I thought it was proved beyond doubt that they were observing the Titanic? They described a large passenger ship that stopped, showed her port light, listed to one side and fired rockets and disappeared shortly after 2am. They said she was almost facing them head on. The Titanic's survivors said the other ship was almost directly ahead off their port bow. towards the north. The Californian even saw the rockets of the
Carpathia when she approached further south, and they assumed the first ship had steamed to the south and was continuing to fire rockets, and therefore was not in distress. Even when the Mount Temple arrived she saw the
Carpathia to the east and the Californian to the north. Captain Moore said:
"I saw the Californian myself cruising around there, sir......She was to the north of the Carpathia and steaming to the westward.....When we sighted her she must have sighted us. ......The Californian was to the north, sir.....He was then north of the Carpathia, and he must have been, I suppose, about the same distance to the north of the Carpathia as I was to the westward of her.....This pack of ice between us and the Carpathia, it was between 5 and 6 miles."
The Californian had just started moving west through the ice field when the Mount Temple saw her to the north of the Carpathia moving west through the ice. He judged the icefield to be "5 and 6 miles" wide. Surely there is no possible way for the Californian to have been 20+ miles away from the Titanic because she was only 10-15 miles away from the Carpathia when she was firing rockets to the south. I believe the Californian was certainly in the immediate area when the Titanic sank.
Captain Lord first noticed her at 10.30pm (their time) as one enormous bright light. I believe a ship the size of the Titanic would first appear as a brilliant bright light, owing to her size, amount of light, and height above the horizon as she first approached them. Quartermaster Rowe said he first noticed the other ship when the Titanic's stern was swinging to the south. 4th officer Boxhall said he was preparing to swing out the lifeboats when the crows nest reported a light on the starboard bow, this light then moved across their bow to the port side as the Titanic was swinging towards the north.