STRANGE SIGHTS SEEN AT SEA

[Robert T. Paige]

Would't that possibly be the ship's lights from portholes as the ship sank bodily into the water and then rose back up as she listed / tilted?

This is just from my own personal experience and that was in just one instance.
The lights in the ocean I saw were just relatively dim blue blobs against the almost black of the ocean.
This was just looking straight down from the railing of the open deck about mid ship
The lights, whatever they were, were apparently just in the wake of the ship and only seen in a small line next to the ship's side.
They certainly weren't very bright as described.
Maybe the person was just in shock from the icy water and was hallucinating ?

To Jim Currie, Samuel Halpern , Michael H. Standard , et al -
One more thing (amongst many others) that I have learned from this website that should be quite evident from most of my posts.:

There is a vast difference between a mere U.S. Navy. Ex-PO2
radar technician who only had about 2 1/2 years sea duty and a real sailor. LOL

 

[AlexP]

Here is a video of a mirage of a light
Sometimes there are two images of a miraged light, and sometimes there are five images of the same single miraged light.
In any case it is probably impossible that both Mr. Stone and Mr. Gibson watching the Titanic for two hours would have missed on the changing lights if they were miraged, because it is what a mirage does, it is changing miraged objects constantly.

 

[Samuel Halpern]

Sometimes there are two images of a miraged light, and sometimes there are five images of the same single miraged light.

Why? If conditions stay the same you won't go from 2 to 5 lights. Therefore conditions change over time. Groves saw two masthead lights when the steamer was first coming up, before Stone even arrived on the bridge. Your conclusion that a mirage didn't exist that night does not follow. You said it yourself, it is what a mirage does, it changes. It can even disappear.

 

[AlexP]

Why? If conditions stay the same you won't go from 2 to 5 lights. Therefore conditions change over time. Groves saw two masthead lights when the steamer was first coming up, before Stone even arrived on the bridge. Your conclusion that a mirage didn't exist that night does not follow. You said it yourself, it is what a mirage does, it changes. It can even disappear.

Was Californian Caught in an Eddy?

You got that right. Simple comprehension says that there is some conflicting evidence. Nothing knew when it comes to Titanic or Californian. If you are going to create diagrams such as the one you did, then use the evidence as given. The evidence as given says the steamer that was stopped when...

www.encyclopedia-titanica.org

“ I also believe Groves never saw two masthead lights despite what he later claimed. If at 11:45, when Lord came up to talk to him, this steamer had two masthead lights, then Lord would have seen two lights as well”

2nd Officer Stone's Interrogation.

Doesn't matter. Lord said that it was reported to him that the steamer was altering her bearings to the SW at that time. Lord said that two different times. The first time before the courtroom was cleared, and the second after it was cleared. This report to Lord about the steamer firing a...

www.encyclopedia-titanica.org

“Groves seeing 2 masthead lights only came out the next day when, according to Lord, he asked Groves about the steamer they both had in sight the previous evening after Lord came onto the bridge to take a closer look at this steamer that had recently stopped to their SSE (by compass).”

In addition, a vessel approaching under super refraction conditions would come in the view in whole at once. The lights , and I mean all lights, would have appeared all together, and not one by one. Furthermore, the appearance of a miraged ship is changing as she is approaching.


There might have been many images of a miraged Titanic some erect, some inverted, some stretched, some compressed, but Mr. Groves’s description demonstrates that the Titanic was approaching in the conditions of the standard atmosphere and the lights were appearing gradually.

 

[Samuel Halpern]

Despite what I believe or not about the two masthead lights seen by Groves, my point is simply that you should not jump to conclusions based solely on the what Stone and Gibson saw, especially since Stone told Gibson at one point: “Look at her now; she looks very queer out of the water; her lights look queer.”

 

[AlexP]

Despite what I believe or not about the two masthead lights seen by Groves, my point is simply that you should not jump to conclusions based solely on the what Stone and Gibson saw, especially since Stone told Gibson at one point: “Look at her now; she looks very queer out of the water; her lights look queer.”

I make my conclusions by comparing the testimonies of the eyewitnesses to the descriptions and videos of a mirage. None of the testimonies even remotely could be interpreted as a description of a mirage. Just the opposite. The eyewitnesses from both Titanic and the Californian describe a ship in the standard atmosphere.
A vessel sinking head down will probably look very queer out of the water, especially if the only thing one could see are some light. As you yourself said it somewhere, this testimony has a very simple explanation, and this explanation is not a mirage.

 

[Samuel Halpern]

Wouldn't a better explanation be that the reported sea and air temperature conditions do not support the development of a mirage?

 

[Samuel Halpern]

A vessel sinking head down will probably look very queer out of the water, especially if the only thing one could see are some light.

For the record, I agree.

 

[Scott Mills]

Of course, the question ought to be, did those lights look "queer" when they were actually seen, or with hindsight knowing that Titanic had foundered in the night in the direction the witnesses were seeing lights, and knowing that the ship the witnesses were serving on were being accused of doing nothing to rescue those on Titanic?

