Did Author Really ‘Predict’ the Titanic Sinking 14 Years Earlier?

By | March 10, 2017

The novella Futility, written by Morgan Robertson in 1898, shows a couple of eerie similarities to the well-known story of the sinking Titanic. How many similarities are there, really? Let’s have a peek:

These bizarre “coincidences” mostly strike as borderline creepy. Perhaps Robertson was some kind of prescient writer.

According to a Titanic scholar and professor at Wilfrid Laurier University, Paul Heyer pointed out that by looking at the author’s biography, explanation to most of the similarities can be justified.

“He was someone who wrote about maritime affairs,” said Heyer. “He was an experienced seaman, and he saw ships as getting very large and the possible danger that one of these behemoths would hit an iceberg.”

Robertson’s encounters in real-life as well as knowledge of naval trends, possibly gave him plenty of tangible source for writing accurately about maritime disasters.

However, the novel doesn’t focus on the Titan alone. The main focus of the story is about a Titan naval officer who discovers God, acquires the love of his life back and resists alcoholism after the Titan’s sinking. Robertson also included some interesting action sequences where the protagonist kills a polar bear in order to rescue a small child.

Later, Robertson gained great acclaim after the Titanic sunk. It was for being a visionary, a title he denied.

He would usually reply, “No, I know what I’m writing about, that’s all.”

H/T Time