a way that moved off. The californian reported seeing a ship 5 miles a way that moved off. This seems strange as both ships didn't move. and why would it be that if both ships were signalling like mad on the morse lamps that neither of them sore a response out of the other. The morning after the sinking the californian reported itself as being 10 miles from the wreck site. 5 and 5 makes 10.
This tends to hint that another ship may have been between them. A ship possibly carrying illegal substances or illegal immigrants. A ship that wouldn't be to keen on ending up on the front of a newspaper.
What do you think?[/b]

Darren,
You are correct, there is evidence that there was a mysterious ship in b/n the sinking Titanic and the Californian.
Though both vessels did move, but very slowly, thanks to the current, which I think was to the south-west.
Also, the last engine orders given to the Titanic's EOT, or Engine Order Telegraph was not stop, but according to the diving operations, the last order made was 1/3 or 1/2 reverse.

Funny you should mention a ship and a crew that didn't want to be on the front page of the paper. The small vessel was, honestly, a illegal shipping whaler. According to a book by the name of [i:ff845b798d]Titanic Warning: Hearing The Voice of God in This Modern Age[/i:ff845b798d] by Caesy Sabela explains they never bothered to investigate the ship in distress since the crew knew that they would be held accountable for being engaged in the actions of illegal whaling. The name of the vessel was the [i:ff845b798d]Samson.[/i:ff845b798d] All this only came into our view of this unexplained portion of the Titanic story was because it surfaced around the year 1992-93.
Hope this clears up something for you.

Thanks for the info! I heard about it almost as a rumour, so thanks for confirming for me.

Darren,
I don't know if the Californian was actually a scapegoat but because its Captain did absolutely nothing they were held responsible.

Mr. Henrik Naess, First Officer of the Norwegian sealing vessel Samson had this to say; The Samson's position was such that it was feared we might be taken for violating territorial borders and the lights out there meant that there were Americans in the neighborhood. And, after the ships arrival in Iceland, Mr. Naess learned from a newspaper of the Titanic Disaster.He checked the Samson's log, both time, date and position and they coincided with his own observations. His report concluded that he now understood the meaning of the lights and rockets he had seen, they had been 10 nautical miles away when Titanic went down, and there we were with our big excellent ship and eight boats in calm, excellent weather What might we have done if we had known. But we had no radio on board.

The titanics lights were also kept on to signal all ships now i think the captain of the califrnian would have seen those lights go from vertical to horizantal. AS well as the rockets and morse code! Something must have been going on cause u just dont ignore those but remeber red rockets were set off for emergency and titanic titled unsinkable didnt carry any believing nothing would happen. So white rockets were sent off the dont mean disaster though.

Anthony,
I was always wondering if Captain Lord was maybe just a little afraid to take his ship through the ice covered waters and/or just was too not interested to do anything.

I think I will research the above and post what I find if anything on my opinion?
Betty

Hate to bust your bubble, folks, but there was no way in Hades the [i:8cdf92f23f]Sampson[/i:8cdf92f23f] was anywhere [i:8cdf92f23f]near [/i:8cdf92f23f] the [i:8cdf92f23f]Titanic[/i:8cdf92f23f] that night - two days later, she was in an Icelandic port, at least four days sailing from where [i:8cdf92f23f]Titanic[/i:8cdf92f23f] sank.

This entire contravery was covered (exhaustively) in Leslie Reade's [i:8cdf92f23f]The Ship That Stood Still[/i:8cdf92f23f]. Amazon.com has a few - they're kinda rare - at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-form/102-9364966-1213722 , or on occasion it's also available on eBay.

Teamtuna,
That is where I got the above statement from:"The Ship That Stood Still" page 283

Betty

Actually, Betty, I was responding to Mr. Titanic, who does nort seem to be familiar with the book.

Teamtuna,
Ooops sorry.
Even in this book "The Ship That Stood Still" and many others, I sometimes get confused as to the real truth.

Some crew members say they saw a ship, the rockets and lights and then others say they did not. Many say Samson was in the area, others say no.

Do you think(unless some long lost letter, document is found in someone's attic we will ever really know the truth?