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Search For RMS Titanic Was a Cover Story
wiredog writes "According to National Geographic, Robert Ballard's search for the RMS Titanic in 1985 was a cover operation for the real search: They were looking for the USS Thresher and USS Scorpion, two US nuclear submarines that sank during the Cold War." ABC News also has a story on this two-fer undersea search.
... Submarine sinks you
I think I saw a special on the history channel about this years ago.
Bush's search for WMDs in Iraq was actually a cover story for the real search: Where's Waldo?
I remember hearing about this quite a few years ago, so this really isn't ground breaking news. I wish I could name a source....probably the Discovery Channel. I saw the special on the National Geographic Channel about this last night. The part that amazes me is that Ballard was able to keep his French partner in the dark about searching for the Scorpion.
If you post as Anonymous Coward, don't expect a reply.
a test to measure the international paranoia level or a carefully timed admission, now that nobody would be surprised anymore about the US faking a civil operation to hide military objectives.
Nah...Robert Ballard was really searching for a very expensive diamond dropped overboard by Rose.
So is James Cameron going to make a 3 hour chick flick where a young enlisted man falls in love with a high ranking officer, and they make love in the engine room while the Captain, the officer's life partner, searches frantically for him. Then the submarine starts to sink and the gay enlisted man gives the officer the last life jacket and the officer says, "I'll never let go!" and then he lets go and James Cameron wins 200 more Oscars?
The U.S. government has used false pretenses to cover up secret submarine recovery operations before. In Project Jennifer, the CIA got Howard Hughes to build the Glomar Explorer, ostensibly to mine undersea minerals but actually to try and recover a sunken Russian submarine. The project failed to recover much of the submarine, which broke apart as it was being pulled to the surface. However, two Russian nuclear missiles were recoverd.
A NYC lawyer blogs. http://www.chuangblog.com/
Hey, RMS might be a little on the large size, but Titanic? Come on.
Phoenix, Boston, Little Rock, see a pattern?
And all this time I thought Ballard was pissy because the others on the boat were making fun of his hair loss.
Now I know it was both!
What did RMS have to do with the Titanic ????
"Hi, Navy? It's Bob Ballard. Guess what I just found."
I call BS. The USN knew exactly where the Thresher when down as if failed durring monitored sea trials, and knew that the Scorpion didn't go down in the North Atlantic.
Didn't anybody else wonder how Ballard got funding for a picture taking expedition? Salvage in the ocean is basically anyone's ball game and is funded on premise of profit...who else other than the Navy would be funding essentially R&D for salvage without salvaging anything?
The remotely-controlled drone that Ballard used to search for the Thresher, Scorpion, and Titanic is an excellent example of a piece of dual-use equipment.
More recent exploration of the Titanic's wreckage with remote drones and two-man submarines indicates that the edge of the iceberg that the Titanic hit may have been somewhat "crowbar" shaped, with a vertically-oriented escarpment below the surface puncturing the ship from underneath, in addition to gashing it open from the side. This may help explain why the Titanic sank so rapidly, since the side-hull tears didn't seem to be large enough to account for the volume of water pouring into the ship.
Actually the Navy has been down to the Thresher and Scorpion sites several times, with cameras, many decades ago.
While the Navy may have funded Ballard's research, it's unlikely that a "cover story" would fool anybody. Those thingies are expensive to build and run, nobody does that just for fun.
They had this huge Howard Hughes project to vacuum up metallic nodules off the ocean floor that was a cover to attempt to recover a Russian sub that sank in 15000 feet of water, they got a chunk of it, but a mechanical failure resulted in most of the sub staying on the bottom.
Like arts? Like cheesy little Indie mags? Check out www.artwerkmag.com, and don't laugh at the bad coding please.
What was he doing on the Titanic at the bottom of the ocean? Combatting the Black Ooze?
My Technological Catastrophes professor back in college was on the team that searched for the thresher as a nuclear environmental safety expert. He gave a lecture on this subject a year ago. I don't think this is still a secret.
That the Titanic was an afterthought to the submarine search has been well-known for many years.
Brett
"RMS Titanic"...? Oh, you must be referring to the GNU/Hurd kernel.
