corpses on the Titanic?

[NuclearNed]

I have a book called Survival: How to prevail in hostile environments by Xavier Maniguet

On page 126 of this book, the following is written about the wreck of the Titanic:

<...> What they discover is both extraordinary and appalling. They will never talk about it and, above all, no picture will ever be published in conformance with a well-established tradition. The site is classified as a "memorial" by the Americans, although the wreck is outside America's territorial waters.

Around the wreck, and particularly inside of it, hundreds of corpses are frozen in place, transfixed by the enormous pressure and the total absence of currents at this depth. The ghastly flesh is slightly withered and the clothing has disappeared, but it is possible to distinguish between the young and the old, beween women with long hair and women with short hair. The exceptional state of preservation is unexpected, even in these waters where the temperature is below 32 degrees F (0 degrees C). It also proves that no carnivore ever troubles these glacial depths.

I always was under the assumption that any bodies were long gone. I've never heard about this anywhere else. Can anyone verify with another source that this is true?

UPDATE 7/31/2006 (i.e. the "definitive answer")

Good Morning - Dr. Ballard is away and asked that I forward his responses to emails. Your answer follows:

Hi,

There were no corpses present at the wreck site or the debris field. The only indication that the bodies of those tragically lost had been there were the shoes left behind after the ever present organisms had consumed the corpses in their untimely grave. There is most definitely a suitable environment for marine organisms.

All the best,
Dr. Robert D. Ballard




Janice C. Meagher
Executive Secretary to Dr. Robert D. Ballard
Institute for Exploration

 

[Homerboy]

wouldnt the pressure have crushed them, the animals eaten them?
that paragraph is complete BS for numerous reasons

 

[imported_LoKe]

I could imagine them surviving if they did indeed freeze.

 

[michaels]

BS

 

[Omegachi]

great fiction book you got there.

 

[feelingshorter]

"The ghastly flesh is slightly withered and the clothing has disappeared" so they are all nekked?

 

[BobDaMenkey]

It sounds BS to me. The sinking of the Titanic was rather how to say... Tramatic. It didn't go under slow, nor did it go under amazingly fast. People had plenty of warning to try and get off the boat, but were obviouly hindered by the lack of lifeboats. I'd imagine that maybe a few were trapped inside, but not many, and that anyone on deck was swept away from the ship when it went under, or floated back to the surface.

 

[NuclearNed]

Originally posted by: Omegachi
great fiction book you got there.

That was my first thought too. However, 1) this book has gotten virtually nothing but glowing reviews from the critics, 2) that paragraph is the only thing in the entire book that raises my eyebrow (i.e. it is technically accurate in all other respects), and 3) the book is written by a well-known French doctor.

Instead of being fiction, perhaps this is true, and a well-guarded secret?

 

[K1052]

Complete and utter BS.

All tissues and bones are long, long gone. Freaking organisms are even eating the steel too, the wreck will eventually dissapear altogether.

 

[NuclearNed]

Originally posted by: BobDaMenkey
It sounds BS to me. The sinking of the Titanic was rather how to say... Tramatic. It didn't go under slow, nor did it go under amazingly fast. People had plenty of warning to try and get off the boat, but were obviouly hindered by the lack of lifeboats. I'd imagine that maybe a few were trapped inside, but not many, and that anyone on deck was swept away from the ship when it went under, or floated back to the surface.

I got tired of typing stuff from the book, but he does go on to say that most of the bodies are within the wreck.

 

[mwmorph]

pressures would crush the bodies and wouldnt the fish eat away at the flesh?

 

[RichardE]

Fully frozen bodies still float.

 

[Howard]

Originally posted by: RichardE
Fully frozen bodies still float.

Kinda hard to float through steel.

 

[NuclearNed]

Originally posted by: RichardE
Fully frozen bodies still float.

Not if they are trapped within the vessel...

...I'm not necessarily trying to defend this book - I'm just playing devil's advocate. In all other respects I have no reason to doubt the veracity of anything in this book. This section caught me by surprise. If true, then that is really creepy...

