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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.
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.
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?
That the navy wanted to chuck nuclear waste into the OCEAN!?!
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
That was America participating in Europe's war.
I see your informative link, and raise you a pithy comment.
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).
compared to how many still under the rule of Saddam Hussein and the Taliban?
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.
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.
Though I am not religious, I was really touched by this service. In a time of extreme distrust and animosity, it's really great to see people treat their enemy as they'd like to be treated.
I wish such an attitude was present today worldwide.
As a helicopter pilot, Prince Andrew flew operational missions in the 1982 Falklands war. IIRC, his job was to make his helicopter a more attractive target than HMS Invincible to an Exocet missile. I think this also counts as putting his arse on the line.
A One that isn't cold, is scarcely a One at all.