Story here. Now we know.
Excerpt: “The 1985 discovery of the Titanic stemmed from a secret United States Navy investigation of two wrecked nuclear submarines, according to the oceanographer who found the infamous ocean liner. Pieces of this Cold War tale have been known since the mid-1990s, but more complete details are now coming to light, said Titanic’s discoverer, Robert Ballard.”
Ballard was funded by the USN. After investigating the missing subs on different sides of the Atlantic, he was then given permission to use the USN-funded expedition equipment to look for the Titanic. He also used data from the initial investigations to identify the Titanic site (debris patterns, etc based on his prior experience).
So the Titanic was nowhere near the sub sites, it was just the fact and details of the sub investigations, and the involvement of the USN in the Titanic search, that was confirmed. And many people suspected the details anyhow.
Si
I always wondered why the US Navy was involved in finding the Titanic.
I’d heard from someone with ties to one of the undersea companies that the Navy knew the locations of several wrecks. I don’t know if he was speaking from his own knowledge or speculatuing, but the idea that Naval searches because of Cold War information gathering resulting in their finding a lot of lost stuff under the sea made sense – there were lots of reasons for exploring and accurately mapping the ocean floor, including the placing of detectors. I would’ve heard this in the 1990s.
Let’s not forget that Ballard is (was?) also a Naval Officer. Reserves at the time, but they chose him for a reason.
It was that big ass diamond that the chick threw overboard.
Declan
One of the Big Secrets that came out right after the end of the Cold War was that both the Evil EMpire and the Forces of Freedom had much better maps of the seabed then were publicly acknowledged.