TITANIC Experts Reveal a Troubling Discovery
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 5 ต.ค. 2024
- Two Titanic explorers think they have the answer to one of the biggest mysteries surrounding the world's greatest shipwreck.
On a recent episode of the video podcast Museum Ship Mafia, we had Victor Vescovo and Parks Stephenson, deep-ocean explorers that have descended to the Titanic over multiple expeditions.
Some of the most compelling and disturbing images are the photographs and footage that reveal shoes, in many cases pairs of shoes. Parks Stephenson, one of the most sought-after experts on the wreck of the Titanic, provides an explanation to this decades-long mystery; one that many present-day travelers can relate to.
Do you agree?
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I think both explanations fit the wide range of possibilities that occured. It doesn't have to be one or the other.
You make a good point. Why can't it be both? I didn't think about that.
Exactly 👍
I am in complete agreement with you.
@@HistoryX4⁴ pp p iippp
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The passengers were wearing shoes and they also packed shoes, so I don't understand why this is even an argument.
27 years in law enforcement...specifically traffic fatality investigations....corpses take positions that make one viewing them, uncomfortable. The body no longer holds form the way a living human being does. Joints don't hurt when misshapen and bones don't hurt when they're badly broken. Many investigations I've fought the urge to "relieve " the corpse of what I believed to be a very uncomfortable position. So to say unnatural debunks the opion is not entirely correct...sudden, violent death leaves people in very very unnatural ways.
Yeah thats what i was thinking. Some may still have been inside and badly mangled. Also currents or the ensuing animal life that came along for a meal could very easily have moved a shoe a little.
But not drowning.....
Thank you for your sensible response coming directly from experience. Frankly I think there's an unhelpful squeamishness in the researchers who fail to acknowledge the massive loss of life and the high likelihood of bodies being dragged down into the depths by the suction of the sinking pieces of the Titanic. I agree that bones will definitely disintegrate in time - the Titanic itself is made out of iron and it's also disintegrating, albeit at a slower rate than human bones.
That is an excellent point.
My words to what happen to the 1500 people that perished in the sinking of the RMS Titanic may all of you rest in peace😢😢😢😢
I think both situations happened. There is another one to consider.
When the bodies were being eaten, the wildlife would have dragged pieces around. This could explain some odd pairs and arrangements.
Yes. You have a point.
@@TheFarmerfitzWithout watching the video I'm going to guess this:
They died of hypothermia. You get hot & take off your clothes during that episode towards the end. They were also having trouble swimming. I say they kicked their shoes off.
or the water crushing the people as the depths increase. along with the hundreds dragged down rapidly by the ship itself.
No one's mentioned kicking the shoes off to swim better, and I imagine that definitely happening. They wouldn't have wanted to go in the water with shoes on. But also, after a 2.5 mile drop, I can see the shoes drifting apart long distances
what tiny crabs and prawns dragging size 9's around the ocean floor ... sounds a bit unlikely!
When the news aired on the Titanic discovery my grandfather came over that day and talked about how he remembered that day. He was 13 and a newsboy in Detroit.
......my long deceased Aunt worked together in music halls with her American husband & lived in Detroit (although she was a born & bred English woman). She said the Actors in the Music Hall in which they were performing in the USA all broke down in floods of tears when they were informed of the Titanic tragedy.
You have to also take into account disturbance from fish dragging things around. Some are definitely from bodies others from luggage of potential survivors too. Haunting!
And also it happened at night when people were disturbed from sleep and would have hastily put shoes on in a panic
@@simpletownworx meaning what?
I’ve also heard of people diving to Titanic and seeing underwater currents carrying jewellery, clothing, luggage, etc. away from the ship/debris site so that also makes sense why it’d be scattered!
Fish dragging a goddamn Logitech controller around
What is a natural position for Shoe's, in deep ocean?. 😂
In my opinion the 2 identical shoes that were really close together are almost certainly where a body had landed and perished but all the others 🤷🏻♂️
Indeed - what are the odds that the shoes were liberated from luggage, and floated down right next to each other? If they're next to each other, (and the same pair) it was probably a body.
Wouldn’t it logically be both? People obviously had shoes on and also some would have extra shoes in their luggage.
Bodies FLOAT though, that's why killers have to weigh down their victims by tying a concrete block, rocks or something heavy to them before dumping them in the river, lake, ocean, and many times the rope or limb it was attached to rotted away and the body floats up to the surface to be discovered by a passerby or someone on a boat seeing an object and getting closer and to their horror find out it's a dead woman.
The one comparison they made of one shoe being bigger than the other at 5:54 completely ignores that there was an identical shoe next to it down by the bottom right of the screen. Look closely, they are both an exact match. Whoever produced this was lazy.
Have you ever tried swimming with your shoes on? I believe the luggage explanation. Not all, but at least 1/2 of the people who were alive and conscious in the water would have kicked their shoes off in order to be able to swim. They wouldn't have found much warmth for their feet by keeping them on anyway.
@@jasonlockhartsr4415 good point
@@HobbyOrganist Yes and no. Typically bodies will float for a little while, sink, and may float up again during decomposition when the body is full of gasses from said decomposition. Then it usually sinks again once the body degasses. That's why recovery of drowning victims can sometimes be unsuccessful, It's not always a find them floating downstream situation.
A body sinking in the water would face crushing forces - first on the flesh, followed by the crushing of the porous bones which would deform into non-rigid shapes. This is why so many shoes are in a 'non-human' position on the sea bed.
I cannot see typically human bodies ending up on the ocean floor but more completely flattened humanoid shapes like cardboard cutouts.
..That sounds eerie !
Not like "cardboard cutouts" - more like bloody mist, tbh.
Titanic is 2 1/2 miles down... the pressure is about 5000 pounds per square inch.
