ROBERT BALLARD: The Titanic was really
a cover for a highly classified military operation
to investigate two nuclear submarines that we lost
during the Cold War with all hands, the USS
Thresher and the USS Scorpion.
They ironically turned out to be on either side
of where the Titanic was lost.
And quite honestly, had that not been the case,
you wouldn't be looking at the guy that found the Titanic.
The Navy wanted complete, 100% photo
documentation of both wreck sites
and to answer some questions.
What are the nuclear reactors doing?
What's the status of nuclear weapons?
Is there any evidence the Soviets have been there.
Well, I said to both the Secretary of the Navy John
Lehman and Admiral Thunman who was my boss as a Naval officer,
well, what if we use the Titanic as the cover?
N. RONALD THUNMAN: I thought it was a cockamamie story.
I mean, find the Titanic.
ROBERT BALLARD: And I said, well, it'd be a great cover,
wouldn't it?
Finally he said, thumbs up.
N. RONALD THUNMAN: I told him, do whatever you want,
just don't spend any more money.
ROBERT BALLARD: Boy, did I work fast.
We pretty well knew what happened to the Thresher.
We mapped her a year earlier.
They knew very little about the Scorpion.
It took me about a week to get there and map it.
We mapped it extensively.
And there was no evidence of human remains.
I mean, that would have been tough, but no.
The reactors were intact, so that was good because.
N. RONALD THUNMAN: There were no other indications of something
amiss other than the submarine had gone down
and it had imploded.
ROBERT BALLARD: As soon as the Navy was satisfied,
we headed northwest for the Titanic.
I had 12 days to hunt.
But I had learned something from the Thresher and the Scorpion
that I couldn't tell anyone, because both submarines
imploded before they came to the bottom.
So on their way down [clap] the pressure holes went.
And that implosive event is a gigantic explosion.
And it just blew the submarines apart.
But when I was mapping it, we realized
that the heavy stuff went down like a bowling ball, reactors--
boom.
But then the lighter stuff was a big, long line.
And I went, didn't the Titanic do the same thing?
So let's not look for the big pieces of Titanic,
because they're only that big.
Let's look for the debris, which meant I could space my search
lines much wider apart.
NARRATOR: But Titanic did not lie
where she was thought to be.
Days of futile search dragged on.
INTERVIEWER: How close were you to failure?
ROBERT BALLARD: Well I had--
I was reaching the point of where I thought we'd failed.
I thought we had.
And I was going--
I went back to my room, and we had the watch going.
It was a mid-watch.
Everything happens on the midnight watch, 12:00 to 4:00.
I don't know why.
Everything important occurs right around midnight.
Wreckage Bingo, yeah.
FEMALE: Did you find it?
MALE: [inaudible] somebody [inaudible]..
And I went in, and there it was.
I mean, the boiler was on the screen.
Oh, I love it I love it.
I'll be [bleep].
The sucker exists.
Hey, does Kathy got the champagne?
N. RONALD THUNMAN: We were jumping up and down.
We were patting one another on the back.
And then someone looked at the clock in the command center
and said, she sinks in 20 minutes.
It was 2:00 in the morning.
She sank at 2:20.
And that innocent comment just grounded us.
And we realized, you have finally put to rest
were these souls were lost.
And everyone filed out.
And it was a moment of silence, because we were there.
And that was pretty--
pretty powerful.
[music playing]