Titanic's Secret Discovery Revealed - Antiquities

The rusted prow of the R.M.S. Titanic, found in 1985 at the bottom of the North Atlantic Ocean, is seen in an undated photo.

The discovery of the ill-fated ocean liner stemmed from a secret United States Navy investigation of two wrecked nuclear submarines, according to a new revelation by explorer Robert Ballard.

Photograph by Emory Kristof/NGS

Titanic Was Found During Secret Cold War Navy Mission

John Roach
NGC

June 2, 2008

The 1985 discovery of the Titanic stemmed from a secret United States Navy investigation of two wrecked nuclear submarines, according to the oceanographer who found the infamous ocean liner.

Pieces of this Cold War tale have been known since the mid-1990s, but more complete details are now coming to light, said Titanic's discoverer, Robert Ballard

"The Navy is finally discussing it," said Ballard, an oceanographer at the University of Rhode Island in Narragansett and the Mystic Aquarium and Institute for Exploration in Connecticut.

Ballard met with the Navy in 1982 to request funding to develop the robotic submersible technology he needed to find the Titanic.

Titanic Gallery:

chandelier dangles from its wires in front of the opening that housed the grand staircase of Titanic.

Submersibles on the expedition approach the bow of the Titanic.

Actor Bill Paxton, narrator of the Titanic documentary Ghosts of the Abyss, and pilot Genya Chernaiev, approach the wreck of the Titanic in one of the MIR submersibles.

The Russian submersible MIR illuminates a portion of Titanic's deck. "For Ghosts of the Abyss we took these beautiful 3-D stereoscopic high definition images of the ship in all these different places—using the real wreck as the stage, if you will—and we reproduced what people were doing at that exact moment in time," said director James Cameron.