According to newly declassified info and the lead scientist himself, Dr. Bob Ballard, the successful search for the
Titanic wreck was actually part of a secret hunt for two sunken cold war American nuclear submarines. The
USS Thresher and
USS Scorpion had both foundered in the 1960s, and the Navy needed to know what had happened to their reactors over the years. When Dr. Ballard approached them in 1982 for funding to find the Titanic with his new deep-diving robot submersible, the Navy saw the opportunity and granted him the money on the condition he first inspect the two wrecks.
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