Alternate traces of bodies on the seafloor besides boots and shoes

[Richard Coplen]

Hey all,
just wondering...we're all familiar with the pairs of shoes and boots lying on the sea-bed around Titanic, marking the spots where Titanic's dead eventually came to rest...Have any other personal objects besides foot attire been found? I realise that clothing and other such biodegradable materials are long gone. What I refer to is jewelery and other such personal accessories - combs, cigarette cases, hairpins, etc, etc. Have any such objects been found close to the pairs of shoes and boots? Many of those victim's bodies recovered on the surface were found with many personal possessions on them. Surely the seabed must be littered with such? I realise that most of the small personal objects recovered by RMS TITANIC, INC were contained within larger objects i.e.) bags and suitcases...I'm talking about loose individual objects.
Appreciate any insights,
Regards,
Rich.

 

[Bill Wormstedt]

Take a look at Ballard's newest book, "Return to Titanic". There is a photo of boots and a coat where a body must have fallen.

 

[Mark Robert Hopkins]

I don't have the book yet. Apparently, it's not available here yet because I haven't seen it. A coat? First-class? Second-class? Third-class? Male? Female? Adult? Child?...What are your observations on that, Bill?

 

[Bill Wormstedt]

I don't have the book with me, so I can't check. But I seem to recall it was a heavier coat, maybe worn by a crewman?

I'll check when I get home tonight, and let you know.

 

[Mark Robert Hopkins]

Okay. Thanks, Bill. It's appreciated. I'll be waiting to hear...

 

[Richard Coplen]

Hey again,
wow that is fascinating that clothing survived outside of suitcases and such. Must keep an eye out for that book - never knew about it till now. Thanks for the info Bill.
Regards,
Rich.

 

[Bill Wormstedt]

The photo I refer to is on page 148 of Ballard's book. The caption says:

"A slicker and heavy-duty boot situated just below it's hem, above, fire the imagination. Could they have been on a body that landed near the stern and disolved in the decades since the sinking?"

 

[Mark Draper]

Charle's Pellegrino's book "Ghosts of the Titanic" mentioned some surviving biological material buried in some concretions taken up in 1998. buried inside were small stuff, buttons, cufflinks, small bits of clothing, and to everyone's horror, bits of bones. In the book it mentions how he may have found the bones of a child.

 

[Dan Cherry]

I usually take Charles Pellegrino's Titanic historical "writings" with a grain of salt.

 

[Mike Bull]

Absolutely, Pellegrino's mixing of fact and his own brand of fiction/over-excited, crazy theories can make for confusing reading. If I remember rightly, the self-same bones were later found to be those of a chicken or something, weren't they?

 

[Mark Draper]

That's what he said they were Mike.

 

[Bill Wormstedt]

That may be what Pelligrino said - but that doens't make it fact. Now, if someone else would independently confirm it, I'd be more inclined to buy it.

 

[Michael H. Standart]

>>That's what he said they were Mike.<<

Okay...and agreeing with Bill and the rest, what is there to confirm it? Was anything actually recovered and subjected to any sort of scientifically valid forensics analysis? It would be an interesting find if it proved to be true, but without some kind of testing, all we have here is speculation.

Charles Pellegrino is an outstanding and engaging writer, but it's been shown on a number of occasions that a lot of what he said is best checked befor accepting it as fact.

 

[robert s hauser]

Okay...and agreeing with Bill and the rest, what is there to confirm it? Was anything actually recovered and subjected to any sort of scientifically valid forensics analysis? It would be an interesting find if it proved to be true, but without some kind of testing, all we have here is speculation.
Actually, there is. From page 129 of "Ghosts of the Titanic" "Inwardly, I had insisted that I was looking at kitchen debris, but I was unsure until vertebrate zoologist Bill Schutt determined with reasonable certainty that the two largest, finger sized bones, though clearly not from a chicken, were not human either. We were looking at the humorous of a lamb, which was consistant with what we knew of the last meal aboard the Titanic: the first and second-class menus included an entree of spring lamb with mint sauce.....then let my thoughts linger on four other remnants of bone I had seen in the tureen concretion. one of them belonged to a bird. Three of them were barely larger that grape seeds and might never be identified; and though it was true that quail and lamb had been stirred together under the tureen, buttons also formed part of the mix, and a shred of clothing that gave me the impression of an undershirt". It was Bill McQuitty that went into the speculation that it might have belonged to some human child. It was not any statement of fact they were promulgating, just speculation after finding something unusual. I've re-read a lot of Pellegrino's Titanic stuff in light of all the critisism I've heard in this forum, and it seems to me that he usually backs up most of what he says. He'll tell some story, but always preface it with " from a letter to so and so dated bla bla", he never seems to just throw stuff out. Most of his theories seem to be the result of colaborations with other writers. A lot of them were developed with the help of Walter Lord, and Roy Cullimore, and Ballard. I don't get the feeling that Pelligrino is trying to pass off crack pot theories as "fact", he's just another one of us weirdo's trying to understand the infinite mysteries of that acuressed ship!... that junk heap on the abyssal plain that has taken up so much of my life with an un-natural obsession! I mean, really, this whole infatuation with the Titanic is a bit cracked to begin with. Really, its just another shipwreck that happened due to a combination of circumstance and human error, no different from the Collins Line "Arctic" disaster of the 1850's, which has a lot in common with the Titanic, or the other great maritime tragedy before Titanic,( also compliments of the White Star line), the "Atlantic" disaster of the 1870's. Titanic was unique in that it was the first major media event/ "dissaster feeding frenzy" that was covered by the press in real time. David Sarnoff ( who would one day be president of RCA) was listening to the distress calls from the Wannamaker department store in New York. Anyway, I'm rambling, sorry-Rob H.

 

[Michael H. Standart]

>>Actually, there is. From page 129 of "Ghosts of the Titanic" "Inwardly, I had insisted that I was looking at kitchen debris, but I was unsure until vertebrate zoologist Bill Schutt determined with reasonable certainty that the two largest, finger sized bones, though clearly not from a chicken, were not human either.<<

Well, that's interesting, but has any of this been recovered and subjected to independant forensics analyis and the peer review process? It would be interesting to see any such and see how well it held up if it held up at all. Photos are interesting but don't always tell the whole story.