If there are any human remains in the wreck where do you think they are

[Christina DeMohrenschildt]

This web site evidently has a custom of E mailing to a poster every reaction that people give to his or her post.

So many of the E mails I've gotten during the 48 hours since I've become a member were identical to posts here. When I came across Eric Paddon's E mail about Eric Payne allegedly stealing his identity, the seriousness of it prompted me to excerpt it here and to react. The seriousness of it distracted me from the subject line of the E mail message. That subject line apparently tells the member the difference between a post and a "private conversation."

I shall try to notice the difference between public and private from now on, but Mr. Paddon should understand that he's making serious charges against a deceased person whose "personal life" (Mr. Standart's words) included a physical deformity and lots of time spent in doctors' offices and hospitals. Mr. Payne would have required an excellent laptop and ISP to do what Mr. Paddon has accused him of doing.

Yes, the matter of Eric Payne is touchy, but some of his comments live on in other web sites. A Google search of "eric seright payne" turns up even more citations.

Another member said today under the heading "Legacy of Eric Payne" that she would like to have met him. His web page that he composed while he was dying in 2003 intrigues her. He says nothing about Titanic on it, but his straight - shooting quality comes through.

Ah well, Titanic shows everyone how fragile life can be even before the onset of middle age, so I'll stick with that.

 

[Eric Paddon]

I really do not wish to belabor this point, but if you are going to use Mr. Payne's physical condition as a reason for ridiculing the matter of what was done to me, then in the interests of full disclosure, this took place in early 1997.

If you want more details on this though, you aren't going to get them here because I have no intention of needlessly dragging in the names of other people who know the story behind Mr. Payne's conduct (some of whom are occasional posters to this board or have been in the past) and violating their privacy.

 

[Christina Rindt]

Forgive me for asking but I thought this thread was "If there are any human remains in the wreck..." There's already another thread going on about Mr Payne. Can we stick to the point please?

 

[monica e. hall]

Since you are a new member, Ms. DeMohrenschildt, I accept your explanation of how you confused Eric Paddon's private email with a board post notification, though I cannot recall anyone doing so before. However, I must ask you not to stray from the thread topic which, as Christina Rindt has pointed out, concerns human remains in the wreck - especially as you have already opened a thread on Mr. Payne.

 

[Christina DeMohrenschildt]

Thank you. It was more than a little confusing.

Now I'll get back to the remains inside the boiler room and other secluded places where people might not have known how bad the situation was until it was too late to escape. Maybe some of them didn't understand English.

Could marine vertebrates find their way into the boiler room over a period of 92 years? If they can, it doesn't look good.

 

[Michael H. Standart]

>>Could marine vertebrates find their way into the boiler room over a period of 92 years? If they can, it doesn't look good.<<

Quite easily. The things that are barriers to humans, sealed up as they are in big bulky submersibles, are no barrier at all to anything that lives down there. I can think of literaly hundreds of points of ingress for hundreds of fish, including tears in the shell plating where impact with the bottom ruptured the seams, open portholes if any, the boiler uptakes, ladderwells, etc.

Hungry fish would find no barrier on the Titanic they couldn't get past in search of a meal.

 

[Michael Cundiff]

Not wanting to stir the coals of the Payne topic to a roaring blaze, as a long time member of several TITANIC discuss forums, and for a nearly an entire year, the focal point of ESP's demeaning nature
(Cristina, he actually thought I was George Tulloch, owing to my staunch pro-salvage stance. Later clarified by Matthew Tulloch that I was indeed not!) I feel it necessary too clarify a few matters. It was Mr. ESP who was responsible for starting many a wicked rumor, and his testimental facts were merely of a heresay nature. Another fact, a friend of his from the Bay-area informed ESP that the NAUTILE destroyed the crow's nest as a result of manuvering their way to freedom. As it went, ESP reported the event as gospel to all the lists. And in the end it was this *heresay* friend which indeed apologized to Matthew Tulloch for having started such an errant rumor.

