Who was this mysterious ship and why didnt it come to Titanics rescue? One answer to this is that this ship was the Californian. The Californian was in the vicinity of Titanic. Just before Titanic hit the iceberg, the Californian had given the Titanic an ice warning, to which Titanic's radio operators told him to shut up.

On board Californian when Titanic was going down, a crew member could see the Titanic, but thought the bow lights were turned off. As it turned out they were under water.

He also saw the emergancy flares, but dismissed them it as a shooting star. Whatever happened on the Californian, it never reached Titanic. The next morning it was informed of the disaster by the Carpathia, it raced to the scene of the disaster looking for survivors, but it was too late.

From the Titanic, the light in the distance looked to be about 6 miles away. The Captain of the Californian claimed he was over 18 miles away. Was there another ship nearby? In the 60's a man come forward saying that he had been a crewman of a sealer, the Sampson. He said that it was illegally sealing on the night of April 14, 1912. Those on the Sampson saw the distress flares from Titanic, but thought they were a warning from the coastguard, and they immediately got out of there.

Which ever ship it was, one thing is certain, 1500 lives could have been saved that night.