@@LittleBlueOwl318
..Correction: 5,600 to 6000 pounds/square inch...And you're right about the bloody mist formation of the Ill fated passengers who went down with the ship...But Ballard had said 'it took all of the bones of those victims almost 5 years to be completely dissolved'...Does this mean, the bones didn't disappear immediately right after those bodies had reached to the crushing depth of the Atlantic that morning of April 15, 1912 ?
@@A.Netizen.Since.2010 good question
It’s luggage ….
The bodies will not remain in any kind of natural position when sea animals are eating them.
Or rather disintegrating from the intense water pressure. Only few sea creatures with very small soft bodies live in the parts of the ocean that deep.
Do you think every sea creature is a massive shark lmao?
@@I_am_a_cat_ don't need to be massive to move anything in the water
Their bodies imploded from pressure long before they sank to the bottom 2 1/2 miles below - there probably wasn't much of anyone left for animals to even eat... just bloody mist.
It could obviously be both and other situations 😢
The likelihood of a pair of shoes not worn by somebody would end up next to each other have to be extremely remote.
Really? Shoes in the same luggage won't wind up beside one another?
@@ahhamartin Both happened I think. Seems to make the most sense.
if they were packed neatly in a suitcase, and the suitcase dissolved, the shoes would have been left next to each other. ocean current etc would have moved them around some.
As a funeral director for almost 50 years I know that initially the body will sink. They only float after decomposition begins and produces gases after a few days. This will happen in shallower lakes and rivers but at the depth that these bodies would of been at the pressure would of crushed or imploded the bodies. That along with the near freezing temperature would have prevented normal decomposition, thus, no “floaters”. I believe That many, but not all, of the pairs of shoes did indeed have bodies associated with them.
If the North Atlantic was fresh instead of saltwater, you might be right.
I believe there may have been a few of those shoes attached to bodies but for me the most likely scenario is what i stated in my other comment. It was chaotic and alot slept barefoot and probably had no time for shoes and othets in the water may have taken them off to stop them filling up and a whole host of other reasons leafs me to think most were just either from falling out the hull as it went down but i honestly think very few had actual people with them. Just my opinion with the evidence i have but alas we will never know or i hope i never experience such an event to find out.
The saltwater would have nothing to do with it. It is the pressure and the cold that would would of inhibited the development of gas. @@Milkmans_Son
@@curtdebaun You don't think the density of the liquid has anything to do with buoyancy?
@@Milkmans_Son at 12,500ft I don't think it matters too much...
I think Ballard's explanation makes the most sense, it is the only way that pairs of shoes could stay together, as for them being in an unnatural position, the pressure on the bodies could have caused hips to be displaced.
In spring 1985, my history and geography teacher combined their classes, and we studied the Titanic for a month. They did it every year for the third graders (that's our junior class). Everything from the history of the journey to the workings of the ocean. They had copies of newspapers from 1912, and we watched documentaries on the TV and VCR cart (the one that rolled into the classroom and you had to close all the curtains 😂).
They were both very intrigued by the entire story and loved sharing their knowledge. We discussed theories about where it could be and why it was never found.
Then, in September 1985, the news about the discovery reached us. The history teacher heard it first on the radio. He literally ran down the hall, screaming: "They found it, they found it!"
Apparently, he stormed into the geography class, and they danced, hugged and cried!
I don't think I've ever seen them happier than on that day.
It's one of my best high school memories. I know finding the Titanic was far more important for people who survived or lost their loved ones. But I'm forever thankful to dr. Ballard, everyone in my school was happy that day and we'll always remember that.
This is such a cool story! I wish we would have had something like that surrounding this topic.
There was a lot of really cool learning stuff back in the 80s. A lot of fun with our learning!
I graduated high school in 1984. In September 1985 I was a freshman in college at the institute of American Indian arts
This is how school should be. Fostering enthusiasm for learning and encouraging research and critical thinking skills (how to think) rather than rote memory & recall or (what to think) This method of group study/research projects in a primary/secondary school setting is actually know as the Reggio Emilia method.His method not only promotes research and critical thinking skills but also communication and collaboration skills. I personally think this type of learning approach is phenomenal for history or science classes but it can be used for any subject!
@tarabradford1848 that's how it used to be, now their agenda is to dumb down people so they will blindly obey.
@@tarabradford1848 OMG In the 1970 it was memorizing the dates the Presidents, timelines, like you say, nothing to use our brains. My kids studied the gold rush and had a dress ups day and different booths to do gold panning, trapping, etc. And the Oregon Trail, figuring out what to take, how much, etc.
While some items would have been luggage, of course there were bodies. Simply look at Bismarck, where It was not only reported by Robert Ballard that a 'field' of boots had been spotted, but David Mearns later returned with an image of a jacket, trousers and boots lying together on the bottom where a body had come to rest.
For anyone who has experienced dead bodies, especially in combat, disasters or car crashes, the ways and positions a body can end up are truly astonishing, almost unbelievable yet they do. To say a body must or would come to rest only in a certain way, is simply not sustainable. For example, the angle a body impacts, its weight and shape, including articles of clothing that may weigh it down, or affect its trajectory/balance, whether the body had sustained any fractures or wounds, and so forth. You get the idea of the vast number of factors that can and do affect how a body can come to lie.
True I think it's both
In this case, also the speed at which they fell, and if they hit something in the way...
I informative comment.Thankyou.
Also those “animals” from the explanation that “removed” the flesh from the bodies most probably didn’t do that while respecting the bodies - the parts may be everywhere all around.
I don’t understand why they are looking for the peaceful, orderly and quietly laying remains…
Exactly! There isn't any telling how mangled someone's body can get when there aren't any pain receptors or muscle tension. There isn't any resistance.
It really doesn't matter if there was a body attached to the shoes or not, what matters is that all those shoes once belonged to someone that died on the titanic such a tragedy
Both theories are valid. What I noticed at the 8:49 mark, is what appears to be an adult male shoe with a green child's shoe tucked inside it, something that I would do when packing to save space.
Is it a childs shoe or a shoe tree to keep the shape of the shoe?
