The sinking of the Titanic is one of the
most famous and tragic disasters in
history. After striking an iceberg on
her maiden voyage from Southampton,
England to New York City on April 15th,
1912, the ship began to sink by the bow
and sent out a desperate distress signal
to nearby vessels. 58 nautical miles
away, the RMS Carpathia received the
call and immediately raced towards
Titanic’s coordinates. Despite the icy
conditions, she arrived in time to
rescue 705 survivors. a drift and 13
lifeboats. The coordinates transmitted
by Titanic were crucial in locating
survivors and later recovering 328
bodies drifting in the open ocean. But
when it came to finding the ship itself,
using the same coordinates proved a far
greater challenge, one so great that no
one would know about the Titanic’s
whereabouts for another 73 years.
The search for the Titanic began almost
immediately after it sank. And with its
last known location recorded, people
began planning how to bring it back to
the surface, despite having no idea
exactly where it was or what condition
it was in. But most plans didn’t get

Early Search Efforts

far. At the time, divers could only
reach depths of up to 90 m while wearing
hard hat diving suits. Reaching anywhere
near the Titanic’s depth, where the
pressure exceeds 6,000 lbs per square
inch, made the entire idea
impossible. In the years that followed,
several salvage proposals were made, but
all faced major challenges. The
following decades brought forth
outlandish ideas, such as using
electromagnets attached to a submarine,
which would be irresistibly drawn to the
Titanic’s steel hole. Other proposed to
raise the Titanic by filling its hole
with pingpong balls or by encasing the
wreck in an iceberg. Ironic, I know.
These ideas were quickly dismissed as
impractical. Even if they were feasible,
the exact location of the wreck remained
unknown.
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More than four decades later, with major
technological advancements such as the
development of submarines and sonar, the
quest to locate the Titanic wreck was
reignited. In 1953, RZden Beasley,
founder of a marine salvage company, led

Rizdon Beasley

an expedition to find the ship. He began
by dropping dynamite, which would
explode and generate sound waves or
echoes. These echoes could then be
detected by sonar equipment with the
hope of mapping the ocean floor and
pinpointing the wreck’s
location. While innovative at the time,
this approach proved too rudimentary to
be successful. In
1977, 25 years later after Beasley’s
failed expedition, Robert Ballard, a
marine geologist from the Woods Hole
Oceanographic Institution who had been
long interested in finding the Titanic,
decided to take on the challenge of
finding the wreck. After forming a
company, Seonics International, with
backers who supported his vision,
Ballard launched his first attempt. He
used a drill ship equipped with sonar
and cameras on a drilling pipe which
could lift objects from the seabed using
a remotec controlled claw.
Unfortunately, the mission ended in
failure when the drilling pipe broke,
sending $3,000 ft of pipe and
$600,000 worth of electronic equipment
to the ocean floor.
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A few years later, Texas native Jack

