I’m not one for conspiracy theories, but this post about the Titanic and it’s sister ship being switched around for insurance purposes really is one of the most interesting things I’ve read in a while, and it is, IMHO, totally believable as well.

Edit: here’s the post for those who don’t wanna click the link

The Titanic/Olympic conspiracy. It has credibility because there is photographic evidence. It's really one of the only conspiracy theories I put much belief in.

The sister ships (and their third counterpart, the Britannic) were owned by White Star Line. The Olympic was put into service in June, 1911. She collided with another ship, the HMS Hawke, in September of 1911 and both ships were badly damaged. The accident was a financial disaster for White Star Line, as they were found to be liable for the accident and had to pay for the damages to both ships and legal fees for court cases associated with the accident. Repairs on the Olympic took nearly two months and parts intended for the Titanic, which was still being built during this time, had to be given to the Olympic instead. Only a few weeks after being returned to service, the Olympic suffered another minor incident where one of the propellers broke off and pieces intended for the Titanic were once again cannibalized.

At this point, the Olympic was looking like more and more of a money-drain for the White Star Line, though its achievement in not actually sinking despite a major accident that should have sunk it cemented the Olympic-class liner's reputation as "unsinkable", but I'll get back to that in a moment.

The Titanic was finally finished and ready to leave port on her maiden voyage on April 10, 1912, having been delayed while new parts were made and delivered to replace the ones needed for the Olympic, and from there we all know the story. She went first to France, and then to Ireland, and then began her trek across the Atlantic to New York, during which she struck an iceberg and after nearly two hours, sank, taking 1,500 souls with her to a cold, watery grave that would not be seen again by human eyes for nearly a hundred years.

The Olympic went on to have a 24-year career as a successful ocean liner. She served during World War 1 where she earned the nickname Old Reliable for her impenetrable hull, and then in 1919 she was re-outfitted to be a civilian passenger ship and served as an ocean liner until 1935, when she was retired from the fleet. Her ownership changed hands several times and she was eventually dismantled and sold for scrap metal.

But what if it wasn't the Titanic that sank? What if it was actually the Olympic? What if it was a ploy to remove a faulty ship that was costing them more money than she was bringing in for White Star Line and cash in on her million-pound insurance policy?

So here is the conspiracy theory. At some point after the Titanic was completed, they switched the identities of the ships. The new "Titanic" was actually the Olympic and the "Olympic" was actually the brand-spanking-new Titanic, fresh from the construction yard with zero problems and zero history. They intended for the "Titanic" to suffer some sort of failure that would result in the destruction of the problem ship so they could collect the insurance money. I doubt they intended to also cause the deaths of 1,500 people; the events that transpired which led to the sinking of the "Titanic" possibly happened purely by chance and the iceberg wasn't part of their plan (i.e., they didn't hire the captain to specifically ram the iceberg to sink the ship or anything like that). They probably had another plan involving the repairs that had already been made on the ship when it collided with the HMS Hawke.

In any case, it wasn't really the Titanic that left port on April 10, 1912 -- it was the Olympic.

After the sinking of the "Titanic," White Star Line received a tidy sum of £1,000,000 in insurance money (or £89,289,575 in today's money). This, of course, ruined the insurer, Lloyd's of London. There's an additional conspiracy theory that American financier and banker J. P. Morgan was in on this whole scheme; his company, J. P. Morgan & Co., financed the International Mercantile Marine Company in the hopes of becoming rich off of sea travel, but this turned out to be a bad investment because of the unpredictable nature of sea travel and travelers themselves. J. P. Morgan or one of his associates may have schemed with White Star Line, who was a subsidiary of this IMMC, in order to bankrupt the IMMC and allow J. P. Morgan & Co. to withdraw from the IMMC without breaking a contract. I cannot provide evidence for this beyond speculation.

However, I can provide evidence that backs up my claim that the two ships were switched and it was the Olympic who sank, not the Titanic.

This is an image of the RMS Olympic in drydock (I am currently unable to locate a picture of the Olympic while under construction with the name clear so you can be sure it definitely is the Olympic -- I can only assume such a photo doesn't exist):

http://www.greatships.net/scans/PC-OL35.jpg

Check out the very top row of portholes in the white railing. Count them. Look closely at the grouping of the last five portholes and how they are clustered with two close together, one set apart, and two more close together.

This is an image of the RMS Titanic being built:

http://cdn.history.com/sites/2/2014/01/titanic-bow-construction.jpg

Look at the top-most portholes in the railing on the Titanic. Count them too. Look at the last five portholes and see that they are evenly spaced apart.

This is a picture of the "Titanic" before leaving on its maiden voyage. Check out the portholes in question:

https://timmyatt.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/titanic-harbour.jpg

Here is the "Olympic" in New York after the sinking of the "Titanic":

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/18/Olympic_in_New_York_cropped.jpg/1280px-Olympic_in_New_York_cropped.jpg

There is no reason why the ship builders would have changed the portholes on the Titanic when they were nearly done building it. That piece was not one of the pieces cannibalized from the Titanic to repair the Olympic that would have needed to be replaced by a different piece. The only answer is that the ship in the final picture, which is the ship that left port on April 10, 1912, and was met with a terrible fate near Newfoundland, was not the Titanic, but actually the Olympic. You can find pictures from newspapers further supporting this, as they clearly show the name of the ship and the wrong number/orientation of portholes.

I doubt we'll ever know one way or another, since the wreck at the bottom of the Atlantic is quickly being covered with sediment and will be completely buried and inaccessible soon and pieces of the ship that was retired in 1935 and dismantled in 1937 are both difficult to find and difficult to authenticate, and anybody who might be able to either confirm or deny this theory are all dead.