One of my favorite books which tells some of the stories of cold-war era submarine operations is "Blind Man's Bluff: The Untold Story of American Submarine Espionage" (ISBN# 006103004X). One of the stories is about the USS Scorpion.
I haven't read it yet, but the story of the USS Thresher is also told in "The Death of the USS Thresher: The Story Behind History's Deadliest Submarine Disaster" (ISBN# 1592283926).
Very interesting!
SixD
If they admit this so easily and without being cornered by evidence, what were they really after?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
That the navy wanted to chuck nuclear waste into the OCEAN!?!
USS Scorpion has been visited a couple of times, http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/sh-usn/usnsh-s/ssn589-n.htm has pics.
Don't pick up the pho*(@)$*@&@!@ NO CARRIER
This is sheer fabrication. The wreckage of the Thresher was located years earlier, I recall seeing pictures of it probably in the 1970s, if not the late 60s. They sent the Trieste down to photograph the debris field.
Now, maybe the Navy wanted Ballard to re-photograph the area to determine any changes, but it wasn't to "find" the subs.
-- Alastair
The two cited sources actually contradict each other. One says, like the slashdot headline, that the Titanic search was a cover-up. However, the other source directly quotes the searcher and makes it clear that it was not at all a cover-up, but rather the opposite - something that accidentally drew attention when it unexpectedly succeeded. There was concern that the attention might also raise other questions.
Methinks that some of the news media just likes to use the word cover-up, without particular regard for whether or not it fits.
Knowing where on the surface the Thresher went down is quite different from knowing where she lies on the bottom, 11,000 or so feet below. Ships travel significant distances on their way to the bottom, since they don't just drop vertically. Not only are there currents, but also the boat is not spherical, so it has more hydrodynamic resistance in some aspects than others. That makes it glide and twirl down like a leaf falling through air. It's also breaking apart on the way, and releasing air, and these impulses further push and pull on the wreckage as it sinks. They reach a respectable downward velocity, probably 40-80 MPH near the end, but even so it takes a good 5-10 minutes to get to the bottom. Plenty of time to travel many miles horizontally.
In any event, the purpose of Ballard's expedition was not just to know where the subs were, but to know whether the Soviets had found them yet, and to know what condition they were in (so if the Soviets did find them, it would be known what knowlege might have been at risk).
Cesar Noragueda
A friend of mine who is an editor on the 'reality' TV show, 'The Deadliest Catch,' told me it's actually a documentary on the search for the Russian sub that sank in 2003 while it was being towed to the scrapyard. Most of the work he has to do is replace the unmanned search subs with CGI crab pots in every shot.
The producers are financing the search for the nuclear sub by selling it to the Discovery Channel as a fishing show. Once they find the submarine, then they're going to remove all the CGI and do a little more editing and re-sell the same footage back to the Discovery Channel as a submarine salvage show.
Still no word on what the producers are planning to do with the nuclear kit they're hunting for.
Seth
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
Why do I envision a Das Boot remake where the submariners are Americans instead of Germans and they don't make it back to port with a subplot of modern scientists looking for the wreckage decades later under the guise of looking for something else? I know. That was a run-on sentence. But the excitement over the prospect of such a movie made me lose my composition skills.
The game.
"Royal Mail Ship" is a mark of honor for especially fast ships, qualified to carry the mail.
Probably also because it's similar to the Royal Navy title, HMS = "Her/His Majesty's Ship."
Oh yeah, because, you know, you shouldn't hide military objectives. They should be done right out in the open. Gentlemen don't read other gentlemens' mail. And all this hiding behind rocks and stuff when you're in a shooting war? Totally not cricket, old boy. You're supposed to just form ranks in your nice red uniforms and march out into the machine-gun fire, closing up ranks whenever someone takes a bullet.
Sheesh.
This is all old news. I saw the broadcast last PM also, Timothy. This information, whether fact or fallacy, was released years ago. Let's move on.
You might have a point if it wasn't the Titanic they claimed to be lokking for. Since it was, I don't find the idea far fetched at all (hint: that's why it was a good cover story, it was believable. Pretending otherwise after the fact doesn't change that).