Looks like a smaller shoe inside, not a shoe tree.
Good catch!!
People used to not have several pairs of shoes unless you were wealthy. A green child’s shoe would also indicate wealth as most shoes were brown or black.
That is not a child’s shoe nor is it a horn. It’s actually part of the shoe. You can see the eyes where the shoelaces fit.
if it's all Luggage, where are the shoes from the bodies? To me, I think it's both!
The problem is that depending on who the investigator is they get a certain idea in their head. Both explanations as to why the shoes are where they are are not only logical but probably both correct. Just as with all situations in life there is never one easy solution. It makes absolute perfect sense that some of the shoes would have come to rest with the bodies and multiple examples of other shoes went down in the luggage.
If they went down in the luggage, they should still be in the luggage
@@richardunger2177 only if the luggage survive aswell and the shoes were still packed inside it. I highly doubt every singel pair of shoes on the Titanic would have either been on peoples feet or packed inside luggage at the time of the sinking. Besides the fact that many, especially those in 1st and 2nd class, and probably the crew aswell would have unpacked their cloths and shoes when taking up their cabins after boarding the ship, most were asleep at the time the ship hit the iceberg. Most people tend to take their shoes off when going to sleep in a bed. It's well known that alot of passengers went back to their cabins and to bed after the collision believing what had happened was not serious. Some did not wake up at all by the collision and did not realize the danger until much later when water had already started to reach their level, thus having to flee their cabins in panic. So I think we can safely assume there would have been alot of shoes not fitted to peoples feet aswell as not packed in luggage either, but simply placed on the floors or wardrobes in the cabins of the crew and alot of the passengers. So lose shoes with a high probability of getting spilled out all over the ocean floor when the Titanic descended to the bottom.
@@Verdunveteran And people also tend to kick off shoes when trying to swim/tread water.
This theory was spoken about in the video and lets you know the suitcases were made of different material which degraded faster which left the contents in their original places and would have taken alot longer to decay. There is after a picture shown of what little is left of the actual siutcase with the clothes in a "neat" pile that would have been packed into the suitcase that would have held it all,but has long since disintegrated, leaving just a pile of clothes which has stood up better to the ravages of time.I
@@richardunger2177 no. If you watched, most of the luggage material used back then would have desolved
Does it matter?
In science everything matters. Digging out dinosaurs has literally no purpose and it doesn't matter if we can properly distinguish between Tyrannosaurus and Diplodok. Yet people do research that.
People are inquisitive. That is how we learn.
Yes
Ballard also found the Bismarck, and in that book he clearly shows an area he calls “the field of boots” where the German sailors came to rest on the sea floor.
Well the Bismark was sunk in battle so it's entire crew were on battle stations by the time abandon ship was ordered and she sunk. But that doesn't mean the Bismark did not have stores of boots aswell. And as for the officers multiple pairs of different regulation shoeware would have been in their cabins aswell. Even the NCO's and the enlisted men whould have had additional shoeware in their quarters and luggage other than the boots on their feet at the time of ther final battle. However if we go back to the Titanic, as it was a passenger ship, to me it's obvious that both explenations are true. Not all pairs of shoes on the Titanic would have been on peoples feet as the ship sank. Nor would all pairs of shoes have been packed in luggage either. For the crew, aswell as for first and second class passangers their luggage would most likely have been unpacked when they boarded the ship and took residence in their cabins. So it's likely that alot of the shoes on the Titanic was not on anyones feet nor packed inside the luggage as the ship sank. More so considering that most people were asleep when the ship collided. People tend to take off their shoes when going to be (unlike on the Bismark were everyone was at their battle stations at the time of her demise). Not all passengers woke up by the collision. Nor did everyone calmly get dressed and walked up onto the deck. Many remained in their cabins thinking what had happened was not serious. Many just remained in bed. Only noticing the danger to late forcing them to leave their cabins in a hurry or even in panic. I think we can safely assume that of all the shoes that has been found on the wreck site of the Titanic some did end up there while on the feet of dead bodies, while others come from decayed luggage aswell as others that spilled out from cabins were they had been left either unpacked when the voyage began or left beside the beds as people had gone to bed on that fatefull evening of the collision.
The Bismark got off one kill it was not well backed up it was on its own so it just kept taking shots untill they jammed its rudder and then it really started taking shots. I met a fellow his name was Albert he claimed to be on the Bismark was taken prisoner and spent the rest of the war in a POW camp as a lumberjack in BC Canada. Lucky really.
@@allanpatterson7653 Allegedly the Germans registered a complaint about the incident because the Allies half hearted attempt to rescue the crew of the Bismarck. They felt it was in retaliation for the HMS Hood and the almost total annihilation of her crew save two or three survivors. The British said it was due to suspected U-boat activity in the area. So anyone who survived the Bismarck was most fortunate to be picked up.
@@Verdunveteran
Let me get this straight: There was some sort of... "boot repository" on Bismarck... or just a bunch of sailors were sleeping without their boots on in the cots while the ship was being shelled... and when Bismarck sank... Despite water and air rushing through the ship, throwing everything that wasn't attached to the hull around, and having the ship fall that far to the ocean floor... All these boots just happened to land in the same spot and within a foot or two of one another? That's... The chances of that happening just so perfectly do not add up.
I believe that was poetic writing and less in what was there. "Field of boots, guns, etc" is often used to denote many military deaths that day on that spot or during that fight.
I think both Dr. Stevensen and Dr. Ballard forget to take into account how a flesh body will contort and compress at such great depths, and in so doing, create unique postures that would explain a lot of these shoes ending up side by side, yet strangely oriented.
As late as the early ‘60s I remember people with shoes that had unequal heel heights duo to polio. Not unexpected or uncommon in shoes found from 1912.
Exactly. Other conditions can cause this type of thing to happen. Some of which are congenital.
Irl I have known two people that has suffered from whatever malformation that caused one leg to be literally shorter than the other.
