@Polterwurst, the Titan/Titanic precognition reminds me of an excellent book by John Fuller entitled
The Airmen Who Would Not Die concerning two precognitions of and the later reconstruction through mediums of another disaster -- the crash of the UK’s first mega-dirigible in the 1930s. The book's character is captured in the Amazon description and in two of the reviews at amazon, copied below. I read this book in 2009 and found it fascinating.
Description from Amazon:
Stranger and even more compelling than his best-selling The Ghost of Flight 401, journalist John G. Fuller turns his talents to the historic crash of the great British dirigible R101, the luxury lighter-than-air behemoth that was to revolutionize travel in the 1930s.
The complex and absolutely spell-binding tale begins in 1928 when a monoplane carrying famed World War I ace Captain Raymond Hinchliffe and his copilot, the flamboyant heiress-actress Elsie Mackay, vanishes without a trace over the stormy Atlantic. As news of the disappearance makes front-page headlines around the world, British workers race to complete the largest and most advanced airship yet designed, the monumental R101. Neither medium Eileeen Garrett's terrifying pre-vision of a dirigible tragedy, nor an even more fearful warning from the dead captain Hinchliffe to another mystic, Mrs. Earl, are held as grounds for delaying the much-publicized launch of the R101 for India. Finally, in a seance that includes both women and the world-famous author Conan Doyle, Hinchliffe warns the navigator of the R101 of its various structural problems.
Despite these warnings, the 777-foot R101 takes off on schedule - and plunges to the ground on the French side of the Channel, killing all but six of the fifty-four aboard. But the disaster does not mark the end of this mind-boggling tale. Two days later, through another seance, the commander of the ill-fated airship recounts in horrible detail the anguished end of the R101 and its crew. Bristling with suspense and astonishing evidence concerning the validity of psychic phenomena, The Airmen Who Would Not Die is a riveting account of a human tragedy and the superhuman events surrounding it.
Reviews
"John G. Fuller does remarkable research and investigative work in examining two cases of air disasters that are linked through paranormal contacts with the deceased. Like his book, The Ghost of Flight 401 (which I also recommend), Fuller brings to life the story of ace flyer Raymond Hinchcliffe, who hoped to be the first to fly across the Atlantic, from Europe to America (Lindberg had already done it the other way). To add spice to the story, a rich young heiress funded his flight and insisted on going with him, figuring to grab some glory for herself as the first woman to cross the Atlantic in an airplane. But it was not to be.
At the same time period (the late 1920s), Great Britain was working on a program for air travel to facilitate getting around the empire, which was worldwide. But they were not thinking of sending passengers on long-distance trips in the cramped cockpit of a biplane. They were betting on another form of air travel that the Germans were successfully using - the lighter-than-air machine; in this case, a dirigible labeled the R-101. It was a huge cylindrical machine filled with giant bags of hydrogen, and a sizable team of workers were tasked with getting it ready for a virgin flight to India. Lord Thompson had set a date for its flight based on a conference he had to attend, but the engineers, architects and pilots who knew it intimately believed the R101 was not ready for such an undertaking. Like Hinchcliffe's ill-fated flight, the R101 made headlines worldwide when it crashed in a field in France during a rain storm. All but six aboard were killed.
And it's the story of what happened after these tragtic deaths that makes Fuller's book so fascinating. First messages were received from Hinchcliffe through a oija board and later through the brilliant medium, Eileen Garrett. Hinchcliffe was concerned for his wife and small children, but also sent messages about what had happened to his flight, along with ominous predictions about the R101 flight to India ending in disaster due to poor design. Later, the deceased crew of the dirigible sent messages through mediums, and two men, each unaware of the work of the other, received communications through medium Eileen Garrett. Later, the communication received by each was available to investigators, who, in every case, concluded that communication with the deceased was the only viable answer to how these messages could have come about.
