In 1980 there was a movie titled Raise the Titanic that sank at the box office like it had crashed into a $40 million iceberg. Recouping a mere $7 million in ticket sales, the film was based on a Clive Cussler book. Neither Clive nor the filmmakers believed what several witnesses had said of the 1912 sinking, that the ship had broken in half as it went down.
On her maiden—and final—voyage, RMS Titanic was the largest ship afloat. In the film they floated her once again cuz Cold War fuckery or some shit and towed the intact pride of the White Star Line into New York Harbor, the ship’s original destination. Five years after the movie bombed, the wreck was found and people were all holy fucking shit those survivors weren’t lying when they said the ship broke in two.
Cussler’s Dirk Pitt adventure was based on actual desires to raise the ship. Shortly after it sank many were all hell yeah let’s find that fucker and bring it to the surface. Problem was, no one was sure where it had precisely gone down, and it was deep, far deeper than any technology of the time could manage to reach. With pressure of over 6,000 pounds per square inch, it would squish the fuck out of any early submersible no matter how many billionaires were on board.
In the ‘60s and ‘70s there were numerous ridiculous schemes to raise the Titanic even though they still hadn’t found the fucking thing. In 1985, they finally found the fucking thing.
There were three failed expeditions to locate Titanic in the early ‘80s, financed by the totally bugshit Texas oilman Jack Grimm. Grimm had previously tried to locate Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, and Noah’s Ark, so he wasn’t playing with a full deckhand. As evidence of him being coocoo for Cocoa Puffs, in the first mission he said we’re bringing this monkey with us to point at the map because the monkey knows where the ship is. The scientists involved said the fuck? It’s us, or the monkey. Grimm said fine, it’s the monkey. Then others involved convinced Grimm to spank that monkey off the mission and take the actual science folks. Nevertheless, they didn’t find shit that time or the other two times.
But Grimm’s missions had been awful close, it turned out.
The 1985 mission was led by Robert Ballard, a professor of oceanography. He’d led an unsuccessful search to find the wreck in 1977, and his second effort wasn’t looking so hot either. Aboard the research vessel Knorr, their robotic submersible had been examining the ocean floor for a week and finding the square root of fuck all.
In the early morning hours of September 1, with only a few days left in the mission, the ship’s cook knocked on Ballard’s cabin door to say the night watch team was calling for him. He quickly pulled a jumpsuit over his pajamas and made for the control room, where they showed him a live feed of the sea floor showing a grainy image of one of Titanic’s boilers.
They were all fuck yeah we found it and popped champagne and started to celebrate. But then they looked at the time and saw that it was almost 2:20 a.m., the exact time that the ship had disappeared below the surface seventy-three years earlier. Ballard later told 60 Minutes that “We were embarrassed we were celebrating … we should not be dancing on someone’s grave.”
The wreck was located at a depth of 12,500 feet, 370 nautical miles south-southeast off the coast of Newfoundland. The two pieces of the ship were approximately a quarter mile apart. It would be several more years before the story of the secret mission that led to her finding was revealed.
Ballard had asked the U.S. Navy to finance the mission, and they were like nah that doesn’t have anything to do with blowing up commies so we’ll pass, thanks. But then they made him a deal. Ballard’s robot ship, called Argo, would be used to find a couple of their nuclear submarines that had sunk in the ‘60s. They said he could use his robot to find the USS Scorpion and the USS Thresherand see if their nuclear reactors were intact and if they were spewing radioactive shit all over the ocean. If there was time left over, he could then go look for the Titanic.
The mission was classified, and Ballard was put on temporary active duty in the Navy. He completed the missions and said yeah it’s only a little bit radioactive so no worries unless you believe in Godzilla. Then he had twelve days left to find Titanic, and he used the debris-field scanning techniques used for locating the two navy subs and applied them to finding Leonardo DiCaprio’s corpse cuz Rose was a plank hog.
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Prior to finding the telltale boiler, they found pockmarks in the ocean floor from the debris that was scattered as the ship imploded from the pressure. Once the boiler was found, it was only a short time until the hull was located. News of the discovery made headlines around the world.
The following year Ballard returned to the wreck site and personally visited Titanic in the manned submersible Alvin. During the exploration Ballard placed a memorial plaque on the stern of the ship, asking that the site not be disturbed any further out of respect for the 1,500 passengers and crew who died in her sinking.
But people were all fuck you you’re not the boss of me. Since its discovery thousands of artifacts from the wreck have been brought to the surface, with some put on display, and others auctioned off. As well, a submersible tourism industry catering to those with more dollars than sense who wish to visit Titanic has flourished. Because of the souvenir seekers and tourists, the wreck has become littered with trash and even damaged.
On June 18, 2023, a tourist submersible operated by OceanGate Expeditions lost contact with its support ship less than two hours into its dive down to the Titanic. As of writing, the fate of the five people on board remains unknown.
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Get my sweary fucking history book ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY SH!T WENT DOWN.
"Rose was a plank hog".... This is why I love you.
Damn, you nailed it! Robert Ballard was involved in the first season of SeaQuest DSV, the good season. It went downhill in season two and off the planet (literally) in the last episode. Then the sub came back 10 years into the future for season three. Not even having the awesome Michael Ironside could save it!