But not wildly different sized feet.
The two “shoes” at 5:49 are not a pair. The smaller one is a slipper. I think it’s felt. How it survived I do not know.
@@Velostigmat .....maybe they / it was a pair in a box which has disintegrated?
I think the worst part of this is that the man who designed Titanic had actually designed a ship that wouldn't sink but when they were building it.
They didn't want to spend the money.
To bring the barriers all the way up to the ceiling. The reason was that if one part of the ship got a hole in it, there would only be water in that compartment. And so the ship would continue to float.
I believe _both_ explanations are correct. Bodies did come to rest with their shoes on and dissolved over time but also did shoes that were loose in the cabins or inside luggage and those landed all over.
Certainly water rushing through the wreck as it descended would account for some of the shoes now on the ocean floor. The main sections of the wreck were like salt shakers, anything loose and light weight fell out of them.
However, back then most people only had 1 pair of shoes. Unless you were very wealthy.
@@seamripper0000 There's no way of knowing how many pairs of shoes are down there. One thing is for sure: There were shoes not in use in cabins and luggage and there were shoes being worn by all of the bodies that sunk. Both "kinds" went down and landed everywhere.
@@MikeDragonWithout watching the video I'm going to guess this:
They died of hypothermia. You get hot & take off your clothes during that episode towards the end. They were also having trouble swimming. I say they kicked their shoes off.
Exactly.
Whenever I've talked about the Titanic, I've never EVER talked about shoes.
Icebergs, Marconi, Lifeboats...yes, but never shoes.
Bones and Luggage.
It's a combination of both.
And people at the surface kicking off their shoes so they could tread water.
2:17 most pairs of shoes (in an instance such as this) would definitely belong to a person. That comment to me sounds so detached from reality.
There's probably truth in both scenarios. No doubt some of these shoes came from luggage or staterooms. But certainly there must have been bodies that came to rest on the seafloor. Bodies on the seafloor could have moved a bit due to currents, decomposition or marine life. So that may be why some pairs of shoes may not be in a natural position.
Without watching the video I'm going to guess this:
They died of hypothermia. You get hot & take off your clothes during that episode towards the end. They were also having trouble swimming. I say they kicked their shoes off.
Given the mangled condition of some of the deceased passengers and crew recovered for burial, it's possible severed limbs fell to the sea floor with shoes on them. Definitely some were also swept out of state rooms, passage ways or public rooms after rushing water demolished the partition bulkheads and took away shoes left in passenger's cabins too. The huge size of the wreck site though means many of the bodies fell to the ocean floor well away from the hull sections, leaving matched pairs of shoes on the sea floor. However, I think the arguments over whether or not those shoes marked where bodies landed on the wrecksite or where shoes from people's luggage rotted away are beside the point. They are reminders that the Titanic is a grave for 1,500 lost souls and the site is their memorial.
@ianmc....Yes Ballard isn't an expert on that.
0:13 look at the binoculars. its been reported elsewhere that the previous 1st officer accidentally took the key to binoculars locker with him when he left so the crew did not have access to binoculars. well, someone somewhere obviously had a pair.
there was more than one pair
@@lenseclipse yes, a whole locker full, which the story goes was locked because the previous 1st officer forgot and walked off with the only key.
What if someone of the passengers had their own binoculars with them?
@@Kukkakukko certainly the crew could borrowed it. we know someone had a pair because its pictured sitting on the bottom.
I had thought that some of the pairs of shoes found could have been the result of them being left outside the cabin doors to be collected by stewards to polish them, as was the case in hotels. Titanic hit the iceberg late in the evening, after many passengers had gone to bed, afterall. I had assumed that these shoes might have been tied together with their laces to prevent them becoming separated, and so stayed together all the way to the bottom. Just a thought. . .
or left inside the cabins after beeing unpacked as both passangers and crew took up residence in them when they boarded the ship. Aswell as left besides the beds as people went to bed that evening. Not all woke up or were alarmed by the collision. Most didn't thing there were any danger at all to begin with. Some even went back to their cabins or even went back to bed after the collision. Only having to leave them in a hurry when the danger became apparent.
I just did a search on Bing, and apparantly there was a shoe shining service on the Titanic. There was a blog by a Titanic survivor called Edith Rosenbaum, who recalled talking to the guy who was shining the shoes on the night of the collision. I could not find any evidence that the shoes were left outside the cabins, but this guy would have had multiple pairs of shoes with him at the time, all in one place.
good point.
That is a good and plausible theory?.. but there are also pictures of shoes laying apart with the profile of been attached to a body.. I think both theories are correct it I mostly think Ballard is correct.. but your theory is definitely plausible and a good theory..👍
@@CultgentlemanJack
Thank you for your kind words and support.
I do not doubt that there were bodies in the debris field at one time, and that any shoes they were wearing would indeed mark their final resting place. The wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerrald for instance, has the body of a crewmember lying beside it. I know this is much shallower water etc, but the principle is the same, and any bodies that sank at the same time as the rest of the debris would land in the same place. I read that due to the pressure at that depth, the normal process of 'bloat and float' would not occur so once on the bottom, the bodies would stay there.
There were only I think 334 bodies recovered of the over 1500 who died, so the rest must have gone somewhere. The debris field is the obvious place, but how many pairs of shoes were found? The only way of being certain I suppose, would be to look, at the site of each pair of shoes, for belts/buckles, spectacles, buttons, coins,
Braces/suspenders fasteners, cuff links, collar studs, rings and jewellry, false teeth, leather gloves and anything else that might have survived.
Of course there is no guarentee that a person would be wearing any of these things at the time, and it would probably involve seiving the sediment, and, in that, it would be disturbing a grave, which is not something that I personally would endorse. But on the intelectual level, it's certainly a rabbit hole . .🤔
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It’s like dad and mom arguing. You support both. I’m pretty sure there are instances of both. It’s been 100+ years, animals could have dragged it, underwater currents, and so on.