The information received through the medium was often highly technical, dealing with terms, equipment and techniques that only someone who was involved with the dirigible project could have known. The book includes many verbatim exchanges. Of course, these were the result of someone taking shorthand transcription or writing very fast notes. All of these events ocurred before personal tape recorders were available, and the author discusses the methods and their limitations at length. Besides being an interesting account of an important subject (do we survive death?), the book is also a fascinating look at another era. Anyone with an interest in aviation will enjoy reading the stories of both the Hinchcliffe flight and the making of the R101. It indicated to me that big government projects had the same problems then as they do now - the R101 project was full of political considerations trumping common sense, people afraid to stand up to powerful politicians and finally - after the expensive airship was reduced to a pile of rubble in a field in France - an investigation and apparent cover-up!
If I have a criticism of the book, it is the swing between whether the story is mainly about the tragic events involving aviation in the late 1920s, using material from the mediums to fill in what is known from history, or whether the book is mainly about proving that we, in spirit form, continue to exist after death. I think Fuller certainly got caught up in the story of the airmen, but he also wanted to continue a subject he tackled in The Ghost of Flight 401, which also produced excellent evidence for survival. This is an old book (the copyright is 1979) and Fuller himself has now passed on. But his excellent books are still available if you look for them, and they are still very worthwhile reading." --Theresa Walsh
"The early years of aviation were full of achievement, glory, and death in the air or when the ground was met unintentionally. Three separate stories of men who died and then returned to tell their stories are intertwined to produce some of the most compelling evidence of survival after death.
First there's Alfred Lowenstein, a Belgian pilot and financier, who leaps to his death from his private plane over the English Channel. Then, Captain Raymond Hinchliffe, WW1 ace and one-eyed master pilot, who disappears over the Atlantic while trying to be the first to cross the ocean east to west (carrying Elsie Mackay, heiress and celebrity, as passenger). And finally, the crew of R-101, Britain's largest rigid airship and apple of Air Minister Thomson's eye. The airship crashed en route to India, killing nearly everyone on board.
But even if the official inquiry was a whitewash, the intelligent and profuse medium Eileen Garrett channeled the story of the crash as seen by the men who perished in the crash and the ensuing fire. The person who sat at the seances taking notes was one major Villiers, who never revealed his identity to the medium, but was one of the key players in the development of the R-101 at the Air Ministry. The sheer amount of technical data provided by he medium, who could not possibly have known the nautical terms applied to the dirigible by the men who built the ship and flew it, is astounding.
So is the attitude of the crew. At first reticent, but later on very vocal in their need to tell what really happened to R-101, the crew come across Eileen Garrett's voice and tell the harrowing tale of sacrificing the best brains of the airship design and flight teams to the altar of Lord Thomson's ego. Hinchliffe appears from beyond time and space to try and warn the crew not to take off as the ship will not be airworthy
.
John G. Fuller's writing style s somewhat technical and at times tedious, but his research is immaculate. To his great benefit, the documents pertaining to the R-101 and the other events described are stored at the Air Ministry, British Museum Archives, and the venerable British Society for Psychical Research (among other places), and they are fully referenced. Of particular interest are the transcripts from the original sessions of Major Villiers with Eileen Garrett. These, if nothing else, will convince you this is no hoax.
Many times people say, there can't be any truth to parapsychology for the lack of evidence. But absence of evidence is no evidence of absence , as it is often said, and the story as told in this book is very strong for the case of human survival.
I cannot recommend this book strongly enough to anybody interested in the subject matter.
-Heikki Hietala, author of Tulagi Hotel
There is a further paranormal event included in this book which I had already read about elsewhere: at the time of Hinchliffe's plane's crash in the Atlantic, a close friend of his (traveling in a shared cabin in a ship at sea) received a crisis apparition of him in which Hinchliffe tells him what has just happened. Corroborating his report, the man with whom he'd been sharing the cabin also saw Hinchliffe and signed his testimony to that effect for the SPR.
