There are many incidents that have been thought to be unthinkable, but have happened nevertheless. Such is the mystery of life. Events have taken place that no one would have expected or believed. But we stand on the threshold of certainty and uncertainty in this world and many times history and facts have proved us wrong. Such is the story of the “unsinkable” Titanic.

Enveloped in tragedy, mystery and awe, this legendary ship of larger-than-life proportions, did in fact leave many questions unanswered as it sank to the bottom of the sea. While we leave this part of the story to be discussed later, there is yet another most puzzling aspect to this sad tale. It seems that the disaster that happened to Titanic was strangely prophesised 14 years earlier in a work of fiction by a not-very-famous author in his book called Futility.

After the tragedy, the book became quite famous as it was almost as if the author Morgan Robertson had foreseen the sinking of the great ship. Moreover, there seem to be other works of fiction written before Titanic sank that seem to eerily tell a tale of a great ship sinking which was thought unsinkable or somehow referring to the tragedy in some way or the other.

Let us get a little into the details of the description of one of the greatest ships ever built and then compare the works of fiction to the actual vessel and events.

Titanic was constructed in 1909 in Belfast, Ireland and took three years at the cost of 7.5 million dollars with 3000 labourers working to build this gigantic ship. It had 16 watertight compartments that had steel doors, which would close within 25 seconds to prevent flooding in the interior of the ship.

Since it was thought to be unsinkable, it carried only half the number of lifeboats compared to maximum number of passengers. Sadly, when the tragedy happened, some lifeboats were only half full while others just floated empty into the waters telling us what kind of panic must have taken place at that horrific moment.

There were 2,227 people aboard the ship out of which only 705 survived. The ship struck an iceberg in the Atlantic Ocean just before midnight on April 14, 1912, and the iceberg struck the ship at such a force that the hull broke and water started coming into the ship. Out of 16 watertight compartments, five were immediately flooded. The designer of the ship immediately told the captain that the ship was going to sink eventually and the passengers panicked when they were told to get into the lifeboats.

Since there were not enough lifeboats, only women and children were lowered into the lifeboats. Before it sank completely, the ship broke into half and sank 350 miles away from its distress call off the coast of Newfoundland Canada. Its expected destination was New York, USA.

Now we come to the similarities of the fictional story to the actual events. The most interesting aspect is that the novel was written even before Titanic had been designed, which is why so much mystery is involved! The fictional ship is called Titan and also sinks in April and almost in the same area of the North Atlantic Ocean. There were not enough lifeboats to save the passengers just like in the actual Titanic. The size of Titan in the book is 800 feet in length and the size of the real Titanic was 882 feet and nine inches long. The speed of Titan was written as 25 knots and Titanic sped along at the speed of 22.5 knots.

Both ships were described as ‘unsinkable’. Newspapers’ description of Titanic was the world’s largest luxury liner designed to be unsinkable and “virtually unsinkable”.

The novel describes the “Titan was the largest craft afloat and the greatest works of men and was “practically unsinkable”. Titanic had 16 lifeboats and four folding lifeboats; the fictional Titan had 24 lifeboats. Both had a capacity to carry 3000 people. If this is not strange enough, here’s more. Titan of the novel was moving at 25 knots and struck an iceberg on a night in April in the North Atlantic, 400 miles from Newfoundland. Both the boats sank almost at the same place with more than half of the passengers!

Then there is the actual sinking of the great Titanic, which too is quite a mystery. Why would Captain Smith not change speed or direction even when he did receive several alerts from nearby ships of icebergs ahead? The ship actually tore in half with both the sections facing opposite directions. And eerily true is the fact that the band actually went on playing while the ship sank.

Later on though, the story in the book does have its differences too, like the fact that Titan was not on her first voyage and was sailing from New York to London and did not see the oncoming iceberg due to heavy fog.

But here we have another strange tale. Titanic was on its first voyage and had the most famous and richest people of that time on board. One of its passengers was the author of another prophetic work of writing regarding the disaster. An English journalist W.T Stead, wrote The Sinking of a Modern Liner in 1886. He wrote that the ocean liner was on a journey from Liverpool England to New York drowned with most of its passengers due to a collision with an iceberg. And there were very few lifeboats!

Stranger still, Stead himself gets on Titanic later to die due to a similar tragedy. Did he foretell his own death in his work of fiction? How bizarre is this tale? Sometimes fact and fiction sail on waters we might never understand.