On the morning of April 17^th, 1912, crowds gather at White Star Lines Pier 59 in New York to welcome the arrival of its newest and largest ship, the Titanic. However, as the minutes turn to hours there’s no sign of the ship on the horizon. Eventually, the crowds begin to disperse and anxiety begins to build, but the White Star Line assures the crowd and families of those onboard that the ship is likely late and that they will send word when the ship has been sited entering New York Harbor.

Titanic hadn’t been heard from since April 13^th, but this was nothing to worry about. Telegraph technology: while commonplace on the Atlantic, was known to not always be reliable. It was likely that the ship’s equipment suffered a malfunction. Moreover, she may have suffered a thrown propeller blade or a boiler malfunction that could be limiting her speed causing her to run late on her crossing, which was not uncommon for the time. Thus the 17^th turned to the 18^th, 19^th, 20^th, 21^st, 22^nd, and 23^rd.  Yet no sign of the world’s Largest and Grandest Ocean Liner.

By April 24th it was becoming obvious to all parties that Titanic wasn’t simply running late as rumors started to grow about what had happened to the ship. Papers across the country started publishing outlandish theories from The Royal Navy accidentally sinking the ship to alien abductions. However, with no sign of the ship, any guess was as good as any other.

By the 25^th, over a week from when Titanic was due to arrive in New York, both the US and British Governments were arranging search parties to scour the Atlantic and advising all steamships on the Atlantic to keep an eye out for any trace of the Titanic. Unfortunately, weeks turned to months and no sign of the world’s largest ship was ever found. After 9 months, all search efforts were officially called off and 3 months later, a full year after her scheduled arrival in New York, Titanic was listed by both the US and British Government and the White Star Line as Missing at Sea with all souls presumed lost.

Today almost everyone has heard the story of the Titanic. The grand liner that disappeared on her maiden voyage and was never seen again. Thus 111 years after her disappearance, the question remains, what happened to Titanic? With no trace of the ship ever found details are murky. Some suspect the massive ice flows that year caused the ship to collide with an iceberg and sink. However, others dismiss this theory as the ship’s watertight design made her virtually unsinkable and a single iceberg collision seems unlikely in taking down such a large and strong ship. Perhaps until her wreck is discovered we may never know, but I believe she’s out there somewhere just waiting to tell the world the true story of her disappearance.

Thanks for reading! Obviously, this is a fictional story but it very well could have been a reality. Check out part 2 to know how this story almost became history and leave a comment with any questions or suggestions for future posts!

Final Note: Thanks to Historic Travels and Big Old Boats on YouTube for the inspiration to create these posts. They have high-quality informative content and I would check them out if you liked this post.