The article on the Nt'l Geo site makes no mention of K-129, the Soviet sub that sank in 1968 in the Pacific Ocean about 200 miles from Hawaii. I suppose it's not directly related to the story. But the sub sank due to an unknown reason, and apparently released a lot of plutonium into the oceans. Note what the person leading the funeral service in the Google Video said the Soviet sailors died in the service of their nation during Cold War hostilities. He also said their remains were recovered six years later, corresponding to 1974, which is when Project Jennifer recovered the Soviet submarine.
Does the pastor say it's Soviet submarine engine number (?) #722? That's different from the designation K129, which is what I learned of the ship as being named.
Interesting. Mighty interesting.
-- haaz.
But now it appears that Ballard, and the Navy, are admitting it.
Best Slashdot Co
When these landlubbers mix up terms. For instance, "The ship is docked..." or "Tied up..." when it's really MOORED.
..."
But, FTA, what caught my eye was:
"They call it scrambling"
BZZZT! Get ur stuff right, reporters. It's SCRAM, as in Safety Control Rod Activation Mechanism. I frackin' knew this back in 80, as a 15-year old. WTF is wrong with these well-funded reporting arms out there? So, the text probably ought have said, "They call it SCRAMing"..., that is, unless something changed that i didn't know about in the past decade or so...
If the reporter wants to discuss "reactors" and "scrambling", then maybe the story should cover intra-molecular scrambling....
http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S1381116996002701
But, the reporter should have done some basic patent and process checking:
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/4337118.html
"APRM 40 transmits a scram signal to the rod drive system 6 to scram the reactor. Scramming takes place when the power level reaches about 120% of the
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
The official report states that the K-129's forward section broke apart while being winched up by Glomar Explorer, but that two nuclear-tipped torpedoes and the remains of six crewmen were recovered (they were given a memorial service and buried at sea with military honors by the U.S. Navy). There have been whispers that the official story was disinformation for the Soviets' benefit, and that the mission was an unqualified success, recovering a ballistic missile and the real jackpot, the code books containing invaluable cryptographic information, including Soviet launch codes. Guess we'll know the full story in a few decades or so.
You should also use nonsenseofhumor tags so the humor-impaired will get a message instead of a blank space, or people with their senseofhumor disabled will know they're missing content and can re-enable it if they wish.
For example:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=570431&cid=23629289
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
This is somewhat off topic, but a while ago a guest on Colbert discovered that sub-standard rivets are what really sunk the Titanic. I found it more interesting than I thought I would, maybe in part because the guest is quite hot.
Link!
life is a tragedy to those who feel, and a comedy to those who think
How is this a coverup? The article states that the Navy wasn't even expecting the Titanic to be found and became nervous as a result of the publicity it was sure to generate. The search for the RMS Titanic was a fortunate result of technology developed by the Navy for less public means.
There are also reports (see Red Star Rogue) that the Glomar Explorer was built by Howard Hughes as a cover to retrieve a Russian sub that allegedly fired a nuke missile at Hawaii in the 1960's (it is alleged to have blown up in the tube, thereby rendering the sub and its contents forever one with the sea).
There are as many books on Amazon on this type of topic as there are good sea stories about them. There's probably a grain of truth to many of them, but there's also some "embellishment", as is necessary with any good sea story.
I doubt that we'll decipher which is truth and which is embellishment, even on the mighty U.S.S. Slashdot.
...why if we knew where both of these submarines were located well before 1985 (the Thresher having been explored by the Trieste and the Scorpion having been located and thoroughly photographed by the end of 1968)?
Pics of the Thresher in 1963: http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/sh-usn/usnsh-t/ssn593-l.htm
Pics of the Scorpion in late 1968: http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/sh-usn/usnsh-s/ssn589-k.htm
Both of these seem to predate Ballard's "discoveries".
Scorpion was shot by a Soviet sub.
There are multiple sonar/SOSUS records proving it
Is it incompetence in reporting...or deliberate mis-information? Meditate on that for a while.
Sherlock
NGO's who engage in back scratching with the government, and there are the ones that don't. Most countries recognize the difference and act accordingly. Think Burma. The only one surprised by this seems to be you.
You could do it in Virtual Reality, bring in Bob and Dot and Enzo as guest stars, and call it Das Reboot.
This explains why they developed the Jason Jr. robot which they didn't really need for a purely civilian mission to find the Titanic.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
And like most 15 year olds, you were wrong.