BTW, I understand that ESP died from complications of AIDS. As did a very good friend of the list a few years ago.

Myself also having experienced the loss of my sister at only 28 knows that their is no closure.
So please let's just leave it at that and get back to the unforging North Atlantic Ocean...

Sincerely,
Michael A. Cundiff
USA

 

[Michael Cundiff]

Excuse me Cristina, I almost forgot to tell you that Dr. Ballard also DID NOT see the port and starboard wing propellors or the THIRTY FOOT breach in the starboard plates (result of impact with sea bottom) Nor did he see the very faint remnants of the portside bow name. As did the FRENCH in '87.

So please be informed...all that Dr. Ballard did see and did'nt see is not all that is.

Or in better terms...and now the rest of the story...

Michael A. Cundiff
USA

 

[monica e. hall]

Michael,
you might want to go here.
https://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/cgi-bin/discus/show.cgi?5921/90180
Monica

 

[Michael Cundiff]

Thanks anyhow Monica...I feel no need nor desire to go there. I had hoped those days were long behind us (Eric actually had the gull to tell me destruction was done to the wreck in '88 by IFREMER..Oh really IFREMER from France I replied?There was no '88 expedition to TITANIC by any nation!!!) You see I already went the distance with ESP. Imagine logging on...NAUTILE125...and all of a sudden an instant E-Mail from ESP...Hello George ( ;- ) Me having one up on him already...Michael Anthony Cundiff born Dec. 5, 19?? Placerville, CA...replied with...How are you Robert...as in Ballard.

Like I said I went the distance with the man already...let bygones be bygones. Nor do I care to disrespect the dead. May he rest in peace.

Michael Cundiff
USA

 

[Eric Paddon]

Thought you were George Tulloch, eh? That reminds me of the time he also felt secure to suggest we consider the idea that Peter Padfield was really Leslie Harrison (despite Padfield's long track record as an author of non-Titanic books).

Ah, what stories so many of us could reminisce about when it comes to Mr. Payne. But this indeed is not the place for them.

 

[Lee Gilliland]

But Eric, it's so much fun to do so! And, of course fascinating for some of us newbies to read as well.

 

[monica e. hall]

Fool,me! I didn't mean "go there" to continue the discussion - quite the reverse. I meant "go there" to find out that, at the moment, there is little point addressing Christina's posts ..... so back to human remains then.

 

[Inger Sheil]

Getting back to the OP - Paul, I remember a couple of conversations that Ben Holme and I had in the wake of the Cameron expedition and some of the remarkable finds in GOTA (e.g. Henry Sleeper Harper's bowler hat), and we wondered what evidence of where individuals met their ends there might still be in some of the cabins. In particular, Ben wondered about a specific first class passenger whom he thought might possibly have gone down in his cabin. He didn't think that there would be human remains, but perhaps some indication in the form of personal effects that might indicate if this person never left their cabin. Finding them might be another matter, though - it could involve sifting through all the matter on the floor.

As for any organic human matter...I personally doubt it. As Dan says, I'd be inclined to believe that the calcium saturation in the water would be the same inside as out. There is the possibility of micro environments developing that affect the preservation of items - one thing that has been noted is the different rates of decay/corrosion among objects of the same material, depending on what is in the close proximity to the objects in question. So while my natural inclination would be skeptisism regarding the preservation of body parts, who knows what might have prevented decay/dissolution rates? Clarke has that extreme fictional and rather surreal scenario of the bodies of victims on the wreck almost perfectly preserved in tannin (pickled in tea leaves, so to speak) - while that requires rather a suspension of disbelief, given the substances down there and their arrangement (just in the debris field - goodness knows about deep inside the wreck), there may be a possibility of some remains or fragments somewhere there.

 

[Michael Cundiff]

Now let's not forget about the mud...believe me there is more than a ton of it inside the TITANIC.

Lest we also not forget the HUNLEY and her human remains!

Michael A. Cundiff
USA