Titanic hack: the hidden secret of “highly personal words” in the famous “Message in the Bottle”!

An expert has claimed that a message in a bottle allegedly thrown from the RMS Titanic during its fateful maiden voyage was an elaborate hoax.

The Titanic hit an iceberg on its maiden voyage, a passenger ship owned and operated by the White Star Line that sailed from Southampton to New York – via Cherbourg and Cork Harbor – on April 10, 1912. The fateful collision occurred at approximately 23:40 local time, resulting in six hatches Constricted in the starboard hull of the ship, the Titanic soaked up water fifteen times faster than it could pump out. Two and a half hours later, the doomed ship split in two and sank, and about 1,500 people – including 815 passengers – were missing in the tragedy.

The letter was found on the shores of the Bay of Fundy, Canada, in 2017.

It is dated April 13, 1912 – the day before the ocean liner hit an iceberg – and is signed by Mathilde Lefevre, a 12-year-old French third-class passenger. Its text was translated as follows: “I’m throwing this bottle into the sea in the middle of the Atlantic. We are due to arrive in New York in a few days. If anyone finds it, tell the Lefevre family in Levin.”

According to historical records, Lefevre, her mother, Marie, and three of her seven brothers were traveling to New York on the Titanic to be reunited with the rest of their family.

The memorandum Lefevvre penned appeared to make headlines when its contents were published by researchers at the University of Quebec in Rimouski early last year.
Initial analyzes of the letter and the bottle in which it was found seem to indicate that it is authentic – the bottle bearing the hallmarks of late Edwardian manufacture.

In addition, radiocarbon dating of the cork that sealed the bottle yielded an age range including the time of the Titanic’s first voyage.

However, researchers remained cautious about the source of the message, and appealed to members of the public to help confirm the authenticity of the message.
Now, a detailed study, carefully done letter by letter, has suggested it’s probably a sophisticated hoax.

Handwriting expert and psychologist Coraline Houseenplas said the main problem with the note was that it was not primarily written in cursive – a type of calligraphy in which letters are joined in a flowing manner to allow for faster writing speeds.

She explained, “In 1912, cursive writing was accepted only in French schools and in society in general. By the end of this analysis, I found that only four letters were written in a cursive script.”

She added that the rest of the note consists of separate letters from a mixture of that and a solid font, called “personal writing” that is unique to a particular author.

“It is common today to have such a mixture, but not in 1912,” Housenblas added. “The author probably thought that the mere penchant of writing would give a general aspect of ‘old’ handwriting.” But they forgot to look up the French school standards in 1912. The letter is not convincing because the writing is so far from the standards of 1912, but it contains every aspect of modern handwriting.”

The analysis also indicated that the writer may have had a form of dysgraphia – a condition that impairs one’s writing skills.

And that, Housenblas said, “has revealed a lot of what in the psychology of lies we call ‘behavioral leaks.’ These are cognitive processes that happen when someone lies. And strange dysgraphia occurred in some very personal words associated with Mathilde Lefevre. The hypothesis is that this dysgraphia, which is not It happens in other words, identity theft can appear. The author, as an actor, tries to be Mathilde Lefevre but knows very well that he is not. The author was not able to perform the role for very long and his personal writing habits returned very quickly.”

According to historian Professor Maxime Gouhair, of the University of Quebec at Rimouski, there is still a possibility that an adult who transcended the cursive style of calligraphy, wrote the note on Lefevre’s behalf.

He told the Canadian press: “It actually looks more like writing for adults. Nothing prevents an adult from writing on the boat on behalf of Mathilde. This is a hypothesis that cannot be ruled out.”

Professor Gouhair and his colleagues are now looking to further analyze the note, with the aim of determining the type of pen used to write it – which in turn could show that it was written more recently than it claims.

Additional reporting by Michael Havis.