You also have to take into account that some bodies were mangled. When a body landed at the bottom, it could’ve had a broken leg and a missing arm, and so the broken leg would lay awkwardly next to the other. You also need to think about the water pressure as the bodies going down. Somebody’s would’ve been crushed.
Why can't it be both? Both make sense.
To argue with the shoes at 90 degrees being bones. If someone was in a fetal position when they settled on the bottom I could see the shoes being at a 90 degrees, as it is quite natural for feet to align that way in the fetal position.
However, I don't know how bodies react to the cold though, compared to heat where it makes muscles contract and force the body into the fetal position like the ones found in Pompeii.
Devils advocate aside, I think the shoes are a combination of bones and luggage.
Or if you had a broken ankle
hmmmm.... in the fetal position after free-falling 2 miles through the ocean's current to the bottom
Both shoes could have been toes upright until decomposition fully occurred. Then the left shoe fell over.
Having recovered (more than a few) drowning victims they are usually as limp as a noodle with their limbs splayed out. If they have been down there for more than a few days you need to be careful (as they fall apart, like an overboiled chicken leg).
What are you going on with fetal position? Heat fetal position? Not really … no body would go down in fetal position either. Easiest solution is … the boots placed in front of cabins for cleaning … and then were swept away …
With the intense water pressure involved, the bodies no doubt landed crushed and unnaturally contorted where they did. Unless the shoes were tied together while in storage the odds of a pair landing side by side after a 2 mile fall is very unlikely.
What do I think?
I don't think anybody ties their shoes when they pack them away.
It's entirely possible some were packed and some were from bodies.
Luggage and shoes kicked off the poor souls trying to swim or stay afloat. They would have kicked off there shoes either before or in the water.
There is another probability with the shoes.
With all those people in the water how many kicked there shoes off trying to stay a float
That’s a really good point.
Unless your shoes are loose on your feet, or are slip on, you can't just kick them off in the water. And shoes don't drag you down. I know this because I''ve swam, kayaked etc in shoes, normal trainers and I never felt like they were dragging me down.
Ot doesn't make sense that you could or would feel the need to kick your shoes off to stay afloat. Shoes can come off. I had a trainer come off and it floated. After that I wore laced trainers into the water, not slip on. Never had a laced trainer come off.
There’s an even simpler explanation. People kick their shoes off when they’re trying to stay afloat. Easy as that
I was thinking the same thing. I think it's this, plus the other explanations. Shoes on people have to end up somewhere, after the body is gone. Shoes in luggage have to end up somewhere, once the luggage deteriorates. And, of course, shoes will drag you under, when trying to remain afloat, so people in the water would have removed them, as they were trying to survive.
Shoes don't drag you under in water. Before I got my wetsuit boots I used trainers, to go into the water with. They didn't pull me down, in fact once a trainer came off my foot, floated and I had to swim to it to get it back. That's when I decided I needed laced shoes for the water.
Maybe boots would weigh you down, but you can't kick boots off in the water, in fact if your shoe is properly secured to your foot, you can't just kick it off in water either.
@@FronteirWolf Modern trainers are a completely different shoe, than the footwear that was available during the time of the Titanic. They are made to be incredibly light weight. The older footwear was quite heavy, in comparison.
Shoes can, in fact, weigh you down. So can the rest of your clothing, depending on what you are wearing. Having ended up in the water, unplanned and fully dressed, I know this from experience.
It's true that a lot (but not all) of that footwear would have been impossible to simply kick off, but they could have still been removed. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that jackets, pants, and other articles of clothing were also removed, in a desperate attempt to shed weight and increase buoyancy. In some cases, perhaps some heavier jewelry, too.
@@magnificenthonky good point. I only have experience with modern trainers.
Nowadays they would be less likely to drag you down. But it's highly likely some passengers didn't have their shoes properly secured on their feet, as they put them on in a hurry and you can walk in loosely secured shoes, I do that all the time as I struggle with laces.
Such passengers would have had their shoes come off in the water, whether they wanted them off or not, and if the shoe is loosely attached to your foot you could definitely kick it off in water.
@@FronteirWolf I generally wear cowboy boots and dress shoes that slip on. I hate shoe laces, and like footwear that can be thrown on in case of an emergency, like the ship sinking. I don't own any athletic footwear, at all. My wife does, though. Some of her shoes damn near defy gravity, they're so light.
That's a good point about the folks that probably just shoved their feet in their shoes, and scurried out of their rooms. I hadn't thought of that, but now that you mention it, I have no doubt that a significant number of people did that. And, yep, many of those shoes would have dropped right off.
When I was young, I’m 64 now, I saw a book in a bookstore with a picture in it of the ocean bottom and there were shoes all over and they were definitely in pairs. I have never seen that picture again. I have looked for it or one like it.
Someone else also mentioned seeing this in this comment section.
I saw that same book and I definitely believe that many of the shoes mark where bodies fell.
My question has always been - what does the pressure at those depths do to an unprotected human body ?
Would it smash them flat?
Like a rubber band ? Flailing at all kinds of unnatural configurations ? I don't know.
The positioning if the shoes point was actually hilarious to watch 😂 do you really think a dead dude is gonna be worried that his ankles are in a slightly uncomfortable position after falling for 2 miles? Also, how are you able to determine the "normal way" a dead body falls 2 miles down into the oceans depths?
At the same time what are the odds that two shoes land right next to each other after hurling down through the ocean?
At a guess, both are correct. Some are just from luggage or cabins, others are probably from bodies that free fell after they drowned.
Don't forget animals got to the bodies. While consuming them, body parts move. One foot may end up turned in an odd direction or even pecked at to a different area. Sure, some shoes were in luggage, but most of the luggage would've stayed in the rooms. The conditions of some of the dead bodies from being severely damaged from the breaking of the ship, falling from one deck onto sharp objects, would mangle a body as well, causing amputations.
