Episode 130: The Titanic Conspiracy — Was the Wrong Ship Deliberately Sunk?April 1912. The most famous ship in history struck an iceberg and sank. 1,517 people died. The disaster shocked the world. And according to a conspiracy theory that went viral on TikTok in 2023 and again in 2025, the ship that sank that night was not the Titanic at all — it was her nearly identical sister ship, the Olympic, deliberately disguised and sent to the bottom of the Atlantic as an insurance fraud by the White Star Line and the financier JP Morgan.This episode explores:* The HMS Hawke collision of 1911 — the real event that provides the financial motivation for the alleged switch* The porthole difference argument — what believers point to in photographs, and what maritime historians actually found when they looked closely* The construction number 401 — found on artefacts recovered from the wreck, and what it definitively establishes* JP Morgan's last-minute cancellation of his maiden voyage reservation — and why last-minute cancellations were common for trans-Atlantic voyages* The financial arithmetic of the alleged fraud — why the insurance payout would have represented a net financial loss, not a profit* Why the Olympic continued in documented commercial service until 1935For believers, the visual similarity of the sister ships, Morgan's cancellation, and the financial pressure on White Star form a compelling circumstantial case. For maritime historians, the construction number on recovered artefacts and the financial arithmetic are decisive.What is certain: 1,517 people died. The ship that sank was the Titanic. And the theory that it wasn't will continue circulating as long as social media exists.Keywords: Titanic conspiracy theory, was the Titanic actually the Olympic, Titanic switch conspiracy, JP Morgan Titanic, Titanic insurance fraud, Olympic Titanic swap evidence, Titanic wreck construction number, White Star Line conspiracy, Titanic truth debunked, Titanic wrong ship TikTok

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“What did the council decide on item 42?” — answered with the speaker and the moment.

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