 

[CrackRabbit]

Ive seen pictures of the Titanic that were just rows of shoes, the flesh had decayed away leaving just the shoes where the people stood.

 

[RichardE]

Originally posted by: Howard

Originally posted by: RichardE
Fully frozen bodies still float.

Kinda hard to float through steel.

Hmm...good point.

So when the hull finally breaks down we will see hundreds of frozen bodies right?

 

[eits]

i think i heard something about this whenever my friends went to see the titanic exhibit in the science museum here in st. louis.

 

[iroast]

TOTAL BS. There are creatures down there that will eat the flesh off the bodies. Frozen or not. Bottom feeders rule down there.

 

[Dirigible]

Sounds like BS. If some acting agent removed clothes, then the flesh should not be intact.

A body wouldn't be crushed at pressure. A submarine would, because it's full of air, and air is compressible. A person would try to breathe while drowning, filling the lungs with water, leaving the body with very little compressibility.

 

[CaptainGoodnight]

Plus as the body decays it releases CO2 that will cause the bodies to float to the top. However it's possible that some of the bodies are trapped and/or it's very cold down there and the bodies are not decaying.

 

[Homerboy]

the creatures down there would have eaten EVERYTHING. Not just somethings... but EVERYTHING. THere are no damned bodies. There's barely a ship left do to the micro-organizms eating away at it. I HIGHLY doubt they'd go in for boiler-plate steel before a nice soft tissue.

 

[Whoozyerdaddy]

According to this link a full grown whale carcass that falls into deep water is completely devoured, bones and all, in 15-20 years. (You have to add up the stages) 1-2 years to strip all the flesh and 10-15 years to consume all the bone.

So I'm not sure how a human body could remain mostly intact for the better part of a century.

 

[Linflas]

No idea how reliable this is...

What has received little publicity is the discovery of an area around Titanic which likely contains remains. There are numerous places around the wreck where pairs of shoes dot the ocean floor. RMS Titanic Inc. tried to argue they were not from bodies, but merely the shoes people had put outside their cabin doors for the stewards to polish. IF that were true, and the shoes had been washed overboard, it is nearly impossible for them to have landed so close together, toes pointing outward. But at that time, no one had discovered any remains and everyone assumed that the bodies had long ago disappeared.

Then, on one of RMS Titanic Inc's dives to Titanic, an aerobic (oxygen rich) area was discovered by the wreck and RMS Titanic Inc recovered a soup tureen from it. A fair sized chunk of surrounding soil came up with the tureen. It was only when archeologists began picking through that chunk that they discovered some gold cuff links (a pair) and then some pieces of bone. This was analyzed and determined to be that from lamb, which had been served the last dinner. But, what they didn't want to tell people was that also in that chunk was bits of a very small undershirt. The company then forbid any further recoveries in that area.

 

[Homerboy]

Originally posted by: Linflas
No idea how reliable this is...

What has received little publicity is the discovery of an area around Titanic which likely contains remains. There are numerous places around the wreck where pairs of shoes dot the ocean floor. RMS Titanic Inc. tried to argue they were not from bodies, but merely the shoes people had put outside their cabin doors for the stewards to polish. IF that were true, and the shoes had been washed overboard, it is nearly impossible for them to have landed so close together, toes pointing outward. But at that time, no one had discovered any remains and everyone assumed that the bodies had long ago disappeared.

Then, on one of RMS Titanic Inc's dives to Titanic, an aerobic (oxygen rich) area was discovered by the wreck and RMS Titanic Inc recovered a soup tureen from it. A fair sized chunk of surrounding soil came up with the tureen. It was only when archeologists began picking through that chunk that they discovered some gold cuff links (a pair) and then some pieces of bone. This was analyzed and determined to be that from lamb, which had been served the last dinner. But, what they didn't want to tell people was that also in that chunk was bits of a very small undershirt. The company then forbid any further recoveries in that area.

Certainly there are physical remains of leather, shirts etc... but not flesh

 

[Taggart]

LOL at the people in this thread that think there are bodies