Robert Ballard was a commander in the U.S. Navy and a scientist who discovered the Titanic.
He said that the expedition to find the Titanic was part of a secret U.S. military mission to recover two sunken nuclear submarines on the bottom of the ocean.
“They did not want the world to know that, so I had to have a cover story,” Ballard said.
The Navy offered him the funding and opportunity to search for the Titanic, but only if he first explored the USS Thresher and the USS Scorpion, two American nuclear subs that sank in the 1960s.
“We knew where the subs were,” Ballard said. “What they wanted me to do was go back and not have the Russians follow me, because we were interested in the nuclear weapons that were on the Scorpion and also what the nuclear reactors were doing to the environment.”
Ballard said that the press was “totally oblivious to what I was doing.”
When his team finished exploring the Scorpion and Thresher, they had just 12 days left in their trip to search for the Titanic.
The Titanic was found on the ocean floor at a depth of more than 12,000 feet in the North Atlantic Ocean.
“When we found the Titanic, we naturally were very excited, because it was a tough job. We got it, scoring the winning goal at the buzzer,” Ballard beamed.
The expedition’s true purpose was kept under wraps.
“They did not want the world to know that, so I had to have a cover story,” Ballard said.
The Navy offered him the funding and opportunity to search for the Titanic, but only if he first explored the USS Thresher and the USS Scorpion, two American nuclear subs that sank in the 1960s.
“We knew where the subs were,” Ballard said. “What they wanted me to do was go back and not have the Russians follow me, because we were interested in the nuclear weapons that were on the Scorpion and also what the nuclear reactors were doing to the environment.”
Ballard said that the press was “totally oblivious to what I was doing.”
When his team finished exploring the Scorpion and Thresher, they had just 12 days left in their trip to search for the Titanic.
The Titanic was found on the ocean floor at a depth of more than 12,000 feet in the North Atlantic Ocean.
“When we found the Titanic, we naturally were very excited, because it was a tough job. We got it, scoring the winning goal at the buzzer,” Ballard beamed.
The expedition’s true purpose was kept under wraps.
Navy spokesman Capt. Brent Baker said at the time that the project was simply to test if the oceanographic system worked, and a scientist denied a military involvement.
Ballard admitted, and that wasn’t the only Navy mission he went on shrouded in mystery and misdirection.
“I cannot talk about my other Navy missions, no,” he said. “They have yet to be declassified.”
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