It is actually quite amazing how memory works, and how we build narratives socially--the two witnesses talking about what they saw actually changes what they remember. This is why police immediately separate witnesses to an accident or crime and take separate statements.

Also, the narratives we build around memories are in service of the demands of the present, and thus 'memories' of an event are changed in one's mind to suite the story needed in the now.

 

[Jim Currie]

Despite what I believe or not about the two masthead lights seen by Groves, my point is simply that you should not jump to conclusions based solely on the what Stone and Gibson saw, especially since Stone told Gibson at one point: “Look at her now; she looks very queer out of the water; her lights look queer.”

I do not buy this mirage idea at all. If there had been such a phenomenon, then it would have been reported by multiple sources. Not one single ship reported a mirage of any kind... not even the favourite of Tim Malten. Tim's source simply reported "much refraction" and Tim translated that into a mirage. In fact the much refraction was determined by the reading of the thermometer and the barometer, there was no mention of an optical illusion source.

According to the King's English Dictionary in use in 1912, " queer (kwer) a. [Low Ger. queer, athwart] going athwart what is usual or normal.." and the word "athwart (a-thwawrt') across from side to side of : in opposition to: crosswise".

Gibson and Stone were observing a vessel showing very few lights in total darkness at a distance of 4+ miles. To come to the conclusion that the vessel looked "queer", they would have to have been measuring the change in the orientation of at least three reference points. One of these was the red side light. They had two more to chose from...the single white masthead light ahead of the red light and the "glare of light" astern of the red light.
The vertical separation between masthead light and red light would be obvious. To come to the conclusion that the vessel they were seeing had a starboard list. the red light would need to seem higher relative to the remaining reference point... the "glare". I suggest to you that initially, at 4 miles plus, the horizontal distance between the red light and the "glare" gave the impression that the two were almost in line. However, in reality, the red light would have been carried marginally higher than the glare. When that vessel turned right... away from the observers, the vertical separation between red and glare" became more obvious.hence the illusion of a starboard list was created.

 

[AlexP]

Wouldn't a better explanation be that the reported sea and air temperature conditions do not support the development of a mirage?

Probably it would not for a few reasons. The most important one is that we really do not know what was the temperature profile because only atmospheric sounding could show on what height there were temperature inversions, and of course nobody was lunching weather balloons anywhere close at the time of the disaster. Even if the sounding were available a Fata Morgana often has her own ways, and sometimes appears under "wrong" conditions, while completely ignoring seemingly perfect conditions.

In fact the much refraction was determined by the reading of the thermometer and the barometer, there was no mention of an optical illusion source.

Jim, once you wrote:
"When a Navigator calculates a true altitude, he applies corrections for Dip and Refraction. He obtains the last from a table which allows for pressure and temperature. To use that table, he checks air temperature and the barometer. No one would be able to "notice" refraction, certainly not the Lookouts."
I wonder how one could find the correction and to know where is the real horizon, if it looks like this, for example, especially at 3:23 into the video.

 

[Samuel Halpern]

To come to the conclusion that the vessel they were seeing had a starboard list I suggest to you that glare of light aft appeared to take on a very different appearance than previously. Words to the effect that she had a big side out was used by Gibson. That doesn't quite sound as if the vessel was simply turning around.
Anyway, this has been discussed all before.

 

[Jim Currie]

Probably it would not for a few reasons. The most important one is that we really do not know what was the temperature profile because only atmospheric sounding could show on what height there were temperature inversions, and of course nobody was lunching weather balloons anywhere close at the time of the disaster. Even if the sounding were available a Fata Morgana often has her own ways, and sometimes appears under "wrong" conditions, while completely ignoring seemingly perfect conditions.


Jim, once you wrote:
"When a Navigator calculates a true altitude, he applies corrections for Dip and Refraction. He obtains the last from a table which allows for pressure and temperature. To use that table, he checks air temperature and the barometer. No one would be able to "notice" refraction, certainly not the Lookouts."
I wonder how one could find the correction and to know where is the real horizon, if it looks like this, for example, especially at 3:23 into the video.

Very simple! Your eyes naturally align with the visible horizon. If you saw a "flash" on that one at 3-23 am in the morning, you would raise your binoculars and hold them level...they would be aligned with the horizon. If no mist, you would see the difference between sky and sea if you had "young" perfect night vision.

 

[Jim Currie]

To come to the conclusion that the vessel they were seeing had a starboard list I suggest to you that glare of light aft appeared to take on a very different appearance than previously. Words to the effect that she had a big side out was used by Gibson. That doesn't quite sound as if the vessel was simply turning around.
Anyway, this has been discussed all before.

It certainly has. Sam but has never been satisfactorily answered. It has always been much easier to exclaim "Ah, yes! They must have been seeing the sinking Titanic". However, you know as well as I do that that is total nonsense, since if it had been so, then the red light would have given the impression of a port list, not a starboard one.