Jack Grimm

Grim, an eccentric oil tycoon, decided
to try his luck in finding the Titanic.
Grim was undoubtedly one of the most
eccentric figures in the quest to locate
the lost ship. A self-made billionaire,
he had previously funded searches for
Noah’s Ark, the Loch Ness Monster, and
even Bigfoot. So, it was no surprise
when he announced his ambitious goal to
discover the legendary
Titanic. Driven and determined to find
the wreck, Grim secured sponsorship from
friends he played poker with. He also
obtained scientific support from
Columbia University by donating
$330,000 to purchase a wide sweep sonar
in exchange for 5 years of access to the
equipment and the support of
technicians. Known for his colorful
personality, Grim shocked his team of
scientists by bringing aboard a monkey
named Titan, who was supposedly trained
to point at a spot on a map where the
Titanic was believed to be located. The
scientists were less than amused and
issued Grim an ultimatum. It’s either
the monkey or
us. Grim was initially reluctant to part
ways with Titan, but eventually
relented, allowing the mission to
continue with the scientific team fully
intact. On July 17th, 1980, Grim and his
team set out from Port Everglades,
Florida towards Titanic’s last known
location. These are the exact
coordinates of Titanic’s last SOS
message, which were sent out before it
sank at 2:20 a.m. Even with these
coordinates, Grim and his team had to
drastically expand the search area. The
distress call occurred 2 hours before
the ship fully submerged, meaning the
Titanic could have drifted during that
time, pushed further by powerful ocean
currents. In fact, the night Titanic
sank, ocean currents were moving
southward in that part of the North
Atlantic. The iceberg that struck the
ship had also been carried southward by
the Labrador current originating from
Greenland years earlier. As a result,
locating the wreck would prove to be a
much more complex challenge, requiring a
wider search area than initially
anticipated. Grim and his team started
their search by lowering a sidelooking
sonar attached to a cable into the
ocean. This sonar was designed to be
towed along the seabed, emitting
acoustic pings to both sides to quickly
map large areas while identifying any
unusual shapes or irregularities. When
an anomaly was detected, an onboard
magnetometer was used to determine
whether it was metallic, indicating a
man-made object, or simply a natural
feature of the ocean floor. To ensure
precise tracking, transponders were
deployed to monitor the sonar’s
movement, allowing them to mark areas of
interest with accurate coordinates.
Despite an extensive search, Grim’s 1980
expedition to find the Titanic faced
major setbacks. Nearly 3 weeks of
searching in constant bad weather during
July and August yielded no results. In
total, the team managed to scan around
500 square miles and identified several
potential targets, but none proved to be
the wreck. As the search continued
without success, Graham and his team
began to question the accuracy of the
Titanic’s last reported coordinates.
They examined the events following the
disaster, particularly the location
where the survivors had been rescued,
several miles east of Titanic’s distress
call coordinates. This discrepancy led
to a theory that the ship’s reported
position might have been incorrect,
raising the question of whether the
Carpathia stumbled upon the lifeboats
more by chance than by intentionally
navigating toward them.
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As a result, Graham and his team
expanded the search area on the
following expedition to account for
ocean drift after Titanic’s final
distress call. Equipped with improved
technology, including the more advanced
Scripps deep toe sonar, the team felt
confident in their ability to locate the
Titanic. Despite bad weather and
equipment malfunctions, the search
continued. 13 of the 14 areas scanned
happened to consist of natural features
of the ocean floor. On the final day,
with time running out, the team decided
to make one last attempt using digital
film. A camera was mounted on a sled and
dragged just above the ocean floor.
After reviewing the footage captured by
the camera, a peculiar shape began to
appear on the screen. Upon closer
inspection, the mysterious object
resembled a propeller. At last, after
several failed searches, Grim believed
he had finally found a piece of the
Titanic. However, just as they were
preparing to investigate further, it was
time to head back home. Still uncertain
whether they had found the wreck or just
an anomaly.
Determined not to give up, Grim prepared
for a third expedition in 1983. Focused
on investigating the propellers-shaped
object, the crew meticulously planned
the mission, equipped with advanced
technology that had significantly
improved since their previous attempt,
enabling them to capture clearer, more
detailed images of the ocean floor.
However, after an extensive search, the
propeller-shaped object was never seen
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again. 70 years had passed since the
sinking of the Titanic, and the wreck
had yet to be found. Although Jack Grim
had failed to find the wreck, his
expeditions did succeed in producing
fairly detailed mapping of the area
where the ship sank. While Grim’s third
expedition wrapped up without results in
1983, Ballard, undeterred, prepared for
another attempt. This time, Ballard
reached out to Navy officials to request

Robert Ballard’s Expeditions

funding for robotic submersible
technology he needed to find the
Titanic. The Navy was interested in the
technology, but mainly because they
wanted to locate two sunken Cold War
submarines, the USS Thresher and USS
Scorpion. This was a perfect opportunity
for Ballard as the Titanic was believed
to be resting between the two Navy
wrecks. The US Navy eventually agreed to
sponsor Ballard’s proposal for a new
remotely operated vehicle, Argo. Argo
was a towed sled capable of operating at
depths of up to 6,000 m. Equipped with
sonar, cameras, and lighting to capture
wide angle and detailed images. The US
Navy commissioned Ballard and his team
for month-long missions to keep the Argo
system in working condition. In return,
Ballard was allowed to use the remaining
time to search for the Titanic, which
also served as a test for the equipment.
In 1984, the Navy tasked him with
locating the sunken nuclear submarines
USS Thresher and USS Scorpion in the
North
Atlantic. His team not only found the
Rex, but also made an important
discovery that could potentially help
them find the Titanic. As submarines
sink, debris spreads widely with lighter
materials drifting farther due to ocean
currents, creating a debris field that
could be followed to locate the main
wreckage. After locating the two sunken
submarines, the Navy once again
commissioned Ballard and his team in
1985 for a second expedition to map the
wreck of the USS Scorpion, leaving only
12 days afterward to search for the
Titanic. Since earlier efforts to find
the Titanic had taken over 40 days
without success, Ballard sought
additional support and partnered with
the French oceanographic agency if which
was led by Jean Louie Mikuel. The agency
had developed a highresolution sidecan
sonar and the plan was for Mikail and
his team to use it to identify potential
targets by mowing the lawn which the
American team would later inspect using
film with
Argo. From July 5th to August 12th, the
French vessel systematically surveyed a
150 square mile area, but found nothing.
Ballard concluded that using sonar to
locate the Titanic’s wreck was unlikely
to succeed. Instead, he decided to focus
on finding the debris field, drawing
from lessons learned during his search
for a sunken submarine. Unlike sonar,
which cannot differentiate between
man-made debris and natural objects,
Argo’s cameras could. The debris field
was also a much larger target for Argo
to capture compared to locating the
wreck
itself. The new strategy involved towing
Argo across the seabed 24/7 with shifts
of researchers analyzing the live camera
feed. For several weeks, Argo captured
nothing but natural ocean features. With
the 12-day deadline approaching, the
team was running out of time. Then the
objects on Argo’s live feed began to
resemble man-made debris rather than
natural formations on the seafloor. As
Argo continued along the debris trail, a
larger object appeared. The team
instantly recognized its shape. It
matched photographs of the ship the team
had studied before. Argo had just passed
over one of Titanic’s
boilers. On September 1st, 1985, after
73 years of searching, the Titanic’s
wreck was finally discovered. Its exact
location was about 15 mi away from where
Titanic’s distress call was made before
it
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sank. The following day, the team
returned to the area where they found
the boiler and also discovered Titanic
Stern. about 2,000 ft away. The team
also found the bow of the ship,
confirming the theory stated by
eyewitnesses that the Titanic split in
two before sinking. The footage showed
the ship’s bow intact, with the name
Titanic still barely visible on the
hole. As they explored further, the team
encountered numerous artifacts scattered
about the wreck site. Personal items
such as shoes and pieces of clothing. In
1986, Robert Ballard and the Woods Hole
Oceanographic Institution returned to
the Titanic. This expedition marked the
first official exploration of the ship
using the manned submersible Alvin and a
tethered remotely operated vehicle named
Jason Jr. In 11 dives, Ballard captured
hours of video and more than 57,000
pictures of the Titanic resting on the
seafloor. During some dives, Jason Jr.
was deployed for close-up inspections,
including a memorable moment when it was
piloted into the Grand Staircase, where
a crystal chandelier still hung on the
seed deck. In addition to exploring the
wreck, several retrieval efforts were
led by different teams in subsequent
years, and numerous artifacts such as
personal items, pieces of the ship, and
objects from the Titanic’s luxurious
interiors were brought to the surface.
These artifacts were displayed in
various exhibitions around the world,
bringing public attention to the
Titanic’s tragic story. Between 1993 and
1998, RMS Titanic Incorporated conducted
a series of expeditions, recovering over
4,000 items. In a 1996 expedition, the

