Rare optical illusion may be to blame for the sinking of the Titanic

The Titanic sank on April 15, 1912 (Picture: Bettmann Archive)

An optical illusion caused by freak weather could have played a vital role in the Titanic tragedy.

Reports suggest a mirage could have obscured the massive iceberg that struck the ship, leaving it impossible to spot in time.

On April 14, 1912, the ‘unsinkable’ Titanic and its 2,240 passengers and crew passed from warmer waters into colder, and had already received several warnings about icebergs in the area.

Now, evidence from reports in The Times suggests they had sailed into a ‘thermal inversion’, which happens when a band of cold air sinks beneath warmer air. In this case, the cold air came from the Labrador current along the Canadian coast, and the warmer air from the Gulf Stream.

While that may sound fairly mundane, the effect is anything but. Thermal inversions can cause a range of mirages, including the famous morgana fata, where ships can appear to float above the horizon.

In the case of the Titanic, it is believed the thermal inversion led to a superior mirage, which creates a false horizon.

How the thermal inversion obscured the iceberg

For those at sea level, light bends over the true horizon, allowing them to see further than normal.

But higher up, the gap between the true horizon and false horizon can appear as a haze – which could explain why those on the ship’s crow’s nest, 30 metres high, could not see the iceberg until it was too late. To those on lookout, it was obscured by the mist.

Without the mirage, they may have been able to see it in time to avert disaster.

Articles found in The Times’s archive support the theory, put forward by historian and broadcaster Tim Maltin.

A report detailing the recollections of Reginald Lee, who was on lookout duty alongside Frederick Fleet when the collision happened, said: ‘He thought the haze was extending all round the horizon within a certain locality. When they were in the [life]boats they could see a further distance.’

Famously, there were not enough lifeboats for all passengers and crew (Picture: United Archives/Carl Simon/Getty)

The Titanic’s journey

However, the superior mirage may not have only caused the accident, but stopped help arriving earlier.

The SS Californian was the closest ship to the Titanic when tragedy struck, but failed to act.

While the crew, in particular wireless operator Cyril Evans, have long been blamed for failing to respond to distress signals from the ship, Mr Maltin believes they too were caught out by the mirage.

When the SOS arrived, Mr Evans had already gone to bed. Mr Maltin argues that other crew who received the signals, on looking out to sea, saw the Titanic with the false horizon behind it, and assumed they were looking at a smaller ship closer to them.

The Titanic was en route to New York (Picture: Blank Archives/Getty)

Assuming such a small ship wouldn’t have the telegraph equipment needed to send the SOS, they used a powerful Morse lamp to try to communicate, but received no response.

Mr Maltin believes the freak weather event would have ‘effectively scrambled [the] Titanic and Californian’s Morse lamp signals to each other’. The mirage also meant distress flares sent up by the sinking ship appeared low in the sky, and were not an obvious SOS.

Amid the confusion caused by the superior mirage, the crew of the SS Californian did not respond until morning, by which time more than 1,500 lives had been lost.

Dr Andrew Young, an atmospheric refraction expert, agrees that all the evidence points to a super mirage.

The iceberg pictured two days before it was bit by the Titanic (Picture: RR Auction/Getty)

‘The mirage and related refraction phenomena, such as looming, contributed to the confusion at the time of the accident,’ said Dr Young, from San Diego State University.

‘In particular, [Maltin] has established that the crews of the Titanic and SS Californian saw each other’s signals but were unable to interpret them because of atmospheric effects acting in the unexpectedly large distance between the two ships.’

Instead, RMS Carpathia was the first ship to reach the site, around 3.30am, April 15 – more than an hour after the Titanic had sunk, leaving passengers and crew stranded in the icy waters.

Only 705 survived.

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