When the sinking of the Titanic happened, several survivors said they saw the ship break. One passenger, Jack Thayer, even doodled what he witnessed, https://i.imgur.com/zUqhSJD.png
I have heard that those passengers weren't believed. I don't exactly have a source on that, but I heard it growing up from parents and teachers. Either way, it does seem true considering everywhere from the 1950's movies like A Night To Remember to later 70's movies like Raise The Titanic, they all portray the ship having gone down in one piece.
It wasn't until 1985 when Robert Ballard actually found the ship that people accepted Titanic did actually break.
Why is that?
If it happened, clearly at least most of the survivors, crew and passengers alike, had to be aware of it. Why was that claim initially disregarded?
There's a really good existing answer to this one by u/YourlocalTitanicguy.
The way your phrased your question helps point to the answer. The official boards of inquiry and other people interested in this question reasoned that if the ship had broken, nearly all the survivors would have seen it and given consistent testimony. But the actual testimony varied on this point, with some witnesses insisting the ship broke into two pieces, others that it hadn't, and still others that they could not be sure. Notably, all the ship's surviving officers said the ship had sunk in one piece or that they hadn't seen--none said it broke. This made it easier to believe that the ship hadn't actually broken in two, and that those who claimed to have seen it break were mistaken.