As the Candmium coats rods are lowered by the 'Axe Man' when hit's the button. when they are lowered, they ahve been scrambled.
Yes the initial backronym was S.C.R.A.M.(Super-Critical Reactor Axe Man)
But we don't have a guy with an axe standing by to cut a rope anymore.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
This was neither. It was Dr. Ballard and a retired admiral involved in the project independently describing the work to National Geographic, which Ballard now works for. Presumably they were finally cleared to reveal this, but as I understand it (I'm not with National Geographic), the accounts came from them as individuals, not in any capacity as naval officers. As others mentioned above, this cover-up was also related on the Discovery channel a few years ago, although it doesn't sound like the sources were as clear.
The timing of this particular article is related to the release of a film documentary about it on the National Geographic Channel last night. I know this because I had the fortuitious opportunity to act as a red-shirt extra (meaning I died) in the production of the documentary back in November.
In my opinion it was a decently interesting, slightly over-dramatized program. Those who regularly watch the History Channel like I do will enjoy it. If you care to watch it, keep an eye out for a sailor frantically trying to restart a scrammed reactor* during the account of the loss of USS Thresher! The program is called Undercover Titanic with Bob Ballard.
As for hiding military operations behind civil facades, that's not at all uncommon, nor do I find it particularly scandalous. In this case, the civil facade was real and actually did achieve its objective. If you want an example of a good, old-fashioned SNAFU with a totally bogus non-military cover-up, read about Project Jennifer and the Glomar Explorer. That story broke 20+ years ago, and it's partially why the Navy wanted the examinations of Thresher and Scorpion kept secret. If we could steal (or at least try to) top secret Soviet hardware from the ocean floor, they could do the same to us, if they knew where to look.
* Bonus trivia - the submarine the re-enactment portion was filmed on is a retired diesel-electric boat built the same year as USS Scorpion. The "Radiation Hazard" signs were just props to distract you from the huge diesel engines they were hung on.
Still Ballard has been doing well on the gravytrain, grandstanding and taking nearly all the credit. Just look at all the specials dedicated to him and his ego. The late undersea explorer Ralph White bemoaned Ballard, saying that he wishes that he would give credit where its due and not just act in a "me me me me me" attitude all the time. And don't forget the French covered 80% of the search area, and their participation is hardly mentioned at all. With Ballard, it was originally "how we found the wreck"; now its "how I found the wreck." Without the French, Ballard would never have found the wreck at all...
My web domain.
From the article:
CAN you dispose of reactors by ocean dumping? If so, it seems like they should just build the reactors down there, then get the energy topside somehow. If something happens, just open the door.
Cool! Amazing Toys.
Next time when your involvement in a help organization causes its teams to be barred from entering a foreign country
Next time? When was the first time, pray? You talking about Burma? Because they barred everyone, including the UN, from helping. And, uh, I don't think you want to hold up the Burmese junta as any kind of beacon of moral righteousness. They are evil monstrous thugs that need to burn in the lowest circles of hell for what they've done (and continue to do) to their own people.
And...um...even if this happened, you are seriously expecting me, a tax-payin' American citizen, to feel hurt if some foreign silly snobs turn down my offer to send some of my hard-earned cash their way in a disaster? Oh dear, they don't like me, boo hoo! Goodness, that's a laugh. I only wish more of the world would refuse to take American help and solve their problems themselves. I wouldn't mind keeping a bit more of my money in my own pocket, that's for sure.
The Navy dropped the project - so, I suppose you can't safely do so.
Umm Old news. This was talked about in Ballard's books he wrote on the Titanic. I am pretty sure it was even discussed in his book discovering the Titanic which came out end of 80's/early 90's.
It was the only way he could get funding plus the use of certain military underwater equipment for scanning and photographing the wreck.
THEGLOMARISSIONWASSOSUCCESSFULINfleecingthetaxpayersthatwe'llhavetotryitagain
Eh, for somebody coming across as a prima donna, you sure have issues. SCRAM stands for Safety Control Rod Ax Man. When Fermi fired up his first reactor, there wasn't much of a method for shutting it down. They hung the hafnium "safety control rod" by a rope, and if readings spiked, the "ax man" was signaled to cut the rope. Very primitive, but functional. There is no "mechanism" that "activates" the control rods.