On Dr Ballards expedition to the battleship Bismarck, he found in the debris field, a area he called the field of boots. The Bismarck slid down the side of an undersea volcano. Those boots must have drifted down after the ship had stopped its slide. Im sure they would not have been packed in suitcases..just a thought.
No, as the Bismark was sunk in battle, probably not. But that doesn't mean the Bismark did not have stores of boots aswell. And as for the officers multiple pairs of different regulation shoeware would have been in their cabins aswell. Even the NCO's and the enlisted men whould have had additional shoeware other than their boots in their quarters and luggage. However if we go back to the Titanic, as it was a passenger ship, to me it's obvious that both explenations are true. Not all pairs of shoes on the Titanic would have been on peoples feet as the ship sank. Nor would all pairs of shoes have been packed in luggage either. For the crew, aswell as for first and second class passangers their luggage would most likely have been unpacked when they boarded the ship and took residence in their cabins. So it's likely that alot of the shoes on the Titanic was not on anyones feet nor packed inside the luggage as the ship sank. More so considering that most people were asleep when the ship collided. People tend to take off their shoes when going to be (unlike on the Bismark were everyone was at their battle stations at the time of her demise). Not all passengers woke up by the collision. Nor did everyone calmly get dressed and walked up onto the deck. Many remained in their cabins thinking what had happened was not serious. Many just remained in bed. Only noticing the danger to late forcing them to leave their cabins in a hurry or even in panic. I think we can safely assume that of all the shoes that has been found on the wreck site of the Titanic some did end up there while on the feet of dead bodies, while others come from decayed luggage aswell as others that spilled out from cabins were they had been left either unpacked when the voyage began or left beside the beds as people had gone to bed on that fatefull evening of the collision.
There is also a human skull clearly visible in one of his ROV videos.
@@johno9507wait really?
@viktorbirkeland6520
Yes, in one of the Bismark rov videos it's very obvious. Sorry I don't have a timestamp for you.
@@johno9507: Not impossible. Skulls are often harder material than other bones, and teeth are even harder...
There's a reason why we have couple of molars left from tens of thousands of years old humans, but not necessarily much else.
It’s likely both explanations are true. I mean, here’s a simple way to think about it, most people were probably wearing a pair of shoes, any maybe had 1-2 other pairs in their luggage. So maybe 1/2 or 1/3 of the shoes were once attached to a person. Also, these people would have been limp as they were falling, and their bodies could have contorted in all kinds of ways on the fall down. Also, wildlife may have moved some of the shoes for various reasons.
I think they forgot to take into account that the bodies were scavenged and scavengers move bodies, maybe not far but to some extent. It would have been nice to see that aspect accounted for.
Why?! It. Does. Not. Matter! The shoes and their positioning do not make one iota of difference to any of it. What happened, happened. Titanic sank and people died. That's all that matters. Speculation about shoes landing where they did changes absolutely nothing. Some of the shoes were on people's feet when they froze/drowned and sank, some were side by side on the floor or in the closets of their rooms when they sank, and some were obviously packed in luggage and also landed in the debris field. It was tragic, people died, shoes went everywhere... picking apart and arguing minutia over 100 years later is wholly unnecessary.
As @pseudocode1 stated in another comment above, "...all of it is irrelevant and is merely another attempt to create some content on TH-cam that is mildly interesting and will create engagement. Here we are adding value to this video, whilst they monetise it and make bank." He's not wrong!
@@LittleBlueOwl318 In the grand scheme of things, you do have a good point. However, people will probably pick apart minute details of the sinking of the Titanic forever and ever. It's the nature of the beast.
@@mcmlxii4419 it's a big deal to those of us who remember Ballard sensationalizing that aspect in the press conference.
Where there's smoke there's fire, where there's shoes there's usually a body. Unless Titanic had a huge shoe shop that was never reported on
Always thought Dr. Ballard meant "natural position" as in located near each other, not a natural pose. Seems like a mix of both theories happened. Some of the shoes were on feet when they got to the bottom, some were in a bag. Figuring out the difference would boil down to the presence of other long lasting things in the vicinity. For example if you have a pair of shoes a couple feet from a belt buckle, pocket watch and loose change; then that's likely where a body fell. If you have shoes bunched with a razor, mirror and/or some books; there's a good chance they were in a bag.
Truth is we'll probably never be able to know exactly where each body ended up. Some people probably weren't even wearing shoes. A solitary pair might've been tied together on the surface before going into the water, then lost.
Both explanations make sense. A third explanation could be that some of the people kicked their shoes off once in the water to try to stay afloat. Some shoes might have been in their rooms not in luggage and got sucked out the windows or portholes on the way down. When animals were eating the bodies some of the shoes and the clothing may have been scattered also. So I think there are several different explanations that fit simultaneously.
Bodies in the water would have drifted several miles from the wreck. Those that did sink with the wreck would have filled with gas as part of the decomposition process and would have acquired buoyancy as a result. This would also cause them to drift many miles from the wreck. Only those inside the wreck or tangled in debris would have remained in the area.
Long ago when Titanic was found, I watched a documentary which at one point showed video of what were clearly matched pairs of illuminated shoes. Each pair was spaced some distance from any of the others on a sandy looking sea bottom, as the area of the debris field was traversed by a submersible. It didn't look like the somewhat jumbled pics here. It was unmistakable, and very poignant. Unforgettable.
Thank you for sharing your memory of the documentary. It's amazing how certain visuals stick with us.
You also have to realize that these bodies didn't just fall and land gracefully in place and that they were dragged by the pull of the ship going down and/or disturbed by the implosion of when the ship's impact hit the ocean floor. This would cause bodies to land in a very distorted position and or if there were groups of people who's bodies may have landed onto each other. Remember there were 1,500 souls that were lost that night.
Even the argument that "a body does not articulate that way normally" is invalid, as we don't have any idea what that body has gone through before getting there (broken arms, legs, etc) as how they articulate after that trip to the bottom can be anybody's guess.. As many others, I would assume is a mixture of shoes on bodies and shoes from the luggage.