Titanic’s “Big Piece”

team controversially attempted to raise
a large section of the Titanic’s outer
hole. This piece weighing 20 tons and
measuring 15x 25 ft included part of the
wall from the two first class cabins on
C deck extending down to D deck. The
section had four port holes, three of
which still contained glass. It was
believed to have detached either during
the sinking or upon impact with the
seafloor.
The 1996 attempt to recover the
Titanic’s big piece was turned into a
media event with cruise ship passengers
paying $5,000 to watch. Bags were
lowered 12,000 ft below the surface and
attached to the big piece. They were
later filled with diesel, causing the
bags and the piece to float to the
surface. However, the attempt ended in
disaster when rough weather caused the
ropes to snap, sending the piece back
12,000 ft to the ocean
floor. A successful recovery occurred in
1998, and the piece was later displayed
at the Luxer Las Vegas Hotel. The
lifting of the big piece was heavily
criticized by marine archaeologists,
historians, and scientists as a
publicity stunt, with some even
comparing it to grave robbing. In the
years that followed, additional missions
were launched to further study the
Titanic. Teams of researchers and
historians sought to understand more
about the ship’s design, the events
leading up to its sinking, and the lives
of those on board. As more expeditions
followed, it became clear that the wreck
was deteriorating at an alarming rate.
The harsh conditions of the deep ocean,
combined with the relentless growth of
bacteria that consumes iron, posed a
significant threat to the integrity of
the ship. Recent visits to the wreck
have revealed even more about the
Titanic’s design and construction.
Advanced imaging technologies have
allowed researchers to create detailed
3D models of the wreck, providing
insights into its structural integrity
and the extent of decay. These models
serve as invaluable tools for future
conservation efforts, helping to develop
strategies for preserving the ship as it
continues to deteriorate.
On the 100th anniversary of the sinking,
April 14th, 2012, the Titanic wreck
became eligible for protection under the
2001 UNESCO Convention on the protection
of the underwater cultural heritage.
Many question whether future dives to
the wreck should actually take place,
noting that the Titanic’s wreck should
be left undisturbed, as it is a solemn
maritime graveyard where the remains of
those who perished in the tragedy still

OceanGate Titan Implosion

lie. And after the Ocean Gate Titan
submersible incident in 2023, resulting
in the deaths of all five passengers on
board, many have reiterated this
sentiment even further. For many, the
long search for the Titanic brings to
mind the ongoing mystery of Malaysia
Airlines flight
MH370, often referred to as the
modern-day Titanic. In our latest
videos, we delve into the theories,
search efforts, and the reasons why it
still hasn’t been found 11 years after
it
disappeared. As always, thanks a lot for
watching, and we’ll see you in the next