Titanic's mystery: why the wreckage of the legendary ship was found only 73 years later

Few people know, but the exact location of the famous Titanic, which sank in April 1912, has remained a mystery to researchers for many decades.

Business Insider writes about it. 

The search for the wreckage was successful only in 1985, during a secret operation to find the remains of two nuclear submarines, the USS Scorpion and the USS Thresher.

The details of this story are revealed by Business Insider, citing the words of former naval officer and oceanographer Robert Ballard, who was a member of this confidential mission.

Almost immediately after the sinking of the Titanic, there were attempts to recover the wreckage and bodies of those who perished with the ship. But the lack of proper technology limited the success of such an operation. The remains of the Titanic were at too great a depth.

But when the search for the ship had almost lost its relevance, it was found as part of a secret mission. In 1985, Ballard, along with French oceanographer Jean-Louis Michel, participated in a covert operation to search for the wreckage of two nuclear submarines, the USS Scorpion and the USS Thresher.

The USS Thresher sank in April 1963, and the USS Scorpion sank two years later, in May 1965. These ships were the only losses of nuclear submarines of the US Navy. No one knew about this until the mission data was declassified and Ballard shared the whole truth in an interview.

Ballard said he first met with the Navy in 1982. At the time, he was looking for funding for a new type of underwater vehicle that would help find the Titanic. The Navy agreed to provide funds on the condition that the device was to be used in a secret project to search for sunken submarines.

It should be noted that the main goal of the mission was to search for submarines, and the search for the Titanic was postponed until later. Ballard was also tasked with determining whether nuclear submarines had been damaged by the Soviet attack.

During the 12 days of searching, Ballard found both submarines and the Titanic itself. He assumed that if the ship broke in half, the wreckage should have left a trace on the seabed. And his assumption proved to be correct.

Read also: A 150-million-year-old fossilized turtle was found in Germany (photo)

The military was concerned that the publicity could have derailed Ballard and Michel's mission. However, when the location of the Titanic's wreckage became known, few people questioned why the military was involved. "The U.S. Navy never expected me to find the Titanic, and when I did, they were worried about the possibility of a scandal. But the general interest in the Titanic was so great that it didn't even raise questions about the military's involvement," Ballard admitted.

The study also confirmed that there were no signs of a Soviet attack that could have led to the sinking of the submarines.

As a reminder, miners in Serbia discovered an ancient Roman ship dating back to the third to fourth centuries.

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