Also some of those different shoes next to each other could be that some bodies landed on top/ beside each other. And as others have said - between the bodies imploding on their way down and sea creatures, it's no wonder the shoes are in odd positions.
It could be either or both. There is a third possibility, the Makay-Bennett recovered and buried at sea 116 people. Other ships also recovered and buried bodies. Bodies for burial are weighted at or near the feet. In addition the bodies that were recovered were frozen and to get them into the canvas bag or into the coffin bones were broken.
"...this is not just a pair of shoes, but shoes that belonged to a person". Ohhh, *those* sorts of shoes! Glad that's finally been cleared up!
It's also reasonable to assume that as the bodies were consumed by marine life and the bones dissolved away in the sea water, the shoes shifted and moved due the breakdown of the bodies and the strong currents on the sea floor at the wreck site. The currents move at a knot or more down there, certainly lightweight objects such as shoes could be moved around by that.
Pretty irrelevant conversation. Thinking that dead bodies are going to land in a "natural position" on the ocean floor and remain that way for 100+ years? Ludicrous.
Animals going after tissue can change how the shoes are. They have plenty of videos of animals going after bodies at this depth. It's about the only time these animals get aggressive is when there is a large food source.
Only few species of small sea creatures with soft bodies live at ocean depths that deep, though.
The commentary here is ridiculous. How can he possibly say exactly whether the shoes were on a person who drowned or fell from their luggage? Both are possible and the shoes shown are probably a mix of those from bodies and those in luggage. You can't dismiss Robert Ballard's view since he is an obviously intelligent man who actually discovered the wreck.
What is obvious to me is there is loose change near those shoes and a wallet next to the odd paired shoes. So clothing has gone.
Many people in the water would have kicked off their shoes, some may have even stripped some clothing off as it would be dragging them down.
If there were 1,500 dead people that makes at least 3,000 shoes at the very least. So finding shoes is no surprise. As for bones dissolving ? I would say this is a fact. If not then there would be millions of tons of whale and fish bones all over the ocean floor.
The odd angles of the shoes could have been caused by the person's broken bones... (at the age of 14, I broke my right leg and spun my right foot clockwise almost 180 degrees). Also, the close proximity of different shoes could have been caused by one body on another.
Regardless, what a horrific tragedy. My heart goes out to all those that were on her maiden voyage. May they Rest In Peace.
The creatures who found the bodies soon after the sinking and would have disturbed any remains or scattered them.
Not to mention the fact that the octopuses and squids were stealing from the site at least eight shoes at a time.
Not necessarily. Most of the scavengers at that depth are crabs, shrimp, and other very small soft-bodied creatures.
6:45 the opinion expressed is that we would have difficulty in putting our feet in that position. As true as that is The boot would have been moved during the sea creatures eating the flesh. The body would not keep still while being devoured. In my humble opinion it is a mixture of the 2 theories. Some from luggage and some from the victims of the disaster. Yes the picture Dr Robert Ballard used was not the best example but the photographs were not of digital capacity for many years after the Titanic was found. Again this is only my humble opinion.
Even today on cruise ships, one of the services is the polishing of shoes. There may well have been a room full of shoes that were being processed in the late evening for the next day. I seem to remember reading about a shoe service where one would leave one's shoes outside the door before bed and then find them there in the morning, fully cleaned and polished. Not sure if this was the case on the Titanic, but that is something that can probably be checked.
Some of these photos actually don't support the supposition of being in a suitcase. I note this due to the way other debris fell on top of it. As a forensic analyst, I believe that many are indeed the last resting place of people. I also believe that loose shoes from the bodies that didn't sink, that were in staterooms and that were in luggage would be present as well. Each set would need to be individually analyzed to make a determination of loose shoes vs last resting place.
Both bones and luggage. We have no idea what kind of scavengers came along possibly dragging the shoes around as they tried to reach the edible flesh inside
You successfully made a video about two shoes and water 10 million minutes of our lives. Bravo.
Both are correct depending on the specific pair of shoes. Some were on bodies, many were in luggage. On the question of angles; At least some of the bodies that sank with Titanic had to have been damaged. Broken bones allow a body to come to rest at unnatural angles. I've seen living people with limbs at unnatural angles.
Didn't a lot of people swim about and/or hang on to platforms to help keep afloat? It would make sense for them to kick off the boots because they're heavy.
The truth is that those passengers did fall and spread out over a huge area and the bodies fell over the wreck site and far beyond... The currents and undersea life would have spread the bodies out far and wide. And the luggage theory is right too - It is a mix of both that comprise the shoes we see in and around Titanic. It would be interesting to see if an undersea robot could map out the shoe patterns farther out from the Titanic wreck site to see how the bodies might have scattered.
All the above!😊
during predation shoes would have been moved from their initial resting place. People with the cheapest luggage didn’t have several pairs of shoes.
Any view of the shoes that would tend to stop the senseless fascination with picking through the grave is the one i favor.
I love how it has to be one or another. Hundreds of bodies vs thousands of bags works out to the absolute possibility that at least some were victims shoes.
Both. To say that there can only be one correct explanation , defies the laws of physics and common sense in this tragedy.
Shoes 😂😂😂 really? You expected the shoes to be in a regular position?? That deep, not even in real life we do not put the correctly
They’re both correct, just because the shoes don’t exactly lay perfectly next to each other, or are the correct match with the shoe next to them could simply be resultant of two bodies laying on top of each other. Remember that we’re talking about upwards of 1500 bodies here that went through catastrophic forces in their journey to the bottom, some of these shoes could have even been detached from bodies, especially in the stern area of the ship as when it contacted the bottom many bodies inside would have been forcefully ejected from the ship, just look at the steel from the stern, it’s twisted and contorted, steel, so what would flesh and bones be, nothing. If you were to be at the site of the wreck immediately after it landed hypothetically, it was probably one of the most horrific sights imaginable, bodies and body parts everywhere, and then like Ballard said come the animals… it would have been one huge feeding frenzy, sharks thrashing bodies around for days until there was nothing left, that also probably explains why shoes are scattered, we’re literally just seeing the final evidence of what activities happened in the aftermath.
