I totally agree with you about the Californian. I always thought it would be interesting to go back in time in a helocopter and just fly around the area and just see how many ships were in the area. Try to find out if the Sampson was really between the Californian and Titanic.

From what I remember, (Stone was it?) on Californian said that the rockets he saw seem to come a great distance beyond the lights he saw. That, and the fact that the ship he seemed to see only had like a mastheadlight and a green running light instead of a ship that I heard described as "time square after dark".

However, Ernest Gill does raise up another aspect stating that that was exactly what he saw. But then again, historians have speculated he made that up for a good story for reporters.

And, if I remember correctly, the ship on the horizon dissapear roughly at the same time on Titanic as it did on the Californian (sometime after 1.00).