I think that's correct, also I do not think many 3rd class passengers would have been able to afford spare shoes in their luggage.
Shoes were an expensive item. Then again, many first class passengers would have had "a lot".
Not sharks. Not in that cold water..
I can't believe that somebody made a video on this topic. It's pretty pointless to give a damn how this you got on the ocean floor. They were in the boat that is on the bottom of the ocean floor now. What a waste of time!
@@66realdeal Titanic is a _ship_ not a _boat_ . If you are going to make an ignorant comment, at least have some class.
@@lovetofly32: Greenland sharks both inhabit that area and are fine with cold water.
They don't dive deeper than couple of kilometers, tho.
I came here to say that both explanations are plausible, and that they are not mutually exclusive. But, this comment section has numerous people that have pointed this out, already.
I was going to point out a third, thing, but I've been beaten to that one, as well. The third thing being, of course, that a large number of those trying to stay afloat would have removed their shoes, as those heavy shoes would have served to drag them down.
I would suggest a combination of all three.
I would also suggest, as others have, that this is a fairly silly discussion, and kind of pointless.
This is merely a little drama, drummed up by people who get paid through Titanic interest. It's essentially a marketing ploy, to keep us talking. Apparently, it's working.
Larger deep water creatires could move the shoes and move them to unnatural positions. Shoes are fairly lightweight
You make a good point. I'm not sure how big or how strong undersea creatures are, but a shoe underwater can be rather light.
@@HistoryX yes and I have seen Blue Crabs movie shoes
Exactly. The sea creatures were looking for a pair of dress shoes I guess smh.
1500 bodies => 1500 pairs of shoes in close proximity. What I doubt, hoever, is that they could fall two miles through the water - at the speed of a sinking body, not the speed of thousands of tons of steel - and land within any reasonable distance of the wreck.
Some would have been pulled down behind the ship by the suction / currents, a well known hazard from a sinking ship, but not everyone - only those nearest the ship in the water, or still on the ship.
Why no belts or other leather products if the shoes survived?
Shoes came from the body's that landed on the bottom
I agree with alot of the comments that state both scenarios could and most likely ate true, some would have been in suitcases and over time became exposed as the suitcase material degraded and also alot of people slept barefoot so in the panic might not have had time to put them on and lost them then theres the option that those who jumped into the water took off their shoes to stop them filling with water, and of course alot would have fallen out as it sank. There are many scenarios of how these shoes or boots ended up where they did and all are viable.
Bro it’s been 100 years! Comparing their positions to a natural resting angle etc?! What?? They’ve had decades to move around in the water and alter their position…
what a compelling video, definitely need more. I think both scenarios are possible, the clothes not having been on corpses is more plausible, although I am sure that both scenarios happened to whatever extent.
I tend to agree with you, I think both explanations are plausible.
Compelling? The word I would use is pointless.
Very pointless even a month later.
What if you believe it’s both? I don’t think we were given that choice so I’m saying I think maybe it’s a little of both. Obviously the people who drown had shoes and I’m sure there are a lot of shoes in luggage that sank to the bottom. Therefore both.
I believe some if not most are from where the bodies landed, some may not match up because when the ship crashed on the bottom the bodies were blown out like a bomb possibly dismembering them.
Many different ways these shoes ended up like this. Only one possible explanation? Maybe if we were talking about ONE body.
2:03 One of the shoes appears to have the remains of a Shoe Tree in it. (A device for keeping the shape of a shoe)
How much simpler can you get? The body was frozen and fell with legs spread and feet facing out.
Why hasn't anyone address the possibilities of remains in sealed compartments and rooms within the ship ?
Every part of the ship is flooded and there's no sealed part that would not allow tiny animals to get in. Worms, snails, shrimp that eat all kinds of organic matter.
What the relevance here … its about boots littered on the seabed!
Idiotic to think that the source of shoes would be one source or the other. Thousands of bodies rained down. Thousands of suitcases rained down.
Dead bodies raining down or forcibly ejected when the wreck hit the bottom are likely to be contorted, since there is no consciousness to prevent it.
I would argue that perhaps the shoe location is NOT exactly where people were, but rather they may have moved around due to currents, as there can be some strong current at those depths. I would agree more with the other guy that some or most of the shoes may not be from actual people who were wearing them at the time when it sank, but it's been too long to be sure. But here's where I agree and disagree with both. I think Ballard IS correct that people likely were wearing at least some of those shoes when the ship went down BUT IT IS NOT the natural position and therefore we can't look at two similar shoes and say they are necessarily from the same person. As I mentioned, currents likely have changed the location of the shoes and since we only found the Titanic some 40 years ago, and by that time it had already been sitting on the ocean floor for the better part of 70 years at that point, that's a lot of time for the undercurrents to move things around, even large pieces of debris. Maybe not very far, but enough to where it no longer represents where it originally sat. More than likely, the shoes come from a mixture of sources. Remember the Titanc also broke up before sinking, so undoubtedly cargo and people's belonging got strewn about when this happened.
If you were floating in the water you would probably kick off your shoes to help stay afloat .
Due to the extreme water pressure that deep, human remains would not be able to survive
I say that the shoes resting around the Titanic wreck are a combination of those that were in luggage that disintegrated over time, shoes that possibly came off from passengers struggling in the water and those from bodies that disintegrated in the debris field.
Most of the luggage at that time wouldn’t have been canvas or leather but rather tin plate / painted steel.
Timber framed luggage would have been a “first class” affectation (Louis Vuitton was a specialist at this high end travel furniture) and would have floated for weeks not “rained down”.
Canvas sea bags are similarly buoyant (being full of air trapped in a waterproof case).